When I was a child, a woman once told me that the human heart is capable of mustering approximately two billion beats before it dies. Before it expires.

On my twelfth Halloween, I tried to calculate my own expiration date. I waited until all was quiet and dark in the house and pressed a thumb to my wrist, counting the beats for a minute. After saying my BPM aloud to myself, I turned to look at the family calculator and burst into tears.

I am still much too afraid to do what I attempted at 12. I will never cease to be afraid.

Every time my mother embraces me--every time I hear her heartbeat through her grey cotton sweater, I am afraid.

Every time my father’s breath comes in a puff of wintertime fog, I am afraid.

Every time I love someone who will die, I am afraid.

It’s chaos.

It’s chaos it’s chaos it’s chaos.

Why is everyone wearing gas masks and black shirts? Why are there police in helmets and shields and armor? What is this chanting, this yelling, those warning flags, why is everyone suddenly running, oh shit, should I run with them?

I’d expected to be lost and confused, but not this lost and confused. Maybe I should’ve gone straight to my provided housing unit when I’d been let out of the facility in the daytime, instead of sitting on a park bench for 5 hours just to rest and soak up the vitamin D. Maybe I should’ve gone straight to my housing unit after I’d finally gotten off the park bench, instead of wandering the strange, bright streets until I found myself in this mess.

And now, here I am, in the middle of some odd frenzy of odd people, panicked out of my dumbass mind.

They’re kids, most of this masked group, just kids; half of them are teenagers, and 85% of them don’t look a day over 25.

I run with them. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I run with them, away from the advancing police line, away from the makeshift barricade of metal signs and bamboo sticks and uprooted railings. I run with them as someone yells at me, “No gear? Are you crazy?” I run with them as someone shoves a surgical mask and a pair of safety goggles towards me, as someone else slams a hardhat onto my head, as a third person presses an umbrella into my hands. I run with them as the bang of a launched projectile echoes between the too-tall buildings enclosing the narrow street, as the metal cylinders land at our feet, as white smoke pours out of them and stings my eyes, my throat, my skin. At the edges of my blurred vision, I see several people rush towards one of the smoke-spewing canisters. One of them covers it with a large orange and white cone, while the others pour water over the ground around it.

Is this even Hong Kong? What the hell is going on?

I half scream, half choke my question into the crowd, and several of the black-clad youngsters shout words of agreement, but none answer my question. I follow the group as it ducks through a side street and flows into an adjacent road, away from the clouds of spreading fumes. I can barely see; the tears won’t stop flowing. I suspect some of them are not from the chemicals, but from fear.

I stop in the side street, blind, and bend over, eyes and throat burning. “Did you get gassed?” says a voice to my left, and I nod, coughing too hard to speak. “I’ll wash your eyes,” says the voice. “Tilt your head back and to the side.” I do as it commands, and warm liquid is poured into my left eye. “Now the other side.” I obey, and my right eye is flushed as well.

I blink away the liquid, eyes still stinging but not quite so badly anymore, and see that my savior is a short teenage girl, masked and goggled, a translucent bottle of what I assume is water in her hands. “Thank you,” I croak, but she’s already moved past me, and is pouring water into the eyes of a young man so much taller than her that he has to squat.

Spread around me are more black-clad youths, some with umbrellas strapped to their backpacks, some wearing thick rubber gloves, and almost all in goggles, helmets, and masks. “Hey, what is this?” I cough out, approaching an idle-looking man leaning against a street railing. Like many of the other people here, he looks to be in his early 20s. “What’s going on?”

He looks at me, confused, for a moment, before answering. “First time eating smoke?” he asks, and continues without waiting for a response. “It hurts, but you’ll get used to it. I’ll give you water to rinse your mouth.” He reaches into his bag and passes me a bottle. “Spit it out, don’t swallow.” I do as he says, and the burning in my throat and mouth subsides a little. I start to hand him back the bottle, but he shakes his head. “Keep it. Oh, and this is to wash your eyes.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out two thumb-sized plastic capsules of clear liquid, which, upon closer inspection, are labelled as saline solution.

