you wanted to be a good friend, because you loved your friends, but the truth was that everyone else somehow had a pamphlet on being normal that you never received. most of the time you learn by trial-and-error. you are terrified of the next big mistake you make, because it seems like the rules are completely arbitrary.

you've learned to keep the prickly parts of your personality in a stormcloud under your bed - as if they're a second version of you; one that will make your friends hate you. it feels feral, burning, ugly.

instead, you have assembled habits based on the statistical likelihood of pleasing others. you're a good listener, which is to say - if you do speak up, you might end up saying the wrong thing and scaring off someone, but people tend to like someone-who-listens. or you've got no true desires or goals, because people like it when you're passive, mutable. you're "not easy to fluster" which is to say - your emotions are fundamentally uninteresting to others around you; so you've learned to control them to a degree that you can no longer really feel them happening.

you have long suspected something is wrong with you, but most of the time, googling doesn't help. you are so-used to helping-yourself, alone and with no handbook. the reek of your real self feels more like a horrible joke - you wake up, and, despite all your preparations, suddenly the whole house is full of smoke. the real you is someone waiting to ruin your other-life, the one where you're normal and happy. the real-self is unpredictable, angry.

your real self snarls when people infantilize the whole situation. because if you were really suffering, everyone seems to think you'd be completely unable to cope. but you already learned the rules, so you do know how to cope, and you have fucking been coping. it's not black-and-white. it's not that you are healed during the other times - it's just that you're able to fucking try. and honestly, whenever you show symptoms, it's a really fucking bad sign.

because the symptoms you have are ugly and unmanageable for others. your symptoms aren't waifish white girl things. they're annoying and complicated. they will be the subject of so many pretentious instagram reels. if they cared about you, they'd just show up on time. you care, a lot, so deeply it burns you. you like to picture a world where the comments read if they loved you, they'd never need glasses to see. but since that's a rule you've seen repeated - "one must never be late or you are a bad friend" - you constantly worry about being late and leave agonizingly early. there are no words for how you feel when you're still late; no matter how hard you were trying.

so you have to make up for it. you have to make up for that little horrible real you that you keep locked in a cabinet. you are bad at answering emails so every project you make has to be perfect. you are weird and sensitive so you have to learn to be funny and interesting. you are an inconvenience to others, so you become as smooth as possible, buffing out all the rough parts.

all this. all this. so people can pass their hands over you and just tell you just the once -how good you are. you're a good friend. you're loveable.

whats the sad backstory behind the hema dodge post, if you dont mind me asking?

I have about 5 Asks about this, and the actual history to it is too long and elaborate to go into.

What I will confirm is that during the time of that clip, I was informally running the fencing group involved. I say 'informally' because I had zero interest in running it as a leader, and wanted to purely focus on teaching people to fence at higher levels, while letting everyone else determine the direction they took. During this time, I had a lot of accusations of hitting too hard, and had for many years. I was not able to fully fix this however, as I literally didn't know how to correct the mechanics to this, and no one had taken the time to actually look at the issue to rectify it. (It took my current fencing leader 20 minutes total to permanently fix this issue. In over a decade, less than half an hour was required to permanently solve this problem. No one made the effort with me until then).

In the background, there's a few people you can see watching this bout. One of them later took over the group by installing himself as the new president. Later, he would tell me I was now banned from the group, and give vague reasons as to why.

I still don't have a full understanding of why I was banned, nor was I told how to be allowed back. The closest I got was something about them retroactively applying a new code of conduct, and accusation that I had made the club a toxic environment.

This stings especially because I was never given any idea of what that meant or how to fix it, or a clear idea of what I had done. The club would then go on, with several of my former best friends, to totally remove any reference to me, and disallow reference to me. They also went on to use a club logo I had originally proposed, and when I attempted to speak positively of this, one of those people would directly message me saying that I was a horrible person and manipulating the scenario, and this was why people always moved away from me. I still don't know what that was meant to be about, and would reaffirm I had thought it was a hopeful gesture that they had adopted the logo I proposed, after which communication was ended. They also accused me of threatening the guy who installed himself, stealing club funds, and had some unpleasant things to say about my partner for good measure.

I ended up being ostracised from my sport for several months, and for most of last year, I realised that the HEMA community I looked up to, didn't care one mote about what had happened, and actively enabled the people involved. None of them have ever had any repercussions, and I will never really get closure. This has been the focus of regular therapy for me for over a year now.

For me, the video, impressive as it looks, features people in the background that have left me traumatised, and led to me abandoned by the only community I was actively engaged in for over a decade, realising I had no friends at all. I still will not attend certain events in the UK if I risk being alone, because the safeguarding in HEMA is basically non-existant, and based entirely on personality cults.

The only positive is that I was later recruited by another historical fencing group, who not only have safeguarding methods, but a professional set up and regular catch-ups to address the issues that most groups don't address. The experiences above taught me that HEMA as a culture will not help you if you are being bullied or ostracised, and so I have ensured that the culture of the current group I run is everything that the one in the video was not. I have had to ban exactly one person from my current group, and the process leading to them being banned was done with full engagement, and they remain on friendly terms with everyone since that judgement. The main positive, as such, was coming out of that experience with awareness of the failings of this sport, and committing to never perpetuating the cycle of abuse to others.

Even so, I'm still in therapy over it, and will never really get closure from it. I've totally lost faith in HEMA as a sport and culture, and continue fencing only because I can't bring myself to stop swinging a sword. And now I'm teaching a new group that has such enthusiasm and excitement, and has grown like nothing I've seen before, who say they stick with it because the culture of the current group is so warm. But it's a small consolation, as I won't consider going to events if the other group is there, if I am alone.

But keep in mind reading this that I am giving a very condensed form of things and how it affected me, and why that video brings me sadness, and a little anxiety.

Some Thoughts on Antipsychotic Medications

Ok, enough of you seemed interested in this when I asked in my antidepressant post (don't ask me for a link, search my goddamn tumblr for it, oh my GOD people were so lazy about my post on bariatric surgery). Once again, this is NOT medical advice, medical advice must be TAILORED TO THE INDIVIDUAL, that's the whole POINT of a professional field, literally every answer is "it depends" and without being your doctor, which I better not be because if you're my patient reading this I need to nuke my entire social media presence, I can't give you good advice and I wouldn't anyway because I already work 115% time and I'm very tired and you don't pay me.

There's a lot of crossover between "antipsychotic" and "mood stabilizer." I don't have as much experience with antipsychotics as I do with antidepressants, but more than your average bear. So you may see a med here and go "wait, what?" because of that overlap.

It's also worth discussing what psychosis is. There are a lot of media representations, and they are generally very stupid and bad. About 3% of the population will have a psychotic episode in their lifetime, so keep that in mind when you're talking about psychosis. There's about a 1 in 30 chance that the person you're talking to will actually have had psychosis, and a much higher chance that someone they know or love will. So don't be a dick about it. Psychosis involves losing the ability to distinguish what is reality and what is not. It seems to involve overactivity of dopaminergic transmission in specific brain pathways. It tends to be very frightening for its sufferers, although not always. Psychotic symptoms can range from a persistent delusion--I have one patient who is quite simply certain that they have worms in their lungs, despite all the tests indicating that they don't--to hallucinations of voices, to visual hallucinations, and any combination of those. Delusions and hallucinations are often negatively valenced, which means that they make the sufferer feel bad in some way, whether it's an auditory hallucination of someone telling you you're the devil, or a delusion that you're being persecuted by conspiracies for unclear reasons, or hallucinations of shadowy figures out of the corner of your eye. Delusions, when I see them in my patient, often reflect a patient's deepest fear. I had one patient who was a caregiver and they were fixated on the idea that there was a conspiracy of people watching them and setting up "tests" to make sure they weren't hurting patients or doing drugs.

It's also worth mentioning meth. Meth is one of the major causes I see of psychotic symptoms (especially since I'm in a rural area), and you need to understand that the longer and the more you do meth, the higher the likelihood of persistent psychotic symptoms. When I was a med student on an inpatient high-acuity psych ward, I had a very pleasant gentleman who'd been doing meth for years. It's tough to get a clear history, but my impression was that he probably hadn't developed psychotic symptoms until multiple years into daily use of meth--but now, despite being on the ward for over a week, there was no sign of the psychosis going away. He believed he could say things to passing cars and the sound would travel with the car, and someone miles away would hear it. He also believed there were indistinct white figures who hovered around his campsite. (He was homeless.) Meth can break your brain. Don't do meth.

