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salti-thelatediagnosedautist · 1 year

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The beginner autistic guide to common terms in our community (with extra context!).

*Disclaimer, I’m not a professional. This is just knowledge from my experience as an autistic person. Please feel free to correct anything :)

These definitions will include some of my own opinions and thoughts, especially on the more controversial terms. This is simply to help better prepare new autistic community members for conversations they become engaged in. Having all the perspective and context you can have can be very helpful when moving into new social spaces.

Autism (Or Autistic Spectrum Disorder, ASD): A neurodevelopmental disorder that is present from very early childhood. It’s mostly recognised through difficulties with social interaction and restricted and/or repetitive behaviours. The way it is referred to as “Autism Spectrum Disorder” is specifically referring to the fact that autism presents in countless ways. There are common traits and patterns, but the severity and complexity of those traits and symptoms is infinite.

NOTE: This does not mean that ‘everyone is a little bit autistic’. You are either autistic or you are not. It just means that if you have autism, it may present very differently to other autistic people you know.

Asperger’s Syndrome: Asperger’s syndrome is usually considered an older term for a ‘subtype’ of autism. The term is considered outdated by the DSM-5 and no longer used in that document. However it is still used in a lot of other countries. Now it is becoming more socially known that ‘Asperger’s syndrome’ is just a specific presentation of autism. Many autistics don’t like the use of the word ‘Asperger’s’ because of a couple reasons:

The term has a long history with NAZI’s and eugenics.

The term seems to basically mean ‘high functioning’ autistic, which simplifies the condition.

Asperger’s Syndrome is defined in a very similar way to autism, however people with “Asperger’s’ may be described as ‘gifted’ or ‘intellectual’.

It’s important to note that many people still identify themselves with the term ‘Asperger’s’. While it is good to be educated and up to date with terminology, some people have identified with this term their whole life and it’s not wrong to use the term for one-self. But either way, I do encourage you to do more research if you are comfortable.

Neurotype: Can be basically defined as the type of brain function one has. Some people consider autism a neurotype, and then neurotypical as another neurotype. However, many people claim that autism is ‘just another neurotype’. This is a harmful way of thinking about autism because autism is a disability. Labelling it as a ‘neurotype’ belittles all the struggles autistic people have that make them disabled. Autism is a spectrum and so some autistic people may not really consider themselves disabled, but many do.

Neurotypical (NT): A non-autistic person with no other mental conditions.

Allistic: A non-autistic person who can still have other mental conditions, such as depression or ADHD.

Neurodivergent (ND): Traditionally ‘Neurodivergent’ has been used to mean either autistic or ADHD. However in some contexts it is used to mean someone with any mental condition, including personality disorders or mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety.

Neurodiversity: a term used to describe the fact that there are many neurotypes in the world. It is used to imply that differences in brain development and function should be accepted as relatively normal. I think this is a good sentiment, but that some neurotypes should still be considered disabilities as well as a neurotype, so as not to diminish the struggles specific neurotypes go through.

High functioning/Low functioning: The labels of functioning are terms used to describe how independent an autistic (or other kind of disabled) person is able to be. Many autistics do NOT like the use of these terms for a couple reasons:

It tends to focus on the way an autistics disability affects the allistic people around them.

It simplifies the experience of the individual with autism to how independent they are, and is also not very descriptive for anyone trying to help the said autistic person.

High needs/Low needs: These are labels used to describe how much assistance an autistic (or other kind of disabled) person may need. It is slightly preferred by autistic people as the language is more centred to what the autistic person needs, rather than how independent they can be.

NOTE, many autistic people would argue that these terms are basically the same as high functioning and low functioning. I personally consider it to be best to just state someones highest needs or difficulties. For example “Olivia is nonverbal and highly sensitive to light and noise.”.

Masking: Masking is the act of hiding ones autistic traits to appear to be neurotypical. Masking is often a survival strategy developed by autistics to evade bullying or isolation. Masking can include suppressing the urge to stim, forcing oneself to make eye contact, learning how to ‘properly’ execute facial expressions, studying body language, etc. Masking can be an extremely vital skill for autistic people, but when an autistic person has to mask for long periods of time it can lead to negative consequences such as burn out or meltdowns. Masking can also be used in the context of other disabilities, such as ADHD.

Scripting: Scripting is a form of masking, when an autistic person pre-plans or practices responses or entire conversations. You may have a script you unconsciously follow for questions like “how are you?” Or “how is work?”, etc. It may be inspired from TV shows, movies or observing other people interact.

Burn out: Burn out is when an autistic person reaches their limit and has decreased energy for an extended period of time. Burn out may last anywhere between a couple days or a few years. Burn out is often caused by excessive masking, but can also be caused by repeated rejection, bullying or other mental conditions. Burn out is not the same as depression, but it can co-exist with depression.

Meltdown: A meltdown is when an autistic person experiences what might look like a ‘tantrum’. The person may be very angry, yelling, punching or hitting things (or themselves). They may be aggressively stimming or humming to themselves. A meltdown, internally, feels as if you are completely filled with negative energy, as if you might burst. It can feel like extreme irritation, or anger, or shame. Meltdowns can be caused by any number of stressful situations. For an autistic person this can be having a lot of social events, their routine being disrupted, having to eat foods they don’t like, being overstimulated, or even just negative social interactions.

Shutdown: A shutdown is very similar to a meltdown, in how it can be caused. For me personally, I tend to have a shutdown if I am not in a safe place to have a meltdown. From the outside it looks very similar to dissociation, and it can co-exist with dissociation. It typically feels like you are shutting down, turning off. You emotions were about to burst and then you just went numb. You may be unable to move, or go non-verbal. You may be crying quietly or you may simply just very suddenly feel the need to go home.

NOTE: Meltdowns and shutdowns can appear to feel like a panic attack, but they are different. Panic attacks come from intense feelings of dread or doom. Meltdowns and shutdowns come from repeated, or intense, stressful situations for an autistic.

Hypersensitive: Hypersensitivity is when the brain processes sensory input (such as touch, taste and smell) as much more intense than a neurotypical person would. This can mean that a slight cold breeze may feel painfully cold. Or looking outside a window can hurt ones eyes because it feels too bright. Or having to wear specific textures to stay calm.

Hyposensitive: Hyposensitivity is the opposite of hypersensitivity. It is when your brain inteprets sensory input as much less intense than a neurotypical would. Ways this can present in an autistic person include not realising when they hurt themselves, having a high pain tolerance, being unaware of temperature changes, etc. You may also not recognise your bodies hunger cues, dehydration or need for sleep.

NOTE: An autistic person can experience both hypersensitivity and hyposensitivity. It can also fluctuate day-to-day.

Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD): SPD is basically the term for experiencing lots of variation in your sensory input. It is similar to Auditory processing disorder. Which is where your hearing is technically fine (you aren’t any form of deaf), but you have trouble distinguishing what specific sounds are, or listening to one, important sound, in an area with lots of different noises (for example, being unable to understand what someone is saying next to you, because the TV is on.)

Overstimulation: This is when an autistic person has been experiencing too many different sensations at once, or for an extended period of time. This may be caused by too many noises happening at once. Or even just one annoying sound repeating for a long time. It can also be triggered by touch, taste, sight and smell.

Executive function/dysfunction: Executive function is the term used to describe how the brain initiates tasks. For neurodivergent folk, our executive function is often dysfunctional. This means we can often find it difficult to start new tasks. A way you may experience it is when you are sitting down, you may be screaming internally that you need to go and get some food, but your body seems unwilling to co-operate. Having executive dysfunction does not mean you are lazy, or do not want to do the task, it means you may be unable to do the task.

Autistic intertia: Autistic inertia is related to executive dysfunction, because it is a term that helps describe how autistic people struggle to switch or initiate tasks. “ An autistic at rest remains at rest, and an autistic in motion remains in motion”.

Special interest/Hyperfixation: A special interest is a extremely long term interest/obsession with a particular topic. An example might be being really into pokemon. Learning all the different types of pokemon, playing all the games and collecting heaps of merch. A hyperfixation is a more short-lived interest that can be destructive in it’s severity (for example, it might get so extreme that it’s the only thing you can think about, to the point where you neglect your needs). Special interests are less likely to be destructive. But hyperfixations can be healthy and normal too.

Stimming: Stimming or self stimulation is the act of doing repetitive movements to help self regulate. Stimming can look like spinning, chewing, flapping hands, dancing, foot tapping, pen clicking, touch soft fabrics, using weighted blankets, lighting candles, eating crunchy snacks, etc. All of these forms of movement or repetitive sensory input can help us regulate our emotions better, prevent a meltdown or shutdown, or focus on a task easier.

NOTE: Echolalia is another term you may hear. It is a form of stimming in which an autistic person repeats sounds/phrases over and over.

ADHD: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder is a neurodevelopmental disorder like autism, but it affects the brain in different ways. It often presents as having difficulties with paying attention, regulating emotions and hyperactivity (or, alternatively, it can present as being inattentive).

Savant or Savant syndrome: A condition when someone with some type of significant mental disability is an expert/’savant’ in a particular field, to the point of surpassing neurotypical experts. An example might be having photographic memory, or being able to learn languages extremely easily, or being an extraordinary mathematician. Autistic people often don’t like to hear the term ‘savant’ as we are often only valued by ‘society’ if we are savants. And if we are not, then we are often treated as lesser. This is kind of a form of eugenics.

Eugenics: Eugenics is a philosophy or belief that we can selectively breed humans to ‘improve’ humanity. Or create the ‘perfect race’. This was an idealogy practiced by Adolf Hitler during WWII, which lead to the holocaust. Eugenics is often a subtly underlying philosophy behind many statements that, on face value, seem relatively harmless. For example - “autism is the next step in evolution” is currently a popular statement. However, this implies that every other neurotype is not an improvement, which therefore implies that being autistic is superior. This would be considered a form of eugenics. Eugenics is considered a horrible philosophy because it encourages people to look down on others and dehumanise anyone not like themselves.

Co-morbidity: A co-morbidity is the term used for a condition that is regularly seen in conjunction with another condition. For example, autism and ADHD are often seen together. However, it can also be used to simply describe someone who has more than one condition (physical or mental).

AuDHDer: Someone with autism and ADHD. Just a shortened way to refer to people with both disabilities.

Selective mutism/Situational mutism: When an autistic person (or other neurotype) experiences periods of being unable to speak or communicate. This can often occur in stressful situations, like before tests or during doctors appointments. It is officially referred to as ‘selective mutism’ but many are trying to change it to ‘situational mutism’ as the individual does not willingly choose when they go non-verbal.

Alexithymia: Alexithymia is typically described as the inability to define and/or describe ones emotions. So you may often feel a type of discomfort, but not be able to label what it is. Not being able to distinguish between anger and irritability. Or not knowing if you feel sad or confused. It can make seeking professional help for many conditions really difficult, as you are unable to put your experience into words. It can also be similar to hyposensitivity in the way that it makes it difficult to understand what you body is feeling.

Dyspraxia: Dyspraxia is a disorder that affects co-ordination, movement and balance. It can make things such as sports, driving, cooking and writing difficult. It is fairly common in autistic people.

Prosopagnosia: The inability to recognise/remember faces. It is more common in autistic people.

Synesthesia: Synesthesia is when one form of sensory input is sometimes also experienced as another. For example, someone with this condition may see colours when they hear someones name. They may hear a song and get a taste in their mouth. This is also more common in autistic people.

FINAL NOTE: Autism is a spectrum and you may not experience all of these different terms, or you may not experience them in the way I described them. That does not mean you aren’t autistic. This is not a diagnostic tool. This is simply a guide to learning the terms you may often hear when discussing autism.

