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somewhere out there right now is a kid with curly hair being raised by people who have wavy hair at best and those people are giving them 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner and telling them to dry brush it. and that kid is gonna spend all of middle school and high school hating their hair and moping over the flat iron. they're being told right now that if they don't dry-brush their curl pattern into oblivion every morning it means they're unkempt and gross even though they naturally have the kind of ringlets that a thousand bridezillas would commit horrible murders for every june. it's happening right now it's an absolute epidemic and a tragedy every time

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All that clunky activism RTD has been writing into the show and THIS is the finale

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I want to thank everyone in the notes who has said such kind words about my silly little analysis and who has opened up about similar experiences in their own lives, it’s been so lovely to read through and to know I’m not so alone in this struggle. If you’d like to read more thoughts about masking in general and how I’ve personally began unlearning it, you can check out these ramblings I came out with in response to an anon about this topic. Ragatha tadc you bring the autistic community together I love you Ragatha tadc

I cannot stop thinking about Episode 5 of TADC because Ragatha is, however unintentionally, one of the best examples of how isolating and difficult it is to interact with the world as an autistic person I have ever seen. To the point it genuinely makes me sad to think about her. I need to make a post expanding on this at some point but rn just. The way everyone assumes there’s some sinister hidden meaning to everything she does and says but she’s literally just trying to be nice and she doesn’t understand why it’s not working. The way she tries so hard to make connections but it constantly falls flat, she says things that hurt without realising how or why. She follows the rules she’s been taught will make her friends — she’s kind, she’s forgiving, she’s accepting and apologetic when she messes up, but for some reason it’s just not working. She tries to mimic other people, she tries to laugh at past experiences, tries to open up about her past like everyone else is doing, but now everyone’s uncomfortable and looking at her like she’s crazy and she doesn’t get it!! She doesn’t get it!!! Jax is a jerk and he’s mean to everyone but for some reason Pomni likes him and she doesn’t get it, she doesn’t understand! Pomni tells her it’s okay to be a jerk sometimes but Ragatha doesn’t like being mean, she wants to be nice to people, but she does it anyway, she gets mean like Jax and Zooble do but now Pomni’s looking at her like she’s done something wrong but she just did what she asked her to!! She doesn’t get it!! At the end of the episode everyone goes off into their groups and Ragatha is left alone, after having tried so hard to make friends and fit in and make people like her, she’s still alone, and everyone thinks she’s weird and unapproachable and she just has to give up and accept that she is inherently unloveable. Her evil alter ego tells her she’s going to die alone and nobody loves her and the only thing she corrects her on is the fact that they can’t die here. The few that might like her when she’s around don’t miss her when she’s gone, because there’s nothing to miss. Ragatha has spent her whole life systematically stripping away everything that makes her different and unlikeable in order to make herself more palatable to others, and in the process she has made herself a personalitiless blank slate with no unique identity for others to latch onto and appreciate. She has nothing to add to any conversation because she’s too afraid of being disliked to have a memorable personality beyond being generally polite and nice. And just. God. Someone get this girl some noise cancelling headphones and a therapist on speed dial, being this good of a representation of what it’s like to be autistic, especially to be an autistic person with trauma, is not good for the soul. That final shot just destroys me right in the heart. My poor girl.

[blaithnne]

Hey, so, this might sound weird, but your post about Ragatha tadc is seriously fucking me up. But thank you for writing it! I've had to face a lot of hard truths over the past few hours lol. I hope it's ok that I talk a little about what I mean.

I have known that I'm autistic for years, but I've never once considered that I mask in public, let alone mask at all. I've always struggled with making friends, and even when I did, I never felt like I was close to anyone. I never understood what I was doing wrong. I'm kind and cheerful, and I try to see the bright side of things and help people where I can. I always thought that was my genuine personality, and I think I am, but now I think I'm realizing I put on an act for people.