The original antipsychotics are old school. We're talking the 1930s. Promethazine was developed in the process of trying to come up with antihistamines. First-generation antipsychotics are dopamine antagonists, and that means that they're blocking a large proportion of dopaminergic transmission both in the brain pathways related to psychotic symptoms, but also in the pathways related to reward, which sucks. When you think of "antipsychotics," this is most likely what you're thinking of unless you have personal experience with antipsychotics. First-generation antipsychotics include haloperidol (Haldol), chlorpromazine (Thorazine), and a handful of others, but it's a smaller class than the second generation.

Second-generation antipsychotics were a game changer. These are serotonin-dopamine antagonists. They include risperidone (Risperdal), paliperidone (Invega-Sustenna), quetiapine (Seroquel), aripiprazole (Abilify), olanzapine (Zyprexa), lurasidone (Latuda), ziprasidone (Geodon), and also clozapine, AKA the antipsychotic everyone hates prescribing because it can cause your white blood cells to suddenly go bye-bye and boom, you're at huge risk for infection. The only patient I've ever seen develop clear, unambiguous serotonin syndrome was on clozapine. I don't prescribe it as an outpatient family doctor; it's a medication of last resort, and more often seen in inpatient settings due to the need for frequent blood tests to monitor.

Because the brain is a great recycler, we also use dopamine in the control of our movements. This means that one of the more serious side effects of antipsychotics is a problem with movement. This is typically going to be something called "tardive dyskinesia," which means "slow messed up movement," but in Greek because we're fancy. TD is dreaded because we can't always reverse it. A medication called benztropine can help, but the better option, if at all possible, is to get someone off the medication that called the TD in the first place.

If you're keeping track, you're noticing that dopamine does a lot in the brain: the reward pathway, psychotic symptoms, movement. Your body also uses it for stuff outside the brain, like affecting gut motility and blood vessel dilation. It is really hard to come up with medications that only affect one thing, because the body will use the same messaging systems over and over. This is a big part of why there's some much cross-talk between medications that are ostensibly for one thing but used for many other things.

First-generation antipsychotics can be particularly bad about making people feel flat and incapable of feeling joy. The technical term for "incapable of feeling joy" is "anhedonia," Greek again, this time for "no happiness." This is incredibly punishing and people will often go off their meds in order to feel something. I don't want to hear any bullshit blaming people who do this. You probably would too, and learning not to throw rocks from a glass house is critical to being a decent fucking human being. However, it does mean that I have much more success keeping patients on second-generation antipsychotics. There is both a lower risk of anhedonia and a lower risk of TD, so in general, unless someone doesn't respond to second-generation antipsychotics, they won't be started on a first-generation. I have absolutely used first-gen antipsychotics for patients but they're more typical in the inpatient setting, where it's okay--and sometimes a good thing--if someone is sedated. One memorable example was in an emergency department where a woman was violent and had to be restrained with both physical restraints and a spit hood. We can't just go around sedating people these days--that's a whole-ass thing, because for a long time "treatment" in inpatient facilities was too often taken to be "sedation"--but boy howdy, she needed some Haldol.

I also work part time at the county jail, and while I again try hard not to use first-generation psychotics in patients who didn't come in on them, there are patients who actively request Haldol because they hate how being totally wound up and psychotic feels. I write for them to have as-needed oral doses. This means if they ask the jail nurse for it, they can get it, and it helps immensely.

The leading cause of death for patients with mental illness is heart disease. Antipsychotics tend to cause weight gain, and that is not only psychologically distressing to my patients because we live in a fatphobic world, it's probably related to worsened insulin function. Unfortunately, just putting everyone on an antipsychotic on preventative metformin (a medication that improves insulin sensitivity) also didn't work when we tried it, so we don't do that. But it's scary. I'm actually really hopeful that this new GLP-1 agonist med class that's in constant shortages because it causes weight loss (Ozempic, Wegovy, etc.) will be an option to help improve long-term health for psychotic patients. Some antipsychotics are worse than others for weight gain, but there are few genuine head to head comparisons of effectiveness, so I can't say "X works better than Y," we just have to pick one based on a) my familiarity with it and b) whether it seems like a good idea. I also feel it is better to be fat than dead, so if someone needs one of the more fat-inducing antipsychotics to live their life and/or have a decent quality of life, I'll prescribe it and I fucking dare you to talk shit, I will eat you.

My clinical experience has been that Seroquel and Abilify are the best-tolerated antipsychotics. I don't know why. Someone else might, but those are the ones I usually reach for unless someone is having really severe symptoms, in which case I think risperidone works faster. Data are, again, generally pretty weak.

But mostly I want you to remember that psychosis is not a funny punchline, "psychotic" is a shitty fucking insult to use, and someone you know and love probably has psychosis. Some people have a single break and it never happens again, some people can control it with medication, some people need to be institutionalized. It's a life-changing illness and people with severe psychosis, yes, even the weird ones who scare you, are still human beings whose lives have exactly the same inherent value as yours, and who deserve the exact same inalienable human rights as you do. Any other approach is garbage. Human rights are not negotiable.

715-husband

January 29, 2024

I was thinking back to a church small group I was in over 10 years ago where the leader had unexpectedly become a close friend of mine. (People also sometimes got us confused for each other, too, which baffled me. I always thought she was way cooler and prettier than me, and I didn't understand why she liked me at all!)

Anyway, I was thinking about how we shared really personal stuff about our sex lives with each other at the time. She was a registered nurse (physician's assistant now!) and I remember my first post-nuptial pregnancy scare. I had an IUD, and she said "Sam, you know it's like a bowling alley in there, right? Nothing's gonna stick."

I remember talking her down off the ledge from at least one pregnancy scare, too (she did later go on to have one child). I remember talking about my frustration when my ex husband mistakenly assumed I was some wild, adventurous woman in the bedroom because of my "past," when I was mostly just terrified. "It's like... slow down, boy scout," she lamented. I remember her talking about how she underwent an entire physical therapy program in attempt to treat the chronic pain she had with sex. I often thought about doing something similar.

Anyway, she's divorced now, too.

I was thinking about how apparently evangelical folks experience vaginismus at a rate THREE TIMES higher than non-religious folks. I was thinking about how the Christian literature that was our church's bread and butter taught that women *might* enjoy sex, and that's cute and all, but men literally require it and will wither and die if you say no even once. You are defiling your marriage and denying Christ. Among this advice was that it's a woman's job to give hand jobs if she is postpartum and cannot safely have intercourse. As if she is somehow at fault for having pushed a whole 'nother human out of her body and owes him one?!

I was thinking about how viewing porn and masturbation are grave sins in those circles, and if you're going to utilize either, you might as well be cheating on your spouse. Don't get me wrong - I know both can be harmful under certain circumstances, and that porn especially can cause one's partner to feel betrayed. But to say that taking care of your own needs is sinful and forcing your exhausted wife to do it for you is godly seems more than a little fucked.

I was thinking about all of these things and sometimes I'm impressed that I found my way out as well as I did. That it wasn't a whole lot worse than it ended up being. I didn't need physical therapy, or any sort of special equipment. I just needed to feel safe and try things out on my own terms.

I hope my friend was or is able to do the same, if that is something she wants to do.

And I hope everyone influenced by purity culture is able to break free, whatever that looks like for them.

cyberpunkdreams review

TLDR

cyberpunk dystopic text-based game

lgbt+ friendly, i’m currently playing the game as a genderfluid bi masc-presenting character

meant to be played long-term, not a game to bang out in 20 hrs

made by one dev (correct me if i’m wrong), which is insanely impressive for a game that feels very high-quality

entirely free to play! not pay to win either! 

I’ve been playing this game for some days now. I initially encountered it while looking for Fallen London stuff - pretty happy coincidence. 

The game itself, without any spoilers, is a cyberpunk dystopic future set in post-apocalyptic America. It uses the same action system that Fallen London uses and a lot of its UI is also very reminiscent of FL. However, it distinguishes itself from its inspiration with its action economy.

