#NTs can experience this too (at least I think so)

[my-autism-adhd-blog]

It is estimated those with ADHD receive 20,000 corrective or negative messages by age 10

Neurodivergent_lou

[icewindandboringhorror]

waow.. found a Beautiful Orb at the store today (giant ferrero rocher). I don't even want to crack into it and eat it.. I just want to hold it.. rotate it in my palm thoughtfully like I am an evil wizard who has just been delivered a Very Plot Significant magical gem and is scheming how to use it 

[alexthebordercollie]

Ford's autism

K so I don't think I need to defend the interpretation Ford is on the spectrum. People make jokes about him being autistic all the time. We all see it. What I want to do here is sort of connect together some character details and examine them through the lense of my own autistic experiences.

I wanna start with his hands. It's an observation I've seen from multiple people that Ford is insecure about his hands and often hides them behind his back or in his pockets. And yeah, he is obviously insecure about them. He even mentions his six fingers at times when they aren't really relevant to anything. It just showcases the space this physical deviation of his takes up in his mind. And yes, it makes sense that he's insecure about them because he was bullied for them growing up. I want to add to this observation.

Ford would have been bullied regardless.

The problem was never really his hands. When you're on the spectrum people around you can tell that you're weird. Uncanny. Something is different and feels wrong about you to NT people, especially kids. They will pick any shallow superficial thing they can find as an excuse to bully you and justify the sense of revulsion they feel around you but can't articulate. If Ford had been born with normal hands they just would have made fun of him for something else, it would have been his glasses, or the movies he liked, or hell maybe some good old-fashioned antisemitism. Literally, any excuse they could find.

I know growing up I tried for years to change the things about me that I was made fun of for and it never made things any better. The bullying never stopped. "Fixing" things about myself didn't work because the thing that was actually "broken" was something fundamental to who I am. That realization as a kid was soul-crushing. That there was nothing I could do that would ever make me "normal", that would ever make people like me. I felt like an alien born on the wrong planet.

Ford continues to latch onto his hands as a sore spot because they're something simple and obvious he can point to as an excuse for why he's so outcast. He probably knows by this point that the hands aren't actually the problem. I'd argue this journal entry and his comment about "another failed social interaction" shows that he's aware his hands aren't actually the problem. But, it is a lot easier to fixate on those than to dwell directly on that sinking feeling that at the core of you're being you are fundamentally weird, wrong, unlovable. Ford's a genius. If his polydactyly bothered him that much he could have removed the extra digits. The hands aren't the problem, they're a symbol of a more fundamental kind of pain.

Looking at it through this context also makes the gloves Fiddleford gives him an extra sweet gift given what they represent. A kind of wholehearted acceptance of who Ford is and even a willingness to adapt to his unique needs just to show him love and affection. I think something that hurts me so much about their relationship is that Ford had someone who very clearly loved him as is and would have never wanted him to be someone or something else, and Ford was too stubborn to fully appreciate that.

The same is true of Stanely by the by. He never had a problem with his brother being weird. Another relationship with someone who loved Ford as is but who Ford took for granted. He needs these kinds of relationships in his life. People who embrace and accept him for the weirdo he is. He needs them desperately, which gets me to my next point.

Ford's ego. So it's also a common observation that Ford has a massive ego. He's kind of an ass, to put it mildly. But I have had someone in conversation frame it like the pressure to prove themselves was just on Stanley and Ford just spent his whole life being hyped up and told he was hot shit. This isn't true, or at least it's a flattening of his experiences.

Ford was praised for his genius. This is true. But his own father only gave a shit when said genius showed signs of netting material gains for the family. It only mattered cause Ford could be useful. Furthermore, this genius never netted him social acceptance from his peers growing up. He was still a bullied, weirdo, loser most of his childhood. Add that seeing Stanley kicked out would have drilled into Ford's head that if he couldn't make something out of himself his family wouldn't want him either. Stan was an unspoken threat of what this family does to failures.

Gonna bring up my own personal experiences again. Having set the stage for how it feels growing up on the spectrum. That feeling of alienness that you can't really explain. I loved to write and draw from a very young age. Moreover, as I got older I realized that when I drew, people were nice to me. The only time I got social acceptance was when people were admiring or praising me for my art. So I did it more and more, I devoted myself feverishly to my art. I loved it anyway and would have hyper-fixated on it regardless but the positive reinforcement turned art from something I loved to a need. I NEEDED to be an artist. I needed to be the best at my school. I needed all eyes on my work because it was the only way I could make friends. The only way I could prove that I had value. That I deserved a place in society.

I see that in Ford. I see his ego not as shallow narcissism but as an overwhelming need to prove his value as a person. To be loved and accepted and believing that no one will want him if he isn't brilliant. If he doesn't change the world. If he isn't useful. This is also why he couldn't bring himself to destroy his research even knowing it was the safest and most responsible option. Burning down everything he worked for would mean finally giving up on the fantasy of ever being accepted or valuable.

The sad thing is he's so single-mindedly fixated on this personal goal of proving his worth to the world that when people do come along that love him unconditionally he takes them for granted. These people are statistical anomalies in his life. Nice to have around, but not enough to fix the bigger problem. They aren't reflective of society at large. They aren't enough to prove that he, personally, is loveable. Just that on occasion he meets another weirdo. For a while it's nice. Like a campfire in a barren tundra. But he has to keep moving, he can't stay. Warmer lands are ahead if he can just get to them. If he can just keep moving.

This also is why Ford was so susceptible to Bill. Bill told Ford what he wanted to hear. That he was destined for greatness. That, the fundamental wrongness he felt all his life was something incredible other people just couldn't see. Bill promised Ford exactly what he wanted, but not what he actually needed. Ford never needed the world at large to accept him. He just needed a few good people.

I also think his chemistry with Bill was connected to his autistic experiences as well. Bill is literally an alien. There's no pressure to mask around him. To try and "act normal". Ford can just be himself with Bill and not have to think about it. And sure, he could be himself around Fiddleford, but Fidds is still human. The anxieties of human social expectations are still present. Like when Fidds get him a gift for the holidays and Ford feels a bit guilty that it didn't even occur to him to do the same. He doesn't have to think about these social nuances with Bill.

That said I'm sure Bill isn't what his world would have considered neurotypical anyway. Not that Ford would know that. But Bill was also a strange freak in his own society. Just as outcast, possibly more so. I think Bill sees a bit of his own experiences reflected in Ford. I think he relates to him on a level. Not that he would ever admit it outright due to his own ego. I think Bill's fixation on him after the breakup also stems from Ford rejecting the path that Bill chose for himself. Bill still lives with some sort of deeply repressed guilt for what he did. Imagine how validating it would have been to see someone else like him burn their own world to the ground for the same reasons Bill did. But no, Ford's a better man than him, and Bill can't stand it.

Ok, I don't know how to end this long-ass monologue so I'm gonna call it here I guess. I just wanted to spill some thoughts of mine about Ford as a character. If anyone else wants to add to this with other examinations of Ford's character through this lense go right ahead. I'm just saying as an autistic person myself I understand every choice Ford made. I could relate to why he did the things he did even if I know those were mistakes and even acknowledging that he's kind of an asshole. Ford is a strange man who makes an eerie amount of sense to me.

[oldguydoesstuff]

Bare CPU Printed Circuit Board for the Alpha NT XL366 workstation I designed back in 1995 or so. This was an obscure model of an obscure product line, made by a company (Digital Equipment Corp.) that is now itself obscure. To be honest I don't even remember much about this machine now.

What I do remember is the HUUUUGE fight I got into with our Signal Integrity team while I was designing this, over decoupling capacitors.

Decoupling caps are small components that hold a charge to help even out power when a circuit is active. This board featured hundreds of them, smaller than a grain of rice (see photo comparison of mounting pads vs rice grain below).

Our Signal Integrity team was tasked with making sure everything was electrically stable, so they required many hundreds of these to be added to the board, based on power simulations they did. Trouble was, they wanted so many, we couldn't even build the board.

My job as the Systems Engineer here was to meet the requirements from the SI team, but also from manufacturing, and the requirement that my PCB layout techs don't go insane trying to place and route the board. SI really only cared about signal quality, so they would not relent, and I ended up getting shouted at at one point by a junior SI engineer who was also under a lot of stress, when I said "There are different schools of thought on this.." and he screamed THERE ARE NOT DIFFERENT SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT ON THIS!!

