#i do think depression could be a factor but I don't think that's the biggest issue for her

[dentist-brainsurgeon]

The way my aunt jumps through hoops to choose the stupidest options available to her whether it be passively or actively makes me want to bash my head into wall

It used to be an occasional thing that was irritating before but ever since she retired, and she does nothing all day except watch AI generated tik toks, buying drop ship shit off tik Tok, watch novellas that all share the same plot and play mindless phone games is imo actively making her not think. Like at least my grandma reads her Bible and goes through her bills and tends to her garden, my aunt does nothing, besides occasionally driving, and helping clean the kitchen, and mop, but we all do cleaning throughout the day, she doesn't even read the books she buys from Amazon

Like when she clicked on a scam link on her phone and then proceeded to not say anything about it for four weeks, when she got logged out of Pokemon go and somehow managed to just send the verification code to some random persons email and thought that email WAS the verification code itself and honestly so many other things. She really didn't do her hobbies much before retirement but damn at least work made her think and do stuff. I don't even know where I'm going with this post, but it's so frustrating and concerning. I've tried suggesting things she could do or we could do but she doesn't really entertain those ideas outside of just going to the park for Pokemon GO

[20001541]

What do you think about afo being touch starved and having depression?

well afo decided to only let one person be close to his heart and treated everyone else like disposables so I would say he is both touch starved and depressed, but acts as though he's not lol. it's what happens when you decide to put all your needs onto one person and close yourself off to everyone else.

I don't headcanon afo to be super affectionate, an unpopular opinion, but humans do desire touch from other humans so he would feel the ache of that absence of touch in his life which is why getting yoichi back is so important as that's the only person he feels that could fulfill his emotional needs.

I do think yoichi felt suffocated often because of this and felt an obligation to stay with him when he was alive as without him who else would afo have? of course after afo goes too far he decided to leave, but I think not wanting his brother to be alone was a contributing factor for yoichi staying with him for so long as it's never hinted at that he wanted to leave before the vault incident.

the depression didn't kick in until after yoichi died and was at it's worse during the time from the sewers to where he's sitting alone and realizes a part of yoichi is still out there. it improved once he got his hope renewed that he could get some form of yoichi back, but it never truly leaves him.

the fact that he changed tenko's name to tomura is the biggest piece of evidence of this to me as the name tomura it means "to mourn". knowing how afo had intended to take over his body I think it's fitting he gives his vessel that name as his whole life has been defined by grieving. with grief being his main motivator for majority of the story to how much grief we see him inflict on others throughout it.

so I do think he's touch starved and depressed and it affects him deeply, but he did dig his own grave in that aspect so he has no one to blame but himself for that so I'm going to bonk him on the head for it

get bonked idiot

[kira-fluff]

haikyuu!! neurodivergent headcanons 💕

tw: several listed mental illnesses, some of these are solely off of vibes but most of them I have reasons lol note! I do not believe autism is a mental illness or something that is "wrong" with an individual, hence why the title is "neurodivergent" rather than "mental illness". just had to put that out there! to all my neurodivergent babies I love you! a/n: hello! as a neurodivergent like myself (depression, anxiety, ptsd, bulimia, etc etc) i thought it would be really cool to do an analysis on one of my biggest hobbies (psychological illnesses) and relate them to haikyuu characters! some of them have a deeper explanation because I feel so strongly about it.

attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADD/ADHD) BOKUTO, hinata, NISHINOYA, atsumu, lev

generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) sugawara, OIKAWA, asahi, yamaguchi, yachi, aone, akaashi, tendo

social anxiety disorder (SAD) asahi, KENMA

post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) oikawa

depression (MDD) oikawa, KENMA, kuroo, suna, matsukawa, tendo

autism sakusa, USHIJIMA, kageyama, kyotani, kenma

eating disorder(s) (AND, BND, BED) OIKAWA, KENMA

obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) oikawa

borderline personality disorder (BPD) daishou

insomnia kuroo, kenma, osamu

hypersomnia suna

analysis under the cut

it's pretty obvious that bokuto struggles the most to self-regulate, even to others, but I personally believe that oikawa struggles the most with his mental health.

like almost everyone in haikyuu, oikawa is obsessed with volleyball, but he takes it to a point of overexertion and taking his anger and frustration at his own inadequacies out on others.

I really think oikawa's relationship between he and kageyama and he and ushijima are the ones that show how bad his anxiety is

ushijima and kageyama both don't understand the emotions oikawa is feeling which could be written off as them not understanding their talents, but I think it's something more

to me, I feel it is blatantly obvious that ushijima is autistic. he just so frequently seems to be unable to read the emotions of others or takes things literally when it's something else intended. I'm not autistic, though, so autistic community, let me know your thoughts!

bokuto and hinata both have an insane amount of energy, but struggle to be successful in school. sports works for both of them because their focus is constantly needed to be diverted or "all over the place" that it helps them be great players

kuroo is one of those other characters that I feel like I'm reaching to say he has mental health struggles but to me it just comes off in vibes. first of all, any kid with divorced parents should be in therapy so I feel there's definitely some struggles there.

I think kuroo is the type that hides his struggles and pretends they aren't happening. he puts a lot of pressure on himself to be the best at everything he does, and so he feels he doesn't have time to deal with the emotions that leave him feeling empty

kenma was someone I immediately felt was autistic. he has so many key factors like an obsession/hyperfocus on his hobbies and trouble socializing (social anxiety).

kenma has some of the strongest evidence toward my beliefs, specifically in this quote: "I'm not good with people, and I don't want to interact with them. and yet, I'm very concerned about what others think of me." like, tell me that doesn't radiate autistic/SAD vibes!!!!

idk what it is, like inadequacies or what but I genuinely believe oikawa has some kind of trauma. like he's definitely carrying something that so heavily effected him that it controls the choices he makes in life

I don't have much evidence that suna has depression, it's just a vibe because of his mannerisms and what he says. I think it's the kind where it's well-managed, but it shows up in physical symptoms like apathy more than anything.

atsumu gives ADHD vibes solely because of like how all over the place he is and how he can't always seem to properly get out what he's trying to say lol

sakusa is one that to me could be seen as "done with your bullshit" but I think he also hates crowds (like me, I mean who doesn't) and struggles socially probably because of anxiety or autism. not sure!

basing daishou off of vibes, too, because if I'm being honest all I've seen in the show is him having hostile relationships or being on-off with them, though its certain I could be reading too much into it, but that's the fun of headcanons.

do you agree with what I wrote? I would love to hear your thoughts!

[woodchipp]

I find this particular response I received the other day very interesting because

"what is his point of living? why SHOULD he not die?"

is a question I genuinely found myself asking by the time me and my friends finished playing the game. After thinking about it a bit more, though, I realized that the question I was really asking was not "Why should he not die?" but "Why should I care about whether he lives or dies?"

And I think the answer ties into one of OMORI's (many) problems - Sunny isn't really a character. He has no personality to speak of. At best, he's a crude checklist of #relatable traits (shy, depression, low self-esteem) you're expected to form an emotional connection with purely on the basis of him having said traits (i.e. "he's just like me fr fr") even though we're never shown or told how he became that way in the first place and these traits alone don't constitute a character's personality - they inform it. At worst, he's a meat puppet present in the game only because the player needs a viewpoint character.

