#maybe i am neurodivergent cause i’m way too excited for this

[kozmicmizuu]

RAAAHHH THE BOYS MIGJT COLLAB WITH SAM AND COLBY!!!!!!

i also watched the newest “The Boys React” video and omg the questions they had were so good??? and they had some amazing points about the “ABC” method, if that’s what we’re gonna call it

also just watch The boys (yt) and Sam and Colby in general, really fun content!!

[saetoru]

hiiii i hope you know how much i love ghe way u write haitham !!! also sooo true haitham is definitely autistic!! (me too haitham me too) i think u get how haitham is actually a quite kind and selfless person despite people think hes arrogant, egoistical and such but like if u read some if his voicelines like the one where hes asked what concerns he has he says smth not about him but how people tend to hurt themself and like cmon would an egoistical person have that concern??? also he doesnt look down on anyone its just he knows how capable he is and like ughhhh i feel like ur writing is a breath of fresh air cause like some people make it seem like hes some arrogant dude BUT HES NOT HES JUST AUTISTIC GUYS like when people say they dont like him and its just traits that autistic people usually have…. anyway thank you for sharing ur writing i love going through ur haitham tag it makes my day

HELLO HI I LITERALLY READ THIS LIKE 3 TIMES AND MY SMILE GOT SOOOO BIG EACH TIME IM GONNA TRY NOT TO RAMBLE AS I ANSWER THIS

but omg yesyesyes i agree he’s got so much pointing towards him being autistic and ppl will bash so many things ab him and it makes me so sad but also i’m like … maybe u ppl just don’t like traits that tend to describe autistic ppl idk … BUT i read so many fics of him being autistic and i see kaveh having adhd a lot in fics where they’re written to be neurodivergent and i think the authors i’ve read from so far have done such a good job of writing them and yeah. u get it. he’s definitely got sensory issues i know this is so real and true in my heart

AND HE IS SOOOOOOO KIND. i think ppl gloss over the fact that al-haitham doesn’t look down at anyone so much like everything about this man is so disciplined. so disciplined. like someone of his intelligence in a nation like sumeru could do sooo much bad but he literally just wants to have simple life where he goes to work and goes right home HE JUST WANTS PEACE. and his voice lines IF PPL WOULD JUST READ THEM. like the one about when ppl read difficult and abstruse books and then he says “jk i don’t enjoy watching ppl struggle lol” AND YES. THE ONE WHERE HE BASICALLY WOES ABOUR HOW PPL MAKE THEIR LIVES MORE DIFFICULT THAN IT NEEDS TK BE. he’s so caring by nature and i feel like even he doesn’t even understand that to some extent like i think he sees himself as a practical guy who just wants everyone to have peace for the sake of practicality. BUT HE ALSO JUST. CARES. YOU KNOW ?????????? they way it’s just canon that he’s misunderstood by ppl at the akademiya and he just doesn’t bother to correct them bc he doesn’t care to. THROWS UP HES SOOOOOOOOOO LOVELY I WISH MORE PPL WOULD SEE IT. i cannot tell u how many fics i read and then have to close bc. they just. THEY MAKE HIM SO ARROGANT AND MEAN BUT ARROGANCE =/= CONFIDENCE. he’s aware of his capabilities okay :( he’s not some condescending know it all. im just rly picky ab the way he’s written fjsjdjf so then i’m like. ok. i gotta write the content i wanna see 😔

but omg i’m rly glad you read and like my haitham writing sometimes i get carried away and make it so like…self servicing w the way i write him and the dialogue and then i get embarrassed to post it skfjsjfn but i’m very excited u like it I AM KISSINF U ON THE MOUF and also i am kissing ur brain for understanding him

[melanch0ly-gh0st]

Here’s a thing about me:

I don’t know if it’s low empathy, or if I’m just weird, but I think being neurodivergent has caused me to become less responsive or emotionally reactive overall. Maybe it’s a trauma thing, not like there’s much I’ve dealt with to be traumatized by, or maybe it’s some other psychological conditioning, but either way, I’ve not really found myself subject to open, emotional responses to things apart from when I’m really pushed about something. If I’m hurt or exhausted enough, I’ll cry, and if something is funny or makes me happy, I’ll smile giddily, but for the most part, I have the same, unbothered expression and a largely internal emotional structure. You’ll only see me get certain ways if I’m really comfortable/not high-energy enough to mask.