The latest episode of tadc stuck with me right after I watched it. I connected with Ragatha in a way I hadn't before, but it wasn't until I read your post that I understood why and realized all of this. She's the first character in a long time where I can say, "Oh. She's me. Literally me."

I don't even know who I really am anymore. I've spent so long sanding down my edges and trying to fit in, and never be annoying or considered uncool, that I don't think there's anything underneath my mask.

Anyway, I'm sorry for venting all of this unprompted. I just wanted to thank you again for making that post. It really meant a lot to me. I hope you have a wonderful day.

Oh dude, thank you so much for sending this in because you are REAL ASF!!

I think the best part about my Ragatha post getting so much traction is the amount of people who have opened up about relating to it. I mentioned briefly in the tags of that post that I wasn’t actually sure if what I was talking about was a common autistic experience or if it was really just a me thing, it’s something I had chalked up to autism after some personal introspection but not something I’d ever seen anyone discuss. I made the post in the first place because it was an angle I hadn’t seen anyone highlight. So it’s been really comforting to find out that I’m not alone in this struggle, and if this post has helped you figure out something new about yourself then that’s truly an honour.

Masking is weird. Autism is weird! We as autistic people tend to take things very literally, which extends to the definitions of our symptoms. We’ll be asked whether or not we take everything literally, and we’ll think “well no, I don’t take every single thing I hear literally, so I don’t do that”, without realising that we’re doing it right there and then! I think it’s the same with masking, or at least it was with me. I always thought masking was more intentional, a choice one makes — a mask you can take on and off at will, but it isn’t, and that’s what makes it so hard to deal with.

Masking is something you learn to do from a young age, it’s a learned behaviour which become almost instinctual. This makes it really fucking difficult to unlearn, because by the time you realise you have to, you’ve already built your identity around the walls you’ve put up, and now it’s up to you to figure out what’s real and what’s fake, what you need to keep in order to survive in this world, and what you need to discard for the very same reason.

I spent years of my life terrified of being disliked, because for a very long time I was. So I learned how not to be, I learned to be polite and quiet and funny and I built my identity around being those things. I learned what everyone in my life liked, what different social groups valued, and I became a copy of whoever I was talking to. Every friend I made would talk about how we had the exact same sense of humour, because I only laughed when they did. I have forever sworn off playing Cards Against Humanity, because I realised that when you build your identity and value your self worth around the idea that you’re the funny one, putting yourself in a situation where your ability to make others laugh is judged and ranked is ridiculously stressful. It’s funny the things that prompt realisations about yourself.

Eventually I realised that in making myself a perfect copy of everyone I interacted with, I had robbed the people around me of the chance to get to know me. What would people think of when I was gone, what would they miss? How can you miss someone who only mimics you, who’s just sort of generally nice and not really much else. I had no unique identity, no personality for people to latch onto. I used to take pride in the fact that even those who were notorious for disliking others still liked me, until I realised it was only because I had provided them with no unique identity to dislike. I realised that at least if I was hated, I was thought of, I was known for who I was and not for what I did. I was appreciated when I was around but not missed when I was gone and that realisation absolutely killed me. But I also think it sort of saved me.

Realising you’re masking is the first step to unlearning how to do it. It’s a long process, it’s one I’m still undergoing, but it’s so worth it. Finding your voice and your identity is absolutely a worthwhile endeavour, but that doesn’t make it easy. The hardest part for me was finding the courage to be disliked, accepting that not only was it inevitable that some people would dislike me, it was actually a good thing! Those things that some people will hate about you — maybe you talk too much, or you’re often quite grumpy — are the very same things which others will love about you. You have to give people a person for them to get to know, to be drawn to, not a perfect copy of themselves who can satisfy their every desire and laugh at all their jokes.