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blackcrowing · 6 months

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Blackcrowing's Master Reading List

I have created a dropbox with pdfs I have gathered over the years, I have done my best to only allow access to documents which I found openly available through sites like JSTOR, Archive.org, or other educational resources with papers available for download.

That being said I ALSO recommend (I obviously have not read all of these but they are either in my library or I intend to add them)

📚 Celtic/Irish Pagan Books

The Morrighan: Meeting the Great Queens, Morgan Daimler

Raven Goddess: Going Deeper with the Morríghan, Morgan Daimler

Ogam: Weaving Word Wisdom, Erynn Rowan Laurie

Irish Paganism: Reconstructing Irish Polytheism, Morgan Daimler

Celtic Cosmology and the Otherworld: Myths, Orgins, Sovereignty and Liminality, Sharon Paice MacLeod

Celtic Myth and Religion, Sharon Paice MacLeod

A Guide to Ogam Divination, Marissa Hegarty (I'm leaving this on my list because I want to support independent authors. However, if you have already read Weaving Word Wisdom this book is unlikely to further enhance your understanding of ogam in a divination capacity)

The Book of the Great Queen, Morpheus Ravenna

Litany of The Morrígna, Morpheus Ravenna

Celtic Visions, Caitlín Matthews

Harp, Club & Calderon, Edited by Lora O'Brien and Morpheus Ravenna

Celtic Cosmology: Perspectives from Ireland and Scotland, Edited by Jacqueline Borsje and others

Polytheistic Monasticism: Voices from Pagan Cloisters, Edited by Janet Munin

📚 Celtic/Irish Academic Books

Early Medieval Ireland 400-1200, Dáibhí Ó Cróinín

The Sacred Isle, Dáithi Ó hÓgáin

The Ancient Celts, Berry Cunliffe

The Celtic World, Berry Cunliffe

Irish Kingship and Seccession, Bart Jaski

Early Irish Farming, Fergus Kelly

Studies in Irish Mythology, Grigory Bondarnko

Prehistoric Archaeology of Ireland, John Waddell

Archeology and Celtic Myth, John Waddell

Understanding the Celtic Religion: Revisiting the Past, Edited by Katja Ritari and Alexandria Bergholm

A Guide to Ogam, Damian McManus

Cesar's Druids: an Ancient Priesthood, Miranda Aldhouse Green

Animals in Celtic Life and Myth, Miranda Aldhouse Green

The Gods of the Celts, Miranda Green

The Celtic World, Edited by Miranda J Green

Myth and History in Celtic and Scandinavian Tradition, Edited by Emily Lyle

Ancient Irish Tales, Edited by Tom P Cross and Clark Haris Slover

Cattle Lords and Clansmen, Nerys Patterson

Celtic Heritage, Alwyn and Brinley Rees

Ireland's Immortals, Mark Williams

The Origins of the Irish, J. P. Mallory

In Search of the Irish Dreamtime, J. P. Mallory

The Táin, Thomas Kinsella translation

The Sutton Hoo Sceptre and the Roots of Celtic Kingship Theory, Michael J. Enright

Celtic Warfare, Giola Canestrelli

Pagan Celtic Ireland, Barry Raftery

The Year in Ireland, Kevin Danaher

Irish Customs and Beliefs, Kevin Danaher

Cult of the Sacred Center, Proinsais Mac Cana

Mythical Ireland: New Light on the Ancient Past, Anthony Murphy

Early Medieval Ireland AD 400-1100, Aidan O'Sullivan and others

The Festival of Lughnasa, Máire MacNeill

Curse of Ireland, Cecily Gillgan

📚 Indo-European Books (Mostly Academic and linguistic)

Dictionary of Indo-European Concepts and Society, Emily Benveniste

A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principle Indo-European Languages, Carl Darling Buck

The Horse, the Wheel and Language, David W. Anthony

Comparative Indo-European Linguistics, Robert S.P. Beekes

In Search of the Indo-Europeans, J.P. Mallory

Indo-European Mythology and Religion, Alexander Jacob

Some of these books had low print runs and therefore can be difficult to find and very expensive... SOME of those books can be found online with the help of friends... 🏴‍☠️

library genesis might be a great place to start... hint hint...

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etz-ashashiyot · 16 days

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So what’s the modern interpretation of the laws about keeping slaves? I’ve heard that said laws where a lot more kind to slaves then the surrounding nations but, like, it’s still slavery?

Hi anon,

With Pesach coming up, I'm sure that this question is on a lot of people's minds. It's a good question and many rabbanim throughout history have attempted to tackle it. Especially today, with slavery being seen as a moral anathema in most societies (obviously this despite the fact that unfortunately slavery is still a very real human rights crisis all over the world), addressing the parts of the Torah that on the surface seem to condone it becomes a moral imperative.

It's worth noting that the Jewish world overall condemns slavery. In my research for this question, I came across zero modern sources arguing that slavery is totally fine. I'm sure that if you dug deep enough there's some fringe wacko somewhere arguing this, but every group has its batshit fringe.

Here are some sources across the political and religious observance spectrum that explain it better than I could:

Chabad (this article is written by Rabbi Tzvi Freeman, a wonderful rabbi whose words I have learned deeply over the years. He is one of my favorite rabbis despite not seeing eye to eye with a lot of the Chabad movement)

Conservative (to be clear: this is my movement; it's not actually politically conservative in most shuls, just poorly named. We desperately need to bully them into calling themselves Masorti Olami like the rest of the world. It's [essentially] a liberal traditional egalitarian movement.)

Conservative pt. 2 (different rabbi's take)

Reform (note that this is from the Haberman Institute, which was founded by a Reform rabbi. Link is to a YouTube recording of a recent lecture on the topic.)

Chareidi (this rabbi is an official rabbi of the Western Wall in Israel, so in a word, very frum)

Modern Orthodox

I want to highlight this last one, because it is written by the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Chovevei, which is a progressive Modern Orthodox rabbinical school. They work very hard to read Torah through an authentically Orthodox lens while also maintaining deeply humanist values. As someone who walks a similar (if not identical) balancing act, this particular drash (sermon) spoke very deeply to me, and so I'm reposting it in its entirety**

[Edit: tumblr.hell seems real intent on not letting me do this in my original answer, so I will repost it in the reblogs. Please reblog that version if you're going to. Thanks!]

Something you will probably notice as you work your way through these sources, you'll note that there are substantially more traditional leaning responses. This is because of a major divide in how the different movements view Torah, especially as it pertains to changing ethics over time and modernity. I'm oversimplifying for space, but the differences are as follows:

The liberal movements (Reform, Renewal, Reconstructionist, etc.) view halacha as non-binding and the Torah as a human document that is, nevertheless, a sacred document. I've seen it described as the spiritual diary of our people throughout history. Others view it as divinely inspired, but still essentially and indelibly human.

The Orthodox and other traditional movements view halacha as binding and Torah as the direct word of G-d given to the Jewish people through Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses) on Mt. Sinai. (Or, at a minimum, as a divinely inspired text written and compiled by people that still represents the word of G-d. This latter view is mostly limited to the Conservative and Modern Orthodox movements.)

Because of these differences, the liberal movements are able to address most of these problematic passages by situating them in their proper historical context. It is only the Orthodox and traditional movements that must fully reckon with the texts as they are, and seek to understand how they speak to us in a contemporary context.

As for me? I'm part of a narrow band of traditional egalitarian progressive Jews that really ride that line between viewing halacha as binding and the Torah as divinely given, despite recognizing the human component of its authorship - more a partnership in its creation than either fully human invention or divine fiat. That said, I am personally less interested in who wrote it literally speaking and much more interested in the question of: How can we read Torah using the divinely given process of traditional Torah scholarship while applying deeply humanist values?

Yeshivat Chovevei does a really excellent job of approaching Torah scholarship this way, as does Hadar. Therefore, I'm not surprised that this article captures something I have struggled to articulate: an authentically orthodox argument for change.

#jumblr #Judaism #Torah #Jewish ethics #Jewish values #Jewish views on slavery

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hopeforkitten · 5 months

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I spent a crazy evening thinking about Raphael and brought one small and one bigger idea to you

Raphael who loves, so I guess it's a fluff

I want Raphael to cry into his pillow because he has fallen in love with Tav, who is already serving one of the archdevils. So that he would scurry through the forests and halls watching him from afar, accidentally found himself at every event where they would be.

and so that in a few more thousand years, when he has the crown and he marches through hell victoriously, Raphael will take his soul out of the deepest pit and appoint a perplexed poor man to delight his gaze

Or ooh

Raphael, who conquers avernus and can already butt heads with other archdukes, orders some Tav and his contract to be stolen from another hell..... (I want him to grow up in hell, at the court of Mammon, because he was taken away as the most valuable fruit, and later he became a warlock)(well, because stealing a sorcerer from the personification of greed is FUN)

so that this surprisingly calm creature is thrown in front of his throne.

Tav looks around, everything in the throne room is too big for her, but it's familiar feeling

"Khem, it is an honor for me to appear before the new Archduke Averno, but.... What can I do for you?"

Raphael does not deign to pay attention to her, as well as a dozen guards stationed in the hall. He reads her contract carefully, the girl understands this and confusion is visible in her eyes.

"Introduce yourself"

The girl was enlivened by Raphael's words and she straightened up to answer

"My name is Tav, I am the warlock of Mammon"

"What kind of work do you do?" Raphael spoke without emotion, without looking up from the contract in his hands

"I can kill someone, negotiate, be an ambassador, whatever the master wants"

The girl tries to keep up with dignity, but the atmosphere of uncertainty presses on her. She digs her hands harder into the strap of the bag that hangs on it.

"What's in your bag?"

seemed like exactly the wrong question to ask her. The girl was lost, but between mortals it would have been a common question.

"Um, potions scrolls and documentation"

"What kind of documentation?"

"As a punishment, I am engaged in economic documentation of the yard"

"And do you consider this a punishment?"

Raphael finally squinted his gaze towards the guest

"For small flaws, mostly from the master's bad mood, but no, it was not a burden to me dealing with paperwork"

"How fortunate, and do you know much about the internal affairs of Mammon's court?"

The obvious reason for staying here cautiously reached the girl.

"I know a lot, but the contract forbids me..."

Tav did not have time to finish and the sound of parchment tearing was heard in the hall. Raphael calmly tore the contract into two parts, Tav watched in some fright as the paper sank to the floor and turned into ashes

"Oh, it doesn't forbid it now."

Now the fright was much clearer in her, she hunched over a little and hid her eyes on the floor. the girl swallowed nervously. Is she going to be interrogated and killed now? It's probably like true

"Now we can discuss more"

and ooooh, they really can discuss a lot.

firstly, Raphael can instruct her to deal with the documentation of the yard, change the load, make it bigger and smaller, everything will always be perfect. Tav never complained, and yet when he made the load absurdly heavy, she once fell asleep on him during a planned walk. they didn't talk about this moment and he didn't overdo it anymore.

and secondly.

their conversations, first she will be interrogated, then Raphael will schedule regular meetings with them, allegedly because of the politician. In fact, the bored Archduke will take his nightingale everywhere and lead her to talk about everything: books, magic, food, the history of hell.

Tav really knows everything he expects. And the Archduke likes to listen to her voice. He had been looking at her from afar for too long, and now his nightingale was next to him, belonged to him.