This, to some extent, has transferred over to how I normally am. I’ll holler with laughter or sigh in frustration, sure, but when it comes to anything besides intense moments, I don’t respond as strongly as others (especially y’all on this site) seem to. I try to be more straightforward about it. So it’s really weird to me when others get so giddy or upset about certain things so easily, to the point of screaming or crying in excess. That’s not to say that intense emotional responses are a bad thing- intense emotional responses are just a frequent part of human nature- but I have less experience with that kind of thing. In fact, I look back on my old emotional responses and loath them, because to me, that was young me being childish. I still do that with current me whenever I get frustrated and/or internalize it.

In an earlier post that I used to have pinned, I said that I don’t have intense or really even relevant emotions on bigger things in my life, at least not ones that I care about. Turning 18? I mean it was supposed to happen eventually. Going to college next year? It’s just another stressful bout of schooling. Everything’s just another thing that happens, few things make me excited. However, I go and send an ask to someone and tell them that their fic is great and they respond saying how much it hits them in the heart. And by that, I mean they talk about how much it wrenched their heart strings, to the point where they can barely even respond coherently.

Most of the time I assume it’s an over-exaggeration because it made them feel great, but sometimes I’ll see people talking about how heartfelt comments give them so much life to the point where they obsess over them. That’s not a bad thing either, but to me it’s an alien concept, being that emotionally driven by those things, to the point where a physical response is given. I’ve wanted to ask people about intense emotional responses and if they fully experience the feelings they describe because I wonder if it’s too much for me to interact with them the way I do/want to. Do they actually want to rant for days about topics and have me reciprocate the feelings, or do they have massive limits and just exaggerate them because they like being expressive? Will I exhaust those people with my presence, or will they exhaust me, positively I mean, because of their happiness?

All that to say: please please puh-lease tell me if you actually feel the way you say you do, and by you I mean any tumblr users that see this. I want to know if you have intense emotional responses to these things, or get as emotional as people seem to. I also want to know: do other neurodivergent (especially autistic) folks experience the same things? Are you unresponsive to things others would buckle in the presence of? Is every big thing another moment in time to you? I’m trying to learn how other neurodivergents try to people, and this stuff is completely abstract to me.

[topconfessions]

Reading the anon’s opinion about the moon trip and it’s so weird cause I was going to send in a really similar confession but decided not to cause I didn’t want to be negative about something that’s making him so happy especially after these turbulent years where he was struggling so much. Also I get what you’re saying 100%. As we all know he’s a sensitive soul and I’m worried that if something delays this trip or anything else means it doesn’t run as smoothly as planned he’ll be wrecked. I’ve noticed that top appears to hyperfixate on things like if you go to his ig 99% of his posts are about the moon. Now this is cute and I’m sure I speak for many fans when I say I’m so pleased he’s found something that brings him happiness but at the same time I’m worried. There’s still no definitive time the launching will take place but he’s out there posting a million stories about it am and pm. I’m hoping it all goes well, I truly do, he deserves it but I think he should also try and distract himself with other things e.g. an album. I mean maybe he’s doing that in his personal life but his ig sure doesn’t suggest that lol

P.S. I just want to say after seeing how obsessed top is with the moon trip I’m starting to think he didn’t necessarily have a major falling out with gd. Maybe it’s his personality to get so absorbed in a particular passion that he starts ignoring or shutting out people who aren’t connected to his latest interest. Like look at the still life mv, even his part was about the moon. This all makes me wonder if he’s slightly neurodivergent tbh and I don’t mean that as an insult just to be clear.