Technically, the biggest amount of "characterization" Sunny gets is Omori's big LTG speech in the final boss fight. And even then, I can't call it characterization in good faith because most of the information revealed about Sunny via the speech didn't factor into the story much right until it suddenly became relevant as a weapon his self-loathing uses against him.

For example, one of Omori's points is that Sunny keeps falling back on his friends to take care of him since he's the baby of the group, which implies that Sunny is insecure about being babied around by his friends

But Sunny doesn't undergo any development to address this problem over the course of the game. The story never puts him into situations that'd force him to assume responsibility and allow him to change the perception of himself as the group's "baby". Even on the Sunny route, where he's supposedly meant to be working on his issues, he's almost entirely passive (e.g. Kel has to tell him to jump into the lake to rescue Basil even though Sunny instantly diving in himself without any input from Kel or the player would've shown him as more altruistic) and the plot gets driven forward by pretty much every other character except Sunny himself. Additionally, when put into a situation when he could at least try to comfort a close friend and thus show that he cares (i.e. Basil's breakdown on Three Days Left), the game forces you to walk away instead. What does that say about Sunny?

This brings me to another point I consider to be relevant to what I'm trying to say - Omori, Sunny's depression and irrational self-hatred who spends the entire final battle convincing him to kill himself, isn't even wrong in his criticisms of the latter. Believe it or not, the story itself actually lends credence to a couple of his points

"You've never done anything for anyone else."

Sunny's aforementioned passivity aside, most of his interactions with his friends before and during the events of the game - and mind you, they're meant to establish the group's supposedly Strong friendship - consist of his friends and his sister doing everything they can for him. Mari allows him to sleep in her own bed when he has nightmares and takes the fall for him after he breaks one of their mother's vases. Basil gets the idea to gift Sunny a violin for Christmas and the entire group pitches in to make sure the violin they buy is a good one. Basil stages Mari's death as a suicide, keeps mum about Sunny's desecration of the photo album and takes the brunt of Aubrey's abuse for four years purely for Sunny's sake. Hero takes care of all the chores around the house Sunny had to do on One Day Left.

Indeed, Sunny is never shown doing anything of the sort for them.

"Your friends are wrong about you. The person they love isn't you at all."

"You let them believe in a lie to protect yourself."

This is self-explanatory - Sunny went along with Basil's cover-up and thus lied to his friends by omission - but what interests me the most about it is the "Cherish" action, exclusive to this fight. By recalling the supportive and inspirational quotes he heard from his friends and his sister over the course of One Day Left, Sunny replenishes his HP and stamina in full, along with calming himself down emotion-wise.

There's just a problem with this, though - Sunny's friends offered him their support without the knowledge of how Mari actually died. They were convinced that Sunny is struggling with Mari's suicide, not that he's wrestling with well-earned guilt over committing manslaughter. We don't know whether they would've supported him all the same if they knew the truth, and the game doesn't provide an answer either since the group's reactions to Sunny's confession are left ambiguous.

Simply put, Sunny is twisting his friends' words, taking them out of context to make himself feel better. The support Sunny received is built on a lie.

The exact same lie Omori points out.

"Cherish" is also the only way to survive in this fight. Omori points out that the support Sunny's using is based on him lying to his friends by omission, and the only rebuttal Sunny has to Omori's solid point is to keep using said support. peak writing

And just as the cherry on top, the game's "True" ending - and the best outcome for Sunny - indicates that he dropped the bombshell on his friends shortly before moving town, consequently leaving Basil alone to deal with whatever consequences the fallout would entail... which is exactly what he did after he ruined Basil's photo album. (granted, he couldn't have known that Aubrey would see the scribbled-over photos, but still, ruining your best friend's most precious belonging like that and then essentially ghosting them is a shitty thing to do either way.)

Oh, and the method you use to obtain the additional secret cutscene is worth mentioning too - you have to water Basil's plants in Sunny's fake dream world. Sunny doesn't help Basil in the real world when he actually has the chance to and Basil clearly needs it, but seems to be content with thinking about doing something good for his dream self while the real one is suffering.

Not only is Sunny an empty husk of a character, close examination of the game's story paints a picture of him being a shitty person as well. I can't say he has a character arc - he does shitty things to the people we're meant to consider his friends and the game invents convenient ways for him to avoid taking responsibility every time despite the story revolving around his need to accept his responsibility for Mari's death.

So, really, why should I care about whether he lives or dies? Because he's a cute boy? Because he's mentally ill? The game never gives you a legitimate reason to root for Sunny and care about his welfare, yet is predicated on that.

[duckprintspress]

I feel like I need to start talking more about how one of the big things that Duck Prints Press does is open the door to people who could never even get a foot in with traditional publishing or even most medium/"small" presses (we're a small press, but we're really more of a micro-press, I see places calling themselves small presses that are fucktons bigger than we are).

I've got some anecdotal evidence that people avoid the publications of Presses like this one because they think our writing and editing standards are lower - that we're the people who failed to make it in bigger presses because we weren't good enough - and that, consciously and unconsciously, gatekeeping biases on who is and isn't qualified to write lead people to support small presses less than they might support a more established organization.

So...y'all realize that there are a lot of reasons people wouldn't pursue working with trad pub, right? and I don't even mean ethical doubts, and I don't even mean "trad pub doesn't want to publish certain kinds of stories," though those are definitely factors - we're able to give more space to play with themes and genres because we don't focus solely on "is this marketable" as a sales rubric.

But that's not what I consider the biggest difference.

Hi, I'm Claire, and I own Duck Prints Press, and I have a massive history of clinical depression, including being suicidal in the past. I'm a great writer, and I'm not just tooting my own horn, I've got almost 150,000 kudos on AO3 that suggest that just maybe, I know wtf I'm doing stringing words into sentences. I don't need a big press to tell me I'm competent, I already know that. What I do need is to not end up suicidal again. If I face the gauntlet of rejections that's supposedly "required" as part of gatekeeping trad pub, it will do severe damage to my mental health, and probably destroy my ability to write as depression-induced self-deception eats through what I know to be true.

THAT'S what's different about a micropress like ours. Yes, our founding vision was to work with fans, but the vast majority of the people who work with us have mental illnesses, physical disabilities, neurodivergence issues, and/or other "meatsuits are terrible actually" issues that strict publishing environments can't or, really, won't accommodate. We say "fuck that noise" and go out of our way to accommodate people, granting extensions and ensuring everyone can work on their own schedule. We're able to be very flexible, which means we bring in a lot of people whose incredible skills are overlooked, ignored, looked down on, kept out of, more mainstream publishing options.

If someone has trouble with deadlines? We still work with them.

If someone has an illness that flares irregularly and unpredictably? We still work with them.

If someone needs frequent reminders? We still work with them.

If someone works slowly because they can only do a little at a time? We still work with them.

If someone needs extra time, additional support, special software...we have thus far been able to accommodate literally everyone who has come to us.

