#I guess it requires the context of growing up me

[existentialcrisis-24-7]

When I was 6 I tried to run away.

It was around 7:30am on a rainy weekend.

My parents had yelled and argued with me once again over something that absolutely did not justify that response, especially considering I was 6.

I had decided that, at the very young age of 6, I had had enough of this treatment so I packed my bags on the verge of tears, thoroughly thinking through everything I would bring, and left.

I snuck out the front door nearly completely undetected (despite there being bells on it and an incredibly loud lock). Someone just thought a cat was being let out.

I was nervous, but I was definitely happy to be going away. I got all the way out of the estate and into the next one before I realised I hadn’t eaten breakfast and reluctantly returned just to get an apple and then I would leave for good.

Alas though, I didn’t have keys and we never left any spares outside, so I had to knock and be let in. My older sister let me in, woke everyone up and I got reamed once again for running away.

It was brought up recently in conversation. (To be perfectly honest I’m still upset that I didn’t just push through the hunger). I was being stubborn and my sister claimed I had always been, mentioning when I ran away.

My mam was adamant I just randomly decided to do that. That there was no argument and that she would never have yelled at me like she did.

My dad didn’t even remember it happened.

[astrolegal]

We all know about the ADHD urge to use parentheses in everything, but for things like academic papers

Footnotes are the way to go

[sleeplesssmoll]

I think Vertin might be a tactile person.

Here are examples taken from the voice lines and context clues.  This isn't an all conclusive list of touchy interactions, just what I could find. Someone stop her before she gets hurt. Update: I'm going to keep adding on as we find more interactions together because this is really fun.

Sotheby (hat and hair): Stop it! You can't just touch an adult's head! (She is 13. Vertin probably sees her as a baby and pat her head).

Bette (hands): Ha ha ... They might be a little rough. To tightly grab the eave does require abundant practice. (assuming Vertin is holding her hand. Don’t ask me how we got here.)

Rabies (clothing and torso): Straws ... be hugged. Rabies ... feels it. (she hugged him 🥹)

A Knight (hat and hair): One step further, and you will be in close contact with Someone's nose... As long as you can hit Someone's head. (how close is Vertin standing to the AK? Or maybe she was looking for an invisible head to pat.)

Mesmer Jr (Hands) :Compared to the incurable anxiety, these wounds are minor. Oh, watch your distance. (smh Vertin not everyone likes being touched.)

Melania (hat and hair): "Well done. Please keep on." ...Aren't you going to say that? (more headpats but Melania needs vocal praise too.)

Lilya

Clothing and torso:  Feel awesome? Now it's my turn to pet you. (...what is Vertin petting? This is clothing and torso but I'm lost.)

Hat and hair: You should be grateful that I am too lazy to move now. Or you should know that the first-class pilot’s got a first-glass head-butt, too. (Vertin taking advantage of the moment to give headpats. I'm telling you, its a THING)

Leilani (Hands): Shaka brah! Ooh! Do you want a handshake or a high-five, my friend? I'm fine with either! (She’s so wholesome)

Cristallo 

hat and hair: Are you patting my head? The doctor says, this is a reward for good children. Have I done something right? 

Hands and sleeves: Would you like to hold my hands? I could be with you anytime. (Cristallo is weak and frail. The nurses say she could be blown away by a gust of wind. Despite this she says she’ll be with Vertin anytime. To me it reads as Vertin being worried Cristallo will disappear too. Cristallo notices so she offers to hold hands and says she will always be here as a way to comfort her.)

Darley Clatter

Hat and Hair:  Oh ... I can't deny you are really good at patting.

Clothing and Torso: Take a look at my beautiful muscles! I don't need to explain how fabulous I am. Hey, watch out! Rub me in the direction my mane grows.

Bonus Intimacy : Adorable? Ahh? You don't even have a taste! (Vertin pets him and calls him adorable. Darley, don’t let the girlies know. They might end your noble bloodline.)

Pavia (Hat and Hair): Wanna know how many holes I've made on others' heads? No? Then stop it. (What possessed her to give Pavia headpats?)

Dikke (hat and hair): Thou art overstepping my boundaries, arcanist. (I’m guessing Vertin is at it again with the headpats. Dikke smiles when she says this so she isn’t offended. If anything, she seems amused. )

Eternity (hands and sleeves): Go on, try holding it, and feel its temperature rising in your hand… Easy, sweetheart… take it easy, heh heh… (more hand holding but Vertin wasn’t prepared this time)

An-an Lee (hands and sleeves): What? You want a palm reading? (Vertin, why are you like this? Are you randomly touching people's hands?)

Regulus (hands and sleeves): What do you want? I don't have any spare scratch. (I'm sure she knows you're broke since she's your boss. Vertin's just being Vertin at this point.)

Vertin leads Regulus by the hand into her Suitcase in the prologue

Blonney (hands): Interesting! It's been a while since I last met someone who would start with holding hands.

She also holds Blonney's hand as she calms her down during the green lake event.

I feel like I should have picked up on this sooner. Gift-giving, hand holding, and headpats. This is the Timekeeper way.

[formosusiniquis]

Am I the Asshole?

Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington; Robin Buckley/Original Female Character(s); Steve Harrington/Original Character(s); Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson WC: 6052 | Rated: T | Tags: Modern AU, Reddit AU, Some AITA typical terrible people, QPR Steve & Robin, NB Steve, NB Robin AKA the Stobin AITA fic

r/AmITheAssshole u/HufflepuffHero94 9yrs ago AITA for being concerned about my girlfriends living situation?

Context: My (20F) girlfriend (18F) is amazing. She's a polyglot linguistics major, speaks three languages fluently and she's completely self-taught, a genius basically. We go to the same college (Midwestern Liberal Arts college) where we met in the marching band. Now R, my girlfriend, is from a small town. Like the kind of small town that they make jokes about in sitcoms, she isn't really online (so I'm not worried about her seeing this) because she claims they didn't even have the internet until she was in high school. She isn’t really “out” because of this. It’s like she lives in this semi-closeted space like some kind of TV queerbait character. It's not really a problem, I mean she’ll tell people we’re dating if they ask and all of our marching band friends know but when I ask about it she says it’s because it wasn’t really safe in her hometown growing up. But it’s 2014 not 1980…

Even though R is a freshman she’s in special accommodations. Instead of living in the dorms like the school usually requires she’s got a small, studio apartment just off of campus. A perk considering how awful living in the dorms is. R is a pretty private person and super studious. Most of our dates have been in the library or a study date at the coffee place on campus. She’s not big on PDA, she says she’s trying to get better at it but she’s still only sort of out and I’m her first real girlfriend. I was psyched when she asked me if I wanted to go with her to her apartment to study, said her best friend had a never fail study method that she was eager to try (and when she told me what it was I was pretty eager too).