It got to the point where the product was not going to get built, because we just couldn't fit like a thousand of these tiny caps on the board, we needed to ditch at least 25% of them to have a hope. The models were the models though, and you couldn't argue against them.

But then my boss got a genius idea. What if we could prove the simulation models were too conservative? We came up with an experiment where we would remove caps from an older system and measure the power supply noise, to see how many caps could be taken off before the system became unstable.

Me and the junior SI engineer were tasked with doing this experiment (later deemed The Decapitation Project), so we grabbed a Tektronix scope and Metcal soldering station and headed over to this abandoned lab we had in our old Maynard headquarters, a now creepy attic space on the 6th floor of an old mill building. Here were a few older Alphastation 3000 workstations we built years earlier, working but waiting to be recycled.

We had this special program that would thrash the CPU within an inch of its life, to put a big demand on the power supply system. While this was running, the SI engineer measured the power quality, while I proceeded to (very carefully to avoid short-circuiting the system) actually desolder caps from the board while the workstation was running.

We managed to get about 1/3 of them off before there was any noticeable effect, and we found one specific type of cap was not doing much of anything at all. We took the data back to the head of the SI team, and he finally relented and let us remove several hundred capacitors. (He also buried the report and data I had, because he didn't want the bad publicity - I remember being mad about that)

The system got built after that, and worked just fine. We did try to enact a small bit of petty revenge on the SI team manager though - there was a recognition event for people involved on the project, and me and our PCB procurement guy decided to give the SI team manager a special "Faraday Award" for achievement in capacitance (Farads are a measure of capacitance - geeky eng joke). We took an old bowling trophy with a giant, beer-can sized electrolytic capacitor strapped to the top of it as the award. He was a no-show so we didn't get to present it. Those SI guys never did have much of a sense of humor.

Anyway, long story sorry. Just thinking of it recently because I was helping someone at work with an analog simulation and I remembered this..

[bakugokemkatsuki]

Tamaki Amajiki X (GN) Reader :

**Genre: Fluff?? **Word Count: 647 **Warning(s): cussing, some inappropriate remarks, use of c^nt once, cringy, NOT proofread, thought of this at 2 am **Key: R/N- Random Name, R/N/F- Random Name’s Friend, Y/N- Your Name **Note: Y/n gender is not specified/ GN for anyone

Background: You and Tamaki have been dating for a few months and have been friends since middle school. No one knows you two are together. Nejire and Mirio know Tamaki is seeing someone but respects his privacy and your friends don’t know you’re seeing anyone. You are a first year in this. Everyone knows you two are close friends but no one thinks it could be anything more. This does have things that don’t follow the timeline/plot line exact and yes this is partially based on that one scene in Victorious. NOW onto the story!

The festival of the year was here. The weather was perfect, the light breeze carrying the sounds of laughter and joy through the air. Everyone was at the U.A. Festival. One of the third year classes had put on a dance for their activity. Everyone was dancing having a good time. At least it seemed that way, over near the side by some tables were the big three. They were all talking, when two girls came up to them. “Hey it’s Tamaki, right? We’re in the same year! I’m (R/N) and this is (R/N/F).” Tamaki was very flustered and taken aback by the attention. “h..hi, nice to meet you two.” With this Mirio decided to pipe in, “I’m Mirio and this is Nejire. We’re Tamaki’s best friends. It’s a pleasure to meet you guys.” “We know you two, we came here to talk to Tamaki” (R/F/N) snootily responded. After that conversation continued mostly (R/N) flirting and (R/F/N) edging them on. Tamaki was getting very uncomfortable. Across the room, you were dancing and having fun with your friends when you caught sight of Tamaki looking like he’s about to be sick. You quickly tell your friends you’ll be back and start making your way over to everyone. As you approach you hear (R/N) say, “so you’re quick, you use tentacles a lot, I wonder what else those tentacles can do”. “Um, excuse me. He has a girlfriend/boyfriend/significant other .” [Nejire] “I don’t see her/him/them” [R/N] Hearing this you storm up behind R/N not even caring that you just knocked about twenty people over on your way. R/N turns to look you up and down after you tap them on the shoulder. “Now you see her/him/them” “Well I don’t see much”[R/N]. At this point the music is off and the room is quiet all attention on you and R/N. “Leave my BOYFRIEND alone.” “And what if I don’t? I mean he can do so much better than some puny first year like yourself. He’d mush rather have an older more experie….” Before R/N could finish their sentence you decked them in the face. “What the hell is wrong with you! Sexualizing him when it’s clearly making him uncomfortable and disrespecting our relationship on top of that. Stay the HELL away from my boyfriend, got it c^nt” R/N and their friend quickly ran off. “Wow that was nice of you to cover for Tamaki, pretending to be his girlfriend/ boyfriend/ significant other. You’re a good friend y/n.” Hearing yourself referred to as a good friend by Mirio really hurt but you simply nod and walk back to your friends. You’re about half way back when you feel someone grab your arm and spin you around, before you can process what is happening lips are on yours. You immediately recognize them as Tamaki’s. Kissing him back you, he quickly pulls away, “..um thanks.. for that and um sorry for not telling everyone about us sooner.. I just I really.. um…” “I know you hate all the attention. No worries. And I’m glad everyone knows now.” Everyone around you two were cheering and tamaki confessed for the first time… “ I love you (y/n)” stunned you stare at him for a moment before simply replying “I love you too Tamaki” and pulling him into another quick kiss.

Sorry this was cringy and horrible writing this was done at 2am and is my first Fanfic type thing!! Requests are open if anyone is interested!! And thank you for reading!!

[kaija-rayne-author]

Is Solas neurodivergent?

Of course, unless Weekes confirms one way or another, we'll never actually know. But I'd like to point out a few things.

Firstly. I'm autistic/ADHD, so are my kids and I've been an advocate for invisible disabilities, especially those two, for almost a decade now.

I offer an option on my Patreon for parents (or even just people) who need or want advice.

I have a little bit of a clue here. (More like a massive clue by nuke, but I digress 🤣.)

Why I code Solas from Dragon Age: Inquisition as neurodivergent.

1. Mentally ill fits under the neurodivergent (ND) umbrella. There's no way on Thedas that Solas isn't mentally ill.

(Yes, it really does fit. I'm not going to entertain arguments on the topic. It originally meant 'autistic' it no longer means that and hasn't for a long while. Neurodivergent brains = brains that work in any way other than 'the average'.) The antonym is Neurotypical. I tend to abbreviate them. Neurodivergent = ND, Neurotypical = NT.

At the very least, he likely has survivor syndrome. I'd wager on Depression and CPTSD too. (I have these conditions and am comfortable with saying he has a lot of the traits.) The guy was the leader of an enslaved elves rebellion and a war against the Evanuris. In his own words, he got his hands bloody.

No matter who you are, violence, whether you're the perpetrator or the victim, causes trauma to the psyche. And it went on for actual ages. An Age, in The Dragon Age franchise, is considered to be 100 years, so for hundreds of years, if not thousands, this dude has been fighting. Humans can get CPTSD just from a bad childhood. There's no way he hasn't developed it too.

Survivor syndrome is the response of a person when they believe they have done something wrong by surviving a traumatic event when others did not, often feeling self-guilt. (Can we classify Solas clearly with this? Yes, yes we can.)

He wakes up in a world so horrific to him that he can't even conceive of the people as people.

That's a type of disassociation, which is a symptom of many mental illnesses. Depression is the most obvious. He fucked up, he knows it, he's now trapped in a hellscape. (Heeee, we're all trapped in a dystopian hellscape right now and Depression is on the rise, the correlation is there.)

Disassociation is feeling disconnected from yourself and/or the world around you. For example, you may feel detached from your body or feel as though the world around you is unreal.

There could be a few other things there. He'd be a classic case for Disassociative Identity Disorder, for instance, but given the shit rep on the topic, I'm not going there.

2. ADHD

ADHD is still not very well understood by the average person. Sometimes people think it means we can't hold still. But a lot of the time, the H-Hyperactivity portion is only evident in our brains. For me, for instance, I have to constantly be feeding my brain written stuff or I get very antsy and uncomfortable. (ADD no longer exists, we're all ADHD now.) It's why i developed the habit of reading encyclopedias for fun. (Yes, I really do this.)