The devil knows that now, no matter what awaits him, even the war with the other eight hells, in his kingdom, in his golden cage, there is a little bird that is always waiting, always looking at him fearfully and ready to discuss the book they talked about last time. No matter how frightening the archdevil was, his crown-like horns, cloak, and shoulder pads made him deceptively large. It doesn't matter, he's too well ingrained in the little thing's trust.

These regular meetings of the archdevil and the little man, in the throne room, on the terrace, in the library, it seems they used all the places available in the flying fortress.

Tav doesn't understand the purpose of these meetings, but is there any reason for discontent?

The Archduke is extremely kind to her. He's even... Is he handsome? It's probably not strange because the girl grew up in hell. His face is so big, cherry-colored, noble cheekbones, signs of advanced age, his hooked nose.

She likes the way his eyes sparkle in the dark corners of the citadel, of which there are plenty, the two brightest eclipses for her. The devil's gaze is harsh for everyone, but looking at her, he softens. His lace collar? Perhaps this is too delicate a detail for the archdevil's clothes.

He usually talks to the servants insinuatingly, often just doesn't listen and tells them to get out with his hand. His hands... In his new rank, Raphael abused jewelry more. For sure, his smallest ring will be dangling on her thumb. The devils' hands are made to tear apart, but these only rest on the armrests, gesticulate moderately into the sunset and even put their arm around her shoulder as they pass through the crowd of fiends. As if they would really dare to hurt her, as if they didn't make way enough when their master appeared.

If the duke is angry, it always spreads quickly around the court. In this case, he comes to meetings and is silent. Tav needs to take the initiative herself, at some stage of her story he will join the conversation as if nothing had happened. The Archduke's great privilege is his voice, as if he is much bigger and speaks directly into the back of your head, the sound embraces your head from all sides.

It's scary when he takes the initiative, and it's like he's digging it up, moving from questions about the book to her personal ones.

"What do you like? And how do you feel? What would you like?" Questions that demolish the load-bearing walls in the protection of the Tav and she has to sort out the rubble and rebuild them. Anything you say will be used against you, she has long understood this rule, but now it has stopped working and it was confusing.

She plays along with him, but the girl herself is tormented by questions, what is this performance for? The devil obviously knows all this better than she does. First, she would try to ask his closest servants such a question, and then he himself.... but what he will answer, think for yourself

(For sure, Raphael has a specially prepared servant for this, who at this moment should call him on urgent business. So that he could tell her

"Think about it at your leisure, little bird", kiss her on the forehead (for the first time!) and leave, leaving the girl blushing and wondering alone. and then also cancel several meetings with her so that she would suffer in thought)

#raphael bg3 #raphael x tav #raphael x reader

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absolutebl · 1 year

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BL & Critical Analysis

Pop culture critique & a how to do it... or something

This meaty question came from the lovely @huachengeye Thank you!

Codicil: I do not get paid for pop culture critique (although I once wrote book reviews professionally, long story). So I’m entirely a dilettante.

The Question!

Q1: Can you can shed some light on your process (of critical analysis)

This is a little like training your eye to edit a document (I bet you can tell that's not one my strong points). Or training your mind to look at data and data collection in terms of the results it may yield and what the initial survey says about the questioner's bias (or can bias results).

First, I have to ask...

Do you really want to train your eye to critique?

Because it will become a lot harder to immerse yourself in a piece of media if you constantly feel obligated to step back mentally and think about it from various perspectives.

In other words, you may enjoy BL, or all live action dramas, LESS if you try to think about them critically.

I have an intimate who is a pretty well known writer. She mostly writes humorous fiction. She's open about the fact that this means every time she laughs, she stops and thinks about why that happened and whether is could be used in her prose. She never gets to be fully absorbed by narrative ever anymore because her critical eye is always turned on, especially for the written word.

What you may sacrifice for critique, is a certain level of childish wonder.

I’m not sure i would necessarily advise doing this.

My Process

My process is essentially now visible in this blog. As I watch a show I take a few notes on it (which show up in the weeklies) and then at the end I go through those notes, consolidate, try to be witty about it, and write up a review.

The review usually has something about:

characters, tropes, plot

narrative & story structure & pace

how this BL fits in with the greater BL genre & history

any thoughts I have on the quality of the production, acting, and/or directing

my own personal feelings about the show

Thus my reviews tend to take into account several criteria.

For #1-2 I have a background in lit crit as an undergrad (and, like I said, I did once review books for a living) so these are kinda ingrained in me. I’m working on seeing the influence of soap operas, fan fic, and non-western story structures as critically valid, so these are the things I’m actively learning more about the most these days.

For #3: How does this fit into the history of BL? Since I’ve made it point to watch pretty much all BLs, I feel like I’m set up to think and talk about this. AKA the spreadsheet made me do it. But since I also have anthropology in my academic history, I’m very interested in how a BL represents for its country’s BL oeuvre. I try to judge KBLs against other KBLs (and Kdramas) and look for patterns and trends in how that country’s interpretation of what it “means to be BL” shift over time.

For #4: my IRL job is tangential to the entertainment industry so that’s accidentally trained my eye for film. I don’t know that I like this part about myself, but it’s happened whether I like it or not. And I don’t have a proper background in film critique.

Final #5: will discuss further in a bit.

Suggestion? Establish A Rating System

Come up with your own personal 10 star (or 5 star) rating system.

Write it down. Don’t be afraid to modify or adjust it. It’s yours, your tastes change, nothing is set in stone.

Pick one ideal example BL for each category that you’re very familiar with for your reference point. Then you can ask yourself, after you’ve watched a new one, whether you liked it more, less, or about the same as that show. (relative rating, similar to grading on a curve)

I change my examples regularly as my taste changes and as new BLs are added. The bar gets shifted, so to speak.

My Rating System

Your reasoning for rating a BL will be different from mine, but here’s mine as an example.

(Also I never feel bound by this, sometimes I give a show a 8/10 just because it feels like that’s what it deserves.)

10/10 - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - my favorite precious squee!, faithful to tropes, happy ending, good chemistry, few flaws, high rewatch potential, makes me happy, examples: Semantic Error, Until We Meet Again

9/10 ABSOLUTELY RECOMMENDED - loved it and good rewatch potential but probably a few pacing issues or one big flaw, still made me feel good/comforted, examples: Cherry Magic, Bad Buddy

8/10 - RECOMMENDED - some concerns around tropes (like dub con) or story structure/filming but still satisfies as BL, moved me emotionally, rewatchable in parts or not rewatchable but important, examples: Love By Chance, Between Us

7/10 - RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS - i.e. isn’t quite BL, convoluted, not strictly HEA, too short/long, and/or chemistry issues, may have impact on other BL fans but not me (or on me but not others) examples: Make it Right, KinnPorsche

6/10 - WORTH WATCHING BUT FLAWED - probably around the ending or in narrative structure/cohesion or censorship, disappointed expectations, unlikely to rewatch, examples: My Gear and Your Gown, Love Mechanics

5/10 - WATCH IF YOU HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO - but don’t expect much, it’s a total hot mess interesting only because it's BL and I'm probubly pretty conflicted about it, examples: Advance Bravely, Even Sun

4/10 - FATALLY FLAWED - but still basically BL, however... do we want to support this kind of behaviour? examples: Precise Shot, Work from Heart

3/10 - I DON'T KNOW WHAT I AM WATCHING AND NEITHER DOES IT, just seriously why did this get made? examples: Blue of Winter, Physical Therapy

2/10 - IT'S DEPRESSING - they killed/tortured/etc the gay, save yourself, examples: The Effect, HIStory 3: Make Our Days Count

1/10 - IT'S AWFUL, I WATCHED IT SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO, has all the flaws of 4-3 plus something even more egregious, personally triggering, example: My Bromance series, Round Trip to Love

dnf - self explanatory, but usually I drop because I feel like the narrative is already a #3 and/or headed for a #2 or #1 and then I’m told later that is went there, example: My Tempo

I hand out the fewest 1s & 10s. The most 8s and 7s. Everything else is pretty much on the bell curve you’d expect.

Q2: What resources do you use to build your reviews?

I listen to a lot of pop culture review critiques in podcast form, often about stuff I'd never watch. But I like the way professionals talk about these things, even if they aren't MY things or don't jive with my personal opinions.

Mark Kermode is my favorite film critic and we like the opposite stuff, but the way he talks about film is very interesting to me. His podcast mini series on the "business of film" is probably one of my must listens. For his main podcast (Kermode & May’s Take), I always skip over all the interviews, people talking about their own films bore me to death (especially if they are actors on the promo junket, save me please). His rants are some of my favorites of all time (try Pirates 3 or Iron Man 2). Someone else’s list.

I also like Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR because it brings in multiple perspectives and varied cast of critics who often disagree and the "things making me happy" is a grab bag of fun.

The Bechdel Cast is a feminist critique podcast from Hollywood insiders and they do recaps as well as critique, and it's always fascinating to me to hear what people latch onto in a narrative. However, I only listen if I am already familiar with the film they are discussing.

My background is in anthropology and I've lived all over the world so that helps train me to think in terms on culture's impact on narrative as well as linguistics and so forth. As a personality I’m also quite reserved and deadpan, grumpy, stiff, strict, and kinda cold. I think I gravitate to being an observer and an outsider which helps if you want to analysis stuff. Which is not a claim to objectivity, I don't think there can be objective analysis of pop culture.

But it does make me pause to think, "that made me FEEEL something" why? What am I feeling? How did the actor do that? The script? The direction?

These shows are meant to entertain, whether they are successful or not, for me (and what "successful entertainment" means to me) and how they are doing it is the first question I always ask myself.

Q3: What are the things you look out for when watching a BL?

I ask myself a lot of things I would when looking at any piece of art. Or even when shopping for clothing or a new car or reading a book.

Did I like it? Why did I like it?

Did it move me? Why did it move me?

Did I react? How did I react? To which bits? Why?

What tropes and narrative beats was it using to manipulate me and my expectations? Did it meet those expectations? The promises it set up at the start? Did it fulfill the watcher-contract during the course of the narrative?

Did the filming successfully telegraphy the journey I was meant to take? Did the actors?

But also... would I rewatch it? Am I tempted to do so the moment it ends? For which bits?

The statistician in me wants to point out that these questions say a lot more about me and my relationship to art than it does about the art itself.

For example

Did I like it? Means... I'm motivated by pure taste and personal preference and complete subjectivity. This is in part formed by a person's background, life state, whole experience with culture and pop culture and society, family, friends. Taste is also just "that" bit. You know, that bit? Likes lemon deserts over chocolate ones, gravities to spicy food, favorite color is green, decorates with potted plants. Just my taste is my taste. I like what I like.

Yes I have some criteria that subconsciously come into play: I look for clever story structure, subversion or manipulation of tropes, parody, not hitting any of my dislikes (like dub con). But also I have other biases impacting whether I like it (like physical appearance) which I can try to check but usually can't fix. (For example GMMTV's Gawin/Fluke looks so much like an ex of mine I really struggle with his screen presence.)

Did I like it?

The fact that this is the first question I ask myself also should tell you I'm motivated by the emotion these narratives engender. I want them to transport me and move me. I my case I want to feel comforted and satisfied and happy. The ones the make me feel discomfort, especially for too long in the narrative, I am simply going to like less. Sometimes less than I feel like I should (see my struggles with masterworks like ITSAY, YNEH, or The 8th Sense). The very BLs that most professional critics would tout as the best examples of the genre for a wider audience often turn out to be the ones I struggle with the most. (They are also, fortunately for me, the least representative of the bulk of the genre.)

In other words there is ALSO a part of me that genuinely likes and enjoys the trashy stuff. Even the trash I trash watch.

So I would advise you to come up with your own questions. Ask yourself what you want from these shows when you watch them.