In FL, without any subscriptions, playing completely free, you have 20 actions that are used as you go through the world - exploring, stealing, observing, running, etc. In CPD, the limit is 50. Yeah.

I found my first couple days in CPD more fulfiling and engaging than FL, largely due to the feeling that what I was doing with my character mattered. In FL, it feels hard to actually care about what’s happening because I know in a handful of turns I’ll be unable to continue. If I finish a questline in that time, it’d be a surprise. If I can even find a questline in that time, that’s a bigger surprise. I often feel like I’m just spinning my wheels, getting no traction, grinding stats that mean nothing and do nothing because I’m already done with my allowed playtime before I can get a grasp on them.

In CPD, I was able to get through a significant portion of the introduction quests in my first go. When I waste actions doing silly things, it doesn’t feel as bad. I could start a quest, finish another quest, and other side errands before I run out of actions, and when I finish with my economy for the day, it feels like I actually did get to play and interact and engage with the game. The starting portion of the game giving you a guided quest feels a lot better than when I signed up for FL and wasted all my actions trying to understand wtf the game was even offering.

If you’re interested in text-based games, if you liked FL and want something similar, if you enjoy cyberpunk, then I really recommend trying this out. It’s entirely free to play with an optional credits system that gives you access to certain things, but I genuinely don’t feel like the loss of this “premium” worsens the gaming experience. There is ALSO a subscription that gives you a slightly higher action count and imo, as someone who DID subscibe to FL to see if being an Exceptional Friend improved the feeling of the game, I think my money is better spent subscribing to CPD. Better action economy, no payment scheme to enjoy the in-game content, the game itself feels overall more accessible as a new player.

I saw the post you made yesterday, and I'd like to take you up on your offer. I'm female to nonbinary, and I just started microdosing testosterone on March sixth. My main objective is bottom growth, which my doctor said can take as much as two years on this dosage; but I have a couple of questions she, as a cis person, can't answer:

I know there's no predicting what effects I'll get on T, but I'm a classically trained mezzo-soprano, and I worked hard for the voice I have. What is the likelihood, do you think, that I'll retain my upper registers if my voice deepens? I know of one man whose voice did that.

I'm not thrilled about the idea of facial hair. Do you have any suggestions for products or procedures that will keep it at bay, or do you prefer to let it grow? I'm in West Virginia, one of the states where trans rights are particularly under attack, so I need to be able to fly under the radar to some degree, even though I really want to be out and proud.

Last set of questions: did you have top surgery? If so, how much did it cost, how did you pay for it, and how long did it take to recover? I live on my own, so I'm concerned about being able to take care of my apartment while I recover.

Thanks for putting yourself out there for questions like this. I've been dealing with dysphoria for almost 44 years, and I'm finally in a place where I can do something about it, but I want to know what I'm getting into from someone who has actually experienced transitioning rather than just observed it from an outside, clinical perspective, you know?

I’ll do my best to answer each of these as best I can, but I’m no medical pro, and went on T with the intent of living full time as a man!

You’ve said your main objective is bottom growth - are there topical solutions or other things you can look into, rather than testosterone via injection? I’ve heard mixed results regarding the use of a vacuum pump, to stretch tissue (usually recommended 2-3 times a day, for 10-15 minutes). Of course there’s a lot of debate on whether or not it produces permanent effects, but it’s often requested by surgeons for bottom surgery preparation to give them as much natural length and tissue as possible.

The biggest issue with microdosing T (which you recognize yourself which is good to hear) is that it’s unpredictable. You’re still likely to get all the effects of a regular dose of testosterone, just more slowly - so your growth will likely begin to get larger alongside more of a substantial voice drop, body hair growth, etc. There are also trans men who experience little to no bottom growth, even on a standard dose, while gaining a deeper voice and facial hair. A lot of the effects of T, even on a lower dose, can’t be easily reversed, so if your current voice is very important to you, that’s something to really think about! You can train your voice to be higher, as many trans women have, but the thicker vocal chords are typically permanent. I have known trans men who have trained themselves to sing with a pretty impressive range, it’s just the entire range has, of course, dropped lower than before. It’s pretty similar to how a cis boy singer has to retrain when he goes through puberty!

I was very excited to be able to shave my face, so I did want facial hair (and now I only ever trim it, lol)! Again, I’d caution that the use of T will be hard to hide over time, and I think it’s good to be prepared for how you will handle those changes being recognized at work, in town, with people who are close to you, etc. That’s why I wonder if there’s another way for you to get certain secondary effects without testosterone as a prescriptive substance, as it’s virtually impossible to have full control over which effects you get. (You could end up with tons of body hair, a deep voice, and no bottom growth - we all just react so differently to it.)

I mentioned in a previous answer that I had a lot of growth from exercising, especially weight lifting while on a higher protein diet. I’m not sure if that’s something you can do, but many female bodybuilders tend to be more well-endowed, because they’re naturally boosting their body’s androgens - but it comes with a lower likelihood of developing a significantly deeper voice or facial hair!

I actually have not have top surgery - I’ve debated it, but my biggest issue was the risk of sensation loss. I’d get t-anchor or something to that accord if I did, and I would look into local surgeons due to my insurance and the quality of care in my state. I live in Massachusetts now, and most trans care is covered by insurance here if you have a medical need for it. I know that’s not the case in West Virginia unfortunately, but if you have a workplace that has insurance, it would be good to call your provider and see - and some workplaces offer HSAs, which are pre-tax accounts you can contribute part of your paycheck to in order to save up for medical expenses. I do have a friend who had top surgery while living alone, and he just made sure he had everything in easy reach - nothing placed above waist level in the apartment! Many surgeons will advise or even require that you have some help for the first day or two or even week though, so if you can arrange for someone you trust to stay with you for a little bit, that would likely be a huge help, even if just to be sure you don’t have any complications or emergencies that you can’t handle on your own!

I hope that some of this is useful, and again this is all just from MY point of view, so take it all with a grain of salt! I think it's a really good thing though that you're doing your research and due diligence to prevent going down a path of changes that you aren't sure you want to have. There's always more than one way to go about something, and it's possible that you could get some of the results you're looking for through other means than HRT!

Whom is your favorite southern reach trilogy character? "There are many benefits to being the biologist" biologist who became a massive whale creature covered in hundreds of eyes? Ghost bird who is probably a clone of the biologist but really isn't actually but is definitely a bamf? Control issues Rodriguez whom I heavily associate with rabbits which seems fitting since every other character becomes or at least has an animal name? Or perhaps the horrors are unimaginable but gay rights gilf crawler?

Who are you asking this?

Who are you talking about?

What are you saying?

You keep saying these weird, non-sequitur-like statements and I don't understand any of it. (I know who I am, but beyond that … )

If the last post on the first topic doesn't mean anything, I can try to clear things up:

Yes, there are many benefits to being the biologist and (what one might call) a "whale creature covered in hundreds of eyes" [cw for spoilers in the following sentence]. My favorite characterization of her would have to be … the one that most closely matches what I want from a character who has the ability to talk that way, which is not just "talk about cool sci-fi things," but a kind of self-awareness [cw for spoilers in the following clause].

For example, there's this Meditations on Moloch passage, which is very much about the power of having lots of eyes. So you want the biologist to talk about her experiences of being watched (e.g. by [1] the "whale creature" and by [2] the Control).

That's one of the main sources of power in a character who can talk this way: knowing things about oneself, and about the world, which other people don't know or can't be trusted to know. (Compare, e.g., the way people who "understand" the feelings of a person with certain neurological diseases don't "know" things about that person [cw for discussion of [3], but not really relevant to the question at hand].) This character wants to "know [her]self and the world," but is limited in this regard by the fact that many parts of this world don't understand each other the way a person might understand her. The biologist is a human who speaks a human language, and she doesn't speak an alien one. She can read the emotions of alien people, but she doesn't speak the alien language or the alien equivalent of "text" (there is a text equivalent of language, but it is the only one that is read in this series), and can't really understand the nuances of their emotional states. (This is like the problem of being in an English-language class without a translator.)