Solas is constantly reading, or studying, or thinking.

He shows a pretty typical type of temper for an ADHDer several times. Our tempers can be hot, flaring up suddenly for seemingly unexpected reasons. He absolutely does that. Now, there's always a reason for it, but few people on the outside of us will be aware of whatever the issue is.

ADHDers can also experience incredibly fast (compared to neurotypicals) shifts in emotion. Solas does this. Especially in the after the well of sorrows/pre-breakup scene and the break up scene itself. He see-saws emotionally a lot.

He's incredibly creative. He paints (and probably draws at least a little to paint the way he does). So many neurodivergent people are incredibly creative.

Snark. Many ADHDers tend to be snarky or sarcastic because of, well, everything that usually happens to us in life. The snark and salt simply spill out of Solas. Especially on the 'make him hate you' route through the game. Or any time he's around Vivienne.

Finally, ADHDers very frequently have a deep seated drive to change the world and make it better. Stares at Solas. Yup!

3. Autistic

So, firstly, let me say that most people don't understand what autism is or what autistics look and act like.

As an autistic/ADHD person, my experience of life is completely different from a neurotypicals simply because my brain is wired differently.

Reminder that you can't see autism or ADHD. You can sometimes see common comorbids, but without a brain scan, you cannot see autism or ADHD.

I connected and empathize so heavily with Solas because he's a well written, complex character, and because I love anti-heros.

But also because he's exhibits the exact same type of autistic/ADHD traits that I have. (Both autism and ADHD come in different flavours.) Seeing that rep in a triple AAA game was an incredibly powerful experience.

Even though, given Bioware's absolutely shit rep re: disability, it had to be accidental. I credit Weekes with that rep. I read on Twitter they were recently dxd with one or the other (ADHD or Autism, I honestly can't remember which. And up to 80% of ADHDers are also autistic.)

Solas practices esoteric arts. It's a common thing for many autists & ADHDers to learn and practice arts that just aren't as common anymore. Mine? I spin with a spinning wheel, drop spindle, or Andean hand spinner. I make maps. There's several other strange hobbies and skills I've picked up along the way too.

He shows hyperfocus several times in the game. (Hyperfocus is a trait of both ADHD and Autism.)

He stims with his hands a lot. Especially in the kiss scene. I don't recall seeing any of the other characters do this. I'm not talking about the 'dry hand wash' movements most of the characters do. Solas does a thing I do, taps the tips of his fingers against each other. Whoever did his modelling (is that the right term for making a game character?) understood neurodivergency or are ND themselves. Whether they know it or not.

You could even call his painting a type of stimming.

Stimming is where someone will use repetitive motions or sounds to self-soothe. It's really bad to prevent an autistic/ADHDer from using their stims.

I used to have to have a book on my person at all times. I'm late diagnosed, so I didn't know I was using the books as both a stim and a comfort item.

Solas has something autists call 'flat face effect'. Basically, his face is a bit masklike. He doesn't show emotions strongly on his face or in his body language (unless you make him angry 😅 which is also pretty typical for many of us). I've seen rather a lot of discourse about how emotionless Solas appears. I can read him easily, the emotive cues are there, just subtle, like they would be in an autistic & or ADHD person.

He's a decent actor. Now, most autists will agree that we're not innately good at lying or acting. But we're also really good at acting, at least, many of us are by the time we're adults. It comes from having to mask (autistic masking) almost every second of every day just to survive. Masking kills us. So it's not good that we are forced to do it. But it does make many of us incredible actors.

Anthony Hopkins is argueably one of the best actors of the past several decades. He's openly autistic. And he's spoken of how he got to be a good actor. Dan Ackroyd and Darryl Hannah are a couple of others who are out about it. I code a lot of other creatives as being one or the other, but it’s considered rude to assign a diagnosis like that to a living person. That's for them to do.

Solas managed to stay hidden as a 'unwashed apostate hobo' for however long the Inquisition took to fix things. I've seen estimates of 18 months to 2 years. That's a looooong time to be acting like something you're definitely not.

We see in Trespasser that he's not like that at all. But he still sold it so well his reveal at the end of the game shocked many people.

He's a nerd. An absolute nerd about the fade. Nerdery isn't solely the domain of autistics and ADHDers, but it’s a really common trait.

He's stand-offish.

Many autists and ADHDers are rather stand-offish with people for a variety of reasons.

1) We've been hurt so many times because of people refusing to do half the work of communicating with us. (Trust me, autistics and ADHDers are trying ALL THE TIME to communicate with neurotypicals. Y'all could pick up your part of things, y'know?)

2) We've been rejected so often for a genetic condition(s) we can't change. But accommodations for us, which are usually pretty simple and often help neurotypical people too, are considered 'too much'. There's something called RSD that most, if not all, autistic and ADHD folks experience. Rejection Sensitivity Disorder is a bitch kitty and there's no dealing with it well. It hurts.

3) We're often stand-offish while we try to figure out whatever social rules exist in that space/time. We often warm up when we know (or think we know) the rules. Or once we get to know people.

4) Solas is often alone, he's rarely pictured as being with anyone else other than Cole and the Inquisitor. NDs often end up either pushed to the edge of the crowd, or we choose to stay distant as a preventative measure so we aren't rejected.

Food sensitivities: Solas utterly loathes tea. There's a whole cutscene about it. (Fun fact, Solas doesn't like tea because Weekes doesn't.) But that extreme reaction to a relatively innocuous drink is a classic example of a food sensitivity. Most autistics and ADHDers have food or texture sensitivities or both. I can't abide raw tomatoes, and I'll get the urge to cry if I touch corduroy fabric.

Sensitivities can really be anything, but if you know someone who has them, please understand we're not trying to be difficult or to ask for extra attention or to make trouble. The modern world is frankly hell for most autistics and many ADHDers. Brain scans of us when we’re exposed to our sensitivities show that they actually are causing us physical pain. Pain centres in the brain light up like a Yule tree.

Solas is quiet, until he's not. Then he'll talk your ear off. This is pretty common for many of us too.

Solas and the fade. Special interest, anyone?

Special interests: Most autistics and ADHDers have Special interests. It's something that can utterly enthrall us. We tend to want to learn everything we possibly can about the subject we're fascinated with. And we love to share that information. In something called 'infodumping' we're trying to connect with other people. It's one of the ways many of us say we care about someone. By sharing our favourite things. We're also deeply penalized for something we can't change, there, too.

We deeply enjoy the thing and want to share our enjoyment with people we like/love. This can utterly backfire on us, but it doesn't change the urge to share. Often until our audience is giving us the 'dead fish face'. It's where the person's eyes are a little glazed over and they look a bit concussed. Anyone who has ever taught a class of students or is a parent or child caretaker, or is autistic/ADHD knows the look I'm talking about.

I'll stop blabbing for now, but those are most of the reasons I heavily code Solas as autistic/ADHD/mentally ill. Or, in another word. Neurodivergent.

Thanks for reading! If you have the wherewithal I'm a disabled mom of two disabled kids and a tip would help more than you can probably understand. Another way to help is to become a patron. My work of words is my only income and we live well under the poverty line. Like a lot of other neurodivergent people do.

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[kafus]

whenever i see guides for neurotypical social skills and similar stuff, i can’t help but think that if i attempted to make friends that way i’d be miserable. i’m not saying i have no desire to consciously and manually learn some social skills because i have done that for more professional settings, for small talk, for survival, and it has helped me and made my life better! some manually learned social skills i’ve even naturally integrated into how i usually speak, don’t get me wrong! but specifically with forming actual friendships, if the other person isn’t interested in how i communicate as an autistic person and i have to mask myself to that large extent, i’m just. not interested in that kind of friendship.

it’s frustrating too because as an autistic person i’ve discovered that at least online (i don’t have much experience with IRL friendships bc currently mostly homebound disabled person) the ticket to making genuine and good friendships with people wasn’t following some arbitrary ruleset for conversation, it was literally just being confident. Yes really. i genuinely think if you carry yourself like you know who you are and how you speak, you will find people eventually who will click with how you communicate, and friendships can form from there. obviously it’s not THAT simple and easy but it really is such a huge part of it. once i won the idgaf war and stopped fretting so severely over how i was behaving in group chats and shit all the time, it really changed things for the better and i made friendships

as much as learning some NT social skills is required for survival and basic/professional interactions with people, i just think it’s unfortunate that autistic people are often told even by other autistic people that the key to real friendships is forcing yourself to communicate a different way. yes i’m sure that works and some people are going to feel fulfilled that way but frankly i would explode. autistic communication IS desirable! you can make friends even if you talk like that! yes, even like that!! all of us are so anxious and feel like shit bc we’ve been rejected by NT spaces so hard especially while growing up but i swear to god it is possible to make real friendships while also being autistic as fuck unmasked

anyways the TLDR of it is i think we should encourage each other more as autistic people to be confidently unmasked in spaces that are safe for it instead of masking more to make friendships where you can’t even be yourself. i would literally rather explode than try to form close bonds by masking again like i did in high school 💥 💥 💥

[leonsliga]

I know I'm spamming with this. But I just can't be anything but heartbroken.

https://twitter.com/iMiaSanMia/status/1767184731739697196?t=CO3GdBoIlDoNywEz-kPLVw&s=19

He said this just a day before being kicked out.