“I mean, what’s going on?” I press, now that I can speak properly. “Why are they gassing us? Why is everyone dressed like this? Why are we running from the police? Why are they even chasing us in the first place? What’s with the helmets? What the hell has happened to Hong Kong?”

He stares at me again, the look of puzzlement back on his face, then nods. “Yeah,” he agrees, “it’s crazy. I don’t know what’s happened. 2014 seemed bad, but this is a whole new world of fucked up.” He pushes himself forwards, off the railing. “I’m heading back out,” he says. “Be careful. Be water.” And then he’s off, walking towards the road we just ran in from, opening his umbrella even though the night sky is sunless and clear, leaving me with more questions than I started with.

It takes several more tries before I find anyone who actually explains, or at least attempts to explain, the mess I’ve wandered into: a group of teenagers sitting on the empty road, all swiping their fingers across glowing rectangles they hold in their hands. Looking around me, I see that almost everyone who is not walking or talking or hauling various objects around is holding a rectangle of their own, staring at it as if it is their lifeline.

“What, have you been out of town for a long time?” asks one of the teenagers, a boy with some kind of shiny transparent film wrapped around his forearms.

“Something like that,” I say. There’s no way they’ll believe I’ve been frozen in a lab for 67 years, and I’m trying to get answers, not questions.

“And you haven’t been following the news? At all?”

“I just got back,” I say mock-defensively, “and I’ve been away for so long. I grew up overseas. I don’t really have family here anymore.”

The looks of disapproval don’t leave the teens’ faces, but one of them launches into explanation. They’re protesting, she says, they’ve been out on the streets since the beginning of June. The Chinese and Hong Kong governments have broken the treaty they signed with the British in ’97. It all started with the extradition law, which she won’t get into now, I should just search it online (on what line?), but basically, the Chinese government is infringing on Hong Kong’s autonomy (we have autonomy?), the Hong Kong Police Force is abusing their power and has acted violently against peaceful protestors, and the government refuses to acknowledge any wrongdoing. Five demands, she tells me, it’s five demands, remember, five demands, but I should just search that, I won’t understand it if she tries to explain it to me now, they have to get back to the frontline, the frontline needs backup. The closest subway station has been shut down (what the hell is a subway?), but if I walk that way (she gestures), I’ll reach another one in about 20 minutes, and I should go home or to my hotel or wherever now, I should really go if I don’t know what’s going on, it’s not safe out here, the police are closing in from both the east and the west.

She stands up, and the rest of the group follows in suit, turning towards the road we’d run in from. “Oh,” says the forearm-wrap boy, turning back to face me, “and download Telegram on your phone.” He waves his glowing rectangle in the air. “It’s where you’ll get all the news and safety updates, police locations, and transportation information.” And then he turns and walks away with the rest of them, and I’m left standing alone in the street, still confused, still so, so confused.

I walk in the opposite direction of the group, towards the “subway,” or whatever that kid said I should head to. On the road adjacent to the one we’d fled from, there is a two-lane human chain of more protestors, frantically passing cardboard, umbrellas, helmets, goggles, bottles of water, and strange supplies I can’t identify in the direction opposite to where I am heading. “It’s raining!” someone yells, and suddenly, they all open their umbrellas, though the sky is still bone-dry. I see a flash of movement between the two lines of people and hear the scrape of metal being dragged along the ground, but can’t see through the colorful wall of umbrellas shielding whoever and whatever are making the noise. And then as quickly as they were lifted, the umbrellas are closed and lowered, and the protestors are back to passing supplies.

“Liberate Hong Kong!” comes a shout, and I nearly jump as the cry “Revolution of our times!” resounds from all around me in response.

I am lost, I am confused, I am exhilarated, and I have absolutely no idea what destination I am walking towards.