What motivates you?

Why are you watching them at all?

What brings you joy from an art or entertainment experience?

What do you want them to do for you? To you?

You are going to experience them (and therefore analyze them) from this perspective whether you like it or not. So understand yourself is paramount. It's about your relationship to the art, not the art itself.

If I were to give you an assignment I would say start with one BL you really enjoyed, perhaps not your favorite but one level down. And then do one you really did not enjoy. And think about why...

Happy analyzing!

(source)

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jamsandsuch · 2 months

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i'll be honest i've been having a little of an existential crisis since getting my graduate school acceptance.

in the opening to teaching to transgress, bell hooks talks about how when she was offered tenure she fell into a spiral. and for me, i thought that getting my acceptance to my master's program would help but if anything it's only made me feel terrified that i'm doing the wrong thing with my life.

i'm a budding sociologist and kind of by nature of that my work is tied up in activism; even moreso when my entire body of research is about my diasporic community and ways to improve our standing, the histories that brought us here, the future trajectory of our community. growing up with crippling anxiety, i've strayed away from having strong opinions, from upsetting anyone too much. growing up as a southeast asian immigrant, i strayed away from being noticed too much at all. academica offered me that space to form those opinions, and i think there was some power in that: for once i was encouraged and even rewarded for my years of quiet observation and the pent up rage and injustice i've locked away in response. naturally, academia became my safe space and i decided to pursue grad school and a career in academia. but as i see myself moving forward, i increasingly realize that as a person of color in academia, especially with the particular subject matter i've chosen for myself, i kind of need to step into that spotlight i've been so afraid of. and especially when those opinions will carry so much political weight, so much responsibility, those anxieties i've carried with me since i was little, that unfamiliarity with being seen is weighing down on me so much and i feel like i'm suffocating.

a few months ago i attended an event in my diasporic community hosted by a local activist group. they were extremely supportive and interested in my research and asked for more insight into what research like mine looks like. at the time my study was still in ethics board purgatory so i didn't have much progress to share with them, which i understandably lamented about. one of the members, who shared with me previously how they had been disillusioned by academia and thus dropped out, remarked as I outlined all the bureaucratic barriers that exist in academia: "You see that's the problem - I could go out into the neighbourhood and ask people those questions right now, put them together, distribute leaflets or organize a rally, and it would all happen so much faster and without this red tape." at the time i only agreed - mostly because i first read this as sympathizing with my academic exhaustion - but recently i've been revisiting those words as a question about if i'm really doing the right thing with my life, bigger questions about the purpose of my work more generally.

last week i attended an incredible talk by a journalist visiting from my home country who documents the human rights abuses happening domestically. as a qualitative researcher, and particularly as an urban/community sociologist, i was interested in the subject of her talk which was pertaining to building community through journalism. i was wondering if i may be able to 1) learn more about my country's politics and 2) learn more about how my work might facilitating community building. but what i walked away with was a growing discomfort in my stomach as that activist's words returned to me during that talk - this journalist was doing admirable, incredibly valuable work. the work was timely. it was immediate. it was influential. then what of my work? i've been working on my undergraduate thesis for eight months. this week alone i've spent over twelve hours hunched at my desk painstakingly transcribing interviews for analysis. and for what? to present at an undergraduate conference? to have it tossed into a sea of uncited papers? at the end of the talk a professor raises her hand to ask how academia and journalism can partner together to work towards a common goal. the speaker's response was geared towards the support they've received from quantitative researchers' data. as a qualitative researcher, what makes me different from a journalist besides a fancy university title and years' worth of institutional bureaucratic barriers my work must pass before publication? and beyond that, will it ever even be cited at all? i hoped to speak to the speaker afterward with my question, but they promptly had to leave. i walked back home and stared at my wall for a while.

two weeks ago one of my classes i teach for hosted a panel with activists from various diaspora. one student raises their hand and asks if one panelist, an iranian woman, feels afraid about the possibility of being targeted and killed for her activist work to which she calmly responds that she is expecting it. i feel a chill go down my spine as i wonder if i should be that selfless too. later during office hours a student shares with me that he's starting a project in partnership with an activist group to make critical race theory and asian diasporic history accessible beyond the ivory tower to laypeople. i wonder if i should be doing that too. with every moment i stand in front of these folks i feel like i'm standing up against everything that my work is not doing. i should be making this work accessible. i should be making this work faster. i should be ready to die in defense of my work. this guilt chokes me like a noose and with every moment i spend lying awake in bed thinking about it i string myself up higher like a flag for the world to laugh at. look at me, another useless scholar with impostor syndrome.

when it comes to the kind of work i do, i recognize that academia without activism is nothing short of ego boosting and extraction. and yet at the same time we're asked to somehow distance ourselves from political opinions so as to maintain the objectivity of our work. when i see the advocacy work done by fellow students on campus, i increasingly feel like a phoney intellectualizing work that's happening in real time on the ground that myself and my colleagues are removed from. this and my years of anxiety, and the fear around activism generated by being raised by parents from a country that has targeted academics for their politically provocative work have concocted the perfect storm of existential crisis, paranoia, guilt, and a deep seated desire to disappear. i feel useless in my work, helpless in my desire to be a part of an activist scene, and hopeless about my impact as a human being all at once. cue a pathetic image of some tortured scholar locked away in an ivory tower wiping their tears with sheets of gold leaf or something while the world burns outside. woe is me.

i brought these thoughts (or at least these thoughts as they were half baked) to one of my professors previously and he told me that i need to stop thinking. that i need to focus on what's immediately important to me: finish my thesis. get my bachelors degree. so this week during my midterm break i tried, i really did. i dove back into my old hobbies. engaged in some self care by spending time with my friends, exploring the city. and as i've done so i've realized - i'm so happy. so, so happy to be doing my hobbies. and that's just left me increasingly wondering if i'll ever claw my way out of this hole i've dug for myself: when I look at my instructors around me i see their work life balance wrecked. i see their unsustainable salaries despite all the incredible work they do and all the extra time they sank into their extra years of education (i recently learned that the published faculty salaries in our university's financial report are actually inflated, so the salaries are in fact much worse than I was led to believe and believe me, my expectations were already low - and this is at a T40). i wish i was kidding when i say that there are instructors i've known that began teaching during my first year and who i've slowly watched have the light drained out of their eyes over the last three years.

is this my destiny? to forever feel this way? to sink years of my life earning poverty wages as a TA and RA, delaying when i will finally settle down, sinking my family's money into a education for a job that won't make that money back unless by some miracle i land a tenure track position out of my phd? and all that knowing that there's a shortage of jobs for the number of phds in my field? and all of this knowing that there are folks out there doing work that's actually on the pulse of what's going on, more timely, and without the hierarchical nature of academic research?

do i think i'm going to find any of the answers i'm looking for right now? probably not. but i just feel the shadow of my future looming over me as i'm committing to grad school and i don't know what to do about it. i wake up every morning with a weight on my chest and when i think about it i can't breathe. maybe bell hooks really is a lot more relatable than i thought.

#academia with anxiety i guess #and impostor syndrome but whats new #wow did you really read all that #as i wrote the part about work life balance my prof that i ta for literally sent me a message about grading! it's 3am #lol #studyblr #gradblr #academia #university

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paluimbel · 8 months

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One of the fun things about being a system is that sometimes you can get absolutely wild internal government structures that would in no way work in the outerworld.

Based on the geography of our headspace and the way we run things, I can only really describe our system's political structure as a communist city-state governed by an anarchical beurocracy.

The communist part is kinda obvious– none of us really own anything individually, either in-headspace or out of it. We've got a lot of control over headspace, so if someone wants something, they can manifest it themselves. Out of headspace, we've got a few sentimental items that sort of belong to specific headmates (me and Elsie's ring, for example), but there isn't any formal designation for who owns what most of the time.

As for the city state bit, our headspace is centered around a walled city, with various (scientifically impossible) biomes and smaller outposts in the surrounding areas. Technically the city only really has the population of like, a hamlet, but that's based on incomplete census records and doesn't really seem to impact the architectural style or density of the settlement.

As for the "anarchical beurocracy" part, basically that means we've sort of got a government, but everybody has equal power and as long as you can draft up a sufficiently formal sounding document you can do whatever the hell you want. For example, say two headmates want to get married. They wouldn't need an officiant, just basically write up a paper saying they were married, seal it (we use seals not signatures, mostly because we have the stuff for it and it feels more formal,) and there you go.

Needless to say, this gives rise to a wide variety of chaotic political/regulatory bodies, including:

The Encyclopædia Committee- Started out as a volunteer-run committee to make an encyclopædia of stuff in our system to help explain it to other people, ended up as a group of volunteer social workers. We conduct censuses, contact headmates who haven't been seen in a while, set up transport to places the rail line doesn’t have a station, sort out minor custody disputes, etc. Joe is technically the leader/founder, but he spends most of his time with the research division, so usually his second in command's in charge. It seems to be sort of connected to the University, mostly because Joe decided it should be.

The Archaeology Department- A couple of block men in an appartment with the words "Archaeology Dept." spray-painted on the door. Mostly dedicated to recording in-world culture, geography, and history.

Ghosthall- Fictive Commune! I live here. Basically infinite rooms, run by Ime, mostly because he got around to building it first, so now he's usually the one to add stuff. The name comes from slightly complicated in-world culture/language stuff.

The University- A bunch of people seem to sort of work here but honestly it's mostly a resource hub. Elias has an office and seems to have some sort of leadership role, but literally none of us know what he actually does, including him. Cleo is convinced he's secretly living in the walls.

The Train System- Run by literally ONE GUY living in the tunnels. Basically a fast travel system.

The Pantheon- Fictives of deities from our main worldbuilding/writing playground. Weaver mostly acts through passive influence on chosen "champions," while Cedar seems to have final say on who has custody of Adaline (youngest headmate), though they do take advice from the Encyclopædia Committee.

House Nusthèrrùn- Group of people who decided they're a family. Mostly notable because it serves as a way for a few more active headmates to advocate for the interests of a few less active headmates. There are a couple groups like this in-headspace, including Ghosthall, to an extent. We can't have everyone in front at once arguing for their own interests; there are more than 50 of us total and front capacity maxes out near 10; so grouping up makes it easier for a smaller group (usually consisting of whoever's available representing all the groups they're a part of) to make decisions.

House Odyssey- Similar to House Nusthèrrùn but also sort of acts as a secondary resource hub alongside the University.

All Faith's- Local church. Done in gothic cathedral style because it looks neat, but generally functions as a place for anyone to do any spiritual stuff they want to. Also serves as a meeting place (the basement has a fooseball table). Nobody really runs it, but a couple people do live there, so they'd probably get the most say if something happened. (By live there, I mean that Pip lives in the bell tower because she likes high places, Radcliff sleeps in a tent in the graveyard because he's friends with her, and a couple fictives who were undead in source have claimed graves and set up shop.)

Oceanic Domain- We have no clue what goes on there. No one but Lizzie's been there, and when the Encyclopædia Committee asked her about it she got a bit cagey. Because of headspace amnesia, even she doesn't remember what goes on there when she's fronting, so we are completely in the dark.

Camp- There's a summer camp just outside the city walls. Not sure how it's run, not sure who lives there. This is currently under investigation by the Encyclopædia Committee.

The Hospital- I run this one! Basically it's a big building where people can go if they're upset or overwhelmed and need some time to cool down. Despite the name, it's basically a big, dimly lit room with lots of pillows and blankets and plushies.

The City Guard- Consists of literally one guy. Mostly considers the system's physical safety his priority.