He had done the ads for their kits. And all the promo stuff.

Completely blindsided. How strong can a person be honestly? He had to get over being the scapegoat for tuchel, for twitter hate, for bayern bad run, for flick and now nagelsmann? He was prepared and probably had his bag packed for the break. How could they do this to him?

I mean what more can he do. If playing so well (I think we disagree here, I feel he has had a very stable solid season with not a lot of bad matches) can't get him in over a boy (whom I'm happy for I guess or I will be once this wave of sadness tides over) who has had like 2 months of experience, then what in the gd world will?

What's he gonna play for. If nagelsmann is saying leon was furious hearing this... I hope he didn't tell him he couldn't play. Why is the football world so unfair to him really ?

Do you think he'll make it to the Euros Bri? Honestly?

I hope he does.

Feeling so resentful towards the NT team.

It’s ok to spam me! I don’t mind 💜 I’ve been absolutely heartbroken too, so it’s comforting to know I’m not alone in that hurt.

I saw his interview response too, and knowing he said it just before the news broke is devastating.

He’s only ever wanted one thing: to help the team, and I think that’s what hurts so much. How could he not feel inadequate after hearing that Nagelsmann didn’t want him—after learning that his hard work to get back to his best wasn’t enough?

He’s been through so much this season (and last season too). Like you said, he spent most of it as Tuchel’s scapegoat. And as if he hadn’t been punished enough, he’s also had to face the wrath of disgruntled fans and his fellow countrymen:

You’re right; he probably had his bag all packed and ready to go, only to get a serious case of whiplash not long afterward, when he learned he wouldn’t be leaving.

We can agree to disagree here :) I think my critique is that while he’s put up decent performances in most matches, Bayern expects the exceptional. So when I say he’s had some rough patches, it’s because I know he can be even better. He’s shown us that before (Bayern’s treble-winning season being the chief example), and he’s shown us that again against Mainz. And like you’ve pointed out in the past, Leon’s far from Bayern’s biggest problem anyhow 🤷‍♀️

This round of call-ups was bittersweet for me too. I’m super proud of Aleks, but I’m also devastated for Leon, even if it is just a few matches. It’s a lot to process.

I know Nagelsmann mentioned it “wasn’t a pleasant conversation” with Leon, but he can’t really blame him for that. How would he feel if he was in Leon’s place—if he was denied the opportunity to represent his country?

My opinion on whether or not he’ll play for the Euros? I think it depends on his performances in Bayern’s upcoming matches. His fate is in his hands. If he keeps up his string of good performances, I don’t see why he wouldn’t be called up. Maybe it’s the delusion talking, but that’s my opinion. I still believe Nagelsmann left Leon off the NT as a test of sorts—as a means to see how he can deliver under pressure.

At the very least, much like you, I hope he’ll be there for the Euros too. We’ll have to see what to develops, as much as I hate to say it 😵

[typosandtea]

With Artfight very soon I though it was about time to post about some of my ocs!

Introducing: Murphy!!

SKETCHS HERE!!!

Nora Murphy is a whole 5ft of mutant soldier trauma and caring.

The short:

S:5, P:7, E:8, C:10, I:3, A:7, L:2

Toughness, Lifegiver, rad resistant, refractor, admantium skeleton, animal friend, inspirational, local leader, rifleman

BOS main, contractor for the minuteman, deacon only minor contact with the railroad, hates the institute

Good, helps people, very anxious, terrified of becoming a monster. Unlucky.

Is a mutant: can fly, quick heal / tough, but needs to eat a lot, restricted to night by being nocturnal, shunned by many

Companions: Danse and Preston mostly, sometimes nick, befriends all of them at least a bit.

Heritage: white Australian

The long: Lore \/

The long:

Fallout 4 ‘Sole survivor’ oc, but in my Mutant AU where vault 111 was a dual experiment creating super soldiers by forcing animal DNA on people with some twisted results (Murph is very lucky to still look mostly human with wings), basically fallout 4 but with a bunch of extra side quests to fight or help her old neighbours in various states of mind.

She is Australian! From NT, Which kinda sucks in fallout universe since most countries had fallen well before the bombs ever fell, Australia was absorbed by USA for its abundance of uranium and strategic proximity to china! She and Nathan (Nate) were accepted as military refugees into the us army about 2065, where they were in power armour core together her as a soldier and him as a mechanic. They were married shortly before where they both get injured in an explosion, Nathan much more so as Murphy was in power Armor at the time. They are discharged, Nathan for injury and Murphy for being pregnant with Shaun. Bombs fall etc.

She is mutated with sooty owl DNA by Vaulttec in an attempt to make an extremely mobile stealth night operative, which didn’t go entirely to plan! While she hardier than normal, capable of flight and is reasonably stealthy she is also now limited to night ops by being nocturnal, daytime is way too bright and painful for her to be in without eye protection! She also struggles to be awake in the day. She also has other negatives from the mutation such as lost intelligence, needing to eat way more food, being smaller than she used to be, and being shunned or shot at. The mutation forces each of the residents to cocoon and liquify into their new forms!

She has so much military trauma, from being in the Aus army when they get demolished by china and then by USA fighting china to take control of Aus, by being acquired by the us army, being a ‘volunteer’ for the power Armor testing, seeing fellow Aussie soldiers get treated poorly in the army, having to participate in the mandatory war crimes, her and Nathan getting badly injured in anchorage, the horrors of war etc.

Personality wise she is very people oriented and will put people before the goal often, extremely charismatic which is the only reason she hasn’t been shot multiple times by just about every faction 😅. Very anxious even before being mutated, but is positively a nervous wreck now, is ok at hiding it. Soldiers training helps a lot to shift into mission focus but is not sustainable in the long term as she finds out! Worries about being a mutant and is terrified of becoming, or being seen as a monster so she is very restrained in her combat, how she moves and speaks, rarely yells or fights first. Will go out of her way to help people as has become the go to helper for many people against her will such as the minuteman, the other mutants and various other people she has helped. She has a very broad definition of person much to Danse’s + the BOS’s chagrin. Has multiple mental breakdowns throughout the story. Privately thinks she deserves to be hated and hunted from a combination of BOS rubbish, military trauma at the awful things she has done as a soldier both pre and post war, and just all round ruined self esteem. Banter is a core part of her speech, if an Aussie is mildly insulting you they think you’re neat!

Pre war was 5’6”, post mutation is 5’ with 15’ wingspan, is not happy about suddenly being a lot shorter. As a morning person naturally the shift to nocturnal is extremely difficult to her, dislikes having to wake people up constantly and feels bad about it. (She feels bad about everything really). Jury-rigs some aviators goggles sunglasses so she can tolerate the sun slightly better, is not a fan of the day anymore, feels too exposed and dislikes flying in the sun.

BOS as feels the familiarity of being as soldier as that’s all she’s ever been for the past 17 years (her perspective excluding the ice nap). Unknown to her, Danse is instructed by Maxon after arcjet on to recruit her so they can study her, and use her as a political pawn with the minutemen and mutants, because by the time she goes to Cambridge she is already reasonably well know and tentatively liked in the commonwealth. (Don’t worry I love both Danse and Maxon as characters so they are not reduced to 1 dimensional jerks!) over time though she befriends Danse as he is assigned to her as her ‘sponsor’ (observe her for study and make sure she makes BoS friendly decisions), mixed feeling in the BoS when she is made knight by Maxon to say the least! over time she becomes a great friend and asset to the BoS and Maxon realises one day the he no longer intends to go through with his original secret plans.