R can’t drive, so when I pull into the parking lot of her complex she notices something and says her roommate hasn’t left for work yet. I’m a little confused because like I said she lives in a studio apartment, but she just brushes it off and says something about asshole parents and this being what they could afford when some money fell through. She’s sent me snaps from her place, so I know it’s pretty cozy so I tell her it’s fine. Obviously I’m concerned about what the set up is going to be like when we get up there but she insists that dingus (her words) will only be there for another couple minutes before they have to leave for work and that Stevie (again her words) is her best friend in the world. They moved here together from the same small town or something.

To give R credit, she’s definitely done the best she can with the space. When I walked it it definitely felt as homey as it does in her pictures. The door opened up into the kitchen and living room and she’s got those spaces divided off from the beds with one of those Chinese paper divider thingies. Anyway to make a long story short it turns out her roommate and best friend Stevie is actually a whole dude (19). He comes out, gives her a look and asks her if “us girls are planning a sleepover” and if he should make himself scarce for the evening. R says she doesn’t give him shit when his “special friends” come over and after that I kinda stopped listening. I slipped off into the apartment looking for the bathroom and that’s when I saw how their “bedroom” was set up. Twin beds INCHES apart, they might as well be sharing the same one.

Here’s where I might be the asshole. When her “friend” finally cleared out I told her the truth. I didn’t know how comfortable I was hanging out in her place where she lives with a guy. I do live in the dorms but I’ve got a single right now. I asked her to move in with me so she wouldn’t have to be in this situation. I guess it maybe sounded like I was dissing her friend, which I was but I didn’t mean for it to sound like that. I just think it’s weird that she won’t come out to anyone and is also living with some guy! I told her I wasn’t interested in being an experiment and if things were serious then she would want to move in with me.

That’s when she kicked me out and called me an asshole. But really I don’t think I’m being a dick for being concerned that she might just be jerking me along while she plays lesbian so she can tell her boyfriend about it at home. Even if nothing is going on I'm just worried that living in this kind of environment isn't safe for her. I mean this guy is probably just pretending to be her friend to get in her pants, I think the fact that they're from the same small town means she can't see that. I really think she would be better off if she moved into the dorms with me aita?

u/otpsnotbrotps NTA

u/foreplayisntreal NTA guys and girls can't be friends. If she even is a lez and a katy perry wannabe then roomie is just biding his time til she's ready to be converted

Read the rest on AO3

[sneeperspoi]

One of my favourite aspects about Sniper and Spy's relationship (platonic or romantic) is how they both have a mutual understanding of like, quiet time and what it's like to genuinely feel this certain flavour of solitude:

Sniper has a lot of his work done completely alone; hiding, playing the waiting game, and all that jazz, while Spy has a somewhat similar experience. Sure, his espionage lifestyle has a more active role at times, but his job still requires maintaining distance (physical and emotional) from both clients and targets. Both are dedicated to their work enough that they'd avoid getting genuinely personal with people altogether— even if they wanted to, they know it'd negatively impact their abilities to perform. Sniper having the mindset of having "a plan to kill everyone you meet" and to just "take the shot", and Spy being described as a "puzzle, wrapped in an enigma, shrouded in riddles" is telling of how much of a wall either can put up and any given time.

Now, I'm not saying that the other mercs don't know what it's like to be isolated or that they could never relate to Sniper or Spy in that regard, but their roles aren't necessarily fundamentally built around it, y'know? They aren't required to hide away or to work solo (you could make the joke of "then why are there always 5+ snipers and spies on my team at any given time??" but shhhh this is more in the context of the lore/comics lolol).

I feel like this concept of them realizing their niche similarities and how "hey, maybe I'm not really alone in this world" has so much potential. Like... the idea of them not really participating often in team activities or usually hiding away (in a van and smoking room perhaps?) is great, but to add on the angle that they now have someone who finally understands?? To finally have someone that you don't have to explain anything to?? It hits differently. They could have a smoke together, not saying a word the whole time, and consider it a successful hangout— they don't expect anything from the other, or feel the pressure to act differently because they just get it, and know why things are the way they are.

There's so much angst potential too, forbidden friends/lovers who both know the consequences if things go sour. Maybe they've suppressed so much of that desire to have a relationship (platonic or romantic), that when they finally admit that this is the case (realizing they both feel the same way), something clicks and they try to make it work. Don't even get me started on the potential "hey, maybe I can trust you" aspects either lmao. Regardless of what direction you take though, their relationship growing feels special and unique.

The media too often depicts the whole "can't get close to no one. I don't need friends" attitude as mostly negative and something that needs to be fixed... but with these guys, they're just allowed to be like this. Not saying that there are no cons to this attitude ofc, but it's not necessarily a thing they have to change about themselves or each other or anything. I guess it's refreshing to see that there are still characters out there who can be loners and just be content about it. Unless of course, you want to go down that route. Love that type of angst, but it's nice to have that option without it feeling too OOC. Ugh, there's like so much to explore and deconstruct and so many directions to take this fr fr

((Also, I realize now it's kinda like being an art kid and that moment when you finally meet someone where you don't have to explain why you keep drawing the same old soggy men who shoot each other cuz they just understand. Artist to artist communication lol))

[tigreblvnc]

BLUE LOCK MATCHUP — @araerry

Your match is...

— Michael Kaiser

✦ OK, this intro is going to be very long and unnecessary, BUT

✦ I had to tell you about my writing process for your matchup.

✦ I read your entire bio in one go, commenting out loud, and I thought it was rare to read such depth in someone's words. It's not common and it intrigued me a lot.

✦ Honestly, I think very few characters can match you because it would require someone who can truly understand who you are, and I don't think that's something everyone can do.

✦ … And it might seem ultra paradoxical to you, but I actually thought of many people to match you with! However, there was always something missing or unconvincing.

✦ My choice was therefore quite limited, and not knowing your age range, even though I thought of some older characters, I refrained from going in that direction. But I'll tell you more at the end of the post if you're interested, where I'll mention the other characters I considered for a match.