The Phoenix- Air pirates! Basically funtions sorta like Houses Odyssey and Nusthèrrùn but they see themselves more as a crew than a family unit.

PUDP- Same as above but union?

I'm pretty sure the people living in the Grayhill district have set up some sort of homeowner's association-type-thing but it's pretty informal and mostly functions as a social group/loose coalition, similar to the above two.

There are a couple other University Committees dedicated to group projects, such as the aforementioned worldbuilding and writing playground, fanfiction, etc.

#plurality #endo safe #anti endos dni #actually plural #osdd #-tess #plural system #osddid #headspace #inner world #headspace lore #inner world lore #worldbuilding #(sorta)#(idk maybe someone could use this as inspiration who knows)

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docilepillow · 29 days

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MARCH 2024 MEDIA DIARY 2

I ran out of embed space on the first post i had slotted in for this!!! So i'm making two posts!!!!!!! They belong together!!!! Okay!!!!!!! PIZZA TOWER < this game is soggy goop >

Even though I cleared a good portion of this game nigh a year ago now, i still feel compelled to put it on my media diary now, as i've only just got around to finishing the game properly! I believe the point i dropped off the game before was at Pig City, which, i think , is kinda understandable given how big that level is, but, was probably a real bummer for the whole of my friend group who were super into the game when it was new and i probably missed out on talking about it alot with them... POOP!!!! just because this game is popular enough to actually warrant talking about it with my friends later, instead of saying stuff like how i enjoyed the silly cartoony art stlye and the games general charm, im just going to post a level tier list i made the second i beat the game at like near midnight kinda hazy-minded without thinking on it too hard without thinking too deeply in a way thatll be completely inflamitory bc im mostly satisfied with the experience i had and dont really feel the urge to P rank anything --

The stats are saying my total hours round up to 6 hours 50 and pepinno is pointing at me Aughh

My , , Errr, " CRITISISM " of this game is that the funny pizza man is a little, erm, STICKY? Kinda gross. a little weird. Partially my fault. I'm sowwy. I'm not very good at this game but i absolutely respect everyone's opinion on it . Go watch my friend @shoppncart's speedrun, by the way, it's cool :

youtube

Speedy! THE MARIO MOVIE < the bario boooby geheheheheheheh >

this is probably a tired opinion but since i was subjected to this movie for the fifth time in a voice call my take is thaat this is probably more enjoyablel then the safeass illumination film. like. yea. that films probably objectively better but. id rather watch something thats an actual adaptation. like this movie. where basically nothing mario happens outside names . Aw. i honestly think this movie has intrigue to it genuinely maybe im saying this bc its one of the movies ive actually watched repeatedly before, like roger rabbit, but i think the history behind this movie and the old anamocity turned-endearment are what make it worth watching. that and its a little goopy You Guys Wanna See Some MM2 Proggys? not a new piece of media technically but ive been playing a fuckton of MM2 recently still as of the end of the month and its absolutely dominating my time as of late, and i kinda wanna show off a small amount of the progress ive made on it, as much as the world map, at least --

It's a media diary. it exists to document MY gaming life. Deal. anyway in regards to it i'm almost finished with the world 4 castle, which is crazy, because before i hadn't even finished world 2, but now i got all of this creative energy in me... If i finish this soon enough, i'd be able to upload it on NSO, so keep your tumpler eyes peeled, mutrals :J I personally like it because theres a theme of aescending on the world map. The space theme in this looks the best, i think.. THE ALCHEMY OF US - HOW HUMANS AND MATTER TRANSFORMED ONE ANOTHER < what the fuck ????? a book ??????? >

yea thats right im reading books this ones actually pretty good apparently a 2020 bestseller though im not in the habit of reading those often so i'll just have to take their word for it on that aspect. i think lifes all about trying new things so around halfway through the month i picked up this cool book i found at my library and got a library card. After reading through it all, i think anecdotally that this book is a very neat read. theres a few sentences that're a little offputting to my young mind but overall the book is filled with alot of cool insight i reccomend checking out if youre the boooky type of person! i think its very good and im glad i picked it out :) i donnu how many of these will be going onto my media diary in the future or anything , but maybe i will if i end up reading more! I'll have to make it up to a friendd for waiting till now to put up something i read here first before that thing she likes. oops.

Volp. OUTSIDE of the traditional media format again, also, are things i largely started on this month but don't think i'll be making all too much more progress in, or if i'm unsure i'll finish what i was doing all in one month- CASTLEVANIA THE ADVENTURE- REBIRTH

POINT OF DROP OFF - STAGE 4 END BOSS REASON BEING - UMMM SORRY I GOT DISTRACTED AND DIED TOO MUCH

castlevania rebirth is a really really cool game. its really cool and im not typing this as fresh as everything else because it was something i picked up for one big sitting earlier in the month. i probably couldve finished it at any point during the week, but simply was too distracted and wanted to do other stuff. It's very cool though, i love the vector sprite art, and there ARE silly stock sound effects everywhere, which is always a big positive for me . I mostly just like how snug the wii classic controller is , and this is a cool game to play it with considering its one of the only non virtual console or old game collection style games available for wii in this exact style ( Not counting the good handful of games that choose to use the wiimote on its side instead. )

over all ill probably sit down and finish this someday soon i just gotta like find time for it whenever next my wii u is plugged in ( it fights for an hdmi slot with my switch and ps4 all the time...! ), and ill probably end up trying to play punch out wii at the same time, given one doesnt dominate my attention over the other. From my understanding they're both short, though, so it shouldnt be too big a deal or obstacle no matter how long i put this off. RANDOM TERRARIA PLAYTHROUGH terraria playthru 1million

ii just really want to see the new terraria update Waaaah... i stopped having fun because i self imposed myself to not use setbonus armor sets at the part of the game where that stops being acceptable anymore so im stopping i think i did get to make another terraria pet though that makes me happy POINT OF DROP OFF - the mechanical bosses

also the most recent thing is

i got too tense and needed to excuse myself after like an hour 30 i cant take too much tension in movies i was really uncomfortable and had to leave to take a breather bc the main character gets put in a really really shitty situation and it was getting hard to watch for my autistic ass

thats enough i think thanks for coming see you next month lol

#Youtube

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thecoffeelorian · 7 months

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[And now, for Tech Tuesday...here's something that's been sitting in my drafts since April, made for a rather old series on AO3. It's mostly about Tech's observations about my original autistic Twi'lek character, especially after just meeting her five minutes ago *wink wink*.

Maybe I'll update that one again, maybe not, but in the meantime...here ya go!]

A Brief History Of The Ignoble House Of Innsur

I Was Curious About You, So I Put Your Name Into The Holosearch, And…

…No, please wait. I can explain.

For one thing, I am well studied on the subjects of stalking as well as consent, for no legitimate soldier of the Republic is permitted onto the battlefield until he—or, in only one currently documented instance, she—agrees to a series of special training modules pertaining to the treatment of the female ratio of most Galactic societies. All subtopics from basic anatomy to zoological companions are covered in these modules, and through them, the vast majority of Clone Troopers, be they considered enhanced or not, are made to understand that they are to be given the same courtesies and protections as the average male civilian.

That rule has not, to my knowledge, been violated in any way from the beginning of the War to the conclusion.

At this same time, however, I cannot ignore the amount of exposure my squad could potentially incur from association with individuals with malicious intent—in other words, “the bad guys”.

As we have not visited every single planet in the galaxy, but rather made as many notes as possible for the worlds that we were dispatched to, it is therefore plausible that we could encounter Imperial sympathizers in the near future.

And, perhaps because this Twi’lek woman has chosen to live on a planet such as Argann rather than with countless others of her people upon Ryloth…could it not then be theorized that she could be so much more than one refugee among thousands previously displaced by the Clone Wars? What if losing her home caused her to lose other things as well, such as the basic practice of restraint in times of possible conflict?

Respect for the rule of law?

Not taking matters into her own hands, or worst of all, seeking revenge against any and all individuals she might blame for her displacement…?

It is possible that the wrath of such a person, if indeed such wrath exists, could then be directed solely at us if we are not too cautious.

This is why I begin a basic anonymous Holonet search with just two blinks of my eyes, then flick my focus to a certain combination of letters upon the digital keypad that appears within the next five seconds.

L Y N I N N S U R

[My old series is at the link below: ]

] tagging test for: [

@swarovski-yoda @megmca @talesfrommedinastation @giganonyx @12sddddd @tink1221 @omglisalithium @advisorsnips @yardikins @wastingstarsss @paperback-rascal @xylionet @themightychipmunk42 @groguandthebadbatch @riversings42 @sailorsenshisweetheart @lightwise @spinelrose @ovaa-bi-bia @600yearoldlovecraftianhorrorshow

#random status update #the bad batch #the bad batch fanfiction #tbb tech #tech tuesday #lyn innsur #original twi'lek character #original twi'lek female character #original autistic character #actuallyautistic #tbb: the past is another land #the ignoble house of innsur #ryloth #argann #this is only a test #minors dni

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mangle-my-mind · 1 year

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Whitman/Wilde and Curt/Brian

Okay, to @transjackfairy who so generously asked me about my thoughts on Walt Whitman/Oscar Wilde v. Curt Wild/Brian Slade (and who reminded me to turn my asks on because I’m still a tumblr newb apparently and didn’t realize). Buckle in for my latest obsessive thoughts:

This is mostly uninformed rambling based on a book I read recently called When Brooklyn Was Queer by Hugh Ryan. I really can’t recommend this book enough. It gave me everything I could have ever asked for: a well-studied, intersectional nonfiction chronicle of my hometown’s place in queer culture and history between 1855-1969. Brooklyn had an extremely vibrant queer life in that period, but it was essentially wiped out by various social, political, and economic factors. Most of the landmarks and neighborhoods associated with queer community from that period are now decades-gone. New institutions and points of queer convergence and community formed after the 1969 Stonewall Riots in Manhattan, and Brooklyn is undoubtedly queer today, but these points of convergence are often not connected to the queer world that existed in Brooklyn before then. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and gaining a deeper understanding of a Brooklyn I knew very little about.

Ryan uses 1855 as his start date for this book, even though it would be impossible to set a start date for queer life in Brooklyn, or anywhere, for that matter. “But it is possible, in the sweep of history, to pick out moments that are emblematic, turning points after which something is definitively there, where it may or may not have been before. And for [Ryan’s] queer history of Brooklyn, that moment is the 1855 publication of Walt Whitman’s masterwork, Leaves of Grass.” Through this collection of poetry, Whitman, who was born on Long Island, raised in Brooklyn, and returned to it at 26 years old, “celebrated the wondrous diversity of life in Brooklyn, the technological marvels of the nineteenth century, the natural beauty of America, and (for those in the know) love between men.” This was at a time when Brooklyn was just starting to come into its own as the “second city of the Empire” after Manhattan (NYC was not yet comprised of the five boroughs, and Manhattan and Brooklyn were separate cities). The development of its industrial waterfront around that time created the perfect conditions for queer life to flourish in Brooklyn, including that of Walt Whitman, which he then documented in Leaves of Grass. The poem “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” immortalizes the Fulton Ferry and its integrity to Brooklyn’s thriving scene, reaches out to generations of queer people who would come after him - “What is it then between us?/What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?” - and “contains perhaps the first description of cruising in American literature”. Poems throughout the book are dedicated to the men that Whitman love and that love him - young, hardy, healthy, manly, of-the-land “camerados” who could define themselves by their love of men before this kind of communal identity was fully understood or even named. Through Leaves of Grass, Whitman attempts to “create or memorialize words, rituals, and experiences that these men shared”. His language, unlike that of many contemporary writings, was less formal, in free verse, and thus “more conversational and accessible to a wide range of readers”.