I have been asleep for far too long.

if you're reading this, you've probably already noticed my lack of capitalisation. maybe that made you click away. maybe that made you continue reading. if you do choose the latter, then thank you for giving me a chance.

this is not an academic essay: i'm not going to pull up statistics or surveys with the most detailed variables and try to convince you to trust me based on an inane number of experiments and observations. what i'm going to do instead is try to tell you why the concept of 'good' writing, at least to me, is obsolete, based on personal experiences.

i'm not going to lie- i've held different views for a very long time- and tended to agree with the more popular opinion, that writing on social media platforms such as instagram have led to the gradual downfall of pristine writing. but as i've continued to read and write and hopefully become better at it, i've found one thing that was common across platforms- and that is the amount of love that writers have for their craft. it's the fact that a person with a couple of followers on instagram continues to post excerpts from their notebook, whether it gains traction or not, and the fact that an author published by the new york times has the same passion towards his writing.

and to me, that is important, and it is beautiful. because your writing is important: the messy kind of writing, the poems you scribble down at coffeshops, the late night half-written epiphanies, the no-holds-barred notes app haikus typed on bus rides, the frenzied text messages at 3 a.m., the letters to ex-best friends you will never send, the writing that stews in your inbox, rejected from two publications because it just wasn't a right fit for them at the moment, the angry writing, the sad writing, the euphoric writing. all of it.

and i guess what i'm really trying to say is that your writing does not have to be good to mean something to people. it just has to be.

For almost five years, Prose has a been a safe haven for me where I could write whatever I wanted for people who actually cared to read whatever story I had to tell. What first drew me to this site was the fact that you didn’t have to pay, as I was quite young when I first joined. Not only that, but the lack of restrictions on what you could and couldn’t write gave me--and everyone else--freedom to pursue their craft in whatever way they wanted.

The supportiveness of the community here is astounding. From day one, others on this platform welcomed me, guided me, and looked out for me. When I wasn’t on the site as often, they would check in to make sure I was okay.

And in the past year or so, things have been changing. I understand the need to add a subscription to help keep this site going. That’s totally okay and I was very glad that it wasn’t forced on everybody like it is on other writing sites. However, particular users have used their membership to treat other users here as less-than or undeserving of the rights to post here. That is not, and never should be, acceptable. Nobody should ever be shamed or bullied or made to feel like they’re doing something wrong because they can’t afford even five dollars amonth for Prose Gold. It’s not their fault if they’re working hard to get through college or too young to have a job and can’t afford it.

I have kept my mouth shut on a lot of the issues I have noticed cropping up around here, simply because I don’t like causing issues or calling people out, but things are really getting out of hand. I’m not here to just rant as that won’t get us anywhere--I’m here to present the problems and then suggest solutions.

1. MASS TAGGING

The problem:

A lot of users have become upset due to the mass-tagging that has been going on around here. And I’ll agree, it’s a bit frustrating to have your notifications bogged down by users you don’t even know or follow.

The solution:

The easiest solution here is to just be respectful: don’t tag random people who don’t follow you, haven’t asked to be tagged in your work, or have asked you not to tag them. But obviously, people have continued to do it anyway. So the next step is to ask them politely to not tag you in the future and if they persist, just block them.

I think if Prose really wants to improve this site and go that extra step, a nice feature they could add would be something like the notification bell on Youtube. Put a button or something on the profile pages so if someone wants to be notified when a user they like posts something new, they can hit that. And boom, they get a notification every time a new post is made.

2. MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS

The problem:

This is a big problem, though not the biggest one (we’ll talk about that one later). I’m not sure how many of you have noticed the increase of fake accounts with no profile pic, no posts and no followers, usually only following Prose and the person who created these fake accounts. I myself, have found many users doing this, particularly in the challenges where the entries with the most likes win. A fellow Proser messaged Prose about this issue, but they never did anything about it. All of those fake accounts are still up, despite extremely damming evidence; the likes are still there, the challenges have been won by people who did not deserve to win. Such a big issue cannot continue to be brushed to the side.

The solution:

This is not that difficult of an issue to fix, which is why I’m a bit confused and upset as to why it hasn’t been dealt with. It’s this simple: you can’t follow, like, or comment on a post unless your email address has been verified. Almost no one is going to create 70 email addresses to win a challenge. Or maybe they will but at least further steps to prevent it will be made.