Since she spent so much time in power armour prewar, and Nathan was a power armour mechanic, she knows quite a lot about it! And is very unhappy that she physicaly cannot wear it anymore!

Physically she is small wiry and very hardy from the mutations. Though she can’t wear armour due to its weight and her small stature so she needs to be tough! Important appearance features are she is short, lots of freckles, gap in front teeth, rather flat face, prominent eyebrows, eyes that are too big and yellow from the mutation, shoulder length thick light brown hair that’s messy or braided, she is lean, pear shaped, and has a wide gait. Prefers baggy clothes and will layer over the vault suit / bos uniform. She rather suntanned / leathery and freckled from spending a lot of time outside pre war. She has a prominent set of vertical scars over her left eye from anchorage. She has barbed wire tattoos around her arms above her elbows on both sides. wings connect to her body like having a second set of shoulders.

Absolutely has no cold tolerance from the double whammy of being a Northern Territory Aussie (winter is like 17c here) and cryosleep trauma! Layers clothing wherever possible. Being very cold brings bad memories.

Left leg gets messed up in a nasty fight later, can’t really run much anymore, so is a lot more reliant on flying and her friends, scar on her stomach from stacking it badly on her bike as a kid.

Despite being highly charismatic keeps messing up and emotionally hurting her friends (everyone needs to grow as a person in my fanfic I’m trying to write and that includes messing up in relationships and subsequently repairing the relationship stronger)

Uses laser rifle from Danse that’s modified to be scoped and extra light, carries a combat knife on her person at all times out of habit, before meeting Danse was using 10mm but prefers long range without power armour, which she can’t wear anymore. Her and Sturges whip up some rudimentary comms for her, which later she and danse improves so she can use them in flight without the wind noise making her illegible.

Tends to horde / carry / eat any food she finds since she needs to eat so much and doesn’t want to be a burden on anyone else, most of the time her very limited caring capacity is atleast half food. Has very few clothes because of the time and effort required to modify them, gets a modified bomber jacket later and basically never takes it off again cause bloody hell Boston is cold compared to Aus.

[sehrgefaelltmir]

Hey any fic recs? I really like yours so I figured you'd have good recommendations. I'd read just about any ship

hi!!! aw thank you so much, that means a lot. i haven’t had a lot of time to read lately (also i have the attention span of a gnat lmao) so i’m just gonna list all the best fics that i can think of,,, theres no real theme theres no criteria lmao. i kinda just like stuff w good writing. all of these are amazingly written i wish i could write something half as good as these 😭😭

my favourite fics (off the top of my head) are:

UEFA High by maxevader / @liverpool-enjoyer (i feel like anyone who hasn’t read this is living under a rock sekskjdbd but i gotta mention it anyway cause i adore it) it’s a high school au, literally EVERYONE is in it. well not everyone but,,, a lot. theres a load of different ships (i came for müllendowski ofc but im kinda pulling for alisson/vvd rn they’re really cute i’m rooting for them) and some really sweet friendships too (thomas & manu, robbo & trent, gavi & pedri are my favourites) honestly i don’t wanna spoil it just go in blind if u haven’t read it already cause it’s so so worth it, it’s so funny and so sweet and also very relatable and ughhhhh man i could talk abt it forever

while we’re at it i want to be loved (not to be touched) (also by maxevader) is also really fucking good, it’s gavi-centric, very angsty, SO well-written, the stars aligned or some shit and i read it at exactly the right moment in my life and it made me cry a bit (a lot)

how long could we be a sad song? by moonwedes / @tchouameninga, it’s a suuuuper super angsty müllendowski fic about lewy’s decision to leave bayern and what led up to it. the writing is incredible n it made me so fucking sad. i cannot recommend this one enough it is SO good, just. man the characterisation and the little details and how inevitable and tragic it feels,,, ughhh it’s amazing

Another Plane of Shambles by fipsareyougay,,, again i kinda feel like anyone who likes my fics has probably read this already cause it’s like. THE bayern/german nt fic lmao sorry. but i gotta mention it anyway cause it’s one of my favourite fics ever. it’s like 600k words and kinda intimidating to get into cause theres like a million characters and ships and subplots but it is so. so fucking good. off the top of my head the main ships are neuller, mesut/sami, schweinski, götzeus, toni/jonas hector (random ahh ship but it works lmao), leno/ter stegen, but there’s like 183737 other ships too. it’s hilarious but also like,, really really sad. like EVERYONE is going through it, it gets quite dark sometimes. also it’s not finished lmao like i don’t think it’s been updated for like a year at this point, but.. i honestly don’t think it matters?? like it’s so fucking good as it is i fr don’t mind if its not updated, whats there is enough (for me at least). its SUCH an experience i love it so much and i will recommend it to literally everyone, whether ur a german nt fan or not

domestic pressures by fivesecrets is also really REALLY fuckin good. the main ship is lewy/b**teng, which… yeah it’s not a ship i like for… obvious reasons lol but this fic is so well-written that i just can’t not include it. id actually feel bad if i didnt include it cause the writing is so SO fucking good,, i don’t think i’ve read any of this author’s other fics now that i think of it, but i really should. i feel so inadequate every time i think about this fic cause the writing is just that good. like,, the prose. if i ever write something as beautifully as this its all over for u bitches. it also has bravertz as a background ship which i LOVE. (SIDE NOTE DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY MORE BRAVERTZ RECS PLS I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER 👉👈)

one of my all-time favourite fics is Lunar by Redbull_gave_me_wings. (this is the fic that made me finally decide to start properly writing n posting instead of just writing random paragraphs in my notes app. so i’ll love it forever for that reason alone) i don’t rlly know how to explain this one lmao it’s kinda complicated, it’s… basically a werewolf au?? which seems really random for a football fic lmao but it works. i adore this fic. just,, the characterisation and the world-building and the memories i have of reading it (spring 2022 when i was supposed to be studying for my leaving cert lmao) and the relationship between the 3 main characters (thomas, lewy and marco, müllendowski are an established relationship and theres also kinda hints of götzeus if you squint??) i just love the story, all the side characters, the world and the lore,,,, dldkdkdj i need to reread it omg

the next one is UNFINISHED 😭 but i want to include it just cause i love it so much: welcome to the underworld by bibliophile357. another one that i rlly don’t know how to explain lmao. it’s basically a greek mythology au w müllendowski as the main ship, lewy is hades and thomas is persephone. there’s also a few other ships, i think seriker is kinda the biggest secondary one tho?? (i might be wrong lmao i read it aaages ago. like before i even had an ao3 account i think 😭) the greatest (greek) tragedy of them all is that this fic was never finished. like i got to the last chapter and was genuinely heartbroken that there was no ending cause the writing and the development of the main ship was so beautiful. i don’t think it ever will be finished either bc it hasn’t been updated since 2017 lmao but still it’s one of my favourite fics

also there’s a few other oneshots that i rlly rlly love, all soooooo so well-written: (also all müllendowski now that i think abt it 😭😭 im too loyal to them sjdkskdjjd im a one-club player. thomas müller just like me fr)

at night i think about you by restless5oul

must mean it’s the low season by ssilverarrowss

History Has Its Eyes On You by thomasmxller

n the last ones i can think of are kinda just like. short lil meet-cute aus. yknow for someone who has never even considered writing an au there sure are a lot of aus on this list 😭😭 i just have thing for them ig

the first one is Kawiarnia by lesbleusthroughandthrough, it’s a coffee shop au, lewy/szczęsny, which,, i can’t see them as anything but friends when i write them but like,, in this au it just works (you gotta read that in a todd howard voice) i WISH there was more of this au cause it was so funny and so cute, i reread it sometimes when i need a laugh

and the second one is (darling so it goes) some things are just meant to be by bleedingdaylight. its,, idk, a not-footballers au?? idk what to call that 😭 it’s a rlly sweet götzeus fic abt mario having a lil crush on marco, v sweet v funny 10/10. i ADORE götzeus they’re so cute in this fic (also theres a dog. named borussia)

thats,,, a really random list lmao sorry 😭😭 it’s kinda just all my favourites. i fr need to get back into just reading fics, i kinda just write in my spare time i barely read anything anymore. also i probably missed some other really good fics so if anyone wants to add anything pls do!!!