As long as the creators who work with us keep communicating and keep showing at least a little progress, we will find a way to make things work, because we want to be as inclusive as possible, and because we know that most people with these challenges, no matter how good they are at writing or art or whatever it is they do with us, would face many more hardships to have these opportunities with a larger, more strict organization.

Just, every time I see indications that people think we're "less" because we're not HarperCollins or Penguin or Tor or something, I get so angry, because it shows so little understanding of how gatekeepy and especially how ableist trad pub is, and I wish more of the people who are thinking things like that would recognize that their behavior is, essentially, snobbery.

And to be clear I'm not saying "people with these challenges never get trad pubbed," that's clearly ridiculous and untrue, but I am saying, people with these challenges shouldn't have to be The Most Exceptional just to have a chance, and we deserve to have a place that will accommodate us instead of having to perform health, perform neurotypicalness, etc. just to succeed. We deserve to not have one flare-up potentially ruin our careers, and we deserve the same opportunities and respect as people who choose other directions.

Between trad pub, small press, and self-publishing, no one route is inherently "superior." Backing one over another doesn't guarantee you're only going to get good stories, or good editing. Trad pub publishes utter schlock sometimes, and self-publishing is fantastic sometimes, and some small presses do have lax standards, and some small presses are exceptional, and I feel like maybe people just really don't understand why places like Duck Prints Press try to exist - it's because we're trying to create spaces that meet us where we are, instead of focusing on rigid conformity, marketability, hard rules, etc.

The only way we'll get a diversity of voices in publishing is by supporting a diversity of publishers. The only way we'll be able to make space for everyone is by supporting the places that carve out new spaces to fit those who didn't fit elsewhere.

I wish more people would understand what we do and why we're here, and that folks would at least try our publications before assuming that we're "like big press but worse at writing/arting/editing."

Idk. I'm just tired, and sick, and still working even tho I'm sick, and frustrated with how hard it is to get anywhere, so here, have a rant I probably shouldn't post.

(this post brought to you by me seeing Chuck Tingle - entirely reasonably, to be clear, Chuck Tingle is awesome and I support him entirely! - celebrating the Camp Damascus release to thousands of notes, and Tor posting a poll about some Locked Tomb short story and getting 1300+ votes, and how I have to claw our way out of the background tumblr noise to get 100+ notes even on our biggest releases)

[aurora-313]

I would DM you, but if you decide to answer I think what you will say will interest more people than just me.

Do you think that Rukia's blind believe in Ichigo's greatness and goodness was because of Kaien and Ichigo's resemblence with him?

And if so, when did she truly started to see him as a separate person?

To me it seems that she gets attached to Ichigo to hard to soon, two months isn't really believable. I could get him, he's a teen and she has literally fallen from the sky and saved him from depression. Ichigo's defining moment was his inability to save his mother, his protectoress from death, him saving Rukia feels a bit as bookends, and actually the great personal stakes and this is personal battles were after that supplanted by over -the-top shonen paint by numbers battle scenes.

At the beginning both Rukia and Ichigo were people with a lot of emotional baggage.

This is a very layered question.

Rukia does see echoes of Kaien in Ichigo but that's not unique. Everyone of note in Soul Society's arc does, which is unsurprising because those qualities; the impetuousness, the moral virtue, the ferocious determination to follow that morality through to the bitter end in defiance of edicts and convention - they're all defining traits in the Shiba family. In the Kurosaki family too but ignoring that.

But I don't think Rukia latched onto Ichigo specifically because he looked like Kaien, though that might've been a tertiary factor. Especially in the case of Byakuya choosing to spare his life pointedly because of that resemblance. At the same time, I wouldn't be shocked to learn Rukia subconsciously saw Ichigo as her second chance.

A post by @kodoku-no-maria which posits the theory that Ichigo was originally intended to be Kaien's reincarnation before Bleach's story got lost up its own ass best encapsulates this idea. I quote their specific comparison:

She [Rukia] was afraid when Kaien died

She was brave when she met Ichigo

She ran away (Kaien)

She took action (Ichigo)

She couldn’t save Kaien from a hollow

She saved Ichigo from a hollow

She pierced Kaien with her sword and he died

She pierced Ichigo with her sword and he, you could say, was born

Her sword couldn’t save Kaien

Her sword saved Ichigo

She couldn’t be of any help to Kaien, felt powerless

She became the source of Ichigo’s power

Ichigo and Rukia both had extraordinary amounts of baggage at the start of the series, and through their brief interactions over two months (two months where she's been living in his bedroom wardrobe mind you), Rukia helped Ichigo by giving him the power he's always wanted to protect others, but helping him confront his demons and his mother's murderer. While it seems fairly one way initially, we need to take a revelation made in the SS arc into account.

The one thing that Rukia has always craved since being adopted into the Kuchiki clan, and the one thing Kaien and Ichigo gave her during their respective times with her, is normalcy.

Even when Rukia met the Shiba kin for the first time. When greeting Kaien, he responded with 'WTF was that?! I'm your XO ya little runt! Show some respect!"

When Rukia happened upon Ichigo's room, "WTF?! You're a crappy burglar! Get the hell outtta here!'

Both very normal reactions for the situations.

In those two months in the living world, Rukia wasn't the Kuchiki's leader's adopted sister; she wasn't an adopted noble expected to maintain some vaunted flaccid sense of hypocritical propriety; no expectations of any kind. She was an ordinary teenager going to an ordinary high school, living an ordinary life with occasional bouts of supernatural thrown in. Even though Rukia knew those days would inevitably come to an end, those two months would've been an absolute dream for her, where theoretically her biggest worry would've been an occasional hollow and finishing homework. I'd go so far as to claim it was a sinful indulgence considering the burden of her self-perceived sins.

And when Ichigo infamously blocked the Sokyoku, the blade as powerful as a million Zanpakutou, it was one of the first steps in helping Rukia recognise - or rediscover the value of her life. And later on when she defeats Aaroniero, she remembers a lesson and accepts that fact that Kaien had entrusted his heart to her, and that heart cannot live on if she values herself so little.

To summarise my longwinded ramble:

Rukia and Ichigo were mutual catalysts for each getting over their own individual traumas and moving on to live healthy, happy and productive lives, absolved of the perceived guilts and tragedies that used to weigh them down.

[senlinyu]

Hi sen! I’m sorry if you find this too personal a question and feel free to completely ignore but I was wondering what are your thoughts on motherhood? Is it/is it not what you ever imagined? I’m expecting and am really getting some jitters. I know the experience is different for everyone but I’d love to hear your thoughts because you are always so thoughtful and eloquent.

I mean... it's hard to say much of anything concrete on motherhood because every mother, partner, and child is so different. There are so many factors that can shape it that it's so hard to say "this is what motherhood is" because it becomes completely different with a different baby. I'm now out of the baby/pre-school era and living in Elementary School world, and looking back all the truisms about early motherhood are true, "the longest shortest time," 'the days are long but the years are short", and everything else about the strange time-warp that is motherhood.