sometimes, what you love and what makes you happy isn't what's best for you or most beneficial. Yeah, I unfollowed him long ago cause of it because it became exhilarating to me and too much. There is promotion and excitement then there is just excessive posting and fixation that isn't needed. He should focus on the acting project and hyping squid game up, posting things in relation to that. I'm starting to think that he doesnt have a core enduring interest in anything aside from the wine that doesn't elevate his self worth publicly notoriety wise. I think he isn't rushing to be passionate about anything if it isn't elevating himself somehow, but I'm sure he is genuinely into this trip.

I MEANNNNN I am the same way too, I had a friend frantically hit me up recently acting like I was missing just cause I hadn't talked to her in some weeks and wasn't posting on social media when I was staying to myself and focusing on one of my hobbies I was really into. So I get it, like your point, but I still think him and GD had a genuine falling out anyway.

As for the neuro speculation, we've already discussed many times here we collectively believe TOP (our speculation, our opinion, our *THEORY*, not fact*) is on the spectrum.

[tragictrainmen]

Welcome

Yo I'm Ari! I'm an autistic trans dude who loves me some autistic Trains dudes. HA

I’m a 31yr old adult but this is a harmless pokemon train blog. Not really gonna be posting anything inappropriate. please interact responsibly and only follow if you want to. *thumbs up*

Anyway this is an introductory post of sorts. :> I’m compiling all my headcanons for the Submas twins in one place, and so ppl wanting to follow can get a feel for the kind of content I’ll be reblogging! (and maybe even... making????)

SO let’s get started.

Headcanons that apply to both the boys:

Eyes glow in low light. This is seen with Ingo's eyes in PLA and is too cool not to just call canon. Graphical error? Never heard of her. Seriously thought it was to make Ingo feel like a ghost lost in the past. Really thought his plot twist was gonna be that he was dead the whole time. |D

Both boys are on the spectrum. Both are canonically literalists who avoid lying, share a special interest in trains and Pokemon battles, both struggle with social cues and come across as either aggressively blunt (Emmet) or constantly unhappy and severe (Ingo).

They’re Aro/Ace, although they have a close Platonic friendship with Elesa. I Love adopted sister Elesa content. I am NOT a blankshipper. Do not like incest content. Looking for healthy sibling relationships in my content pls and thank you. I also Love Uncle Ingo and Akari content. He’s a good dad.

On that note: I really like shit that subverts toxic masculinity, especially as a trans dude myself, so I don’t see male sibling affection as idk.. erotic? wrong? If they cuddle on the couch watching a movie together then like. That’s just them hanging out. Idk I'm the oldest of 5 siblings I know what siblings do when they love each other and live together. (and have survived trauma together) And half the reason I like submas content is bcus of their healthy sibling bond that survives through their trauma. Also they are neurodivergent. 🤗

I don't headcanon either of the boys as heavy swearers. Maybe Emmet will say shit and Ingo would mutter damn, but neither would say fuck publicly. It’s more of a professionalism thing, and they’re both very articulate in unique ways. I feel like they’d be concerned cussing would cause someone to take them less seriously. (I don’t mind content where they do cuss! I think Emmet saying fuck is funny as shit, it just doesn’t fit how I ‘read’ them.)

The nitty gritty, like personal autistic headcanons for each brother and how they operate together will all be under a cut to save post length.

Ingo:

- Autism shows itself in lack of facial expression. Pretty much does not realize he is Not Emoting 90% of the time. (This is actually canon in Pokemon Masters? He's genuinely surprised you've never seen him smile) He does smile in PLA, but VERY rarely, and uh. it’s like, almost a straight line. That’s the best you’re gonna get.

 -Also will show excess emotion in his voice, and on top of that, his volume control is pretty terrible, and he often uses said volume to accentuate happiness or excitement. Will gradually get louder the more intensely interested in a conversation he is in. Will be shouting about Pokemon battle strategies in a diner and not know he is shouting.