✦ I thought of older characters because you really evoke someone who has long since surpassed adolescence! I know the particular context in which you grew up has a lot to do with it, and that's why I couldn't see myself matching you with someone still too immature.

✦ We haven't even gotten to the heart of the matchup yet, but I find your profile extraordinarily interesting. I mean, as a person behind your screen, you must be someone really fascinating to be around. This is the first time I've received such a detailed description with such precise content, so really, thank you! It's a blessing for me.

✦ (I love getting so much material; the more I have, the more I want to write!! MOUHAHAHA)

✦ -- Well, you're rambling but you still haven't started the headcanons, Yuno, right…

✦ First of all… It may sound cliché, but I absolutely wanted the suitor to be capable of spontaneously bringing flowers lol

✦ It's my romantic side speaking…

✦ This is the first time I'm giving Kaiser to someone, and I was waiting for very specific traits to say "this is the right person".

✦ In my understanding of his character, he absolutely needs someone who can take care of others. This is the very foundation of the relationship.

✦ "my maturity also comes from me being an older sister, in friend groups I’m usually the big sister of the group (sometimes mother) even If i’m usually always the baby of the group." -> THIS. It's exactly what I was waiting for!!!

✦ We can say that he is now independent and master of himself, but I believe that all his wounds come from the fact that no one knew how to give him love in his childhood.

✦ "with emotions I find it very hard to express my emotions, for me emotions are very complicated, I never can understand what I feel or what others feel" I don't see him being good at expressing his feelings either, because he was never given the space to do so.

✦ "and this is how my big psychology interest was born" He did it too, partly for personal gain. But I think if today we see him more expressive (it's relative, but he is still much more communicative than in the past when he joined Bastard München), it's thanks to his study of psychology. Imitating the behavior of others to blend in better. Understanding others to manipulate them better…

✦ Maybe you could see through his game. You show little emotion, you talk little about what you feel. It makes you hard to read, and… all the more desirable for those who try.

✦ Your first meeting probably took place in the past, after Kaiser was arrested by the police. They noticed his condition and his injuries, the treatment he was undergoing. He had to be taken to the hospital to check that nothing was broken. It was during this short period that you first saw each other.

✦ He saw the flowers you were growing.

✦ Guess where his tattoo comes from?

✦ (I'm going to create a whole lore about you and an alternative origin of his tattoo)

✦ I think that before you, he hadn't interacted with many other children his age either. He had always lived locked up, with no one to take care of him. He didn't go to school at all and learned the basics of life on his own. Reading, writing, stealing.

✦ This gap with society was a decisive element in your relationship.

✦ If he didn't listen to anyone, neither doctors nor police officers, wanted to hit everyone… I like to imagine that when he saw you, everything in him calmed down.

✦ For the first time, Kaiser wanted to listen to someone talk.

✦ And you were so calm, so shy.

✦ But he intrigued you, this wild boy from nowhere.

✦ Both of you had trouble with social norms. You didn't understand them, it wasn't your world.

✦ I think he was sincerely touched by your situation, even if he didn't physically show it.

✦ "I don’t like people," when he heard you say that, he felt like he was hearing himself.

✦ "I don't like them either," he replied.

✦ Between you, it was a game of taming. Distant, secret, silent, very powerful.

✦ You probably talked about very hard and painful subjects together, especially for your age. But it only scared others who couldn't imagine that two children could have such strength of character.

✦ Maybe he showed you what his father did to him.

✦ Never with words. Only showing.

✦ You understood, every time.

✦ "people have said that I remind them of old paintings" I can understand if they said that because you are someone pleasant to look at. You must have something peaceful, exuding a serenity immortalized, like in a painting. The features of Renaissance paintings are rather soft, you know?

✦ Speaking of painting, I'm sure he liked watching you paint. He didn't say anything, just sat on the floor, watching you brush the canvas. It had something restful, hypnotic that helped him fall asleep. It was something beautiful, and Kaiser had never seen anything beautiful until then.

✦ By any chance, did you draw him while he was sleeping?

✦ "I like sculpturing, mostly Hellenistic sculptures (classical Greek sculptures)" Kaiser's physical appearance tells me he would make a superb Greek statue, and maybe in the future, once the World Cup is won, you'll be the one to create it.

✦ "I’ve always been told I’m intimidating and hard to approach because of my face and my 'aura'" Honestly, I don't think Kaiser ever felt intimidated looking at you. He simply saw someone who, like him, was tired of life.

✦ I want to say that, due to the conditions in which he grew up, his general knowledge was very undeveloped. You talked to him about the stars, he remembers, and today he knows which direction to look at the sky to find their constellation.

✦ "I also love flowers and birds I know so many flower meanings and have a garden where I grow many flowers and plants actually" Were there any of those plants in your room? The ones Kaiser saw the first time he came.

✦ I like to imagine that even after joining Bastard München, a part of you remained etched in him.

✦ The dishes served by the club were never good. Never as good as the ones you made for him.

✦ Maybe you are one of the few to have a photo of him before his rise in football.

✦ "I have dark red hair (I dyed it)" I think he asked Ness for a blue gradient in his hair to echo your red hair dyed by yourself. It struck him when he saw you with it.

✦ Nowadays, he's in the middle of a match against PXG in Japan. It's right now that he's proving himself, learning to deconstruct himself to bring out the best version of himself. I like to think that once he returns to Germany, it will be to come and see you and say "I did it."

✦ It's to those we love that we are the proudest to announce our successes.

A word about your match: Okay, I gave everything I had in this matchup lol. Hope you enjoyed it. BY THE WAY, the other ones I thought of were Ego (yes), Rin, Sae, Chigiri, and Yukimiya, the latter two partly because they had known the hospital too.

© TIGREBLVNC 2024 | AUGUST '24 MATCHUPS EDITION.

[montyshistoryblog]

Sources are in short supply, let's make some up!

Alright so for my first post I want to cover one of my favourite stories from history, specifically something I learned on my ongoing degree. For context: I do history at a certain Welsh university, and as such I was required to do a Welsh history module in my first year. I actually rather enjoyed it, but I am VERY English so if I get spellings wrong then just shoot me I guess.

Welsh history has had one, massive, ongoing problem: For large parts of history, the aristocracy hasn't actually spoken Welsh, but they controlled Welsh lands and inherited Welsh poetry from their Welsh speaking distant relatives. This created the issue that Welsh poetry, and with it much of the written Welsh language, was quite literally rotting on the bookshelves, with nobody aware of the issue particularly caring for it.