Leaves of Grass was critically acclaimed at its release: “[Ralph Waldo] Emerson would proclaim [it] ‘the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed,’ full of ‘incomparable things said incomparably well’... the magazine Life Illustrated rav[ed], ‘It is like no other book that ever was written.’ But some saw a moral darkness in Whitman’s work, ‘a degrading, beastly sensuality,’ as a reviewer in The Criterion called it.” What it also did was provide Whitman with generations of devotees, including Oscar Wilde, who met with Whitman in 1882 (here’s a narrative of that meeting).

Now to the Velvet Goldmine of it all. My copy of the screenplay contains an interview with Todd Haynes (located in this really fun-looking website!). Haynes says, “[G]lam came out of the English tradition of camp and applied counter-philosophies about art and culture, which I saw originating from Oscar Wilde. To me, Wilde became the perfect manifestation of the glam era”. Brian is the representation of this tradition and aesthetic, an English dandy of the pop world following the path Wilde laid out for him. Curt, on the other hand, is a representation of the American hardcore elements of glam. To Haynes, “glam was a romance between a British tradition that was extremely theatrical, self-conscious and intellectual, ironic and influenced by gay culture, and an American element that was raw, visceral, sexually potent and also influenced by gay culture.”

So, if Wilde might be the progenitor of the English glam rock scene, then maybe Whitman, with his conversational, sensual, and barbaric poetry, is the respective progenitor of the American scene. Brian’s art falls neatly into the Wildean principles of beauty and artifice, while Curt’s lends itself to Whitman’s informal, repetitive, and honest style. The cherry on top is that Whitman came first and that Wilde was inspired by him, in the way that Brian was inspired by Curt; and that Wilde came to America to meet Whitman, just as Brian did with Curt.

I’d like to clarify that I’m not well-versed in either of their poetry. I’ve read large chunks of Leaves of Grass and Oscar Wilde’s collected works, but I’m definitely not an expert. This was just a fun little thought experiment I went down. If anyone wants to suggest any changes or thoughts or anything new for me to learn, I would be extremely happy and grateful :)

#velvet goldmine #curt wild #brian slade #walt whitman #oscar wilde

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taylorswiftstylequestions · 1 year

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I’m curious as to what you think will be done about Better Than Revenge. Will Taylor keep it the way it is? Will it go through a major rewrite? Will it just be axed from the album? Personally, I hope it stays. It’s definitely not the most feminist track, but wouldn’t you be pissed of the events in the song happened to you?

I think it’s fine to re-record, since it’s part of her history and legacy, and she knows that it wasn’t the best move on her part.

There's nothing to be 'done' about "Better Than Revenge" because the point of the re-records is to create as close as possible replica that will devalue and effectively replace the original.

I've previously touched on it, but if I had to guess - Taylor would address this type of stuff mostly in the TV prologue. Acknowledging that she wrote things that were true to her at the time but that don't represent the life and mental state she's at now - but honouring your past work is not just about the great but also the less-than-pristine moments that you did and felt.

Something to the effect of, "I've built my life on writing my feelings into music. I've always believed that turning my experiences into songs has been a way to help me process what's happening to me when I couldn't express it in the moment. There's a certain time lapse I experience as a songwriter and a Sagittarius - a grace period of numbness that won't let me say what I feel until I've been able to get my hands on a piano or a guitar. It's been both blessing and curse to have my life documented this way, so publicly, and forever in posterity since my tender teen years. Speak Now is an album that has faded postage stamps all over its tracklist - each song representing a personalized letter I once wrote to a certain someone. Hoping desperately that they would hear it. At the time, all of these songs were true to unspoken words I wish I had said in the moment - but held onto until I could translate them into my default language of song. While I'm older now and I might choose to say things differently, I still believe in the power and in the importance of saying what you mean - and believing in what you feel. So I've decided to drop all pretence and to drop everything now (plus five letters I never sent, pulled from the vault). Speak Now (Taylor's Version) will be available tonight at midnight." /Taylor Voice

#opinion #tss tv thoughts

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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 1 month

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Long post about personal history that's come up in my life this week. Trigger warning for a bunch of shit, sexual harassment and misogyny. This one is really just for me, writing it down makes me feel better and posting it makes me feel better. I actually won this one, and it's a good thing, but there are so many years of history that I had to write some shit down to keep it all straight.

I did some proper cancel culture last weekend. Genuine, textbook cancel culture. The kind of thing you hear about on podcasts. The kind of thing you may literally be able to hear about on a podcast soon – I mean not “you” as in anyone reading this unless you happen to subscribe to any of the small local MMA-focused bro podcasts to which he might take the story – but still, I wouldn’t be surprised if we hear about this getting out there. It had all the tenants of cancel culture: bringing back some shit from more than ten years ago, deciding a vague non-apology isn’t good enough, applying our own subjective view of morality even to something that was technically legally okay. I’ve been oscillating for a week between feeling terrible because of all the shit this brought back, and actually quite enjoying the fact that I got to win this time, for once. And then feeling bad about that, because that’s what they say about us, isn’t it? That people are perpetrating cancel culture just because it feels good to have an outlet for their anger and they want someone to suffer, not because it’s the best thing for the affected community. The former is actually a bit true in this case, but by coincidence, it’s also the best thing for the affected community. I have swallowed my anger so many times in the last twenty years because I was trying to do what’s right, in a rare instance where what feels best is also the best thing to do, can I be allowed to enjoy it?

It's not just that, weirdly a number of interconnected things have come up at the same time in the last couple of weeks. I’ve been reading through some of my old stuff. I have everything written down. I have a Word document on my hard drive that’s nearly 2,000 pages long, and chronicles my experience in the sport of wrestling from 2006 to 2018 (I’ve got stuff from 2004-2006 and 2018-2020 written in other places). It’s mostly just me writing the stories of what happened, but it also includes pictures, and copy-pasting of email chains and other documents so they wouldn’t get lost. I didn’t write it at the time because I thought it would ever matter, it just made me feel better to know I had all these thoughts and stories written down (in case this blog has not already made it clear that I am a person who feels better if everything is written down). But this week had made me glad I did it, because some questions have come up about timelines and what really happened all those years ago, and I’m able to pull up not just notes I wrote at the time, but copies of emails with exact dates. Other people can’t rewrite history if I already wrote it.

Even before the cancel culture last weekend, I’d found myself reading through those old journals the previous week, because I felt like I was being asked to accept a version of history that didn’t feel right, and I wanted to check who was wrong. I even clicked through this blog to find some more recent history, because I remembered I’d written a couple of posts in the summer of 2021 where I’d tried to summarize some of the issues that seem so insular to the sport world. One after my best friend’s birthday party, which was the first significant social thing I did after lockdowns, and one during the Tokyo Olympics, when the gymnast Simone Biles had just pulled out of the tournament due to mental health issues, and it sparked this big discussion about mental health in sports.

I’ve got an update to some of those. My old teammate that I mentioned at the end, who won in Rio and was about to compete in Tokyo, lost her only match there. Everyone in the country, as I’d suspected, immediately started talking about how she was always overrated. She spent a few more years doing occasional competitions that slowly tapered off, and just this month, formally announced her retirement. She had her retirement event in her hometown, which is of course my hometown, and I went to it last night (well, I went to the social thing afterward, I couldn’t bring myself to do the actual ceremony with that level of polite company), and I didn’t drink even though it was at a bar, and she was very drunk and gave me a hug and told me how happy she was that I’m still around after all these years since we trained together as teenagers, and it was lovely. In other updates from that post, my other former teammate and long-term to whom I gave the nickname Nikolai in there, refused to attend the event because he’s decided he’s “not a fan” of hers (for vaguely-to-overtly misogynistic reasons), and has been telling our teenage male athletes that Andrew Tate’s all right actually and people are too quick to dismiss thinkers like that. I recently made a different post that referenced a longtime friend of mine who recently got into Andrew Tate, and I just want people to know that those are not the same person. That’s happened more than once.

I wrote about this girl whom I named Josie in that post, which is weird, because I barely knew who Josie Long was in August 2021. I’d seen her on a few panel shows and liked her a lot, but hadn’t actually gotten into her stand-up or anything. I think I’d just recently happened to come across an article about how Josie Long, that woman I really liked from that one Catsdown episode, started comedy very young and was an immediate prodigy but also faced backlash that was difficult to deal with when so young, I was writing a post in which I was giving privacy-protecting nicknames to people I know and wanted one for the girl I knew who had way too much talent way too young and it overwhelmed her, and I went with that.

Anyway, I wrote about this teenage girl from my team who got exploited by terrible abusive coaches from other teams and driven out of the sport, only to come back years later, older and wiser and much much more jaded. I think I only vaguely referenced the fact that, to be fair, she didn’t exactly have a perfect experience on my own team. Due to her experience with an adult man here.

For the privacy-protecting purposes of this post, I’m going to call him Louis, entirely because I just read an article about that new-ish Louis CK documentary, so that’s the name that comes to mind when I think about men who do horrible sex things that they defend with “but it wasn’t technically illegal”.

I’ve known Louis at least a bit since 2005, when I joined our local wrestling club, and he was an occasional member, though he was a couple of years old and a lot bigger than me so we stuck to different sides of the practice room and I didn’t really know him. I first properly met him at the 2007 National Championships, when I was one of the only two girls on our team, both girls were 16, and we shared a hotel room. He and his brother knocked on our door, and my friend/female teammate let them in, even though we barely knew them, beyond the fact that they were competing at this tournament for the same team as us and in the age group above ours. They were both drunk. Louis offered me a beer and I declined, because despite my problems with alcohol as an adult, I never drank underage. He offered my female friend a beer and she took it, but drank very slowly. Throughout the night, he kept encouraging her to drink faster, clearly trying to get her drunk.

He then sat down on the chair in our hotel room and we made awkward conversation, and I don’t remember all of it, but I definitely remember when he started complaining about how we had it easier because the female divisions had fewer people than the male divisions (due to the sport being overwhelmingly male-dominated in 2007 – it’s still male-dominated today, but was much, much more so then), so we didn’t have to win as many matches to get a medal. He then expanded into saying there’s no point to women’s wrestling anyway because girls aren’t as tough so their matches aren’t as competitive or interesting to watch, and he told my friend she should stop competing because it’ll hurt her chances of getting a boyfriend. Eventually he and his brother got up and just left (I was too naïve to understand at the time that clearly what happened was they were hoping we’d sleep with them – or more accurately, Louis was hoping my very conventionally attractive friend would sleep with him and his brother was presumably there to distract me – and eventually my friend made it clear that she wanted to just go to bed so they gave up). I didn’t say a word the whole night. I just sat on my hotel bed, furious, feeling like anything I could say would be speaking out of turn, and no matter how angry I was, I had to be good and keep my mouth shut.

But I didn’t just forget what had happened. Just after that tournament, our club started to change significantly. Basically a new coach took it over and pissed most people off so much that they quit, so it became much smaller and more structured. It also started to have a more clear designation for its small core of the most competitive athletes, and that core included both Louis and I, so he was no longer someone I occasionally saw across a practice room, he was someone I encountered directly at practice five nights a week.