We went to Disneyland this past summer, and I feel like motherhood is kind of like a trip to Disneyland, where you know that you spent most of your time in line, but in retrospect you just remember the highlights and trick yourself into going back again.

At least for me, one of my my biggest struggles was finding the balance between doing my best, but also not letting motherhood consume me due to my tendencies towards self-destructive perfectionism. Motherhood, especially if you're state side, can be extremely isolating, and when you're left with no choice but to eat sleep and breathe it, it's very easy to put your entire identity into reaching a particular ideal to the point that every choice (cloth or disposable, nursing or formula, babywearing or strollers, etc etc) becomes the new way you're proving whether or not you're achieving the metric definition of a 'good mom.' And when that happens, the idea that you could ever get something wrong becomes intolerable because if you're not a 'good mom' then what are you?

I tried different things to keep my head above water and keep an aspect of "me" that was entirely separate from motherhood, for a while it was following international politics, and then when I found that too depressing, I started writing fanfic as a way to carve a space in my mind that just belonged to me (and here we are now). Retaining or creating an aspect of your life just to bring yourself joy outside motherhood is, I think, really important for everyone. Children really don't benefit from being treated as the center of a person's universe, (well, I admit that babies like it), but once they get older children will realise when their parents' emotional wellbeing depends on them being 'fine' or 'perfect' and then they will think it's their responsibility to protect you from their problems.

Do your best, be prepared to make mistakes or follow the wrong parenting advice and then learn better, or to just fail some days in meeting the standard you have for yourself. Children don't need perfect mothers, they need mothers who love them and themselves. You can't fill anyone else's bucket if yours is empty.

[purplekoop]

I was gonna make a big, long, overly depressing for my standards ramble post about my thoughts on the state of Overwatch right now, but after one big hit of backspace I think it'd be more efficient to say:

I'm happy.

It's just fun and exciting getting to see so much stuff to look forward to. I know some people are a bit bummed to know what the next year's worth of characters are so far in advance, but like... think about it. For one, the rate of new character's isn't increased. I know it definitely at least we're close to the game actively having too many characters for its own good. I saw one person complain about how "they can't even balance the characters we do have", but I feel like the current balance dilemmas are due to the lingering ramifications of the 5v5 change, and not strictly roster size. I've seen arguments over the years for the opposite, that more characters means that it's less likely for any one individual hero to be overpowered and uncounterable just by the sheer probability of another option beating them out being more likely with more heroes. I don't think I wholeheartedly agree with this take either, but either way I think that the current cadence of hero releases is sustainable. Especially considering that, even before OW2 and the direct financial incentive to release them, new heroes are by far the biggest "event" the game can get. It's just exciting to have new guys to keep the game fresh, so I really don't blame new heroes being such a constant priority. For some numbers though, starting with Hero 43 the game's roster will have officially doubled in size since the initial 2016 release. All things considered, that's... way tamer than it could be. For one reference, League of Legends came out in 2009 with a roster of 40 characters, and has now gone up to 162 (all of these numbers are just going off google anyways, I'm pathetic but I'm at least not a League player). Maybe once we hit 50 total characters I'd like to see them slow down to 2 a year, but even then, at this rate we're not reaching 50 characters until partway into 2027, four years from now, so I'm not too worried yet.

The other sentiment I've seen, or at least anticipate seeing, about how many reveals there were this weekend is that these reveals were too soon and took away surprises for later. I understand this one more, but I still disagree with it.

To explain what I mean, remember how excited people were about Junker Queen finally being revealed? We knew she was coming, her first-person viewmodel was "accidentally" shown in some beta footage, but it was the vindication of finally getting to see that highly anticipated character make it into the game in that made the wait worth it and the payoff so satisfying. We saw that same energy this weekend with Mauga, who was foreshadowed and even somewhat leaked to hell and back, but I was still just grinning ear-to-ear the entire time to see the mad lad in action at long last. Farther back, remember how insane Doomfist's reveal was?? I didn't even think he was gonna actually be more than a one-off cool name, but the fact he was realized and put in as the biggest canonical badass was hype out of this world, who cares if he's sucked for most of his in-game existence? And if you want surprise factor, it's not like those reveals didn't have that too. I wouldn't've guessed in a billion years that Junker Queen was gonna be a buff 7 ft+ badass and not just some edgy punk otherwise just as dainty as the other female characters Overwatch gets so much flak for. While not every "surprise" is a hit, I agree that some of the design changes between Mauga's initial short story art and his final in-game appearance are a little. eyebrow raise emoji, there was still more to learn about his character that made the reveal more than just being able to finally play with the toy that's been sitting sealed away on the shelf for years.

Now think about. The pathetic wet fart that was Lifeweaver's release. A completely new character that just kinda. Showed up. Revealed in a twitter post a day before the seasonal trailer dropped, where he wasn't even focused on barely at all. His pitiful in-game usefulness and Blizzard having its weekly controversy at the same time didn't help things, but it was just so... unceremonious. Not because it was a bad reveal, but because it was so unsatisfying of one. The attachment to him was flimsy at best to start with, and while like his balance, it did get better over time, there just wasn't that same established excitement as there was with characters like Mauga, Doomfist, and Junker Queen. Same goes for other "surprise" reveals too, like Illari, who got foreshadowed in what'll probably be the messiest point in Overwatch history, and Moira, who was the relatively boring side reveal after Reinhardt got his cinematic. OW1 hit a decent balance with heroes that weren't teased in the lore previously. We used to get teasers for new heroes at least a couple days before their proper reveal, building up their lore and hinting at what their kit might be like. That hasn't been the case in OW2 (though Sojourn, JQ, Kiriko, and Ramattra already had teasers established beforehand), and also wasn't the case for Moira and Ashe (who at least got starring role in a cinematic the same day as her reveal as a hero to build her up at least a bit).

The reveals for the next 3 heroes are sort of a backwards approach to this: we know what they look like (or what they might look like for the latter two, Venture seems pretty close to finalized), and we know varying amounts of how they play, but we don't know their names, much of their personalities, or their lore outside of random vague tidbits. I mean with 42 we still know next to nothing anyways, with Sigma's leak we at least had a blurry face and a name. But either way, the effect is the same: we have something to go off of, and from there we can build that preemptive attachment to these characters. I've already seen some great fanart of the two fresh faces from yesterday, and I'm extremely excited for someone to make a better interpretation of 42 than my rush job today. They already feel like part of the gang, but we still know they get to have their special time later. I'll say making Mauga actually playable (even just temporarily) immediately alongside the other reveals was definitely the right call to not overshadow him and make it feel like this is his time, and the other folks can have their time later too when it's more appropriate.

My favorite thing about how the reveals were handled though is how. Unprofessional it was. In the best of ways.