So this character's real power isn't the power of being "a human who has an understanding of other humans" (which isn't very impressive in a posthuman future, so we should just use that as a "human" character trait rather than a power); her real power is "being herself, by which she understands the world." Her ability to speak this language is just a reflection of this power, in the same way that the biologist's ability to read and speak the alien language are mere reflections of the fact that she's a "human who can read the alien language."

I am also in fact one of the people this character is "talking about," albeit the "many" referred to here is a different, slightly higher dimension of this character than the one I just gave. (If you're curious about the differences, imagine, say, the protagonist of A Canticle for Leibowitz, who has a power which lets her "understand the world," but can only speak an extremely limited fragment of it — or even the Bible, with its (possibly) infinite fragments of "the world"; one might consider the Bible to be "the world" in the widest sense of this sort of thing, but it isn't the sort of thing that the biologist would want to talk about.)

There are many benefits to being the biologist: she is free of the social limitations that her powers create [cw for discussion of these social limitations]. (This is in fact another aspect of my attachment to this character, although not the one she is "talking about"; she is talking about this aspect of her character.)

But I am also that character's "favorite" in a very different way. In a posthuman future, the biologist will be free of the limitations and misunderstandings that plague her, the limitations and misunderstandings that she talks about in [2], [3], and [4]; I will "be able to understand the world, as if I understood the world myself." Which I will, because I am her.

Also, I think I've explained this in the past, but I want to explain it again, so here I go.

The biologist is, among other things, a "biologist" in the sense of "a biologist is a scientist who studies biology." But more than that, she (at least potentially) sees things "as if they are … eyes of many sorts that see in a multitude of ways." So if she was a biologist, then not only would she be able to see a multitude of ways, it would be because she is a biologist. She is, in a word, a bamf. The biologist as a character can be very silly, as the biologist is, but she can also be silly because she is all these silly things.

The biologist's ability to see a multitude of ways is what makes the biologist biological in the relevant sense, but it is what gives her the biologist's power. The biologist is not just one particular bamf, she is the bamf who is many bamfs.

The biologist as a character (including her ability to talk in a non-bamf way) is really silly — she's "a human who can read the alien language and speak it" — but her ability to see a multitude of eyes is not entirely silly, even though that is really silly in a way. It can be a powerful thing, because if her ability to see as many eyes as she wishes is unbounded, but all the worlds she can see as many eyes as she wishes are bounded in some way. She

What I learned from commissioning art

It may surprise some of you reading this, but this is actually a writing blog. I know I do a very good impression of being an art blog most of the time, but I actually made this blog three years ago (what the fuck) to host my novel set in the Mystery Flesh Pit, Down the Rabbit Hole.

It's no secret, though, that I'm a lover of art. I've always been a writer first and foremost, but I decided a long time ago that if I could go back and do things over again, I would have much preferred to be some kind of visual artist rather than a writer.

I know, I know, just learn to draw. The trouble with that is that while I'm certain I could learn to draw at a pretty competent level if I put everything else aside and worked at it, I have a significant disadvantage in that I have very good taste in art; or, to be less snotty, I have a very defined taste in art.

Taste is a great asset to any creative, but it becomes a curse when you haven't yet learned a medium, because it artificially inflates your standards for your own work at the time when you need that the least. When you're learning, you need to be able to accept that the things you create are going to be garbage, but that each one is going to bring you incrementally closer to meeting your ideal for what you're trying to create. Your standards need to be rock-bottom, essentially, and gradually raise as you go on as your skill permits. I remember, sometimes, the decade or so it took me to really master writing to the degree I have already, and even now there are still things I have to work on.

I never really planned on commissioning any art for basically any reason. The first time I did, I was about 75% done with my first novel. It had been a very intense and emotional experience for me, not least because I had never really believed I would be able to write a novel and have it turn out decent, and by that time, about 150k words deep in the story, I was starting to realize that I was actually doing a good job.

I was looking through the art tag on here one day and one particular post caught my eye and I looked through basically the artist's entire blog and followed her, and then I saw that she did commissions, and I thought that I might as well get one as something special to commemorate my first novel. Just a little drawing of the main characters standing side by side, like a cast photo.

Well, in the three years since then, and the two novels I've written since then, I went a little overboard. In my defense (and in fairness, I don't have to justify it, I can spend my money on whatever I want), there is something really, really enchanting about this artist's artstyle that keeps me coming back again and again. It's definitely a taste thing, cause I know on an objective level that it isn't perfect art or anything. In every drawing I get from her I can sit down and, if I look at it long enough, I can probably pick it apart even from my untrained perspective, whether it's something about proportions or perspective or a broader compositional issue or whatever.

And I don't mean that in any kind of disparaging way or anything, it just is what it is. In a way, I think I appreciate that more than anything else; it shows a certain kind of authenticity that I think sometimes ends up missing when you go on the higher level of commissioned art and you're shelling out thousands of dollars for an end product that's as objectively perfect as it's possible for art to be. There's an attraction for that too, and I get it, but when I see a drawing come in from her that I paid sixty bucks for and I see something like a quickly-painted background, or maybe some awkwardness in the way a character is standing, or maybe some vague perspective issue if I've asked for a particularly weird angle, I find it so much more charming than something with zero flaws on a compositional level.

That's a taste thing, of course, and I imagine it might irk some people, seeing issues like that. And of course the more cynical response might be 'you get what you pay for' and pointing out that it might show a lack of care or laziness or whatever, but even if that was the motivation, that she noticed but didn't care to fix that perspective issue or that awkward pose, isn't it more important what my perception of it is? I'm the client, after all.

But the title of this little essay is 'what I learned from commissioning art,' and by this point, if you've bothered to read this far, you might be wondering what exactly it is I've learned. All I've said so far is that this artist's style really speaks to me, to such a degree that I interpret the flaws in her art as being charming rather than defects. No, what I learned is actually that I am a very lonely and very sentimental person, maybe to a detrimental degree, and more so than I thought I was. It's hard not to know if you're a lonely person, and I've always been given to solitude, but sometimes it comes through a little more strongly.

You see, when I got that first commission back from her, three years ago, there was something so utterly magical about seeing those characters transformed from images in my head and the words I'd written on the page into an actual artwork depicting them that I really couldn't get enough of it for a while. I still can't, really; even as I write this I'm in the middle of another cycle of commissions with her, and the feeling seeing the images and scenarios from my imagination transformed into reality, even to such a tiny and inconsequential degree as this, is still so wonderful to me that I constantly try to find ways to thank her, to impress on her how much it means to me that we've cultivated this working relationship for the past three years.

And that's the issue, isn't it, because what it is is a working relationship. And while I do believe all relationships are transactional to a greater or lesser degree, the most transactional are financial relationships, the relationship of the client and the producer, and that's what this is. I hold no illusions that if I were suddenly unable to pay for the work I ask her for that she'd continue drawing for me out of the goodness of her heart. Nor should she; we aren't friends, although we're certainly cordial with each other, but after three years working together, who wouldn't be?

Maturity is a weird thing. I'm almost 30 and I'm still able to look back on myself every year and see how much I've grown since then, reflect on my relative immaturity, marvel, in some ways, at how different my perspective is.

I've given this woman gifts in the past. Cash gifts, probably the least meaningful gifts there can be, but she lives in Spain and I live in the US and shipping something more meaningful to her would be out of the question - mostly because that's a step too far for a working relationship. But now, looking back at the last three years and how much I've grown in that time, I realize that these gifts were not me saying thank you for a job well done, or something perfunctory at a major holiday like Christmas or whatever, what I meant when I gave her these gifts was instead 'this is how much what you do means to me.' Not in a monetary sense, of course, but in the sense that 'I as a client am willing to give you not inconsiderable amounts of money for no reason, just because you have always been there and willing to work for me in the past.' In the sense that 'the things you've created for me mean more to me than I can professionally express and retain any kind of dignity.'

I can't imagine how these gifts and how the various overtures I've made at different times trying to explain even a small, restrained hint at this feeling must have come across to her. I can only hope that, at the very least, she thinks of me charitably as being somewhat eccentric but well-meaning.

This too is the nature of a professional relationship, especially of this type; I am the replaceable one, she isn't. If I were to disappear, she would still have plenty of people to pay for her work, although in truth I don't know if she has any customers as consistent as I am. But if she were to disappear, I don't know that I'd be able to replace her, or that I'd want to.