- Has learned to mask behaviors because of his personal sense of responsibility.

-He has older sibling syndrome BAD. It made putting aside his autistic needs a priority as a child and he still struggles with it as an adult.

-This can make strangers believe he's the more 'neurotypical' brother, which is bullshit haha. Ingo will still fidget with his hands in private or around Emmet.

- Fidgets include picking the grime out from under his nails meticulously. (Often done while alone, or before bed) Clapping his hands together or slapping his lap/ the wall/ the seat repeatedly when he finds something funny, and touching or adjusting his hat. He will reach for it even when he's not wearing it.

-He will also clasp his hands together and rub his thumb in circles along the back of one hand. Will also do this while holding hands. Or putting a hand on your back or shoulder. Thumb rubs from Ingo are a common side effect of him touching you for any prolonged period of time.

-He will also take and inspect Emmet's or Elesa's hands/nails when they're alone or waiting for a long period of time. (He will do this while they watch TV, for example. This is a social love behavior and is not something he does with anyone else. He might have done it to Akari a few times? To her utter confusion. “Ingo is there something wrong with my hand?”)

-Aside from voluntary hand-touching, Ingo actually dislikes being hugged or held without express permission first. Will often still stiffen up like a board when hugged with permission. Touching can be painful. Doesn't so much have this issue with kids, who he absolutely adores. But kid hugs are rare and don't involve someone squeezing your shoulders or restricting your arms so they're aren't that bad.

-Organized to a fault. Used the calendar app and the alarm app to their fullest potential. Follow the schedules? He and Emmet live by this. Emmet follows Ingo's schedule. They work best that way. His office desk is meticulously organized. No matter what Emmet's looks like, it's always just as tidy as Ingo’s by the time they head home. (He makes sure Emmet cleans up after himself)

-Living situation is the same. Clothes get ironed because Ingo makes sure they do. Chores are ordered by day, week, and brother because Ingo and Emmet need structure, but Ingo's the only one good at Maintaining structure. More on Emmet later.

-Music taste is primarily modern classical. Piano or small orchestral accompaniments like Ryuichi Sakamoto and Andrew Shapiro. Or Orchestral movie scores that emphasizes the grandiose, think the soundtrack of Interstellar. Hanz Zimmer's more classical stuff. Any Gibli movie soundtrack is also fair game. He also likes jazz and certain types of alternative folk. Would probably like Rainbow Kitten Surprise and Mumford and Sons.

-Comically enough, both brother's will willingly tolerate each other's music. Even though they have. Uh. Opposite tastes. They share the same Spotify account even. Ingo will tolerate most average Radio fare, and is probably the most willing to give up the aux. Sort of a music pushover. Is surprised when someone wants to listen to his music.

Emmet:

-Autism and Adhd bundled together into a man that is somehow both the most monotone and most enunciated fast-talker you've ever met. He says everything so abruptly. But you understand every word. He has had A LOT of practice making himself understandable. I've seen some posts around talking about Emmet being nonverbal when he was younger and I wholeheartedly agree with that.

-Emmet's language journey was a rough one, but he's an incredibly confident speaker. I don't believe he's self-conscious about how he talks. To be honest, I don't think Emmet is Aware he speaks oddly at all. If someone says something, he literally has no clue what they could be on about. Yeah Ingo talks kinda weird I guess but him? No. You are wrong actually.

-Is Not Sarcastic. Does Not Know How To Sarcasm. His verrrys are verrry genuine. They just uh... Never sound that way. RIP. He IS a bit blunt though. He has no filter.