I've mentioned before how I think it's a pitfall for small creatives like myself to feel the need to fit the "professional standard" of holding your cards close to your chest until you can actually put out a "finished product". Like, they don't show beta footage of the next Smash Bros character with an unfinished model and a meme in place of their character select icon, right? No, they wait until a few months max before the character is ready to release. I mean, this is for a few reasons, mostly hype management and promotional reasons, things which have very clearly burned OW's ass before. But this is different, this isn't a forced showing of unfinished work for the sake of pleasing investors and making moronic execs feel good, this was because the devs had cool stuff they were excited about and know fans would be excited about. Somebody says outright at the start of today's panel that they know marketing will be mad at them or something in a tongue-in-cheek way, and like, I get the reasons to be secretive, but it just feels nice to let the pressure off and have fun with it even if it's a little messy, as long as they're transparent about it. It's an always appreciated reminder that there are people behind this game that love their characters the same way that smaller creatives like me love our characters. They got their they/them silly little meow meow with a drill and so do I, but the multi-million dollar company with stock shares or whatever to lose was more willing to share early than me, the one person who doesn't even have a bank account yet. Frankly, it's more a reminder I should finally get to sharing my ideas sooner before I have to say "dude trust me I had this idea for this ability without knowing they had it too" again.

I dunno. Maybe it's silly. but I think it's nice. It's reassuring. This feels like the most candid Overwatch's team has felt in a while. They're excited, they want us to be excited, and personally I'm taking the bait.

Welcome to the team, you three weirdos, excited to meet you later.

[bisexualamy]

Transition Update #63: 7 years on T & hysto retrospective

Hi everyone!! The title says it all. I wanted to include all of my phallo consults in this as well, but a few items are last-minute up in the air, so I'll write a separate post for the phallo consults omnibus.

As always, please don't reblog or screenshot and repost. Links are fine. Writing transition updates over the years has been really good for me and I always hope someone finds them helpful. But at the same time, the larger public is awful about bottom surgeries and I'd rather not subject myself to that ire.

This post has a general content warning for discussions of sex, genitals, body image and body/gender dysphoria.

7 years on T

I stopped doing annual T updates a while ago, because after the first 2-3 years most of the bodily changes are basically the same bodily changes cis men go through as they age. This year I made a point to celebrate 7 years, because that's an absolutely wild number, and I think it's important to acknowledge my T anniversary when it comes around. Testosterone has fundamentally changed my life. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be here without it. I'm so grateful to be in a place mentally, physically, financially, and temporally that I can continue to access it.

I started taking Finasteride this year bc my hairline is getting a little thin. This is, again, more a factor of being in my later 20s than anything else. I didn't expect it to affect me as much as it did. It was one of the first times I experienced and male body image issue that had nothing to do with being trans. Normally, I'm so grateful to live as a man that most male body image issues don't affect me. I don't care that I'm short or a little round or I have wider hips. I'm so grateful to pass and live full-time as a man that it doesn't register. This one was different, and I'm not quite sure why, but I'm going to try and not obsess over it.

Off and on the last four years, but seriously the last two years, I started working out and lifting. At first, I mostly ran, especially during the height of the lockdown when it was the only safe way to work out. I love running but I always wanted to be strong and see what my body could do. The past two years I've been working with an online trainer and my strength has really improved!! I'm hitting personal bests in the gym and it's stopped feeling like a tedious chore. I'm actually excited to go now. That's an amazing feeling and I'm always really happy when my friends or family call me strong.

Hysto retrospective

It's been 7 months since my hysto back in January. The recovery for that was longer and more difficult than I expected. Being cooped up in the house and feeling really weak and gross, on top of the bottom dysphoria I kept experiencing having to constantly discuss lots of parts I hate having, was really hard on me. I feel like, over the last two months, I've shaken off a lot of the lingering depression from that. All that being said, I've healed very well, and I'm so happy I got my hysto.

One of the worst, dysphoria-inducing nightmares for me was getting pregnant. It was so bad, it prevented me from seriously dating cis men for years. T is not birth control, and even with protection and respectful partners, the fear and anxiety were just too much for me to handle. I knew that once I got my hysto, I'd probably feel more confident dating men, but I didn't realize the extent to which that would be true.

I've felt way more confident to date around and hook up since I got my hysto. I've gone on more dates with cis gay men than I ever have before, and even though they ultimately fizzled out, I have never had that level of dating confidence in my life. It's so, so gender affirming when cis gay men are attracted to me. I always felt like I lost something, being a bisexual man who was too anxious about being trans to participate in any kind of gay male culture in NYC. This is by far the biggest gift my hysto gave me and I'm so happy for it.

[feralwifey]

I would also like to be a stay at home mom in the future (at least until my youngest child is school age) so I'm curious about your current experience: what do you feel like you could have done/could currently do to alleviate your depression? Do you feel like its all due to your isolation as a single mother or are there other factors? feel free not to answer if its too personal but I would like to know. Praying for your peace and that your feelings and situation turn around for the better 🙏 ❤️

Hey! Not too personal at all. My biggest issue is the isolation. We do have a lot of stress going on which I don't feel comfortable talking about BUT if I'd be around people at least every other day I wouldn't be depressed, I'd just be stressed which I can deal with because I know it'll pass.

I do go outside as much as possible but I've had the same problem for my entire life, I can't really make friends, especially female friends. I don't really know why they don't like me. I hope to one day find a Catholic sahm friend. The only friend I had moved away and we haven't seen for almost a year now. Both pregnant pretty much at the same time, and with us having such young babies the distance is too difficult to travel.

I see my parents as often as possible, although I will be moving away and then that will no longer be possible either. It sucks. Which is why I'm constantly praying that at least once it's time to make that move I will eventually find my people.

So yeah the only thing I know for sure is, especially if you're like me, extroverted and outgoing, make sure you have people you are close with and can count on so that at least once or twice a week you have something to do other than tasks.

I love being a mom, I love staying at home, but the isolation makes me go kinda crazy because of how lonely it is.

I still try my best to stay busy, go on long walks, go shopping, sit in the sun, workout, that way I don't have much time to think about what makes me depressed.

Idk if this was in any way helpful but I hope you can take something away from it!

Also thank you so much for your prayers ❤❤❤

[gerudospiriit]

[I don't know what has me on the depressed train, but my brain has gotten to thinking about how lonely Nabooru is post OoT.

Even though she rejoins the Gerudo, she's coming back from being brainwashed. From losing seven long years of her life. Though she was physically around the Gerudo, apparently performing her duties and the like to ward off suspicion, there's a huge disconnect when she actually returns. People died. Changed. New children trained while those she watched taking their first lessons were now full-fledged Gerudo women. The world moved on without her but it didn't even know it.

Tack on that now she's the Sage of Spirit. A title she didn't want nor does she understand. A title that's meaningless to the Gerudo, but somehow still makes her feel alienated. Wrong. Was she the same person? Did it matter? What did it mean for her? Why did it have to be her?

She knows why. She knows it's because she was the only one bold and foolish enough to commit treason. To betray her king. To betray her people. And for some? Her reasoning, her concern for the Gerudo being dragged into the vicious actions of their king and endangering them further, wasn't enough. They called for her execution as law dictated. They hoped that she didn't crawl back out of the Kavi Dorova and retain her rank as the Elite ultimately decided. And they still didn't trust her as chief.

Their chief. Another factor of pride but of that same loneliness, too.

She never really felt like she fit it with the other Gerudo, but now...now she really feels that way.