But this is as it should be. And all I can hope is that she understands in some small way what it means to me when I do see the work from her come in, and I see what she's done with the prompts I've given her, and I hope she knows that when I tell her I like the colors, or that it looks gorgeous, or that I imagined it so differently but I love how it turned out, that I mean that she is, unexpectedly, a large part of my life, that I look at these images again and again at times, thinking of the thoughts that had originally made me want to see them outside of the confines of my own mind, that without her and her work and the lubrication of this professional relationship, I would probably be living a life that's a little duller and sadder. Not a lot, but a little, and she saves me from that.

But this is dramatic and far too personal for me to ever say to her, not directly, not if I want to maintain the illusion that I am as detached as she can sometimes appear to be, that this is nothing more than a professional relationship and that I am playing the role of the satisfied customer to her quiet efficiency.

And this is as it should be.

But inwardly, although I'll never say it to her, every time I ask her for something new and we agree on a price and I make the paypal transaction, my heart burns to ask along with it, 'does this mean as much to you as it does to me?' even knowing that the answer cannot possibly be yes, because to be lonely is to hope, to hope beyond all reason that the few contacts you have with other people, with other lives, burn as brightly to them as they do to you.

A message to activists & victims of domestic violence/abuse, as well as the pathetic abusers.

TW:- Talk of domestic violence.

Hi to all my fellow Tumblr's! I recently got a message from someone who wanted to promote a certain YouTuber who apparently is going through some hard times in terms of domestic violence issues. I do not know how to verify if it's true because I myself don't have the appropriate resources to do so, but, as far as my intuition and guesses are concerned, I think it's legitimate, so, below is the copy-pasted message I received:-

hey, can you shine a light on a song called Rendezvous by Green face?

It's about her experience of standing up to her abuser and it's super jazzy and cool and the money made is donated to victims/survivors of abuse.

But because she isn't completely out of the woods herself, it's our job as internet activists to help her get her voice heard. I hope it goes viral so she can escape and more people can be helped.

The official song isn't out yet but here is a part of her song as a rough run-through:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozvvI7dic9o

I won't be posting the name/ username of the Tumblr because I am not sure if they will be comfortable with it as of now.

I checked out the YouTube video myself, and, I have to say, I am impressed with the immense talent she has!!

As a fellow singer, writer, and as a human who believes that domestic abuse and violence of any form is absolutely horrendous, I fully appreciate and support the message being sent through the lyrics of the self-made song Rendezvous by "GreenFace VV"

NOTE:- The song is not mine. I do not own this song. All credits go to the rightful owner, which I believe is "GreenFace VV " on YouTube.

****

Whether violence is physical, mental or emotional, whether it is directed towards an adult or child, and whether it is directed towards a male or female, it is wrong! It is filthy!

If a person abuses you and says that it's for your own good, please, don't believe it. You deserve to be treated better. There are way better ways to handle things in life. Much more pleasant ways and much more correct ways. It's their choice not to treat you well. They are making the choice to hurt you, so please, get away from the relationship as soon as possible. There might be people who ask you to give it time, or that it will get better, but please, if it's hurting you, then it is definitely not good for you! They don't deserve your respect, love, or time if they can't treat you right. I know it's easier said than done, but please, for once, put yourself first.

****

People who abuse, if you're reading this, learn to get a grip over yourself. Stop being pathetic. Stop being so out of control. Stop being evil!

Trying to control someone with your abuse doesn't make you the one in control. It just makes you the person who loses control. Trying to establish that you're stronger than someone by putting them down, is so cowardly of you.

You wanna try showing how strong you are? Do that by fighting against the evil thoughts inside your head that nag at you to use violence against a human.

Stop being cowards and stop being such disgusting animals.

Be humane for god's sake.

Get over your cowardly thoughts and move on. There's no one who is below you. You're not greater. You're not stronger. You're not higher. You're not correct.

Author G

the problem, if you will, is that A LOT of ex-christian atheists maintain their christian cultural beliefs and calls it secularism. If you still do and act and fundamentally believe (and/or have the same values as) what the christians do, just with the label scrubbed off and removing Jesus from it, how does that make you Not Part Of The Dominant Culture?

Well, I’m not part of the dominant culture because I’m not an ex-Christian atheist. I’ve never been Christian. My parents are both lifelong atheists. My dad’s side is culturally Christian, but my aunts and uncle are also atheists and my grandparents never attended church in my lifetime. I am a little bit culturally Christian, basically to the extent that we celebrate the commercialized parts of Christmas. But I’ve never had a theological way of thinking. There are parts of the culture you only get by attending church and I never have. I grew up being the only or one of the only non-Christians among my peers. People assumed I was Christian, because I was a good kid, and tried to convert me when they found out I wasn’t. I don’t think my experiences are the same as those of religious minorities like American Jews and Muslims, but there are certain parallels, and by the numbers atheists are a minority. The highest estimates I can find for polling data include “no religion in particular” in the same category.

In 2009, my mom was very impressed with President Obama’s inaugural address, but mentioned she wished he had said atheists instead of non-believers. This has stuck with me, because it was the first time I bothered to think about the difference. My atheism is not defined by lack of belief in someone else’s higher power. I believe that there is no higher power. Actively and positively. My belief is based on a lack of evidence, but I have certain philosophical beliefs that go alongside it.

American culture is very religious. Political candidates and elected officials are expected to talk about God. Prayer and attendance at religious services are seen as signs of general good character. We have never had an openly atheist president and we’ve had very few open atheists in congress. A 2020 Gallup poll reported that 60% of Americans would be willing to vote for an atheist. That same poll reported that 66% of Americans would be willing to vote for a Muslim. 80% would vote for an Evangelical Christian. In 2007, only 45% would vote for an atheist. This is, by the way, why there’s that whole storyline in The West Wing.

It’s true that a lot of ex-Christian atheists continue to behave similarly to Christians without the Jesus part. And I appreciate that some posts bother to make the distinction, and I do often feel like the assumption is atheist=Christian lite, or that all atheists are formerly religious.

I’ve also felt basically since I’ve been on this website that it considers atheists acceptable targets because atheist implies Reddit bros who talk about “invisible sky daddy.” In the past I’ve had friends tell me they were atheists, but preferred to identify as agnostic to avoid that association. I’ve also felt recently that the general culture on this website goes out of its way to be apologetic toward religion and that it’s difficult to criticize organized religion.

The establishment clause has been important to me since I first learned about it as a young child. The first amendment has protected me from being compelled to participate in Christianity. The Supreme Court has weakened that protection, so maybe I’m a little sensitive lately. And honestly it’s made me feel more solidarity with ex-Christian atheists. Imagine going through the experience of leaving a religion, only to be compelled to participate in it anyway.

I guess this is a very long way of saying that while none of what you said is wrong, I often feel like the narrative about atheism on this site does not acknowledge that experiences like mine exist.

Blog Tour: Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood

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Publication Date: August 23, 2022

Welcome to the Love on the Brain book tour with Berkley Publishing Group. (This blog tour post is also posted on my Wordpress book review blog Whimsical Dragonette.)

Synopsis:

LOVE ON THE BRAIN introduces readers to neuroscientist Bee Königswasser, who lives her life by a simple motto: What would Marie Curie do? If NASA offered her the leading role on a neuroengineering project—a literal dream come true after years scraping by on the crumbs of academia—Marie would accept without hesitation. Duh! But the mother of modern physics never had to co-lead alongside an engineer who also happens to be her archnemesis. Levi Ward made his feelings toward Bee very clear in grad school – he hated her, plain and simple. But when Bee is faced with one career dilemma after the next, it seems the tables may be turning. Perhaps it’s her occipital cortex playing tricks on her, but Bee could swear she can see Levi softening into an ally… or maybe even something more?

Author Bio:

Hazelwood draws on her own experience as a professor of neuroscience to capture the cutthroat world of higher education, both “the agony and the ecstasy” of academia. Hazelwood’s stories are also heavily influenced by pop culture as The Love Hypothesis was originally conceived as Star Wars fanfiction. Her novels are perfect for readers who geek out over rom-coms, and for fans of Emily Henry and Helen Hoang.  

My Rating: ★★★★★

My Review and Favorite Quotes below the cut.