3. NEW AUTHORS

The problem:

This is not everyone. In fact, it’s just a very, very, very small number of people who are upset or annoyed by the recent influx of young authors from another writing site. As they are quite young, some feel that their posts are “dragging down the quality” and are not talented enough to be here. One user even went as far as to message other Prosers to berate them for liking a post by one of these younger authors because they felt that kids didn’t deserve to be there. Not only that, but this same user commented disparaging and rude remarks under their posts as well, then deleted them when called on it.

The solution:

First of all, if you think new writers are an issue, you’re part of this problem. We all started somewhere. There is no such thing as a perfect writer and it takes a lot of time and practice and bad drafts to hone your skill. If you don’t like a post or a story, just keep scrolling.

4. THE BULLYING

The Problem

This has, unfortunately, become an increasing problem. I have only noticed one user in particular partaking in this under the guide of “constructive criticism” and “feedback.” Nobody has a problem with actual, helpful feedback and pointing out issues and offering solutions in a polite manner. HOWEVER there is a big difference between that and commenting that you hate everything about someone’s post and listing everything you think that makes it terrible. Or commenting under someone’s post where they talk about a struggle in their daily life and saying you think it’s a made-up issue people like being the victim of. None of us are better than any of the other writers here and it’s disgusting to see someone acting like this. What makes me even angrier, however, is the fact the victims of this person feel the need to apologize as if it’s their fault that this person is upset. News flash: it’s not. And this is where we get to the part that probably will get me a lot of hate. For this very reason, I have kept my mouth shut for a long time and just let things slide but I can’t do that anymore, not when all of Prose is about to change because of one person who can’t stop complaining, causing problems, bullying, and then dipping without having to deal with any of the consequences of her actions.

I do not like naming names or calling people out, like I already said. Especially since this could result in ME getting kicked from this site or garner me hate. But after I and many other users have notified Prose of this person’s actions, with evidence, they continued to do nothing.

And I think here is where I should make it clear that this woman is the same person who messaged Prosers and berated them for supporting young writers, insulted and tore them, then complained that SHE was being bullied when she was called out on it and reported to Prose. She also called them terrible, awful kids, said they dragged down the quality of the site and had no right to be here and she hated when they entered her challenges. She has three accounts in total, all premium, and since she has stated she believes her subscription keeps Prose afloat, she feels like she has more say than the rest of us. Which should not be true, but it seems Prose is intent on keeping her happy. Even if that means allowing bullying to go in the mean time.

Many of you may know this user as Finder, who recently wrote a post complaining once again about how Prose has changed for the worse due to young writers. And then likened being called out for being extremely rude to them to “verbal gang rape” which crosses a line. Sexual assault is not a joke; it’s not funny, and it most certainly should not be thrown around like . It’s insulting to actual victims to have their experiences equated to being called on the carpet for bullying kids. Currently, she has deactived her account, claiming she won’t be back, at least right now.

However this is a pattern if behavior with her: say something rude, mean, or disparaging on a post, get backlash from it, delete said comments, deactive whichever account she used to make said comments, then come back when she thinks the dust has settled. Every time Prose is notified, they do nothing and she remains unpunished. And the cycle just repeats, with her actually reporting me and other users for bullying her by telling her her remarks were uncalled for.

As a veteran of Prose with five odd years under her belt and three different premium Prose accounts (though I must say I don’t know if all three are still activated as after the group project fiasco she was involved in, she deactivated/changed the name her joytotheworld account), she also seems to have a good relationship with the people running Prose.

I do not want to point fingers but the only solution for this issue is for Prose to actually take responsibility, stop giving preferential treatment, and stop doing things simply because Finder complains. In fact, the most recent changes that Prose is talking of implementing came after Finder made her post ripping on the newbie writers and saying their nannies needed to come pick them up.

I know some of you here are friends with Finder. I do not want hate sent her way, and I hope you will not send any unnecessary hate my way, either. At the end of the day, I want this to become a better place for everyone. But that’s not going to happen of we--and especially Prose--don’t do their part.