In comes a new movement of the growing middle class in the late 1770s and early 1800s to preserve Welsh history. At the time, the middle class were seeking a sense of purpose, often dedicating themselves to study or science and therefore were looking for some great task to tack their name onto. Enter: Edward Williams, or by his adopted Welsh bardic name, Iolo Morganwyg (Ee-yoll-oh More-gan-igg), and with a name like that don't you suddenly see why history papers are published in serif fonts?

Iollo seemed to be incredibly talented at finding these Welsh manuscripts, one of the best even. He was regularly finding poems by famous and beloved Welsh poets, and with his contemporaries in the Welsh literary community that was forming ended up helping to revive pride in the Welsh language and identity, partly through translation and partly through printing the poetry to make it accessible to a Welsh reading and speaking public. Sure, he may have had a habit of taking copious amounts of laudenum, but as far as everyone was concerned the entire affair was above board.

Until 1972, when a researcher observed a poem discovered by Iolo and found that he had faked it. In fact, vast swathes of the poetry he discovered were fake. He was so talented at mimicking poets that we, to this day, are still discovering faked poems discovered by Morganwyg.

That's not the only thing he faked, however. If the poetry wasn't enough, this man born of English descent and English name claimed to be the last of the Welsh druids, and that he was reviving the Welsh druidic tradition. He even started a festival! This festival still happens to this day and claims to be a legitimate festival full of traditional acts... none of which have any historical precedent, and almost certainly came from Morganwyg's mind.

The moral of this story is, I guess, that primary sources don't always actually exist, and all it takes is one man on opiates to ruin the historical record for 200 years.

[violentviolette]

Hi, can you talk a little on ASPD and dopamine? And also, I guess, dealing with addictions as they form, in context if this disorder?

Thanks!

theres actually a lot of research into the chemical aspects of personality disorders and it all really does boil down to trauma and genetics causing lots and lots of dysfunction with nuerochemicals, transmittors, and receptors. so ppl with any personality disorder are going to struggle a lot with things like dopamine, seratonin, and other chemicals

the dysfunctions fall under two main catagories, either a lack of ability to produce dopamine and seratonin, or a lack of ability to absorb them. i had some genetic testing done about 6 or 7 years ago because i was having no luck with antidepressants and struggling to find medication and it turns out my brain lacks key seratonin receptors. so things like ssri's which help u produce more seratonin and dopamine were useless for me because my brain *is* producing those chemicals properly, but i lack the receptors to be able to absorb any of them, which is why my issues are so persistent and resistent to treatment. i can absolutely flood my brain with seratonin and it wont do shit, cause i have no way to take it in

the hilarious other side of that is that u can absolutely have too much dopamine and seratonin in ur brain, and if too much builds up with no way to process or flush it, u can get things like seratonin sickness/syndrome which can cause anything from fever, chills, diarrhea and other flu like symptoms to seizures and death. as well as dopamine overloads, which result in things like anxiety, mania, hyper impulsivity, insomnia, psychosis and hallucinations, aggression, and more. which are all absolutely symptoms of cluster b personality disorders

because of this there's been speculation and theorizing (that does have supported research but more is still needed) that a key component of cluster b pds is an excess of dopamine in the brain without the ability to process it. so we end up with all of the negative side effects of having our brains swimming in dopamine all the time but dont get any of the actual positive effects of that that we're seeking. which like. love that for us /sarcasm. but it does very much explain a lot of the reasons that cluster b pds are so difficult to treat with medication and why our problems are so persistent

which then plays into addiction, and could explain why we seek out dopamine in such high quantities and are prone to such risk taking behavior to get it. if we're lacking in receptors, it makes sense that our brains would then require HUGE hits of dopamine to feel anything, because our brains need to be swimming in the stuff in order for us to feel the positive effects but that then leaves us with a huge excess that we cant get rid of which then causes problems. whereas a normal person would need only a tenth of the dopamine we do to absorb it and wouldnt be left with the overflow.

this also then makes treating and dealing with addiction much more complicated. because the problem is no longer finding healthier ways to get dopamine, because the amount of dopamine we need to be effective is actually the problem, not how we're obtaining it. which means the problem is figuring out how to either grow new neuroreceptors (which is possible, but difficult and i admit im not as well read on how the science works there because brains complicated), or how to retrain our brains to rely less on dopamine for satisfaction. which is also doable but sucks big ass.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

I’ve figured it out! I’ve been saying for many months now that it’s fucking weird how much Sam Campbell looks exactly like a certain, very common type of wrestler I know. Specifically, the guys in the smaller categories, guys who compete at 57-ish kilos in university but you know they were competing at 44 or smaller when they were in high school. All those guys have this really specific look, down to clothing and hairstyle but also it’s about their build and facial structure, and I did not even realize how specific the look was until I saw Sam Campbell and realized it’s the first time I’ve ever seen someone outside the sport with that look. It looks so weird to me to see it out of its normal context.

Anyway, I think this part of that article explains it:

“I was very small growing up” – a feature he thinks contributed to his pursuing comedy. “My parents were legitimately going to give me horse hormones to make me grow, because I was really small for a long time.”

Ohhh… that’s what it is. Wrestling is the sport of guys who were too small as a child/teenager. I think I know four people who have specifically told me they were put on hormones growing up because they were too small, and I think of a lot of other people who probably were or almost were, I just don’t know them well enough for them to have told me.

One of my good friends, a few years ago, who was a couple of years younger than me and had a massively successful competitive career before joining our team as a coach, told me that that’s exactly why he started. This guy was successful enough to have made promo videos, to advertise the national team’s international runs and things, where he talked about how he loved the sport since he was a kid. One day at the pub after practice, he told me that’s not why he got into it at all. He got into it because in high school, the girls didn’t like him since he was too small, and his parents had to put him on hormones just to keep him barely big enough to be healthy, and he had to have something to make girls like him despite his size, and all the sports besides wrestling required people to be big. Wrestling was the only sport with weight classes, where anyone could join because they’d be matched up with people their own size no matter how small they were. The average wrestler is much shorter than the average person outside the sport, because it’s where the small people can go.

Anyway, that’s the look Sam Campbell has, and that’s why it was so familiar to me. The look of a guy who was off-the-charts small when he was young, and then grew into someone who’s just a normal level of smaller-than-average. There’s a specific build that guys like that have, which is different from guys who are a normal level of small as adults because they were a normal level of small as teenagers.  The proportions are different.