[alicenpai]

🌟

anime north 2023 con report

finally posting this - thank you to everyone for a wonderful anime north!! \o/ this con prep season was the longest ive ever prepped for a con, and i think it was the busiest con for me ever. it makes me so happy to see people taking my art home!! 😭

so thank you for coming by anime north and chatting and supporting me! and thank you esp to the people who came by gifting their own merch?!??? - either fanart or ocs?! and im honored to see your beautiful ocs?!?? what the hell you guys are the GOAT thank you all 🥹🥹

it was so busy that i wish i had time to walk around & talk to other artists! i really wanted to get dango and onigiri at the delta too.. didnt really get time to eat so im sorry if you saw me shove 10 timbits in my mouth at the end of the con. yes i really did that .

throughout the con i kept saying "he just like me.. HE JUST LIKE ME FR!!!!!!!" every 5 seconds like an NPC. im sorry if you had to hear that more than once.

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i wasn't able to post my con catalogue for AN on tumblr and instagram... i was so busy.. dying... maybe if i do other cons this summer ill post something similar. i had a lot of new stuff this year so formatting it was rough haha. here it is! more thoughts under the cut (bc this report really is more for me, but maybe someone can find something useful)

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this is more for me honestly, so it will be really long. but i'm sharing it in case it may be helpful for others. i find that i'm always looking back at my old con reports, so typing out all of my thoughts are really useful to me. overall a great con, fellow artists and customers alike really inspire me to do better in my art.

comparisons to last year: (since i didn't end up making a con report last year!!!!!)

location: the artist alley layout was huge, and im really happy there are a lot more newcomers to the con scene. i know how much my first con experience meant to me, so i want others to join in on the fun! i don't know how the artist alley staff managed to fit so many artists in the building now! we got placed in a corner where there was a lot of breathing room, and a lot of traffic. i got lost a few times (didn't actually have time to walk around, but you know, it was to get in and out of the con centre and to the washroom/water station) because the amount of tables was overwhelming however, and the layout was super confusing. however i didn't feel as if there were any significant bottlenecks in traffic when i was taking some walk breaks.

commissions: last year it was still busy, but i still had some time to draw a handful of commissions. this year was a non stop barrage of customers! i think i may retire on the spot commissions at cons, just because ive always found it too stressful to draw right at the con, even if the traffic is slow. (and im lazy)

fandoms: last year i felt that it was... never so difficult to sell niche and old fandoms...? most people bought primarily 3 things from me at AN 2022, and not much else was touched. it was a struggle, and i even wondered if my art plateaued, if it wasn't good, if i should stop doing conventions altogether, at least for a little while. this year was so surprising with how much love there was for old and niche fandoms. two people from quebec came by and noticed the old fandoms and mentioned that if i was able to come to otakuthon, i should, people in mtl love nostalgia.. i'm gonna be honest otakuthon was pretty bad expenses-wise for me, but i heard it picked up since cons came back in 2022. it is a really beautiful city so mayhaps.. i will come for miss montreal.................

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and a separate section on the new merch i made:

the new sticker sheets i printed (one piece, baccano, breaking bad/better call saul) did so well! nts to add luffys scar bc apparently i forgot... ive seen this dumbass's face for hundreds of eps and yet i still forgot .

these are a far cry to the sticker sheets i designed in previous years. many sticker places restrict you on how many stickers you can place on a sheet due to spacing requirements... the more stickers you have + the closer they are, the higher the margin of error, which i understand is why many professional sticker printers have these restrictions in place.

the artists i worked with for my AN stickers are so genuinely nice and accommodating with my requests. I just went wild haha. the sheets with the most stickers are brba/bcs at 27 stickers and one piece at 32 stickers.

2021 (top) vs 2023 (bottom), the chara stickers on the new sheet are larger & 2x as many item stickers! the new design makes greater use of the space. my octopath 1 stickers are meant for planners but you could use it for anything!

in 2017 i could only realistically fit 6 ish stickers on a sheet (for vinyl, not cricut home printing) due to printing restrictions. these costed about $3.30 CAD per sheet from s/ticker/mule (not worth it for the price point AT ALL... but i wanted to try sheets for the first time)... and yes it's a tiny 4x7 as well. it was a hard sell for $7 in 2017. but im glad artists have been pricing them a bit higher + sheets have become much more customizable.

now on to charms:

i am so obsessed with this borderless charm look on the new charms... they look like candy... thank you guys for loving my new charms!! i tried out a new technique with designing charms. and im so happy with how they turned out. the charm manu was super accommodating and they are so much better than vograce who fucked up my order so bad in 2022 🤡👍

the soul eater charms from last year were kind of a precursor to this. last year i tried something a bit different than my usual with the transparent bgs, which require full bleed in the file setup, and that was already pretty new for me. i find that charm sales are usually pretty mid for me, so during the pandemic i took a soft break from making them, and i wanted to do research based on others' designs and really tried to improve my design sense. to me i want to design charms that aren't just a flat piece of artwork that gets printed, but something that utilizes the capabilities of the acrylic material it gets printed on 🤔

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fandoms/merch types i want to try next time i table:

more soul eater? it's one of my favourite animes and im very happy for the soul eater love this year. my partner kept selling out of her soul eater prints even though it was her first time tabling!

fma! ive been rereading AND rewatching it lately. it's one of my top 5 anime of all time so me drawing anything for it is a struggle, the bar is set so high. i never end up having the time or ideas to draw anything for it (and the aesthetics are very different from my usual taste)

shadows house has been one of my favorites recently!

dungeon meshi, the print i made was back in 2018 and i think it's time to retire it! it sold out at AN, thank you! with the way the story has developed in the last 5 years, i really want to draw something new for it if i can.

blue period needs more love!

golden kamuy.....

and many more.....

i also want to try mini prints maybe...

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administrative stuff:

next time before the con, i definitely need an organized chart i print out before the con so im not.. literally writing down each transaction... 🧍‍♀️

clamps...?

possibly new display? grids even with plastic panels are heavy... and they can be a pain to put up. this AN we had our neighbors and good friends @nappotuna & @stripeyworm helping us put the grids up, they did an absolute speedy banger job! but it might have taken way longer without 4 hands on the grid work.

if we had used tape to hold our prints up as well who knows how long it would have taken. we used magnets, apparently a lot of people were using them at TCAF. they were so easy to put up and adjustable. *jesse pinkman voice* MAGNETS, BITCH!!!!!!!

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merch i may shelve/do less of:

i really appreciate when artists talk about these kind of things behind the scenes... when products do well, when others dont, products w surprising responses, the factors that we think affect sales... the hard truth is that not everything sells, just bc the art is good =/= good sales, etc etc.

lately ive found it so fun to design sticker sheets over individual die cut stickers!! i understand now why some people only specialize in stickers!! it's also such a pain to stock individual characters and have greatly varying levels, bc of customer interest, and bc of how printing stickers works, you often get extras of random characters due to overflow 😭.. like at some point I had 7 jeannes and like only 1 of the other vnc charas bc the printer had so many extras and she's arguably less popular HDHFJSJHDJS anyways, i think i'll probably do less die cut individual stickers for my next con...

anything old that i only have 1 or a few copies left (meaning i won't reprint) i may not have for display anymore bc of space concerns... before my next con ill just post them on social media to have people claim them!

i may want to do less 3" charms in the future...? theyre a hard sell online prob bc i cant really do deals (i could but id have to be checking the stock every few hours which is not ideal), but they do a lot better in person due to deals.

it's been fun to try specialty products (I've tried scrunchies, stamps, pouches, microfiber cloths, coasters, enamel pins), but i... find they dont sell well for me... maybe my art doesnt have that wide mainstream nostalgic merch type appeal idk... maybe im just not good at designing or advertising them wahahaha. (specialty charms are still charms and i wouldn't necessary consider them a part of this)

my jojo buttons were really popular at anime north 2019 and fan expo 2019, but when the part 5 anime concluded, i noticed that interest for the interest completely moved on 😭 (or it's possible that everyone who was interested bought the buttons already?). part 6 anime didn't rejuvenate the same level of interest. it was a struggle to sell even more than a handful of these at each AN 2022 and 2023. right now they're taking up a lot of space in my con luggage that i'd prefer for newer, better art. i still love the art i did, but unfortunately, i think ill give them a go if i get into otakuthon (and maybe fanexpo too), then it'll be time to retire the jojo buttons. sometimes fandoms come and go so fast, and it's difficult to keep old merch around when they don't have any more interest and when they're occupying a lot of space.