You don’t need to be perfect, nobody really wants you to be. You have to be you. You have to figure out who that is. You have to allow yourself the space to be messy and ugly and weird and unique, you have to learn not to care what people think about you, and oh my god that’s the hardest thing in the world. I’m talking here with a lot of authority and like I know all the answers, but I only came to this realisation within the past two years, after I graduated high school and moved away from everyone I’d ever known growing up, and finally got my diagnosis. I’m still bad at remembering this stuff, I still automatically put on a front when I talk to people, because I still don’t know exactly who I really am without the mask. And even the parts of me I do know, I struggle to figure out how to show them in a socially acceptable manner. I struggle to approach conversations in a way that’s not methodical and quite calculated, because I don’t know how else to.

But I’m also getting better, bit by bit. I’m learning to work with my autism and not against it, accepting that I will interact with the world differently from others, and some people might not like that, and that’s okay. I’m learning to uncover who I am, the hints of my true identity peaking through the mask. Maybe it’s okay to approach conversations a little methodically — I recently learned that when people start up small talk by asking about the weather or some such thing, it’s usually not actually because they care about the weather, it’s because they want to talk to you! They’re just looking for a way to start a conversation, they’re saying “I don’t know what to say to you right now, but I want to talk to you, so I’ll start with this.” Isn’t that so sweet? All these things that neurotypical people know instinctively, I’ve had to learn manually, and it’s given me a greater understanding and appreciation for the people around me.

I have a terrible memory, but I’ve learned to memorise almost everything when it comes to my friends and what makes them comfortable and happy and what their lives are like, and that’s not bad information to have in the slightest. What’s important is that you don’t build your identity around that information, you allow yourself to use the knowledge youve acquired over the years you’ve spent masking without it consuming you, use it to help you but not to define you. All this stuff is just tools to give people a bridge to get to know the real you, so make sure there is a real you for them to get to know. You’re beautiful and unique, there is somebody absolutely wonderful underneath that mask of yours, and it’s your job to give people the honour of getting to find out who that is. If someone doesn’t like what they find, that means you’re doing a good job. You’ve shown them what you’ve got and they’ve made their decision, and now you’re one step closer to finding someone who’ll appreciate you. If you hadn’t shown them the real you, you might’ve spent years following that person around and let them befriend your mask, only making it harder for you to open up to them after you’ve gotten to know them better.

You know another thing I’ve learned about myself lately? I ramble a lot! I go on and on and on and my big long paragraphs will surely annoy some people, but if just one person reads this and it helps them, then it’s worth it. Besides, it helped me quite a bit to write it all down. Thank you for sending this ask in anon, I hope life treats you well, and I wish you the absolute best of luck in finding your identity. I have a feeling you’re going to like what you find!

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I felt inspired

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I cannot stop thinking about Episode 5 of TADC because Ragatha is, however unintentionally, one of the best examples of how isolating and difficult it is to interact with the world as an autistic person I have ever seen. To the point it genuinely makes me sad to think about her. I need to make a post expanding on this at some point but rn just. The way everyone assumes there’s some sinister hidden meaning to everything she does and says but she’s literally just trying to be nice and she doesn’t understand why it’s not working. The way she tries so hard to make connections but it constantly falls flat, she says things that hurt without realising how or why. She follows the rules she’s been taught will make her friends — she’s kind, she’s forgiving, she’s accepting and apologetic when she messes up, but for some reason it’s just not working. She tries to mimic other people, she tries to laugh at past experiences, tries to open up about her past like everyone else is doing, but now everyone’s uncomfortable and looking at her like she’s crazy and she doesn’t get it!! She doesn’t get it!!! Jax is a jerk and he’s mean to everyone but for some reason Pomni likes him and she doesn’t get it, she doesn’t understand! Pomni tells her it’s okay to be a jerk sometimes but Ragatha doesn’t like being mean, she wants to be nice to people, but she does it anyway, she gets mean like Jax and Zooble do but now Pomni’s looking at her like she’s done something wrong but she just did what she asked her to!! She doesn’t get it!! At the end of the episode everyone goes off into their groups and Ragatha is left alone, after having tried so hard to make friends and fit in and make people like her, she’s still alone, and everyone thinks she’s weird and unapproachable and she just has to give up and accept that she is inherently unloveable. Her evil alter ego tells her she’s going to die alone and nobody loves her and the only thing she corrects her on is the fact that they can’t die here. The few that might like her when she’s around don’t miss her when she’s gone, because there’s nothing to miss. Ragatha has spent her whole life systematically stripping away everything that makes her different and unlikeable in order to make herself more palatable to others, and in the process she has made herself a personalitiless blank slate with no unique identity for others to latch onto and appreciate. She has nothing to add to any conversation because she’s too afraid of being disliked to have a memorable personality beyond being generally polite and nice. And just. God. Someone get this girl some noise cancelling headphones and a therapist on speed dial, being this good of a representation of what it’s like to be autistic, especially to be an autistic person with trauma, is not good for the soul. That final shot just destroys me right in the heart. My poor girl.