…I genuinely don’t know if it’s fucked up for me to write a post going into this much detail about a stranger’s physical features. Hanging out on Tumblr may have skewed my perspective of what’s appropriate. So sorry if this is a weird thing to say. But I am truly pleased to have solved a mystery. He looks familiar because he’s one of those guys! One of those guys who used to be much too small and now he’s just small, but in a way where you can still kind of tell he used to be much too small! Those guys! Cool! I like those guys! Some of my best friends are those guys!

I guess if you’re that guy in high school and you’re not interesting in sports, you try comedy instead. Good for him.

The rest of the article is quite interesting as well, explaining how he ended up where he is in comedy. The thing I've chosen to focus on is really the least interesting part. It's worth a read.

[tokiro07]

Undead Unluck ep.1 thoughts

[Four Years and an Anime, Baby!!!]

(Contents: Ch.1 comparison, pacing, animation)

Note: For the sake of this review series, I'm going to avoid any overt references to the later events of the manga. Anything I have to say on that topic will be relegated to their own posts, so anime-onlys can read these too if they're so inclined

And we're off to a great start!!!

Easily the thing that I'm most excited about is the new intro, expanding on To You, From Me (Fuuko's manga, for those who didn't catch the name), which we got basically no information on in the original. I do think it's a little odd that the scene we saw doesn't resemble the one Fuuko is seen reading pretty much at all, but I do like what David Production is going for with it

As a long-time fan, I thought that intro was really cool, and bodes well for how David plans to adapt the manga going forward, likely expanding on or adding scenes that weren't present in the manga to help build atmosphere or context. However, my roommate, who is completely unfamiliar, was strongly confused and taken aback by the strange animation and surreal imagery, so I worry that this addition may be offputting to newcomers. Fingers crossed everyone can overlook that

Aside from that, the beats of chapter 1 are pretty much intact, though a lot of it was sadly truncated or removed for the sake of streamlining to fit the half-hour timeframe, which is to be expected even if it is a bit of a shame. I really loved Andy testing the limits of Unluck, keeping careful track of the relative size of the debris based on how long he touched Fuuko, but in the interest of time, skipping that and keeping the note about how it works is serviceable I suppose

I also think it's a little weird to have Andy and Fuuko alone at the bridge rather than drawing a crowd, especially since they're in such a crowded city, though I'm sure it's more cost-effective to only use the characters who matter instead of animating a bunch of nobodies milling about and being voiced by however many extras would be required. It picks up the pace, and gives way to a very funny reinterpretation of the events of the manga with Andy simply rocketing his head back to where he started instead of Fuuko going to the ground to inspect what she'd done

The most important moments, being the meeting, the haircut, and the battle, were all executed spectacularly, so the connecting moments in between being less than stellar is perfectly acceptable. I don't have any trouble believing that people will enjoy themselves watching this and be engaged enough to continue on

Andy's animations were very fluid and imaginative, I particularly loved the touch of him floating the knife on a jet of his blood rather than just balancing it on his finger while letting himself bleed. The blood on Andy's teeth evaporating after Fuuko stabbed him was also a great way to indicate how Undead works, whereas in the manga his teeth are just mysteriously clean a few panels later, potentially misleading readers into thinking that it's a continuity error. Oh, and Andy's body vanishing after he tosses his head to Fuuko? It's so clear that someone on this team is familiar with the source material, adding details that would logically be present even if the author didn't portray them in the original, which is great because Tozuka is already extemely detail-oriented

I will admit, I am not the biggest fan of the voice actors. I've never really liked Yuichi Nakamura too much, and I just don't think he's the best fit for Andy specifically. Moe Kahara is a pretty new actress, I believe, and she just sounds kind of...unrefined, I guess? I'm sure she'll grow on me, or she'll get more experienced and give a stronger performance as she goes, so I'm not going to write her off, I just thought she sounded a bit generic here. Whether that's a matter of skill or direction is also debatable, so again, I'm not going to rag on her too much

The opening theme, though played without the visuals as per usual with first episodes, sounded rad, and I'm super excited to see the full thing next week. I'm sad that I have to wait for it, but I'm more than happy enough with the episode itself that I don't mind

Overall, though I obviously have to say that the corresponding manga chapter is better, I greatly enjoyed the first episode and highly recommend it both to newcomers because it does a solid job in and of itself and to manga fans because it provides a nice new perspective on the source material. I'm pretty hard to please with this sort of thing, or rather pretty easy to disappoint, so for me to walk away with a strongly positive attitude is a huge mark in this adaptation's favor

Not only am I still excited to see how this anime goes going forward, my confidence in how well it's going to present the story I love so much has only gone up, so I can't call this episode anything other than a rousing success for me. I hope you all enjoyed it too, and I can't wait for episode two!!!

[taffywabbit]

ok story time let's go

(i guess CW// religious baggage? vaguely cult-y stuff? Mormons?)

so i was laughing at that (presumably bait) tweet that got screenshotted and reposted on here, with the person claiming that y'all is a problematic term used by "bigoted southerners" and someone else dunking on them, because I'm Canadian and I say y'all ALL the time. and like, that by itself wouldn't be too notable - there ARE rural areas of Canada, particularly over in Alberta/Saskatchewan, where the local accent and slang have convergently evolved into something very similar to Texas (and I DID actually grow up in a town like that, though i never picked up the accent myself).

what makes my adoption of y'all particularly odd is that I picked it up in the Caribbean of all places. if you are familiar with my Not-So-Secret Tragic Backstory then you MIGHT know where this is going already.

I was raised in a Mormon family, so when I was 18 i was basically required to go do the missionary thing with the white shirts and ties and nametags. (this is very funny considering my current status as a gay trans furry artist and leftist, but this story isn't really about that.) I got assigned a random location in the world, and was shipped off to the Eastern Caribbean for 2 years. it was very hot and sweaty and overall not a very good time for me, the world's blondest palest scrawniest teen who would have to walk around all day every day in office attire.