Oh. And there's the growing cry from the rest of Hyrule that the Gerudo should be banished or worse before they could finish the job. That doesn't help much either.

Aveil was still there, though. But...there was a wrongness to their friendship now. Every encounter, every joke, every laugh shared...it always felt as if something was missing. As if some invisible force sat between them at all times, keeping them from being as close as they once were.

And then...and then there was the biggest hole left behind of all. The most frayed of loose ends that she would never get to tie up or repair. Ganondorf was gone. Dead, for all intents and purposes. And she played a role in his murder. All it took was one decision. One decision to defy his order to stay away from the temple. One decision to try to appeal to him one more time, either by word or steel if she had to. But never to kill. She couldn't. Even now, after he ordered her brainwashing. If faced with the chance, she would not be able to slit his throat.

But she had done just that, hadn't she?

No matter how necessary his sealing--she knew he was beyond saving at that point; she saw what he had become--her role in it weighed heavy on her shoulders. In how a fair portion of the others glared at her. In his empty room and study. In how she couldn't track him down to talk or spar or argue or hold or kiss or-- with ever again. He was gone. She never got to say goodbye. To talk to him and understand or yell at him or beat her fists against his chest while she sobbed.

He was gone. And if he ever returned, it would be with nothing but hatred in his heart for her.

Nabooru feels alone in the world now. And she doesn't know how to fix it. So she's decided she'll just get used to it. She has work to do.]

[edgybutnotveryedgy]

So something ive been noticing since reducing my fructan intake, as well as better managing my ibs symptoms is that my skin seems to really be clearing up. Like i do still have acne in places acne shouldn't be, but compared to 2 and even just 1 year ago, my skin really has improved. Namely i'd say my skin is actually healing properly. This is kinda huge because my skin (specifically on my arms and legs) just wouldn't heal, so i had ugly marks all over that i felt like i constantly needed to hide. Of course my anxiety was turning that into something much much worse as well (constantly picking etc even without realizing i was doing it).

I think in general the thing that has really made the biggest difference though is getting into cooking and baking. The biggest downside to going without fructans was that it felt worse than just going gluten free. At least when i was gluten free i could still eat yummy food like chicken alfredo cauliflower pizza (my love) or other yummy things filled with seasonings like garlic and onions and beans and brussel sprouts and broccoli (they taste so good roasted. Cartoons lied when i was a kid) and so many other good foods that I can't eat any more. Suddenly i couldn't go out to eat any more because everything was filled with garlic and onion. It got to the point where i even got really depressed because i couldn't eat anything good and i accidentally lost 10 pounds within 9 months. (this sounds like the opposite of a problem but this was unplanned and also I'm already pretty skinny so for me 10 pounds is a lot).

Then out of frustration and rage i decided that enough was enough and i wanted to eat good food again, without feeling like i was going to explode from the bloating. 2 great things I've noticed coming from this is first of all my weight has regulated, and second im not trying to scratch my skin off as much any more. Like it's still a problem, but it's much better in general. I'd attribute this to multiple things, specifically because i have had to declaw myself in the name of cooking and baking. I don't want yucky bacteria hiding under my nails to get into the food I'm making, nor do i want to find food under my nails when i go to bed. Also equally important, it's given me something to do with my hands. As long as my hands are occupied, the desire to pick is greatly reduced.

Another majorly important factor in all this i'd say is that it gives me something to look forward to. I find that it's really fun to cook, and trying new ingredients that I've never tried is always an adventure. Even if the food turns out disgusting, instead of feeling bad about it, my brain instantly goes into problem solving mode to think of what i can do next time. And best of all, when i am successful i have something yummy and new to try that i can safely eat.

Of course i do still feel like I've got a long way to go, not only in improving my health and myself as a person, but in improving my mental health. That being said, this whole experience has done wonders for me personally, and it helps me to feel like i can do it, and i don't have to suffer the whole time doing it.

[brennusreblogs]

Brennus’ personal thoughts on the FNAF Movie

For those going into the movie for the first time: don't expect it to all be super serious

⚠️SPOILERS AHEAD⚠️

Overall, I think it's a fun movie. It's what I expected from a 15+ fnaf movie. Did I wish it could have been more brutal? Yeah, but I'm ok with the product as it currently stands.

Visually wise this movie is incredible from the animatronics themselves to the set. Absolutely great. Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, my beloved, you have brought the robots to life perfectly <3

My smallest visual gripe was for one of the kid jump scares in Mike’s dream where the kid’s eyes turn and cry black. You could tell it was like a face paint. It's a real child actor so maybe they couldn't get them to wear ‘better’ makeup but then again special effects could have been used the improve it, idk. I'm not a filmmaker I'm just a silly skeleton that draws.

One of the least believable kills was the one where Freddy bit a woman in two. That was really cartoony to me, I did giggle.

My biggest criticism of the movie is probably the story. But the more I think about possible “improvements” I think to myself… what else could they have done for a script for a fnaf movie? They need to balance a combo of digestible info to new viewers but also satisfy fans. I personally think they managed to cater more to the fans as seen with rotten tomato ratings. But I did watch this with my mother who only knows the story based on what my brother rambles about and she managed the understand the movie alright. However I don't know any opinion on the film from an individual who knows nothing of the franchise.

I personally really enjoyed the atmosphere in the first part of the movie. It was depressing and oppressive to watch Mike struggle through life. But that seems to change as the movie seems to shifts in tone when we discover the animatronics are nice to his sister Abby. I at first really didn't like this but seconds later I got swooped up by the wholesomeness. I was scared that doing this would remove the intimidation factor the animatronic built up during the run time. It did. But I think I understand the purpose of doing this. I still don't think it was a good idea but I think I know what the movie makers were trying to do.

They were trying to shift the villainy focus from the robots to Afton. Trying to say “Hey look they are on the good guy's side” even though they shift on a dime when they decide to kidnap Abby. We also see them brutally hunt down a group of thieves so the whole “look how cute they are being <3” is somewhat unbelievable. I see what they likely tried to do but I don't think it worked super wonderfully.

I like the foxy arcade machine reference. I don't remember if this is a scene in a Fazbear Frights or the Silver Eyes book. But in a book foxy in hunting an AFAB character through an arcade area, in the book he breaks the machines as he gets closer to his victim to build tension. I think that's what that scene with Foxy and Abby in the arcade was in reference to. Though he didn't break the arcade machines in the movie, I thought that added a lot to the original scene. However it's understandable because the robots in this depiction seem to like to keep the pizzeria intact.

Also I saw that theif who got killed by Chica was wearing a midnight motorist shirt, I see you.

Everyone expected the William Afton reveal. What I didn't expect was for VANNESSA to be AFTON’S DAUGHTER. It felt like a very less serious “I am your father” moment, except it's a “he is my father” moment. I did giggle when the reveal happened. For me, this was a signifier that the movie wasn't trying to be serious. The movie is trying to be fun.

Though with that twist it made me wonder what it was like for Vannessa to live with a father like Afton. That's when I wished they did more with her, that's when she got interesting to me. As the movie makes it seem Afton holds a lot of emotional power over her. She knows he is a killer, she is a cop, yet she doesn't report him or arrest him herself. Her standing up to Afton at the end really feels like an abuse victim standing up against their abuser and I kinda wish they made that so much more impactful.