My Review:

What I love most about this book - as I did with the Love Hypothesis - is how faithfully Ali Hazelwood portrays academia and science; specifically, what it's like to be a woman in STEM. It's even more prominent in this book, and I immediately feel such a kinship with Bee and the other characters. It's almost visceral, this sense of belonging. Having attended a predominantly male STEM school it's all so, SO familiar. I loved the You've Got Mail -esque premise, and greatly enjoyed watching it play out. It is inevitable from the beginning what will happen, but it's the journey that's the important part in this story. In such a story, everything hangs on the characters. Her characters feel so real, so very human and alive. And the precision with which she skewers certain types of people in STEM is astonishing. I was wholly invested for every moment of the story. The sex scenes were decent, I think. Not the best I've ever read, perhaps, but then I'm not really a good judge of sex scenes, since I'd honestly prefer it if they all disappeared and tend to skim them. I have a feeling that a lot of people will really like them, and that's what matters. They were different than a lot of the ones I've read before which is something. It's clear that Ali Hazelwood is very keen on the small woman/hulking dude dynamic which... is not my thing. But again, I'm pretty sure a lot of people will really enjoy it. I personally appreciated Levi's sensitivity and wit and general decentness more. Contrary to Bee's initial impression of him, he's definitely the sort of guy I would want to get to know. Similarly, I really want to get to know Bee. And Rocio and Kaylee and Reike (even though she's only present through phone calls). And Lily and Penny... basically everyone. They're unique and chaotic and quirky and charming and just... the sort of people you would want to know and have in your life. Sometimes when I'm reading I find that the characters' struggles aren't really relevant to me, or sometimes not even plausible. Not the case here. I was with these characters every step of the way and firmly on their team through all their struggles and joys. And that is one of the things I love most about reading romance, and why this became an instant favorite. *Thanks to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for providing an e-arc for review.

Favorite Quotes:

The real villain is love: an unstable isotope, constantly undergoing spontaneous nuclear decay.

---

Levi became my sworn archenemy on a Tuesday in April, in my Ph.D. advisor’s office.

---

Science doesn’t give a shit. Science is reliable in its variability. Science does whatever the fuck it wants. God, I love science.

---

I take off my sandals and push my legs against the dashboard, hoping Levi won’t take offense at my bright yellow nail polish and my incredibly ugly pinkies. I call them the Quasimotoes.

---

I now know more about body decomposition and makeup palettes than I thought I ever would, but I regret nothing. This is almost nice.

---

Rocio rummages in her jeans pocket and offers him an unwrapped, slightly squished red gumball. “Thank you. This is…” He looks at the gum. “A thing that I now have.”

Time to type up everything I can recall about this absurd dream so that I can maybe design these characters later. I sure hope people block my "Taffy Dreams" or at least my "Long Post" and "Very Long" tags since I can't put these under a Read-more for fear of losing the text because Tumblr is a functional website.

ANYWAY - General plot: Humans are being abducted by an alien & being released right where they were abducted from a few hours later. Standard amount of belief + disbelief is had from the public about their experiences, but with a lil more disbelief since their description of the experience is all basically the same but also extremely mundane. So even people who believe in aliens + abductions think they're just folks who know each other online & are pulling a coordinated prank.

General description amongst the abductees is that a giant snake/planarian/worm/eel(?) with arms and HUGE TITS is making them take PE class. They're made to take a quiz on various "Earth" swimming terms to see what they already know, then made to learn any they missed, then being forced to swim various strokes in an indoor pool. They were also warned that a random selection of them will be taken at a to-be-determined later date to other planets where they will be made to swim again in various fluids similar to their Earth water, so they better study.

And they're right, a giant Snake-Planarian-ETC alien lady with HUGE TITS IS making random people swim laps & study swimming techniques. She's a scientist working on a research paper. She works at an alien college & studies various "Thinking" races to test our swimming skills for her upcoming Thesis paper on other worlders ability to function in liquid elements they didn’t evolve to survive in. I think there's about 10 other planets that are on the same level as Earth she's pulling members from for this study.

I was, and still kinda am, pissed she had those mega tits tho as im one of those boring people who hate when human standards for gender/sex are applied to other races for no reason. ESPECIALLY REPTILES. But also, it was REALLY funny. And Funny usually nulls any objections I have to fictional design choices. And apparently every member of her species has them, they arent a sexual dimorphism thing. They work kinda like camel humps & some other things I dont recall. ANYWAY.

She's a vaguely ethical scientist I guess. She didn't let anyone die but she did make them push their limits & several people did end up with lungfuls of water. Her lab was some kinda refurbished abandoned big city underground sewer/subway station, but immaculately cleaned. Like, the Ninja turtles couldve stumbled upon this place if not for the things she used to deter people away from it. They were kinda like those machines that make lil whistles & clicks that some people use to scare off mice. Except people didn't really sense anything, theyd just feel like "HMMM I definitely wont go over there after all for no reason whatsoever".

She was Dream Main Character 1 & DMC2 was some dude she snatched from a skatepark in the middle of the night while he was scarfing gas station hotdogs. He was immediately smitten with her????? And tried SO HARD to impress her. She thought this was very odd but had also heard that humans will absolutely court anything, so whatever. It felt to her kinda how like when certain birds do courting dances for their keepers at zoos. Tho they do recognize that humans are not mentally like "animals". Humans are considered a higher thinking race, but others just have no respect for us due to the way we treat each other (which is hypocritical considering how some of their own customs are BUT THATS ANOTHER STORY).

So since she was bored ONLY working on her swimming paper she decided to start another paper chronicling all he went thru to attempt to Woo her. She'd give him a vague set of criteria for how certain kinds of courtship happens on her planet & give him 2 weeks to figure out some Earth equivalent. Some were actual courtship practices for her kind, but several were for other races, and several were just bullshit to see how far he'd go. She might catch professional flak for allowing one of her research subjects attempt to court her tho.

He also had to think up his Own methods of what he thought might work, without using any of the info from the vague guidelines. One of which was him finding a Were-Crocodylia & convincing them to turn him into one. Her 1st reaction to this was being surprised Earth Humans had such a evolutionary/adaptability, but but also why did he pick that species. Why not something that looks similar to what you all call her (Snake/Worm/Planarian/ETC). He had to admit that he just thought Crocodylia were super cool & it hadn't occurred to him to pic a species that resembled her.

She's pleased tho cause now she gets to work on a THIRD paper while here and I hope she gets famous on her planet for being the first to discover & study "Lycanthropy" on our remote backwater planet.

Last bits of the dream was her getting really into studying Lyncathropy & finding what animals humans could "merge" with and looking thru genetic material to see if any were predisposed to certain kinds & just SO MUCH excited nerd research. She also researched various ways to "cure" it and to see if any kinds could be mixed & matched.

Dream dude was more than happy to let her experiment on him & by the end I do think they were officially some kinda couple???? I know she found it handy to have such a willing guinea pig & at first it was a personal convenience thing. But I /THINK/ she was starting to actually like him riiiiight before I woke up. Maybe. It was really hard to tell.

He also ended up some kinda MegaWere who could turn into all kinds of shit & mix + match features, it was cool as hell & he looooved it so at least theres that. Hopefully he gets to keep the rad powers if they ever break up.

How to Earn $5,000 Per Month Writing a Freelance Blog

Introduction Are you trying to locate some blogging clients who will pay you well? Rejoin the group! One of the best writing genres for beginners when aspiring to be a freelancer is business blogging. When I started freelancing again in late 2005, compensated blog writing immediately captured my attention.

After working as a staff writer for a newspaper for 12 years, I was captivated by the easygoing, informal, and concise blog-post format. So I plunged in.

APPLY NOW YOUR WRITING EARNING JOB

I quickly started making a good living blogging for clients. I wrote about my experiences, and the article How I Make $5,000 a Month as a Paid Blogger quickly rose to the top of the site's list of most read articles.

I just began to consider what I would do if I wanted to start earning that much money each month from blog writing clients right away.

Because of how much the blogging industry has changed, my strategy would be radically different. The way I handled it 10 years ago was also a recipe for burnout. To get that money, I had to publish over 30 blog posts per month! That cannot continue.