ANYWAYS a few months after my mission began, we got a new mission president (the old guy assigned by the church to be in charge of all the missionaries in a region, along with his wife). while he was generally a pretty jovial friendly guy, he also had an occasional tendency to powertrip and institute random arbitrary rule changes whenever he felt that the missionaries weren't performing as well as he'd like and the numbers were down. with missionaries, there's a huge focus on "exact obedience" and "consecration" - this idea that the more single-mindedly devoted you are to Doing Missionary Stuff and Thinking About Jesus and Never Having A Single Fucking Independent Thought In Your Head Or Taking Care Of Your Personal Wellbeing Or Enjoying Yourself, the more god will bless you with like. charisma superpowers or something. to just change people's minds on the spot as you blast them with your Conversion Beam. and therefore anytime that ISN'T happening (y'know, because people have free will, and also because being Mormon is wildly unappealing to any reasonable outsider), it clearly MUST be because those darn young punk missionaries are probably thinking too much about their partners back home or drawing Pokemon fanart or collecting distractingly colourful neckties. can't have that!

so with all that context, I can finally get to the point, which is that one day our mission president decided the reason nobody was knocking on our apartment door begging to get baptized was probably because we, as missionaries, were too casual in our interactions with one another. specifically, he took issue with missionaries calling each other "dude" or "bro" or "man", or referring to each other collectively as "you guys". he insisted that this was "eroding the dignity of our sacred calling as missionaries" and that we should instead strive to call each other "Elder" and "Sister" (the titles used for male and female missionaries respectively) as much as humanly possible.

specifically as an alternative to "you guys", he suggested we start saying "Elders and Sisters" every time we addressed a mixed group of missionaries. which OBVIOUSLY sounds really fucking stupid. and I was in a leadership position at the time, so I had to deliver instruction/training to the missionaries in my area every week AND call them to check-in every night. being a missionary and constantly being commanded to do incredibly stupid arbitrary things really brought out my latent rebellious streak, and there was NO fucking way I was going to say "Elders and Sisters" if i could avoid it - the only people who actually complied with the new rule were immediately identifiable as goody-two-shoes and suck-ups and everyone wanted to push them into the ocean.

so INSTEAD, i and several other missionaries quickly realized that we could simply get away with saying "you all" or just plural "you" with like, a hand gesture to show we meant the group. which naturally just evolved into y'all pretty quickly because it's an incredibly natural contraction of words and it just feels good to say. and the mission president never complained about it, because we weren't using cool youngster slang like "guys" or "dudes" and instead it just sounded like a fun twangy rural affectation. and then i just kinda kept saying it for the rest of my mission, and continued saying it after i returned home and went off to college in the city and all that jazz.

...absolutely no clue where I picked up saying "howdy" all the time tho. i don't have an excuse or backstory for that one lol, it's just fun to say

[only-in-december]

Hello, I was the Kirk bros anon haha. Two things I would love to have discourse about: one, I feel like Sam isn’t going to make it off the Gorn ship 😭 and if we get a Jim reaction scene I think it’ll actually kill me, and two, do you think that Jim and Sam had nicknames for each other as kids (am I writing a fic? What? No…) like J or JT or Jimmy and Sammy or even Georgie. I have a lot of feelings about this. 😪

Well, howdy, Friend! Oh boy do I have a lot to say on all of that!! Before I get into it all, I want to apologize for taking so long to respond to this. Work has been long lately lol.

So. Let's start with the Gorn Ship part. Sam making it off the Gorn ship is something I deem highly probable, personally based on one key point: SNW is marketed as a direct prequel to TOS. (This isn't saying that I personally see it as being set in the same timeline, but that's a different discussion.)

Canonically, Sam Kirk doesn't die until Stardate 3287.2, and according to Memory Alpha, Hegemony takes place in Stardate 2344.2 which is a few years prior. (Although Stardates aren't always the most consistent. So take that with a grain of salt.) I do hope think we'll get to see more of Jim as they get Sam (and everyone else, I guess) away from the Gorn. But I don't think Sam will die, because of "Operation--Annihilate!" being such an iconic episode, so he's got a little bit of plot armor there.

But Jim's reaction to his brother being taken by the Gorn? Oh My Lanta, I might cry at the thought. That sounds heartwrenching regardless of Sam's survival. I am always up for conversation about this sort of thing, so feel free to disagree with me!!💙

But onto your second question. Childhood nicknames. Those can be tricky, especially coming from siblings. I do think that Jimmy and Georgie were used frequently by their parents, but between the two of them, it's a little more nuanced.

One of my favorite SNW headcanons that you can pry from my cold dead hands, is that Sam didn't really start going by "Sam" until he left home. Jim was the only one who called him that when they were growing up. So in a way, Sam is his childhood nickname. For Jim, I think it was a combination of things. Jim, Jimmy, Jay, JT was a good one too. But really, I think that he probably had some stupid 'brother nickname' like "Mocking Jay" or "Sonny" or something. One of those nicknames that requires like a full ten layers of context that just leaves everyone a little bit confused. I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts on that, though!!

[organchordsandlightning]

Whale Weekly 11/21

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

My guy, that is seasonal affective disorder But it is truly a damp, drizzly november in everyone’s soul

If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

I want to lock Ishmael and Professor Aronnax in a room

Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition!

it’s funny! i’ve heard this line before in a number of contexts, would never have guessed in a thousand years it boils down to the ol’ ‘easier for a camel to go through a needle than for a rich dude to enter heaven’ thing

that is, if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim

reading the annotated version and my god this is a fart joke

but as for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote

brb gonna let this tattoo on my soul

Not ignoring what is good, I am quick to perceive a horror, and could still be social with it—would they let me—since it is but well to be on friendly terms with all the inmates of the place one lodges in.

horror podcast protagonists are calling

[saemi-the-dreamer]

For the ask meme, Emma /Knightley from Jane Austen's Emma or you'd rather/ if you haven't read Emma, Elinor/Edward from Sense and Sensibility) and Damon Gant/Manfred von Karma from Ace Attorney?

Thanks for asking! 💕

Emma /Knightley

Ship It? Yes!

What made you ship it?

I admit that I wasn't especially rooting/shipping them while I read the book the first time, even if I didn't hate it! I was re-reading it after watching the 1996 series (that and the 1996 TV movie are the only adaptations I've watched entirely) and the ship seemed more natural years later. It's been a while, so I'm sorry for not being able to go into too much detail. Still, something I really love about how these two are portrayed is how the two can be honest and call each other out when needed (thinking about the "Badly done, Emma!" scene) without having the other overreacting or turning into a huge, unnecessary drama, on the contrary, they stop and think about their own behaviour. It's so important, especially in Emma, the heroine gets a pass for a good half of the story, nobody except Knightley argues with her, so for all this time she doesn't take him as seriously as she should, and is even smug when she sees that Harriet followed her advice whereas Robert didn't listen to Knightley's (which wasn't even the point of Knightley's frustration btw).