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Hi first post more to come lateur

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God Ragatha always being belittled and made to feel guilty for not being perfectly demure and well-behaved and facing backlash for just being herself. And then people hate her for doing what she was told to her entire life. And then she finally does what they tell her to do and then just give her mortified looks for it. Making Ragatha feel guilty for expressing negativity like her mother all over again. Girl could start hallucinating her mother’s face over everyone else’s and it’d make perfect sense for her state of mind. She’s been haunted by her mother and shaped by her mother and is now trying to be a mother to her own adult peers because being a woman is fucking insane.

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big fan of Whatever the Fuck is going on with Jax and Pomni

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drawing people i see in the city (59/?)

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propaganda i am not falling for:

always moving on. some goodbyes need to rot a little. some griefs need to be held in the mouth like a stone.

beauty defined by algorithms. beauty exists in crow feet and smile lines

pretending to be chill. i’m not chill. i care deeply and inconveniently. i read into things. i write poems about eye contact

beige apartments with no soul. give me bookshelves and incense and loud art

sneaky links and unclear intentions. i want devotion. and also clarity

treating books as decor. read them. dog-ear them. argue with them in the margins

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The Rani was already living underneath Cherry Sunday's flat for who knows how long (Ruby only moved there recently during her A Levels after growing up in Manchester, but she seems very familiar with her so maybe grew up seeing her on visits down to London), before the Doctor ever even showed up.

And she only had a reaction to the TARDIS after seeing it dematerialise.

Dropping her shopping bags in shock does not seem like the reaction of a character for whom this is part of their plan... was she retired, 'hiding herself away'? Did seeing the Doctor's TARDIS kick her current plan into motion? Her disposition changes completely the next time we see her; she sits out in her chair and observes the events as they proceed, and wishes Ruby luck before she steps onboard.

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the point was she wanted to get back to may 24th at 7:30 am cause she had a shift. she had a shift that she needed to get to cause she was a nurse and god knows hospitals don't function without them. she had a shitty flat with annoying roommates, and she drank expired milk for dinner.

she wanted to go back to that, not cause it was extraordinary, but because it was hers. she had carved a life for herself where she could help other people and it was enough for her.

she didn't need the stars, she didn't need some far away galaxy to tell her what she'd always been. and she definitely didn't need another doctor to try and show her what she's known all along.

she wasn't someone's daughter, she wasn't someone's mother. she didn't have to go back she had to be something for someone else, she wanted to go back because she wanted to be something for herself.

the point was... she wanted to get back to may 24th at 7:30 am cause she had a shift. how could you ruin that for her so completely?

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I love when fanfic authors are freakishly unhinged. "Yes, hello, I am here to write a heart wrenching story about relationships and mortality. My medium is Ducktales (2017)"

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"preferred name" "preferred pronouns" um NO? there's my real name and my real pronouns. apparently you are using some fake evil version?

usually im in favor of evil versions of things but yikes that's rank you skank

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been getting really into bed recently