[lesbianslovebts]

starting to think about looking for a new job in the very near future and my biggest fear rn is just. being in a new workplace, new people who have been there for so long already, just integrating myself into the place. leaving where I am now. and it's proper holding me back from even starting the job hunt. I know u recently got a new job if I'm not mistaken? did you have any worries like this or anything like that? advice maybe? 😭

Yes, I started a new job a month ago! Big huge response under the cut!

There were several factors that went into the decision. First, I hated my old job. It was a call center, and every single millisecond was monitored. I literally had to time my shits. They kept changing the metrics by which they measured our performance (making it harder to do "well" when, by old standards, I was doing "excellent"). They never approved same-day PTO. Each unapproved absence was a mark on your record that got you one step closer to being fired. An unapproved absence, even excused by a doctor's note, was still a mark on your record. I don't even know how that can be legal. They kept firing hardworking, established people and replacing them with new people overseas to take advantage of even worse labor laws and exchange rates. 🙃

The thing is, even though I'm autistic and have phone anxiety, I genuinely enjoyed helping people who've been victims of fraud. I was good at it, too. I was there for almost 5 years, but I knew I was considered expendable. Their policies were blatantly ableist, and I just couldn't take it anymore. Second, I wanted a job where I could go into the office. The old one changed to permanent work from home, and I kept having severe depression from being so isolated. Third, I wanted a job that would use my talents. I mean, I was good at taking phone calls, but I double-majored in math and Japanese, graduated summa cum laude, and was inducted in Phi Beta Kappa lol. And lastly, I wanted a job with opportunity for growth. (A career? 🤢)

So, the desire to get a new job started a couple years ago. But first, I had to buy my own car. I did that in February. Then the whole process of finding a new job began in April. I was in an intensive outpatient therapy program for 6 weeks. I filed a short-term disability claim and was out of work for that time. I worked on getting myself better, and got help from my peers, the therapists, the social workers, and my mom to brush up my resume and cover letter and start looking at jobs. I returned to work at the end of my disability claim with the hope that I wouldn't be there much longer.

I applied to a total of 3 different jobs, and it took several weeks to do one after the other. I would get too overwhelmed doing more than one at a time. I did the work myself, but my mom had to poke and prod me and be there as an emotional support. The first application was immediately rejected. I did a phone interview and an in-person interview for the second one and got rejected. Then my mom heard about a coworker from another department at her company retiring. They were having trouble finding a new person, so my mom told me to apply for that job. I had a phone interview and a videochat interview and got an offer after a week or so. It was a $9k bump in pay. 😳

Don't get me wrong, the change was incredibly stressful. I cried on my last day at the old job even though I had worked from home for the past 3 years and didn't have any strong relationships with my coworkers. I'm autistic, so change is extra difficult for me. And my shift went from 1 PM - 10 PM to 7:30 AM - 4 PM. That was rough. On top of that, I've developed chronic migraine (more than half of the days in a month) this year. I'm also immunocompromised and have IBS and sensory issues. So, I just have to work through the internalized shame of being disabled. I have a lot of work to do still. I had planned on telling my boss that I'm autistic the first day, but I still haven't mentioned it. It might be obvious based on the stuff I do and bring, though. I wear a mask and giant pink goggles. I bring earplugs, noise cancelling headphones, discreet stim toys, ibuprofen, rizatriptan, anti-nausea meds, Tums, Gas-X, Afrin, and hand sanitizer in my backpack. I've had a couple crying episodes worrying about the social aspect of talking to people and the job itself. But I know this will be a much better fit for me, and this is a company I could work at until I retire.

So, part of it was hard work, and the other part was luck that my mom also works at the company and heard about the position. In these times, I know 3 job applications is nothing, but it took all of my strength just to do those consecutively. My advice? Get an accountability buddy. Try to find someone who can help you break down the process into manageable chunks and make you do them at a reasonable pace, without judgment. Could be a friend, a parent, a sibling, a partner, an old teacher, whoever. As for the actual hunting on the Accursed Websites? You'll have to ask Google for help. That's what I did. 😭

P.S. (IMPORTANT!) With my experience in bank fraud, I've seen a lot of job scams. Take these tips to heart (if you're in America): 1.) Make sure the position on Indeed or wherever is ALSO on the official company website. If possible, apply on the official website. 2.) No company will ever give you a check to buy supplies for the job. A true company will order and ship the supplies to you. 3.) No company will ever prepay you for work you haven't done yet. 4.) No company will ever overpay you and ask you to send part of the money back via Zelle, CashApp, Venmo, PayPal, etc. 4.) No company will ever email you a check. 5.) If you're not familiar with checks and aren't sure if it's legit, call the bank listed on the check to see if it's legit or fraud. 6.) Any too-good-to-be-true work-from-home job is a 100% a scam. 7.) If you think only the elderly fall for scams like this, you're wrong. 18- to 25-year-olds are another big scam victim demographic, especially for scams involving checks or 3rd party payment processors (CashApp, Venmo, etc.). Banks can and will terminate your accounts if you accidentally commit bank fraud or money laundering. 😬

Best of luck!

[solarishashernoseinabook]

Hi, so I thought I'd ask you this because you'd know: I think I may have autism. I was never diagnosed as a child, but I was pretty sheltered so idk how that factors in. I'm an adult now, and I have persisent issues with sensory stuff, fidgeting, interacting with people, and so on. It may just be related to my depression. However, as Ive made the transistion to adulthood I just keep realizing I function way different than others are comfortable with. Am I just overreacting?

Nope, I don't think it's an overraction at all! I could go on a very long tangent about this, but what it comes down to is: does identifying as autistic help you understand yourself better, and can you use that to help you manage your problems?

Does identifying as autistic help you understand yourself better? I first thought I might be autistic about fifteen years ago. At the time, though, I had a very stereotypical view of autism because I was only exposed to high-support-needs autistic people (hard avoiding eye contact, predominantly non-verbal, very obvious stimming, etc.). As I've gotten to know a wider variety of autistic people, though, I've started realising that a lot of stuff I thought were just quirks about myself were autistic traits. I don't feel all that comfortable looking at eyes, or faces in general, unless they're someone I know well (my best friend, my family) - though I'm still trying to sort out my boundaries around eye contact. Figuring out I'm autistic helped me identify my sensory issues as falling into clear patterns instead of being random things that bugged me, and it helped me realise that a lot of things were stims! But a lot of my stims are atypical. For example, I love pressure as a stim - like putting clothes pegs or hair clips on my fingers, or clipping a pen to my lip or finger. It also let me realise text is a visual stim, which is why I actually read slowly unless I'm forcing myself to get through something quickly and why I have trouble watching any show that I can only access with subtitles - just looking at text, even without reading it, is hugely calming for me.