-Stimming is far more obvious in Emmet. He is a foot tapper, the sort to rock back and forth on his heels if he's impatient. He claps when he's happy, he claps when he's excited, he claps when something is funny. He is power-walking towards you right now because he can't hold still anymore. :) :) :) Chews his nails, but only while hyper-focusing. Much to Ingo's frustration. Ingo is the only reason his nails have any growth at all. He sometimes makes them bleed without realizing it. :(

- He will twirl or click anything in his hands if he is holding it long enough. He will tear or fold the corners of paper if left holding it for too long. Will scribble on the edges of notes or even on important documents if not given enough stimulation. Likes to draw smiles in the corners and repeated straight lines close together. (The straighter and closer the better!)

-While Ingo has an almost compulsive level of organization, Emmet's forms are always crumpled a little, smudged in places. There's a smiley face next to where he needed to sign his name. A coffee ring somewhere maybe. He doesn't know how coffee got on it. :) He's verrry sorry! It is still a proper legal document thought :) you will take it.

-Contrary to this, Emmet likes things just as neat and organized as his brother, but struggles to plan well and doesn't conceptualize time. His phone has just as many timers as Ingo's, but it includes ones with names like 'eat now' and 'leave with time for coffee'.

-He can struggle with executive dysfunction if left to do a task by himself without company. An issue he sees as a fault. Ingo can do things alone. Why can't he? Why does he have to fight himself tooth and nail just to take the trash out while Ingo is not home? This leads to uh. Some good angst when Ingo gets yeeted lol. Emmet cannot keep a place clean to save his life, and a lack of cleanliness directly affects his mental health.(he tries verrry hard though. Oh god does he try. u-u)

-Is more comfortable with most forms of contact than Ingo, but also prefers to be asked before being hugged. (has stricter boundaries about who can and can't touch him though. He will usually say no. Or ask Why.)

-Likes friendship kisses. 🚫not true kisses!🚫 Will kiss your hand. Will kiss your cut. Will kiss cute Pokemon. Has kissed his Electross's big dumb head before. Actually will also kiss soft blankets.

- Wait scratch that Actually both the boys like soft things. Ingo will rub them compulsively. Emmet will hold things up against his face and feel them against his lips. He will look like he's hiding his face during a scary movie but no he is enjoying a texture. :) (he is not scared of scary movies)

-As far as music, Emmet listens to the grungiest grinding electronic house imaginable. If it doesn't sound like someone tried to hybridize screamo and dubstep into a single song it's not Emmet. His tastes can also jump to more classic house and electronic music, with a preference for heavy beats and drops. He would like some Apashe and Infected Mushroom for example.

-He also likes alt rock, and mentions liking Piers’ music in Pokemon Masters, which is unsurprising. He would listen to Nightwish too lmao. Will usually wear headphones and play things loud as a form of self-regulation. Although he will willingly listen to Ingo's music no questions asked. But it makes him sleepy.

Maybe I will draw art of these two eventually. 😔 Until now, have this long ass post.

[hyperfixationtimego]

Celeste somehow manages to balance on the top of the chair and puts her feet on the seat part, it’s a challenge now to find a chair she can’t sit on (she likes to feel tall even though she’s already the tallest of the class, excluding Yasuhiro because. he’s a grown man)

Asahina manspreads too much, like she looks like she’s doing the splits while sitting

Sayaka always sits close to a wall and she’ll lean back until her chair is leaning against it. It calms her down, but sometimes she forgets when she’s not against a wall and will just fall (Leon also leans, but definitely not as much)

Togami always holds his arms behind the back of his chair. It’s just a stim he does, but he’s convinced the class that it’s some fancy etiquette. Most of the time people think someone snapped and tied Togami to a chair when they see it for the first time

Ibuki sits with no caution, the way she falls in that beach pic??? that’s just how she sits down, full lean into freefall. She breaks a lot of chairs

Peko relaxes her whole body and it always looks like she’s sleeping. She models it after a cat, where she can jump up at any threat, but she ends up actually falling asleep a lot (honestly she has insomnia but she refuses to admit it, so she’s constantly tired)

I don’t know a lot about these guys but I’d like to try;

Kaito sits with his legs up on the armrests. It looks so uncomfortable but he likes it so. the other students are just concerned but letting it happen.