I guess that I like the dynamic where an overconfident character gets paired up with another who doesn't hesitate to call them on their bullshit, and who is their equal? xD Plus, I recall that Knightley's confession was very poignant... I need to re-read it!!

What are your favourite things about the ship?

Since Emma is not my favourite Jane Austen story, and I only learnt to really appreciate it later and I require re-read it, I can't say for sure. I'd say that I really like how the two have known each other forever - literally, Knightley held Emma in his arms when she was a baby! Talk about a "slow burn"! It's interesting to imagine how the two went through so many stages of life together, saw each other grow and mature, how the way they looked at one another shifted, and how their feelings changed and they could hardly help it. There's something quite natural in this that I like.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

The age gap isn't that bad, especially in context! Or more unpopular I guess: the story didn't need to be "modernised" for today's audience (looking at the 2020 adaptation). For fuck's sake, can't people just accept that things were different back then?! And still be able to say "I'm letting it slide because of context, it's fictional and it works here (❤️) but I wouldn't accept it in real life.". I don't like that they made Knightley younger, and changed the dynamic with Emma that much (from what I've seen), it was unnecessary and just to cater to some holier-than-thous. They could have kept an older Knightley and added some scenes to show his softer, more vulnerable side.

---------------------------------------------------

Gant/Manfred

Ship It? Yes!

What made you ship it?

The fandom made me! 😂

After finishing the first Ace Attorney (the version with "Rise from the Ashes" of course) I went and browsed the internet to find some art and fanfics, and then I discovered the Kink Meme. It's there that I've stumbled upon the pairing. There was also some pretty fanart of them, younger, investigating together. I started to really like the idea of them being both old colleagues (and lovers, having a torrid affair in Gant's office 🤣).

What are your favourite things about the ship?

The potential for two dynamics:

A) an "evil" power couple, with the two just being unapologetic, ambitious, ruthless men. And these two keep bickering like an old couple, and it's a mess of arguments and make-up sex, the two manically laughing as they tempered evidence, etc. (okay, I know I'm going overbroad here, I'm kidding! xD )

B) "We're both disillusioned by a corrupted system, at first we really wanted to make it honestly, then we started getting our hands dirty and now we can't go back or stop. We're colleagues, partners in crime, weird friends... sometimes lovers. We're both messed up, but we don't care anymore, as long as we achieve our goals and have each other."

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

Since I mostly low-key ship them and haven't found that many stories about them, I don't think I have one? Otherwise, it's more an unpopular opinion about each one of them, not the pairing?

I'd say that I don't believe either of them ever sexually harassed or "seduced" Miles......................... 😒

[dragonflight203]

Mass Effect 2, Grunt loyalty mission:

-Wrex says Okeer is a hated name. Why? I don’t think the game ever provides the context for that.

-Grunt’s loyalty mission is invaluable for the world building it provides for the krogan.

I don’t have much to say about most of it, but I appreciate how well it fleshes the krogan out as a people.

-Mmm. Wrex is not as all powerful as one might assume. He has to coordinate with the female clan, and within Urdnot itself the Shaman holds a lot of power.

Despite how it may seem on the surface, being a clan leader requires interpersonal skills. You can’t just headbutt everyone into submission.

-I am amused that even krogans have liberals and conservatives, and concern about their culture being lost because of changes.

Sure, everything is contextualized via some form of violence or another, but it’s there.

-I struggle with krogans in ME2. They generally respond better to neutral or renegade dialogue than paragon, but because the paragon/renegade system is ratio based in ME2 I’m reluctant to give up on any paragon points.

-Shaman, about the site of Grunt’s rite of passage: The last surface city to fall in the rebellions.

So, fighting occurred on Tuchanka as well during the Krogan Rebellions. Somehow that never occurred to me. I had assumed all fighting occurred offworld.

It’s still been a millennia or so since then so the krogan should have started rebuilding, but that’s not quite as long since they nuked themselves.

Now I’m curious about how much the krogan had rebuilt between the nukes and the rebellions. Do they ever get tired of having to start from scratch?

-There are Urdnot bodies scattered around the rite of passage area.

This is another reason why the krogan are slowly dying out. They die during the rite of passage, and that’s a tradition they’re apparently not willing to give up.

Did the salarians not consider this when creating the genophage? Did they assume the krogans would adapt by abandoning or modifying the rite?

-Uvenk is quite the politician. Had he been born another species, I expect he’d be quite comfortable on the presidium.

-And we know Wrex is a politician. I suspect one of the reasons he permitted Grunt to perform the rite is he thought it would get rid of Uvenk.

It also ties Shepard even more closely to Clan Urdnot. Besides being Wrex’s friend, Shepard is Grunt’s Battlemaster.

-Ironically, I think this might be one of the most political missions in the game, with only Tali’s loyalty mission coming close.

And most people in Mass Effect would probably insist krogans aren’t capable of politics.

-The Shaman says that rebuilding the world over and over makes krogans stronger.

I still suspect individual krogan grow weary from it.

-When you first tell Wrex you have a krogan crew member, he says you replaced him.

If you kill the thresher maw and speak to Wrex again, he says “Guess that’s what it takes to replace me”.

Grunt is being positioned to be the next leader of Clan Urdnot.

-I had just enough money to buy all the upgrades from Fortack’s store. Whew!

-Hearing the chatter about defeating the thresher maw and the various krogans welcoming Grunt into the clan is nice.

And the Blood Pack recruiter certainly changes his tune.

Normandy

-Chorban emailed Shepard to let them know his findings on the Keepers.

Pretty much everything Shepard discovered in ME1 – they’re bioengineered, made by the same people that made Sovereign, and react to a signal every 50,000 years. How convenient.

Of course, the real point is for Chorban to say that nobody on the Citadel is listening to him.

This is probably too emphasize that the Council is doing nothing, and it’s up to Shepard to save the galaxy.

More practically, I suspect STG is monitoring all of Chorban’s equipment and making copies of everything.

-The dialogue to receive Tali’s loyalty mission is also short, but at least it’s longer than Garrus’ and presents new concepts.

-If you go renegade with Grunt, he assures Shepard he would stab Shepard in the front, not the back. Love it.