I hated him quietly, as every time I saw him I remember how he made me feel in that hotel room. Then after practice, I’d complain to my friend about him – my male best friend, who’s a wonderful person and my current roommate, we’ve been friends for all these years. But I remember, in 2007, him telling me I needed to try to get over my grudge. So Louis got drunk in a hotel room at a stressful tournament and said some dumb shit to a girl he wanted to impress. He’s my teammate, I need to stop holding onto these things forever. One time I did a drill with Louis and accidentally hit his chin and made his tongue bleed. I genuinely didn’t do it on purpose, but also, I didn’t apologize. My friend called me incredibly petty for that, which I probably was.

Eventually, that one night in the hotel faded into us just being teammates. There was enough other shit going on at the club for that one thing to not seem like such a big deal by comparison. We were all so consumed by this pressure cooker situation, in which Louis and I often were on the same side – us and the rest of the athletes vs. a horrible abusive coach – that I did sort of let it go. We went through some shit together. He was the coach’s golden boy, one of our most successful competitive athletes. For nationals in 2008, our coach forced him to cut nearly 15 kilos to avoid a guy he couldn’t beat at the higher weight class because a gold medal could get funding for our team, and he almost put himself in the hospital with the effort to make the weight. I remember he disappeared before my eyes, showing up to practice smaller and smaller every night until there was barely any of him left. At the tournament, he did make the weight, but lost to an inferior athlete because he was so physically depleted from the weight cut. I wasn’t there, but I heard from friends who were that after he lost his match, our coach yelled at him in front of everyone for not trying hard enough, and he was later seen crying in the hallway. Some dumb shit he’d said a year before didn’t seem to matter so much after that.

Not all my memories of back when Louis and I were teenage teammates involve him getting smaller. For example, there was the day that my best friend missed a week of practice for university midterms, came back, did a match with Louis, and still won. The coach berated Louis in front of the whole team for not being good enough, as he’d lost to a guy who hadn’t even been training all week. The next week, I worked with Louis in a warm-up drill, I put a hand on his bicep for the drill, and immediately thought – what the fuck? I touched this same bicep four days ago, and I did not feel like this. How did this double in size over a weekend? Of course, a month later he went to the coach to admit that in his desperation to avoid losing to my friend in practice anymore, he’d been taking some “all natural supplements” that he was a bit worried might come up if he got selected for drug testing at competitions. Our coach took one look at the supplements, said those are fucking steroids, and then the entire team got a lecture followed by extra workouts as collective punishment for the dumb decision by this one guy. Also, this incident triggered a massive email chain of coaches debating what to do, leading a meeting of all the coaches in the city to debate the dumb decision made by this one guy, and I have copies of that email chain, even though I shouldn’t know about that, because even at the age of 17, I had my ways of accessing things I wasn’t supposed to (basically I had a guy bootleg a coaches’ meeting for me).

We all graduated high school. Our horrible coach left town in 2009. My best friend and I took over in sort of assistant coaching roles at first, moving into being the main people running the club by 2012. Louis spent several years bouncing from room to room; he’d go train with bigger teams in other cities, then come home and train in our room for a while, then go off somewhere else. We heard rumours of him pissing people off on another team because he’d become a hardcore Christian and whenever he made a mistake, he’d say “Only God can judge me.” But he also won some national medals and got on the international team a couple of times, he beat up some top athletes and started branching into MMA, he was undeniably talented. I would never have called him a good friend, but we got along okay when he was in town.

For the 2012-2013 season, he ended up living back at home, and training with our team fulltime. He was 24 by then. I was 22, and was coaching with my best friend. And the girl I called Josie, one of the only two girls in the first generation of athletes I ever coaches (the sport was still pretty fucking male-dominated by 2012), this blindingly talented prodigy athlete who looked up to me and who I’d do anything for, was 15. Well, she was fifteen until one day in July 2012, when she turned sixteen, and on that exact day, Louis decided to ask her out on a date. He’d been talking to her a lot in the few months before her birthday, and asked her out right on that day. Technically legal.

She said yes. At first they tried to keep the relationship a secret, though they were very bad at it, and for a while there was this awkward situation where everyone could see they were together but we had to pretend we didn’t. I was so worried about her, and I finally took her aside to ask about it. She admitted that she had been together with Louis since her sixteenth birthday, but they were very happy together, and even if people thought the age group was weird, they just didn’t understand. I was horrified, but I also knew she was the most stubborn teenager I’d ever met, and if I told her “I want to stop you from dating your boyfriend,” that would just upset her. I was a role model to her. Old enough to seem like an adult to her and be expected to act like one, too fucking young to know what to do.

We brought it to the coaches, and for the second time in five years, all the coaches on my team had to have a fucking meeting about the fucking behaviour of this fucking guy. It turned out that her parents were already aware, and they did not like it, but they also knew that if they tried to forbid her from seeing Louis, she’d just run away and move in with him. So they allowed it, because they had no choice.

As coaches, we said there wasn’t much else we could do. We had a duty to inform her parents, but they already knew. It wasn’t against the law. Our team, at the time, didn’t technically have rules against it (that has been fixed many times over since then, I have personally written bylaws and a code of conduct to make sure no one gets away with this again, but we didn’t have it then), so we had no grounds to kick him out. All that came out of it was one of the other coaches had a stern talk with Louis about how this meant he was not allowed to take on a coaching role in any capacity. Because where we are, the age of consent is 16, unless the older person is in a position of power, in which case it’s 18. But he was just another athlete on the team, not a coach, so technically no position of power.

They were together for eight months. After eight months, she broke up with him, to the relief of myself and the other coaches. I didn’t initially hear a lot about the breakup, just that it had happened. But a few weeks later, she asked to speak to me in private after practice. She told me that Louis had been texting her and calling her, saying horrible emotionally abusive things (ranging from calling her horrible vulgar names and threatening to hurt her, to begging her to take him back and threatening to hurt himself). She’d told him she wanted no contact with him – besides having to see him at practice but she didn’t want to interact with him there – and she’d blocked him. He’d kept calling from other numbers. One night, he showed up at her house late at night. She lived in a very rural area, and that could have been dangerous if her parents hadn’t been home, as there would be no one nearby and he’s a lot bigger than her and a trained fighter. Luckily her parents were there, and they threated to call the cops, and luckily that got him to leave. But after that, her mother started attending every practice with her. Her mother would sit on the sidelines to watch practice, and if she had to go to the bathroom or something, her mother would go with her. To make sure she was never alone at practice, and Louis would never get the chance to corner her somewhere.

She told me all this in private, and I was horrified. I had just become a proper coach of this club, was trying to gather up the ashes of the dumpster fire it had been and mould them into what I wanted, and I was running a team where a teenage girl could not feel safe while stepping into a hallway by herself. I told her that I would protect her privacy, but I also needed to protect her safety, and asked if I could have permission to share this with the other coaches. She said yes, she wanted them to know, because she felt scared, but didn’t feel comfortable telling them herself, she only felt comfortable coming to me.

So I went to the other coaches, told them everything, said we need to kick this guy out. There were four main people running the team at the time: me, my best friend, and two older guys. My friend and I wanted to get rid of him, the older guys said we have to consider the many complicating factors in this situation. He hasn’t technically done anything illegal. We had a whole email exchange to discuss this, and of course I still have copies of the emails in my journals, so here’s a quote from one of the older guys’ emails: “The sport of wrestling and the dynamic in wrestling rooms have changed significantly with the inclusion of women. The inclusion and co-mingling has enhanced the sport in many ways, but has also brought other challenges that come from men and women sharing space. Relationships (intimate ones) are inevitable.” This was in 2013. Women were fairly new to the sport when I started, in 2004. They were not so new to the sport by 2013 that it’s reasonable to say sexual harassment happens because this is what happens when you try some risky experiment like co-mingling men and women (I mean, obviously that wouldn’t be a reasonable thing to say in 2004 either). And the coach who said that was one of the good ones. One of the nice members of the old boys club. I saw him last night at the social event, we hugged and had a nice catch-up. Because he’s better than most. But I do have his email from 2013 still saved on my computer.

The club was run by consensus then, and we were locked two vs. two (my friend and I wanted him out, the other two didn’t), so we compromised. My best friend had a “serious talk” with Louis, in which he said that Louis is not allowed to ever contact that girl again – and he’s also not allowed to try anything with any other girls on the team – or else he’ll be kicked out for good. Louis apologized (to my friend), said he knew he’d gone too far when he showed up at her house, he just did it because he was so upset about her “throwing away a good relationship”, but wouldn’t do that again, he was done with it. I didn’t like it, but we all moved on.

Until a couple of months later, when I heard from another high school kid that he’d been messaging her again, from a different number since she had his blocked, asking for another chance. And he’d been talking to the high school boys about it, which is also inappropriate, talking to some teenagers about his efforts to get another teenager to fuck him. Oh, and he’d asked a different high school girl out on a date, and she’d declined. And he’d made a comment to the teenage boy about a thirteen-year-old girl on the team being attractive, and asked if she was single, though apparently he “assumed she was older” and backed off when told how young she was.

The teenage boy told my friend and I all this during a road trip to a tournament, and even showed us his message chain with Louis, which all backed up what he’d said. I remember sitting in the truck, reading the messages, seeing red. I could barely breathe I was so angry. I said this has to be it. He had his warning, he broke it. My friend said he agreed with me, but we have to bring it back to the other coaches for discussion before we can do anything.

That’s what we were planning to do. But we got back from the tournament late at night, and practice was early the next morning. My friend got called into work, so I ran that practice alone. Louis showed up. Being in the room with him made me furious. I ran the whole practice professionally, and pretty much ignored him. I should have just gone home and sent another message to the email chain, the proper way to deal with things. But I couldn’t help. After practice, I went to him outside the change room and said I’d heard he’d been in contact with her again.

Louis turned around and got right in my face, and instantly said, “You can fuck off with that.” I told him he’d already been warned and he’d never be allowed back in the room again. He started yelling, said it’s not my business and to stay out of it. I said it is my business and I will personally make sure he never, ever comes near a girl on my team again. He told me to go fuck myself a couple more times, looked like he was going to hit me, didn’t hit me, went into the change room and closed to door.

I went home and sent the email. The two older coaches still didn’t want to kick him out permanently. We went back and forth a bit. I was so fucking angry that I couldn’t personally participate in the email chain much, I’d have ended up saying something I’d regret. I mostly just edited emails written by friend, which were professional and respectable, because that’s been our dynamic from the start. I’m angry and hold grudges and can’t let go when I hate someone, he’s professional and respectable and diplomatic and actually gets us somewhere. We work together for a common goal. He once gave me a pen for my birthday with my nickname “loose cannon” engraved on it.

The decision was for my friend to have another talk with Louis, another warning. But this one a lot harsher. He did that, and while he didn’t technically kick Louis out, he did make it very fucking clear that Louis wasn’t wanted. Clear enough so he finally got the message. Louis didn’t came back to our practices after that.

That’s not the last we’ve heard about him or anything. He went back to moving around, trained in some other rooms. We heard a few rumours, with varying degrees of reliability (though at least a couple from very reliable sources so are probably true), of him getting in trouble in other rooms for issues related to making the female athletes uncomfortable. He kept competing off and on until about 2016. I think he even made the national team again in 2015. His face was sure on enough of the national organization’s promo materials for a while. He wore their uniform. I saw him get interviewed about his success stories. I also saw him get beat up at a couple of tournaments, and I enjoyed that. I was in rooms with him when we attended the same events, but I had no more direct contact with him.

In 2021, the girl he’d dated moved back to town. We talked to her about all the shit that went down when she was a teenager, and her view on it was basically “I didn’t realize at the time because I was too young to see who was exploiting me, but I get now that you two were trying to protect me and you were right about it all.” She said she now sees that Louis was a predator all along, not just for the way he harassed her after the breakup, but for dating someone so young in the first place. She used the word “pedophile” to describe him, and said she hopes we never, ever let him back in the room again. We assured her that we never would. We’d restructured the team a lot since 2013, we’d written up codes of conduct and formal power structures so we could just bar people if we wanted to, no need to convince some old men to agree with us first. She said that was good. She said he abused her when she was young and we should never let him back.