And the mechanic man will sit under the chair. Nobody knows how he does it because he’s so tall, but he will fit under any chair and hang out

Oh and Mikan picks at chairs, she will disassociate and just rip off pieces of fabric or plastic. It scares the shit out of Monokuma - queer eye anon

YEAH DUDE YEAH

god okay I couldn’t find the comic it made me think of, but I imagine the first time Makoto sees Celeste sit Like That™️, he accidentally walks in on her and Kyoko and hears Kyoko just very casually ask “are you sitting up there because you want to feel closer to god?”

you know the one with the cat on the counter?? and the artist mentions that it was something that happened between with them and their roommate?? yeah that one!!

anyway he is obviously confused and concerned but slowly comes to realize that oh no. this is literally just how everybody in his class performs normal everyday behaviors. (That being said, he definitely crosses his legs while sitting ❤️)

*pats hina gently* this gal can fit so many adhd

she probably leans forward and puts her hands on the seat of whatever chair she’s in!!! she looks like an excited little kid!! She puts so much energy into everything she does, even literally just sitting down!!!

SAYAKA LEANING AGAINST THE WALL IS VERY POG and I am also a fan of her rocking back and forth!! Just the little movements that are calming!!

and being against the wall itself is so nice!! There’s something about the angle !! Like almost laying down, but still being alert and participating in active conversation is probably very soothing for her!!

Sayaka 🤝 Leon

Everybody laughing at them when they inevitably fall off their fucking chairs after leaning too far back without a wall behind them

AKSJSMDND OKAY BUT FOR TOGAMI I BET SOMEONE’S TAKEN THE OPPORTUNITY TO ACTUALLY TIE HIM TO THE CHAIR THOUGH

LIKE JUST AS A LITTLE PRANK,,,,,,A MINOR JOKE,,,,,,,,

my suspicion is that it would be either Nagito & Kokichi, or Sayaka, Leon, & Kaz, or Jill, or actually you know what there are quite a few very good candidates HSBSMDN

in any case he gets ROYALLY pissed off and threatens whoever did it with “YOU’LL BE HEARING FROM MY LAWYER-” which he never actually follows through on obviously

IBUKI BREAKING CHAIRS,,,,,YEAH AKSHSMDBDDN

god how many times has she been called into Jin’s office just for him to audibly sigh like “Mioda this is the fifth piece of school property you’ve broken this month just by sitting in it.”

that man is so tired somebody save him

but anyway that’s also how she sits on people’s laps??? like romantic or platonic, if someone is “*grabby hands* come here ❤️” while sitting, she straight up fucking flops down onto their lap without remorse and kills them on the spot HSKSHDN

[*dying Chihiro noises in the background*]

oh god actually speaking of Chihiro

they kneel. they just kneel on the chair ❤️

THERE HAVE BEEN SO MANY TIMES WHERE PEOPLE HAVE ASSUMED THAT PEKO WAS ASLEEP ONLY FOR HER TO ABSOLUTELY SCARE THE SHIT OUT OF THEM

like she is tired and stressed so she rests her eyes sometimes, or people will just assume she’s sleeping with her eyes open, maybe

For example, Kokichi has, on more than one occasion, nearly gotten his wrist broken for attempting to draw on Pekoyama’s face while believing her to be asleep ❤️

Shuichi: um. Kaito. Are you….okay???

Kaito, sitting in the most ungodly position possible: yeah dude ofc why what’s wrong

important to note tho that Momota IS willing to sit normally but only if it’s because he’s trapped Shuichi with a hug, meaning Saihara is now sitting on his lap 😳💓💖💖💖

Shuichi rarely ever initiates stuff like that but GOD does he melt into it

AKSJSWLDJDJ KAZUICHI MY BELOVED

he just likes the floor :)

but he’ll also sit on a table/counter if one is available!!! literally anything to Not Sit On the Seat Part of a Chair™️

Hajime: why do u literally sit UNDER the chair

Kaz: h-

Gundham: because as my paramour, he wishes to be closer to my domain

and Kaz is just actually it’s because I’m neurodivergent as fuck but….u know what yeah man sure :)

GOD I LOVE THAT FOR MIKAN

like she just sits there staring off into space with a vaguely terrified, wide-eyed expression, and the only things mobile about her body are her hands, which are simultaneously casually and viciously causing irreparable damage to school property…..absolute queen shit ✨

[sepublic]

New Wartwood, Friend or Frobo!