-If you go paragon on your last response with him, it ends on a bit of a sour note. Grunt’s here for fighting, so Shepard better be as well.

-More generally, it’s good to see Grunt feeling assured. He’s found his place in the world.

[marylynbirds]

My journey studying with Autism (higher education)

Not sure if this is going to help anyone, but I wanted to share some of my experiences studying with autism (in the Netherlands specifically). I guess I just want to show, even though I'm doing well academically now, there is more to that than just being smart, I had to grow a lot before getting where I am today. Buckle up; it's a long one. (disclaimer after writing: it doesn't focus a lot on autism explicitly, but it definitely had a lot of influence)

tl;dr: I had a number of struggles, made some decisions, and am doing better now! First, some context: in the Netherlands, there are several forms of higher education; the ones that are important in my story are Universities of Applied Sciences (or: Higher professional education. HBO in Dutch) and Research Universities (WO in Dutch). As the name implies, a WO focuses on research, thinking analytically and critically. It has higher entry requirements than HBO. It has a relatively high teaching speed and requires a lot of self-study; in general, it is considered a lot harder than HBO. Study programs at an HBO are more practical, and your future profession is a lot clearer from the start (the programs are more specific), and there is more supervision (and, in my experience, group work, though this may vary).

Without getting too much into the Dutch educational system: I followed the 6-year program that would allow me to go to a WO immediately after high school (at the age of 18). I chose to study history and then do a masters to become a high school history teacher. I also started a part-time job in September. I had to travel for a little over an hour to get to class. And... I had no idea I have autism.

year 1

I loved it. I loved the academic environment, learning all the new things, and going to classes. At first, things seemed great! Until exams came around. Even though I had been making my homework passionately, I didn't pass any of the three exams. (Do note that I had to pass 9 out of 12 courses to be allowed to stay in the program, so missing the first 3 already was a big deal). The student councillor wasn't too worried. He told me to follow a course on study skills (which helped a lot! I do recommend looking into the resources your school offers, I paid maybe 5 euros for 6 sessions of coaching). And he told me that if I was worried about the 9 out of 12 rule (BSA for those familiar with the system), I could unenroll before February and try again next year. Even though my study skills improved, I didn't have enough time to apply them in the second block, so I also failed those 3 exams (and the resits). I also felt like I needed a break, I was so tired and decided to do as the student councillor had advised: I unenrolled before the start of the 2nd semester.

year 2

I spent the next semester putting in a few more hours at that part-time job I mentioned earlier and even got more responsibilities over the summer. I also decided I wanted to move out and live in the city where I was also studying; it'd save me about 3-4 hours of travelling every day. I moved into a little studio that summer. I kept my job in the town I came from. The first semester went by pretty smoothly! I failed 2 classes but was probably able to pass them during resits. I was tired a lot and spent more time on the part-time job than I wanted, so I quit (maybe the semester didn't go by as smoothly as I remember, lol). The second semester started in February 2020, and a few weeks in, we went into lockdown. Tbh, the combination of having quit my job and having no obligations besides doing my homework and showing up for online classes was great. It allowed me to rest and focus on my studies (which I was still quite passionate about). (I know a lot of people had a terrible time during lockdowns and had very negative experiences due to covid. I count myself lucky that I didn't). I passed all my classes that year and moved on to the second year (out of three).

year 3

I was doing a lot better at this point. I felt capable and even became a student mentor for the upcoming first years (I had to show them around the campus once and just be available to answer basic questions. Because of covid, we had a weekly check-in online).

I also moved to a bigger studio during the first term, it was hectic, but I managed to write the two essays that needed to get done and passed both with a good grade. HOWEVER. My mother had gotten slightly concerned and started wondering if maybe I had autism (like my 2 brothers and both my parents...)(for context: my mother is a kind of social worker who specialised in autism, so she was making a VERY educated guess) because little things seemed to stress me out much more than is considered 'normal'. The second term was terrible. I had no idea how I was supposed to write my essay, and the teaching style did not at all match my study style. I spoke to the student councillor again and cut down on the workload. At the end of the first semester, I was put on a waitlist to get a diagnosis, and I also applied for additional financial help because I was not able to have a job while studying (because of the suspected autism). During the second semester, things went downhill quite quickly. I was tired and had lost motivation. In April, I decided I would switch study programs and go to an HBO after the summer and follow the English teacher program there.

Year 4

Things were very different at HBO. I actually felt like I was back in high school. My co-students seemed to have much less discipline than me, and most were a few years younger. I am fairly certain that people thought of me as a teacher's pet (which I am, tbh) and possibly a bit arrogant because I was not shy in letting people know I knew the answer. I quickly noticed I had a big advantage in multiple facets: study skills, self-discovery, English proficiency (my history courses were all in English) and history (specifically British and USA). This allowed me to focus my energy on other things: such as adjusting to the new social situation, my new relationship (I met him at the teaching program, lol) and getting a diagnosis. I passed all my courses in one try, except my speaking exam (pronunciation is my weak spot, I passed the resit). I didn't have time for a job or a lot of extracurriculars, but I managed to get through the year pretty well with good grades. I also was officially diagnosed at the start of the second semester. year 5

This was the past year. It was tough, but again, I managed to get through the year with good grades. Do I think I could keep up a full-time job as a teacher? Maybe not the best idea if I also want to have a social life. But I feel like I am getting the hang of things and am getting more aware of my needs (especially in relation to my autism). I did experience a lot of stress the past few weeks as I had to finish a few reports and am looking for ways to get help with reports I have difficulty with. Making the decision to go from WO to HBO was quite scary. It was not what I had in mind, and it'd mean adding a whole lot of years to my student debt (we actually have an okay system here). During this year, I was actually able to have part of my student debt erased, so that was a big relief. Idk how many of you will make it to this point of the post. And I don't know if any of you got any wiser from reading about my experiences. I hope it gave you some hope that not everything has to be perfect from the start. It took me some time to find out what was best for me; it's okay if you need more time. Anyway, I might make a post about what it is like to study with autism. If you have any questions about: - studying in the Netherlands (with or without autism) - picking between WO or HBO - what regulations I applied for to get additional funding and have part of my student debt erased (these are regulations for Dutch students with disabilities, not just autism) - or anything else you think I might be able to say something useful about feel free to leave a comment! (I am fluent in Dutch, so if that's easier for you, that's fine!)