That’s where things were in those posts I wrote in 2021, and rereading them reminded me that in one of them, I wrote that I would never, ever let him into my practice room. But when I wrote that, I didn’t expect it to ever actually be an issue. I hadn’t even seen him in person in years.

Last weekend – as in, early March 2024 – he walked into our practice room. I wasn’t there, as I haven’t been in the practice room in months, as I’ve been taking a step back from the sport to decide what I want to do, which is a whole other thing. But my best friend was there, running the practice. And he lives with me now, so of course he came home and told me about it. How Louis just walked into the room, and almost no one even recognized him, because it’s been so long and the people have changed over. Only a couple of people remembered him. No one there knew the full story.

My friend didn’t want to make a scene and kick him out publicly, so he just let Louis stay and do the practice. After practice, Louis went to my friend and said he knows he did some fucked up stuff ten years ago, but he’s sorry for that and he’s changed now – he even has a wife and kids now and he’s a different person – and he appreciates my friend being willing to put the past behind us and let him train there again. My friend didn’t say much, because he wasn’t willing to put anything behind us, but also didn’t want to make any official decisions in the moment.

He messaged the coaches’ group chat, not to ask for permission this time (he now has the power to just kick a guy out unilaterally if he wants to), but to find out what people think. Those two older guys from 2013 are long gone from our coaching staff (last night was the first time I saw that older guy in years, and we did have a nice catch-up), it’s now a lot of younger and more progressive people. The coaches all agreed that he shouldn’t be allowed back.

It’s not as simple as just being about us, though. Our club now trains in an MMA gym, we rent space from the gym owner five times a week for our practices. It turns out that Louis had actually gone to the gym’s owner/MMA coach to try to get a deal where he could teach some MMA in exchange for a free place to train, and to try competing in MMA again. The fact that our club was also there was just a bonus to him.

We wrote an email to the gym owner (by which I mean, I wrote an email and we put my friend’s name on it because he’s the respectable face), outlining our history with Louis and explaining that because of this history, we don’t want him at our wrestling practices. Of course we can’t stop him from getting involved in the gym, but we need to draw clear boundaries around our own time, and want him to be aware of the issue.

I was worried we’d have a fight on our hands, because that MMA gym owner is not the world’s greatest champion of feminism (that is and understatement, but no need to get into all that right now). But to our surprise, he came down on our side. He said he has women in his MMA program, and he wouldn’t want to risk alienating them by having this guy back. So he met up with Louis on Sunday, and said that actually, the deal’s off, and Louis needs to find somewhere else to train.

When confronted with the stuff from his past, Louis replied that he did do it, so the facts are not in dispute. However, Louis re-iterated that nothing he did was illegal (so he hasn’t changed that much), and apparently, used the phrase “Only God can judge me”, which is just wildly inaccurate. You can’t do that. You can opt into being judged by God, you can’t opt out of being judged by everyone else.

Then, Louis told the gym owner that my friend can’t be trusted as a source on this, because he slept with me at a tournament once, and he was my coach, so he also doesn’t have clean hands on the issue of a dicey past of sleeping with athletes. Which is an incredible thing to say. Fucking incredible. Because that was a real rumour, I remember when it went around. I just did not think that in 2024, I would have to be having the argument again about whether I had sex in a hotel room in Saskatchewan in 2008. It should not matter whether I had sex in a hotel room in Saskatchewan in 2008.

Having said that, I would just like to be clear: I didn’t have sex in a hotel room in Saskatchewan in 2008. What happened in 2008 was I was the only girl on a team with a horrible abusive coach (by then, my female teammate who’d go on win the Olympics had moved away to a much bigger team, my female teammate who’d been at nationals with me the year before and Louis tried to get drunk there had quit the sport, no other girls had joined), but it also meant a huge amount to me to think of that team as my family and my community and my identity. When the national championships came around, and they were halfway across the country, we all booked out own flights, but the coach booked a room for him and another room for the male athletes to share. He told me I’d have to book a room by myself because a girl couldn’t room with the boys.

I got – I’ll admit – disproportionately upset. I’d been excluded my whole life before joining the sport, I got so deeply immersed in the sport because it was the first place I felt like I was included, and I was pretty sensitive to feeling excluded again. I asked him why I couldn’t room with my male teammates. There were three of them and one of me, and we were all between the ages of 15 and 17 (I was 17). What was going to happen? We’re not going to have sex in a room with four people in it (to be honest, since then I’ve gotten older and learned that people have sex in hotel rooms at tournaments that have for people in them all the time, but I didn’t know that then).

My best friend was twenty years old at the time. He’s three years older than me, he’d been out of high school for a few years, while I was in my last year of high school. He and I went to high school together, and after he graduated, he came back to coach my high school team. So he and I were teammates at the local club, but I also had school practices a couple of times a week, where my friend was technically my coach. Though those practices were mainly just collaborative things where we’d train together for a couple of hours and go home.

My friend was too old to compete at those national championships – and anyway he’d quit competing after high school – but he was flying out there anyway because I desperately didn’t want to have our actual coach in my corners there, so he said he’d come along and sit in my corners instead. He also didn’t have his room booked by the club, since he wasn’t an official coach of our club and he wasn’t going as a competitive athlete. So our coach told him to book his own room too.

At this point, we learned that the tournament’s host hotel, where the club coach had booked himself and the male athletes, had filled up anyway. We found a cheaper hotel nearby, and went to book separate rooms. But I thought this was stupid. One thing I loved about tournaments was traveling together, feeling like part of a group, socializing. Also, I thought it wasn’t fair that the boys each only had to pay for a fraction of a room cost, while I’d have to pay for an entire room to myself. So I asked the coach if I could room with my friend. He said no, because I was a girl and he was a boy, and also he was my coach, and it’s against the constitution and the code of conduct.

I then went home, went online, and downloaded the constitution, bylaws, codes of ethics, and codes of conduct from both our provincial and national sporting organizations. I read through every single page of every single document, which came to nearly 200 pages, because that’s the kind of 17-year-old I was. I read through every single one just so I could truthfully say I had checked, and there is nothing in any of them that says men and women are not allowed to room together at a tournament.

I went back to the coach and told him this, and he went off on me, telling me I was being disrespectful by bringing this up and I need to just do as I’m told an stop being difficult. So I told him that he had come up here from a bigger team and ruined my wrestling club, that he made practices miserable and was engaging in unsafe practices. And then he yelled at me some more. All this took place in the hallway outside the practice room, while several people were trapped inside, not able to walk past us in the middle of that. I told him it was his fault another teammate of mine had left town, which was only partly true (but it was partly true). He accused me of just wanting to stay in that hotel room so I could have sex with my friend, and I said if staying in a hotel room together is proof that people are going to have sex with each other, then what about the many times that he had stayed in hotel rooms with the teenage boys that he coaches. He said that’s different, and I said we can’t know that for sure because some people are gay, and he said he has a wife and a kid on the way so obviously he’s not gay (fun fact, a few months later I was invited to that kid’s baby shower for some fucking reason, and for some even stranger reason I went, one of the most awkward afternoons of my life, there were seven women there including Louis’ mother, and yesterday at the 2024 national championships my old coach was there coaching his daughter whose baby shower I went to, she’s now 16, a girl from my team beat her in her first match, time is fucking weird). And I said sometimes gay men have wives and kids, and that’s not the point it’s about the principle, and he said I don’t understand what wrestling is, and I said he’d ruined my team again, and eventually we went home. I think that was what originally got me that “loose cannon” nickname.

Anyway, my friend and I ended up booking separate rooms at that separate hotel. But that hotel was still full of coaches, athletes, and refs who were in town for the tournament. So my friend said that, to be on the safe side, we should make sure we never go into each other’s rooms, even though it’s totally normal at tournaments for teammates to hang out in each other’s hotel rooms. The night before I competed I started panicking because I was afraid of not doing well enough, and my friend sat with me in the hallway to comfort me, just o make absolutely sure that no one could say they saw either of us go into the same hotel room. Because we didn’t want rumours. (Amazingly, he and I now live together in a two-bedroom house and manage to not have sex with each other every single night, because actually, introducing a woman into a situation does not always mean everything will just immediately be reduced to being about sex.)

And yet, later on, we were told that my club coach had been going around telling people that, even though we’d claimed to have booked separate rooms, my friend and I had secretly slept in the same room and had sex during that tournament. Which is such a stupid fucking rumour, because, I mean it shouldn’t matter, but I really didn’t. Not just with him, I didn’t with anyone. I didn’t even know until I was older that basically everyone else was using tournament hotels as a way to hook up with people from other teams and/or their own teams, I am probably the only person I know who hasn’t ever done that at a tournament. And it’s fine, I’m glad everyone’s having a good time, it’s just really not a thing I did.

And yet. And yet, in the Year of Our Lord 2024, I am finding myself contending with the accusation that I had sex in a hotel room in Saskatchewan in 2008. Because Louis was our coach’s golden boy then, so of course our coach told him this rumour, probably immediately after making it up. And apparently, Louis has been holding onto it for half my lifetime, just to throw it back at us to try to defend himself in a “Well it’s not like anyone has clean hands way” when we tried to cancel him. And I’m so fucking angry at him, and I hate him so much.

But the thing is, we won this time. The gym owner repeated this conversation to my friend, my friend told him the situation, the gym owner said yeah, Louis’ behaviour in their conversation came off as weird and aggressive, and he doesn’t want that guy around. So he messaged Louis to say he’s not welcome at the gym at all – not just in our practices, but in the MMA or any other part of the gym. Louis sent my friend some long and angry text messages about betrayal and shit like that, and how he slept with me in 2008 so there are no clean hands, and only God can judge him. But it didn’t matter, because he’s been banned, and that’s it. We won this time.

I think this might be my first time committing such a clear-cut case of cancel culture. I’ve gotten rid of people before, but doing it over something from ten years ago feels particularly cancel culture-ish. And God, I am such a huge fucking fan of cancel culture. I am so very grateful for cancel culture. I feel so much for all the teenage girls who might not have been traumatized if we’d had a little more cancel culture ten or fifteen years ago. But we have it now, and it’s something. For this Louis, at least. The actual Louis CK recently won a Grammy.

As if he tried to bring up a rumour about me from 2008. If he really wants to start dragging up ancient history, I could pull out all those emails from the time when our team's entire staff had to have a meeting because my friend beat him so badly that he started taking steroids. This is why it pays to write shit down and save everything.

It does feel good, I can’t pretend it doesn’t. And then I feel like that person that the anti-cancel culture people think I am, just a bitter feminist using cancel culture to take out my anger on men, to punish them because I’ve been hurt before and enjoying seeing them hurt. But all that is just incidental to the fact that this is, genuinely, the best thing for the team. He said in those texts this week that the relationship was legal, that the apology was for harassing her post-breakup, but he made it clear the he still thinks dating the 16-year-old was fine. It’s not safe to have a guy who thinks that around our teenage girls. And now we have the power to stop him. And I’ve spent so much of my life not having any power and now I’m 33 and I could do this one thing. I could write an email and put my friend’s name on it and send it to a gym owner, and in doing so, get a guy banned.

There is a genuine chance that he goes on a local MMA bro podcast to complain about cancel culture after this. And I know he's just going to go to a different gym and do the same shit there. But not here, at least.

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