           This was ANOTHER great episode you guys, two exciting things culminating, and I just… YES!

           I love how a recurring theme in both parts of this episode is two strangers who are added to the Plantar family and status quo in Wartwood (I mean Marcy technically isn’t a stranger but she’s a new addition in terms of permanence), and how both episodes have the townsfolk react suspiciously! The people of Wartwood calling back to Anne’s own destruction was neat, it was nice to see Anne guide someone else through the same things she went through, except Marcy doesn’t quite have to do it alone- And Marcy herself seems pretty mature! All things considered, it wasn’t like she just chose to renovate the town against everyone’s wishes, she was following Mayor Toadstool… Which granted, she should’ve listened to Anne’s warning, but still!

           In general, I like how this episode has both the gags of the townspeople being ready to be an angry mob, but also there’s this sense of… Newcomers like in the beginning of the show, except we have a more developed Plantar family to help them through it! It’s incredibly sweet and I love it… And I’m SO hyped to see Marcy and Frobo interact more, I was looking forward to her reaction to them- And I want to see the two bond over being the newcomers to Wartwood, as recent adoptees to the Plantar family, more or less, etc.! I want to see Marcy freak out over Frobo and help them explore their abilities and function, and add her own knowledge and research…

           …But I AM wary of Marcy inevitably writing back to Andrias about the whole thing. Goodness, what if Frobo is broken down for spare parts, or used to help power and heal his master? Is there some connection, would Frobo recognize the Night- Will the Night possess Frobo like Calamity Ganon with the Guardians? We already have so many Breath of the Wild parallels, in addition to Frobo having destructive laser beams… We could get a tragic Iron Giant plot, with Frobo struggling against the Night, maybe even a permanent destruction! That’d really hurt, while also providing more context and background to what the Night was capable of and probably did, what happened in the past, etc.!

           I like how Marcy had the maturity to learn to apologize herself, instead of hiding behind Anne- And it’s neat seeing how she tries to earn love with big, grandiose gestures… I wonder if she learned this from Sasha? Who seems like the kind of person who’d make friends by doing things for people, given how rich she is and how kids are invited to her parties and so forth; And what with it being part of Sasha’s manipulative nature, innocent Marcy picked up on it? Thought this was normal? OH DANG, that could be a toxic trait she learned from Sasha, and we could see her unlearn Sasha’s toxicity the way Anne did! Again, it’s fascinating to see this same storyline redone but with a different character, it’s almost like watching an AU but within canon!

           Also, I know Toadstool insisted that he wouldn’t learn, but he went out of his way to try to vouch for Marcy at least a little, or at least take his part in the blame; And what with his upcoming redemption episode, it’s neat to see him slowly grow as a character too! Again, I liked the callbacks and seeing Anne become more of a seasoned veteran whose seen things for people, like how she warns Marcy about Toadstool’s schemes… But just in general, like how she lectures Sprig and Polly about how they need to know Bessie’s story to drive her, and so forth! It’s this proud sense of people growing up, and then passing things on to the next generation, a passing of the torch and maturity!

           Speaking of which- We also get to see that with Polly! Polly learning to be an older sibling to Frobo is great, that’s such a neat idea we’ve never seen before, and it adds to her character’s development as she continues to appreciate what others have to go through with her! I like how Frobo is technically younger than Polly in a sense, but also incredibly destructive like her, so you got the baby siblings being destructive… And again, seeing our main cast teach others is incredibly heartwarming, it makes the journey feel all the more well-rounded and nostalgic; We’re seeing how they’ve grown by watching how they become mentors to others, I love this SO much!