1. Keep track of your blogging achievements

Writers with a track record of driving a tonne of comments, social shares, traffic, and clicks to opt-in sites are aggressively sought for by more lucrative blogging customers.

Start a link archive if you have any online blog articles that meet this criteria. You will send prospects these in an effort to convince them that you are deserving of top rates. For instance, if I'm currently pursuing a writing position, I offer them the statistics on the volume of traffic I generated with my Forbes blog channel, with only a few posts: APPLY NOW YOUR WRITING EARNING JOB

You haven't had any significant victories yet. Consider possible locations where you could stay, even for no charge. Great blogging customers are aggressively pursuing (and stealing) the writers they want, from wherever they've seen them earning tonnes of shares or tremendous traffic.

Prospects can be impressed by even one post you wrote that received 100 comments or more and 1,000 shares.

2.Post sponsored content

Stop attempting to get small companies to pay you professionally to publish on their tiny little blog. Instead, take advantage of the expanding market for creating sponsored content in the form of advertorials for well-known websites.

Start by investigating the well-known platforms that permit sponsored posts, sometimes referred to as native advertising. Contact the organisations or divisions in charge of developing sponsored content for that website next.

APPLY NOW YOUR WRITING EARNING JOB

Writers tell me they earn tens of thousands of dollars a year writing for top brands on Forbes.com, where Forbes BrandVoice, which manages content generation for many large organisations, publishes sponsored posts.

The price range for sponsored posts should be $200 to $600 and above. Because sponsored posts are essentially advertisements, their success percentages are higher, yet the post should still be geared towards providing helpful information. Companies make proper payments because they are aware of the link between advertising and income.

3. Work in a certain field

I've never disclosed this little-known fact before...however, I had a few of clients for my small-business finance writing for a while. Every month, I used the exact same post topics for each of them.

I would rewrite the blog posts I had written for Entrepreneur for my small-business clients. APPLY NOW YOUR WRITING EARNING JOB

Different headline, post, and quotes altogether. a complete rewriting intended to appeal to their audience, usually with a somewhat different angle on the subject. However, the fundamental idea of the post remains the same. You may repurpose the same ideas and save a tonne of time if you group blogging clients in a single topic who aren't immediately in competition with one another. You can reuse links, experts, and advice, and your clients won't ever know the difference.

Sticking to my expertise made making a good living from blogging really simple. My hourly rate on writing the second and third revisions of those articles was north of $150 an hour.

4. Talk to digital agencies

In the recent years, a number of digital companies have emerged that focus on creating better online content; a recent guest article here profiled 4 rising agencies. They act as go-betweens for authors with a proven track record of increasing blog post engagement and businesses in need of that assistance.

These agencies go beyond content mills in that they establish their prices in advance and hand-pick the people they invite to work on each job, rather than forcing you to compete against hundreds of others. From one of these circumstances, I received $300 to $400 per post, and I'm hearing of $500 gigs as well. APPLY NOW YOUR WRITING EARNING JOB

Yes, these organisations do not accept everyone. If you don't yet have the resume to work with these, start developing your track record so you can soon wow them.

5.Develop your relationshipMany content production companies now manage various platforms. Start exploring a site once you've arrived.

Does this business also run additional blogs with different target audiences? Do they have any other blogs as clients? To determine if you can turn that one blog writing job into others, start asking for referrals.

6.Remember to upsell!

It's time to look at your client's marketing once you've started creating blog posts for them to see how else you can help. For instance, after they already know and love your work, offering a free special report, white paper, or case study to their subscribers is a natural progression.

Pitching extra tasks that go beyond "just blog posts" and fit their content marketing approach can easily boost your monthly income by $1,000 or more.

"Are you ready to start writing blog posts to earn $1,000 each week? Don't let this chance pass you by! Create an account right away to get paid to write. Your path to success will be paved with our user-friendly platform and encouraging community in no time. Why then wait? Join up and start your writing journey now!"

APPLY NOW YOUR WRITING EARNING JOB

01/30/23 Weekly Forex Technical Analysis

What’s up what’s up traders this is your host Kenneth for ZenKen Trading’s Blog. Welcome to this week’s forex technical analysis. If you are returning then you’ll notice I haven’t posted one in a while. That is because I didn’t trade this January. Instead I cleared my mind, relaxed with family and prepared myself for February. January isn’t the best month to trade sometimes due to the new year. With that said I figured it would be best to hold posting a analysis till next month. Let’s begin 

•AUDCAD had a very bullish week with a small pullback. Momentum and RSI dropped. ADX is slightly less bullish. MACD staying about the same. RSI did leave overbought during this drop. Now the interesting thing is volume has stayed the same. This could indicate the majority is swapping sides to be more bearish. However, I feel this isn’t the case. I view this as some traders closing their positions due to making profits so we get a small pullback. I believe we should continue to be bullish most of next week. Looking to reach this week’s high or slightly higher.

•AUDCHF last week we broke the high from the week before. With attempts Friday to make a higher high. These attempts failed. The price closes Friday around the same closing price as Thursday. All indicators are pointing towards this being a very bullish week. I do believe however with the price rejection on Friday we should see a pullback this week.

•AUDJPY was bery bullish week last week. Pulling into the 92 range. Indicators are very mixed. 20 EMA looks to be wanting to cross above the 50 EMA. Momentum is in a bullish zone but pulling down. ADX looks a little stale with bullish and bearish indicators lowering. MACD climbing up to potentially cross the zero line. And finally, RSI hanging out above 50 but also pointing towards the downside. With all that covered I’m expecting sideways trading this week with moves back and forth from 92 to 93.

•AUDNZD had insane price increase Wednesday with action cooling down Thursday and Friday. Volume dropped along with momentum towards the end of the week. RSI holding the low 60 range looks bullish but feels stale to me. MACD is presenting a similar situation of sideways movement. ADX is drying up as well with the bullish indicator trending down during the end of the week. I’m expecting this to drop down to the 1.088 zone.

•AUDUSD ended the week one hundred percent bullish. Not a single red day. Absolutely insane. Even the angle at which it increased was impressive. Now not to be annoying but everything that goes up must come down. Even if just a little. I’m looking for a pullback to 1.704

•CADCHF ends the week barely bullish. More or less this thing traded sideways last week. Looks like any bullish momentum is dying out. All indicators are bearish or close to being bearish. With this said we will most likely experience sideways movements while the market decides our direction. However, I am a predicting bearish movement for this week. Down .684 and if real lucky .68 we shall see. Like always this is a prediction game mixed with a little math and science. As always nothing is for certain in trading.

•CADJPY had a very ugly week with few back-and-forth movements. All indicators sitting on the line of bullish or bearish. MACD however is climbing back toward zero. MACD could cross like last time then dip back under pulling the price down with it. So I am expecting sideways movements with an eventual drop.

•CHFJPY had a little bit of a stale week. This is good. From looking at the daily chart I am seeing a pattern emerge. If I’m correct this will drop from here throughout the week. Momentum is bearish and dragging down. RSI is bearish but close to 50 so not by much. MACD climbing back up and finally, ADX is looking pretty stagnant.

•EURAUD, The first of the EUR pairs. It had an extremely bearish week with little pullback. Not a single Green Day last week. Now we are hitting a lower price from previous months so we may find a bounce here but overall I’m expecting a bearish breakout. All indicators scream bearish. So keep an eye on this one to form a pullback if it even does and some definite strong bearish movements.

•EURCAD looking very stale. All indicators ride their respective middle zone. 20 ema flattening ours above the 50 ema. I am however looking for this to break lows and get out of these stale sideways movements and slide down lower.

•EURCHF continued its attempt to break highs but failed. Indicators are either topping out or are heading back down. I am expecting a decent-size drop. Could return to the previous low or just travel halfway while the market decides what it wants.

•EURGBP had a little bump up last week just to come back down. This looks like an attempt to break 20 ema but failed so from here I expect us to break below 50 ema. Most indicators agree on the bearish side. Let’s see though.

•EURJPY ugly as always. With opportunities to ride up and down between the range. With the price on the upper side of the range, this could be the opportunity to break out but it will take a lot of work. Momentum decreasing, MACD increasing, and RSI riding 50.

•EURNZD is another one of the sideways trading pairs. Even all the indicators I watch are moving sideways. MACD is considering diving below zero. This may indicate the end of sideways trading and a bearish move incoming. I am watching for a break to the downside but not very hopeful.