For years, my biggest sense of imposter syndrome was around special interests. I didn't have any classic special interests that you see all the time in fiction, besides an interest in animals and natural history - but it didn't seem to manifest the same way special interests normally did, because while I love talking and learning about them, my entire personality isn't based around them. Once again, learning about autism helped me realise I do have special interests, including animals and natural history - and one of those interests is worldbuilding! I love creating settings, social mores, explanations, etc. Introduce me to a legend or mystery and my brain will start building something around it! I also realised that books, as objects, are a special interest for me - I like having physical books around, holding books, etc. Just touching a book is hugely calming for me. Once I learned that special interests could take more forms than just "can name hundreds of types of trains" or "wants everything to be Mickey Mouse related in some way", I noticed I had a fair few special interests and realised how big of a role they played in my life!

The social difficulty was the last hurdle for me. Actually, doing image descriptions consistently helped me figure out that I can't interpret faces or tone very well! I went a surprisingly long time genuinely believing most people go through social situations emoting very little and with flat voices. As it turns out, my brain just interprets all facial expressions/tones of voice as "neutral" unless there's a very strong emotion attached! I remember one time being in the break room at work, and one of my coworkers was on the verge of tears about something - but I had no clue, because she seemed neutral to me, despite other people asking her if she was okay. It was only once she started sobbing and tears were on her cheeks that I realised she was upset and comforted her. Once again, realising that I don't perceive emotions at all unless they're very blatant has helped me figure out a lot of things that didn't make sense before - like why so many people would seemingly have abrupt changes of heart and get annoyed at me "for no reason", or why I have an easier time interacting with little kids (they tend to be very open with their emotions because they feel everything strongly, so I can read them better) - and why most of the friends I've made are people who wear their hearts on their sleeves!

Can you use that knowledge to help you manage your problems? Pretty much as soon as I recognised a pattern in my sensory issues, I planned around them and could solve them. I've adjusted my wardrobe around the fact that I have trouble with having things too close around my neck, and take noise cancelling headphones with me places. I recognised what stims I have, got some fidget toys (I have a spinner ring that I have on me at all times), and recognise when I'm getting overwhelmed so I can get out of a situation, or at least take steps to mitigate it. But these have come up in other ways, as well.

It's often said that autistic people like routine. In my case, that manifests more as wanting to have an idea of what's going to happen and when and in what order it will happen, and sudden changes to this get me cranky. Uncertainty, especially regarding something I've been told I can do, can be hard to deal with. For example: one of my best friends has ADHD, and pretty much every time she comes to visit me she forgets something at my place - which is a bit of a problem when she lives a few hours away and is busy with school and work! One time, when she was coming for a week's visit, we agreed beforehand that I'd help her make a list of everything she had brought and where she had packed it so she could easily check if she had it with her before she left. I was excited to do it, and figured it would happen very soon after she got to my place. But when she got there it turned out she wasn't planning on unpacking right away, and within minutes I had pestered her so much about when I would be allowed to make her list that she got annoyed about me asking - she felt like I was pressuring her when she didn't have the energy to do it, when I wanted a clear timeline and an assurance that we would do it at some point. Ever since I realised I have that routine issue, I've started consciously telling myself that most days will happen with only a rough routine, or I give myself alternatives if a routine falls through. Like, "If this class doesn't come to my library at the time I expect, I'll spend time cataloguing these books instead" - either way, then, I'm following a routine! I can spin my spinner ring a few times to calm down during the transition period between events and I'll be just fine.

Similarly, once I realised there were a lot of unstated social expectations that I simply wasn't picking up on, I started taking initiative and actually asking about them. As it turns out, no one seems to mind - at least, I've never had any trouble getting answers! Once I started doing that, I ended up having an easier time meeting people's expectations, but if I hadn't realised that autism made me miss those rules in the first place, I would've kept going doing what I was doing, which just resulted in miscommunications.

Can your issues be caused by social isolation and depression? Maybe! But you could also be putting the cart before the horse, so to speak - your social isolation might be the result of autism, and it's very common for undiagnosed autistic people to end up with depression. One of the things that settled it for me was that I genuinely found autistic people and people with ADHD more predictable than neurotypicals - every day I'm baffled by something a neurotypical person does, but I can sniff out someone who's autistic or got ADHD from a mile away and figure them out quickly because their behaviour follows similar patterns to mine. I talk a lot about making Halt clearly autistic in The Royal Ranger, for example, but honestly a much harder thing for me has been remembering to keep everyone else neurotypical - I often have to think hard to figure out how Crowley would interpret something without an autistic lens there to colour it! But ultimately, whatever the cause, if you find autistic terms useful for you, use them! If they help you, they're free for you to use. If they don't, you have no obligation to. And most importantly, don't feel like you have to figure this all out right away - I first started seriously debating if I was autistic when I was fifteen, and only got comfortable actually calling myself autistic when I was closer to thirty!

[mundanemiseries]

So, I made this post a bit ago about part of why Joel never just....quits being a reaper, despite Neo:twewy's secret reports mentioning that it is in fact an option (Neo:twewy spoilers).

And while, yeah the fact that he genuinely didn't believe there was/is anything left for him back in his living life in Toronto. Hit me earlier that that...is probably not even the biggest reason. It's absolutely the main factor in why he became a reaper but...I don't think it's why he stayed.

Even while his place among the reapers hurts him, despite how it makes him want to tear his wings and his soul apart again like he did years ago. Despite the face his continued existence balances on a razor's edge, one bungled game week away from nonexistence.

Even though there's an obvious option out he doesn't take it.

He sees this, the pain, the suffering, the guilt that clawed at him during game weeks and in the dead of night, he sees it as his fault. His death was his doing, becoming a reaper his choice. It was all his doing, his fault and as such, he doesn't deserve to be freed from it.

It's why he doesn't take the demotion back down to a support reaper, an action that would lighten the load he carries during the games, an act that would make things easier on him. This is his fault, he deserves this, he doesn't deserve to have this be easier.

And it extended to a lot more than just the game in one way or another.

There's a good number of things that weigh on him. Self doubt and self hatred, missing memories, gender angst/dysphoria that's weighed on him since his teen years, depression, who knows what else.

And he'll make himself deal with it all more or less on his own. Sure, he'll let some people in but...generally avoid like...getting help getting help. And his why is kinda two fold:

He feels he and by extension his problems aren't worth fussing over. Other people have it demonstrably worse and so he's just...not worth the time.

He just...doesn't think he deserves the help.

And they both kinda tie into each other.

He never thought highly of himself to begin with, raised with his problems all getting shelved because "other people have it worse" so as time went on it's 100% something he's held himself to. He'd never think that about other people and their problems but him? To him, everything he's going through is nothing compared to others, to the world around him. And so his problems just...aren't worth other's time or effort to bother with.

And he isn't worth the time or effort.

Maybe he once was, maybe he never was. But he, his problems, his everything isn't worth it. Even as shards of his wings, his soul pile around him, as he feels like he's losing fragments of himself to the gaps in his memories, as much as the game made him wish he could be erased or just...stop existing altogether. He's not worth helping. He didn't deserve it.

Maybe if he was more broken. Maybe if/when he was reduced to nothing but shattered pieces, he'd deem himself worthy of care.

Or maybe not.