my banana fish lollipop charms do not sell well, and i only sold 5 of them in a 3 year period, across cons and my shop. i created a bargain bin at AN, and it really helped me get rid of old things! unfortunately even in the bargain bin i could not sell a single one of the banana fish charms. maybe it's the art that's not appealing, the characters aren't recognizable, the price point for a lollipop charm was too high, i wasn't hitting the right audience, the market was slow around the time, even when it was included in my promo post... etc. these lollipops were my first time making specialty charms. unfortunately i think that's the last time making lollipop charms, and about time to recycle these charms, so that i have space for fresher and better art!

other thoughts moving on:

maybe go back to simplifying my art a lot more... if i keep making drawings like my great ace attorney tarot + zine, witch hat atelier print, and pandora hearts print, then id not only take 1 month per illustration, id also be destroying my arm 😭 i stopped stylizing my art in 2021 bc i found that my art was getting sloppy in 2020 + i was really struggling in life drawing in school. i needed to buckle down and be more conscientious when drawing poses, learning anatomy and structure... and bc getting back into anime in 2021 really helped me cope with the isolation of the lockdown, so that had a huge influence on my style. but bc of that i think it just took longer and longer to make illustrations and that's something i no longer really wish for.

i really like the period of my art in 2017 with a lot of my persona 4/5 art bc it still has structure even though it's simplified... and the style in my zelda icon... mayhaps experiment a bit more this summer if i can...

[triptychofvoids]

Howdy howdy, this is kind of based on the last ask-and-subsequent-answer, but what are your feelings towards your partner like? Like, what does it feel like? I’m also aroace, or at least I think I’m aro, but it’s kinda hard for me to figure out whether I love my friend romantically or platonically. I don’t think I’ve ever been in love before, and we’re both autistic so I see love kinda differently than what’s portrayed in media. I’m just having trouble parsing my feelings, and I think it might help to hear about your experiences/thoughts, if you’re cool with sharing! I know it’s a spectrum so it’s not going to be the exact same for you as it is for me, but I think it’d at least help give me a perspective other than my own and the perspective of nt people/media!

Anyhoo it’s really cool to see another aroace person living happily and comfortable with his identity. Just…you’re cool.

from one autistic aroace to another, i assure you that your difficulty parsing feelings is not solely unique aheh.... well! before i get into answering this, ill have to state that i am certainly not the stereotype.. namely, i am the opposite of the sex/romance adverse person many people tend to think of when they hear aroace...

now, when it comes to my feelings towards my partner (without getting too detailed) ive found i often dont differentiate between platonic and romantic very well at all. for the longest time i never even thought there was a difference between the two, and i still struggle to differentiate them even now. however, from what ive learned, most people that are not aromantic have a list of behaviors and feelings they would consider inappropriate to do with/feel towards a friend, and that they would only do/have with a romantic partner in most cases. but my personal opinion on it is that a platonic relationship can be just as important and valuable as a romantic one, but its up to you to determine what sort of behaviors you are wanting to engage in with another person, and see if that want is mutual. in my case with my own partner, that includes affection and things that are probably seen as romantic to most! but like i said, i dont see the act of being affectionate as something purely romantic or platonic. it just is, and you have to decide if thats something you want or not. i could go on but i think you get the idea. its confusing, and the line is very thin in my experience.... my partner is also someone i consider to be one of my best friends, and the friendship aspect came before the committed relationship aspect, if that helps!

when it comes to the sexual side of things (again, without getting into too much detail) you still have to do some self-reflection and decide what it is that you want or do not want! but one thing that i can talk about from experience is that most people that are not asexual will feel sexual attraction simply by looking at their partner, and i do not. hence me being asexual aheh.. but there are many other kinds of attraction! in my case i do find my partner to be pleasant to look at, but i like to use the comparison of a piece of art or a landscape. as in, a beautiful sunset can sometimes seem like you are viewing heaven itself but generally speaking that beautiful sunset, pretty as it is, will not be sexually arousing. i also think its important to know that there is a difference between libido and attraction and it can be good to keep that in mind when looking at other peoples (or your own) experiences as well.

so... there is just a very small amount of my experience and thoughts on the matter. my feelings as an aroace person who is favorable towards romance and sex are likely going to be very different from an aroace person who is sex/romance adverse though. the point being, that having little to no romantic/sexual attraction is the core of being aroace, but beyond that its entirely up to the individual what their wants and needs are! i am happy to share my experiences though!

[sayitalianolearns]

5, 10, 25

Ciao :D

5. what made you start your blog? Since I own a tad too many blogs, I'm gonna try and give the shortest explanation I can for all of them. -First came @sayitaliano. Got to open it as a side blog by chance with another Italian girl I met through our shared passion in volleyball -I had a blog that still exists on which I made graphic edits and posted translations for some Polish friends (on volleyblr) who loved Italian NT (and players LOL) and were interested in our language and culture so... yeah that's basically how it started. -Then I opened @sayitalianohome as the real main blog in which to collect all the links for navigation on @sayitaliano (couldn't really find a good responsive template and gave up there). Other reasons: I never thought that that blog would have become so big back in September 2014 and I needed to reply to posts with a blog that could be connected to the one people was writing to LOL. -As I started my healing process a couple of years(?) ago I created @loveyourlovelysoul to journal and have a place on which I could collect what I came to learn by experience, downloads and by getting informed (psychology mostly). Guess it turned out to be a place for others too to share their problems and feel less lonely -and I'm glad. - @psychelis-new is the 3rd blog I opened about my passion for divination and dreams interpretations. Well it's more than a passion now since it's been 4 years already but yeah... I needed a place for that to learn and understand, to practice, and to try and help others in the community. Hopefully guide them and support them, somehow? IDK. -And last but not least the baby @sayitalianolearns. I had started learning Korean some years ago but wasn't very consistent so after a while I started looking for resources and challenges in here and actually shared a bunch on @loveyourlovelysoul but it was becoming a bit too confusing there with my healing journey and random stuff I post for funzies/comfort (also cause I was adding Spanish and French to the mix), so I decided to open a blog specifically for my learning/language studies. My mind is hell but at times comes up with nice ideas LOL

10. would you say you’re an emotional person? I'm actually a crybaby and yeah even if I look collected and "zen", at times I find it hard to control my emotions... I'm not as detached and cold as it could seem or as many think.

25. fave season and why? Winter for sure. I was born in winter, and winter has cold, snow and fog. And most of all, it doesn't have humid hot weather that makes you sweat like a pig even for simply existing/breathing. (Not a fan of summer, sorry!)

Thanks for sending and for letting me spend some time, ig you can tell I'm a little bored these days (despite the heat) lol

[greentrickster]

yuu1412  Although now I gotta wonder: did Miku get Binghe into gaming? Did he find fanfiction? Did he have pokemon or adventure ships???

(question asked on AO3)

YES, she did, of course she did, you’re so incredibly right, argh, how did I not realize before that she’s the one who started all this! She’s the one who got him playing Pokemon Go, they’re both on Team Valor and, while Binghe is there, they rule their local gym (Tatsu doesn’t play and Masa is Team Instinct because he liked the gym leader’s style (I wonder why (stares at Masa’s hair))). Binghe’s enchanted by Pokemon purely because “OMG, Shizun would love this, Shizun thinks monsters are so cool, he would love a world where you get to tame and battle with monsters, I must share this with him as best I can!!!”

He does this by basically becoming a walking pokedex of pokeknowledge, watching an impressive amount of the anime, and also making his Pokemon Go avatar based on Shen Qingqiu instead of himself (partially so there can be at least one world where Shizun gets to experience this, partially so that, you know. He can be the one helping Shizun become the very best, like no one ever was, because Shizun deserves it-!!!). Pokemon Go tends to be the pokegame he plays the most, though I’m going to say he watches Miku play Legends Arceus a lot, because he finds the story both intriguing and relatable (in a way). Miku lets him play her save file from time to time to go shiney hunting, because Binghe has the best luck with shinies (I wonder why).