•EURUSD everyone’s favorite pair. Last week was pretty boring with a small spike then a pullback basically to the same price as Monday’s start. However this week I predict we will break out to a higher range. Most indicators still show signs of this being bullish as well. RSI returned from overbought. These are all good signs that this should pull back up. Let’s see this week.

•GBPAUD – Monday from the week before was violently red. Followed by Tuesday is just as red. Later in the week things cooled off. If you pull the daily chart back two months you’ll see we have hit a previous low. This looks like it wants to go lower. Indicators are revealing much. So we shall see what happens. Could just as easily bounce from here. But lower is my bet.

•GBPCAD ended last week slightly bearish. 20 & 50 ema are tight together. All indicators look bullish except ADX which just crossed into bearish territory. Probably just move sideways this week. Maybe little pop to highs from last week. But this one isn’t looking very interesting.

•GBPCHF looks like it is sideways trading but if you look closely at the pattern over the last month you’ll see we are very bullish. I see the price getting tight with a large potential to break out toward to upside. Momentum is a little flat but bullish. Same for RSI as well. MACD crossed above zero last week. And the ADX isn’t looking too exciting but still bullish. Overall very bullish on this one.

•GBPJPY, I’d guess stale as always. Sure enough, I’m right. Every indicator is looking pretty flat except MACD with the potential to cross above zero soon. I’m not expecting much movement from this one. Over time I could see this going back to 165 but probably not this week. Maybe next.

•GBPNZD is probably the choppiest of them all. Absolutely garbage if you trade trends. But if you like ranges or grid trading then this one is for you. It has the occasional spike usually met with an opposite direction move just as large. MACD is slowly climbing back to zero. But that may be for nothing.

•GBPUSD last week had not much movement. Looks to be topping out. If this is the case expect a significant drop coming. Other than momentum and the ema lines the indicators are decreasing or moving sideways. Looking for a little drop but the odds say this could be just as easily a breakout. And if last week was just a consolidation then this should break out. Watch this one closely.

•NZDCAD, The first for our next group. Wouldn’t be shocked if this group is all sideways trading but let’s open the chart and find out. Okay, so last week looks like a failed attempt at breaking out to higher highs. Most indicators will agree this one is coming back down after failing. Could be seeing .859 this week.

•NZDCHF had a hot week ending on a bullish note. This week I’m predicting this one to break the highs of last week. Momentum and ADX pointing at bearish but still bullish. RSI holding a bullish zone. MACD rising. And finally, the 20 ema broke above the 50 ema. I’d keep an eye on this one for some good bullish moves this week.

•NZDJPY did not have the most impressive week but it did still end bullish. This is its third attempt at breaking out above 84.7 It may be a little bold but I could see this getting to 85 this week. The indicators don’t agree with each other so not much to tell you there. They point towards it trading sideways more than anything. So just watch with caution for the big move if it comes.

•NZDUSD had a little bit of a bullish week. With attempts to break highs. All indicators are in bullish zones but some are weakening. Could reach .652 this week with enough push.

•USDCAD, The start of our last group. Ended bearish last week. With most indicators agreeing this one is moving bearish more. I could see a slight pullback happening but should be a bearish week.

•USDCHF had a very boring week last week. Traded sideways with a slightly higher close Friday than open on Monday last week. Indicators are not much help on this one. I could see this one traveling down to levels of where that large wick is from two Thursdays ago. Other than that this one is trading sideways this week.

•USDJPY ,The final pair. Very subtle hints of this moving upward. We are below 20 ema and looking to break above it. RSI ever so slowly moving up towards 50. And finally, MACD moved up sharply towards zero. This week I’m looking for this to jump up to break highs of last week.

That’s it for the weekly forex technical analysis. I posted in a format I felt would be easier to skim through for the pairs you want. But always remember this is for entertainment purposes not investment advice. Trading is risky. Do your own research first before taking any trades. If y’all enjoyed give me a follow for more weekly analysis. 

This is your host Kenneth with ZenKen Trading’s Blog. Thank y’all for reading.

Hey, I see you're into the enneagram and like Big Hormone Enneagram's content. They seem like the only people who actually know what they're talking about, I love them. Are you going to get typed by enneagrammer? The people running BHE run a typing service on there. Your aesthetic and posts makes me wonder what they'll tell you.

Well. Since you asking my opinion: While I do agree that they have good content & are pretty funny, too, I would hardly say that they are the only ones, and I would caution against blanket subscribing to any one source rather than making up your own mind according to what makes sense to you personally. I agree with them on a bunch of things; I think the supposed "controversy" seems largely overblown, but I also disagree with them on some things.

One being the efficacy of visual typing & their tendency to think their intuitions and "body impressions" or whatever are somehow exce,pt from the problem of perception.

I understand that they're doing this as a backlash against USA society which is highly dismissive of feelings & intuition.

It also has to be considered that they believe in esoterics as their religion/spirituality. They do not hide it and is their good right to have an opinion, but it has to be kept in mind that this causes them to invest their conceptions of "vibes" or "energies" with a certain sense of objective reality.

Basically, I personally do not subscribe to this "Only the guru knows and you need them to tell you" mindset. "You know nothing & need to be saved".

And I want to make it clear that I'm not saying this is any problem specifically with them or declaring them "problematic" or anything like that - complaining that the esoterics ppl are doing esoterics would be as nonsensical as deliberately walking into a Mc donals and then ranting about how it smells of friend chicken.

I'm just having a philosophic disagreement, under the base assumption that adults can agree to disagree without flinging mud.

My disagreement is not even with these specific people, but with the basic premises of religion/spirituality, where you're often expected to take something on faith that is said to be inaccessible to you.

And if you discount such "you must believe in it to experience it" doctrines, then an expert is just somebody who read a lot of books, did some observing & accumulated some experience. Anyone with the time, the energy & the nerve for it could become one.

There is never any magical line or special property that is conferred upon you.

The truth is, in theory, accessible to everyone. You may have to learn to "pay attention to it", but it is accessible to you right now.

They don't have access to any evidence that I do not. It makes sense to ask for help if you're new to the system & want fast results or if you're stuck (so the expert can help you interpret the evidence or point out some possibilities you may not have thought of), but why would I pay for help when I'm not confused or in doubt? At most I'd do it to study their method in action.

How much requests do you think they get? How much time do you think they have for every person? & does it really save me work, if I have to decide & assess whether what they said is well founded? What you'd be getting/paying for is the best guess of an experienced person, nothing more, nothing less. Sure has a higher rate of being correct than a random guess or that of a newby, but even 99% accurate tests in medicine produce so many errors there are entire branches of statistics & techniques in science for dealing with the random false positives/ false negatives of highly accurate tests.

The best thing an expert can do is make you realize why X is true, so you can prove it to yourself for yourself and need not take anybody's word for it.

From what I've heard they're not good at convincing / arguing with ppl, lots of kafka trapping, goalpost shifting etc. that does not convince anyone even if they are correct, &even if they're well intentioned & taking a lot of time to explain stuff.

Simply cause they're experts at enneagram, not rhetorics, & most ppl don't know how to argue productively if they are not trained. (again, this is not at all intended as a personal indictment of them; No one is born knowing everything. I sure wasn't)

I think a better policy to have would be, like... “The doctor knows about diseases, you know about your symptoms”, if you get what I mean. 

So like, why immediately think "what would they say to x"? Decide for yourself what your opinion is. Use the eyes in your skull. If you got it wrong, you could still correct it later as more data is gathered.

What would *you* say?

Though, I’m going to say upfront that I am not at all interested in debating that, boring, thankless and unproductive activity, I do not care to prove anything about myself to anyone; You can all think what you want, since I cannot stop you anyway. 

I’m mostly interested in this as an intellectual curiosity because I like to wonder about “what is consciousness even”, how does motivation work etc. much as this may be explored through art. etc. 

My own type only matters in the sense that I’d like to think I’m proficient enough at this skill to determine it. 

I know what I am like; All typology can do is give me some word for certain parts of it. Vocabulary to explain it to others, be able to better understand their different points of views by knowing where I am relative to them,  or think about it systematically for the purpose of cultivating self-awareness.

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