I think this might actually be the first thing that Binghe and Miku really connect over - he has a hard time figuring her out at first, just because she acts so differently from anyone he’s ever met before, in a lot of ways he doesn’t expect. Like, she doesn’t seem bothered by Binghe spending time with Tatsu-sensei? At all? Binghe’s only got eyes for Shizun, but it’s like she’s not even worried Binghe might try and steal Tatsu-sensei from her or something? And why is she okay with Tatsu-sensei spending time with Binghe when he could be spending it with her? And why is she being so seemingly friendly with Binghe? What’s her ulterior motive? What does she want from him???

Miku: I don’t want anything from you. Tatsu likes you and he could use some more friends - and you look like you could too.

Binghe: (nods politely, then spends as many points as he dares when he’s alone that night trying to get some explanations for what the heck’s going on)

Because, thinking about it, Miku’s going to, just by being herself, be a good example of how to be in a healthy relationship, same as Tatsu is. Yeah, they’re a slightly odd couple, but they’re happy together and comfortable in themselves, and, bless him, Binghe needs that in his life.

I think Binghe also gets into Animal Crossing in a big way. Fighting games just aren’t as interesting to him when he’s, you know, actually been the one doing all the cool fighting stuff, kind of a step down, but Animal Crossing? That’s such a Binghe game, making a beautiful home and island that you have complete control over? 10/10, he’s going to think of it wistfully from time to time when he eventually returns to his world.

As for fanfiction and shipping... hmmm... I don’t think he does, he’s engaged enough with web novels, the library, and other such things that he never manages to stumble across it. He does discover YouTube, however, and ends up watching a lot of self-help videos. Masa taught him the important things for internet usage: search functions, where to find the p*rn and h*nt*i, and how to pirate (Miku’s the one who helped him find the webnovels). With no knowledge to even conceptualize things like AO3, deviantart, or tumblr, Binghe just doesn’t stumble across them. And, frankly, that’s probably for the best, I adore fanfic, obviously I do, but the world does not need Binghe discovering The Tropes, that could-

...wait.

(considers)

...gods, this boy’s too smart, he’d probably use the trope knowledge he gained via fanfiction to try and get himself into Scenarios to get Shizun to notice and/or sex him.

Except then he gets home and discovers his stupid Heavenly Demon Blood makes him immune to basically Everything, sorry Binghe, gonna still have to ask for what you want in bed. Not that he lets this stop him entirely.

Side note, Shen Yuan starts actively avoiding anything potentially thorny, because his wonderful but accident-prone disciple keeps tripping into them and getting his clothes ruined, Binghe, please, think of all the pure and delicate maidens whose hearts you’re going to break by exposing them to your perfect everything-!!! ...though it is a little odd that it never seems to happen when he’s wearing his apron. Weird. Oh well, at least Binghe heals quick thanks to his demonic heritage...

Binghe, still in his latest ruined set of robes, flopped on the floor of Sha Hualing’s lab: Why won’t Shizun notice me???

Sha Hualing, barely paying attention: You wear too many clothes.

Binghe, still face-down on the floor: No, I thought about that, but Shizun’s more the sort to be into a tantalizing, unexpected glimpse of what’s usually hidden than seeing everything all the time. It’s more intriguing.

Sha Hualing: Humans are weird.

Binghe: You’re weird!

Sha Hualing, to Mobei-jun who’s sitting against the far wall: Why did you help him get in here again, I have a deadline for getting this sword done, you know!

Mobei-jun: ...

Sha Hualing: I don’t speak ice cube you-!

Binghe: Liu Mingyan’s human, you know.

Sha Hualing: ...

Sha Hualing, setting tools aside: So tell me more about these weird human fetishes.

Binghe: IT’S NOT A FETISH, SHIZUN IS TOO PURE AND ELEGANT AND DIGNIFIED TO HAVE-!!!

...so yeah, Binghe can have a little exposure to fanfiction, as a treat. Because it could be funny.

[percervall]

if money and availability weren’t an issue, which five current football players would you helicopter into Liverpool’s squad right now?

Oh boy, okay I gotta think about this...

We need a RB, preferably another CB (or 2) and at least another midfielder who can play DM.

For right back I think Héctor Bellerín would fit in nicely, he also has experience in the premier league as a former Arsenal player so that helps. As a CB, I've seen what Matthijs de Ligt is capable of and his skills would be very much welcome, and maybe Fikayo Tomori? No idea if either of them would gel with the rest of the lads though. For the midfield rebuild, I wouldn't be opposed to Bentancur (also so Darwin has his nt bestie) or Granit Xhaka, even if he is on the older side so it doesn't solve the issue of our ageing midfield. I also wouldn't hate the addition of Leon, even if it is just so I can witness him pulling another Busquets against one of my beloathed teams

I spent way too long scrolling through FIFA ranked lists 🙈

[destinyc1020]

Kaia n Austin hav only been together for (about to b) 2 yrs, they hav a age gap that ppl r divided on n their fanbases r very different n divided, they just dnt compare to couples like TZ or Dylan/Barbara who r the complete opposite.

2 yrs, imo, just aint a lot in general, esp compared to the almost decade long relationship Austin had with Vanessa bt to Kaia this is def her longest relationship.

The age gap is obvious, gurl culdnt even drink in America wen she was with him wen they 1st started dating lol

i tgink as far as the fanbase part most Austin fans seem to b indifferent towards her (nt even in a mean way bt they may just focus on his career primarily and nt his relationship). Obviously u get the few extremes on both sides, sum who REALLY hype Kaia up n become her fan too n sum who REALLY hate her. Kaia dsnt seem to hav a large or dedicated fanbase like that bt the few i do see will post her pap pics, street style and a photoshoot here n there. Obviously Austin (or any of her previous bfs) will sometimes b in a pap pic or she'll go to an event of his so her fans seem more open to him cuz pap picz are a lot of her content as a fan

Kaia n Austin hav only been together for (about to b) 2 yrs, they hav a age gap that ppl r divided on n their fanbases r very different n divided, they just dnt compare to couples like TZ or Dylan/Barbara who r the complete opposite.

Even though I've seen some cute couple moments btwn them, Austin and Kaia don't compare to those couples in the least imo lol. And nobody sees them as "couples goals" lol. But I don't think it's due to the age gap, or even the different fan bases (Tom and Z's separate fanbases are quite different if you think about it). I think it's more so due to the fact that Austin and Kaia just don't seem like a "soulmate couple". Like, does anyone (other than die-hard Kaia stans or Kaustin shippers😏) actually think they're "soulmates"?? Lol 😅

I don't get that vibe in the least. I got that vibe more with Austin and Vanessa tbh.

They might look "cute" together, and I'm sure they have lots in common with each other, but nothing about them screams "we're soulmates". They just seem like they're just dating and enjoying each other's company to me? 🤷🏾‍♀️

2 yrs, imo, just aint a lot in general, esp compared to the almost decade long relationship Austin had with Vanessa bt to Kaia this is def her longest relationship.

Idk if it's her age or what, but I just feel like she's still in her "growing" and "experimenting" phase of her life. Just being honest. I don't even think it's the length of time of dating tbh. Some fans can sense a couple that are soulmates even when the couple has only been together for a relatively short period of time. Also, add to the fact that a lot of fans feel the Kaustin Berger relationship is a bit contrived and pap-happy lol, I think some even question whether the relationship is even really all that genuine or based on REAL love, and not just an engine to gain some exposure. Idk...maybe it's just HER in general, but a LOT of her relationships (not just the one with Austin) seem a bit opportunistic and not really genuine to me. Idk what it is. Maybe it's her family lol, Idk. 😅

i tgink as far as the fanbase part most Austin fans seem to b indifferent towards her (nt even in a mean way bt they may just focus on his career primarily and nt his relationship).

I think some fans may ignore the relationship, but I do feel like there are definite two sides to the fandom atm. It seems the newer and younger newbie fans of Austin are staunch Kaia supporters and ship Kaustin. Whereas more of the die-hard/older fans of Austin who knew him back when lol, are not really feeling this relationship AT ALL lol. 👀

The Kaia stans of course mostly love her with Austin, cuz she seems like she's happy with him, and he's probably the most decent bf she's ever had tbh lol 😅