           Also, I like how Marcy and Hop Pop are getting along more! We got a glimpse of this beforehand, but now we’re really getting into it, especially with Marcy’s fascination with Wartwood- I think it’s neat the detail of it essentially being a bunch of buoyant sod and topsoil placed over swampwater! It doesn’t add much beyond the peril of this little episode, but it’s very neat worldbuilding and a fun concept, and it reminds me of how some cultures created floating gardens! Which, fits Wartwood being an agricultural society, and it just fleshes out how the Amphibians manage to interact with the wild and cultivate it more, it’s so fun! I wonder if this subterranean swamp has anything to do with the various animals we see… Were the herons attracted to the water and perhaps fish beneath? Those monstrous lampreys that flooded the basement, was that from the swamp below? It’s all incredibly fascinating worldbuilding with so much fun, neat implications, I’m genuinely obsessed with it!

           But, back to Marcy and Hop Pop- It’s neat that Hop Pop is finding someone who can appreciate his old-fashioned interests more… It feels like this family is becoming more fulfilled and less lonely as people find each other and bond, fulfill one another in different ways! This old frog is being understood more and more, and now he has a fellow nerd! I’d love to see Marcy learn how to drive Bessie, and I like that Hop Pop has another human stranger who’s enriching his life, and acting as someone he can count on to help him with his grandkids, an older child he can relate to! It just warms my heart after seeing him get along with Anne during the trip back to Wartwood, the more the merrier! And it’s incredibly sweet that Marcy gets the Fwagon all to herself… Which again, would make it hurt if it got destroyed, but whatever;

           My point is, it’s neat how this journey in this home that brought them to Marcy, it ends up being for her too! It’s like the journey hasn’t quite ended yet, they brought someone back with them… And Marcy gets to sleep where Anne slept, get to live where the others lived! It just feels incredibly heartwarming and it’s such a kind and homely, nostalgic gesture… Again, she really feels more like a part of the family, so I can see things changing where Marcy doesn’t just want to be with Anne, but the rest of the Plantars too! Seeing her develop her relationship with them is great.

           Again, I’d like to see Marcy maybe interact with Sprig and Polly more too- Maybe she and Polly can bond over liking Frobo? Frobo and Polly become friends? And while Frobo as an individual does not concern me in regards to intentions; Their design is a bit sus, given the eye-lasers. Though, Amphibia is such a dangerous place that Frobo having defensive capabilities makes sense… But the idea of there being an entire army of Frobos, many of whom could’ve gone destructive and ravaged Amphibia? Genuinely terrifying with how powerful, with such a diverse range of abilities, that Frobo has- They could lift all of Stumpy’s casually! Again, like the Guardians from Breath of the Wild…

           But yeah, it’s really fun these evened-out, pairings among the family now; You have Sprig and Anne… Hop Pop and Marcy… And Frobo and Polly! But also, Marcy and Anne are close to one another as well, Hop Pop has everything with his pre-existing kids… So it’ll be fascinating to see Frobo adjust, and maybe see Marcy try her hand at being a guide to them as well! Maybe they can both bond over being clumsy and not meaning to cause accidents, but also being adept and having a wide range of skills, and perhaps being seen as ‘robotic’ in the sense that they don’t understand social cues and are figuring them out… It’d be SUCH a neurodivergent mood! Then we have Anne, Marcy, and Frobo being the local freak shows and adopted family, Hop Pop, Polly, and Sprig the ‘normals’ acclimating them to Wartwood, etc.!

           All in all this was another fascinating episode, in terms of character dynamics, themes, the development of our protagonists getting to shine, glimpses into lore, changes to the status quo… It’s all wonderful, I knew I’d love this episode, but WOW it was good! Animation for Frobo was superb and I loved Marcy’s outfit from Toadstool, and Mrs. Croaker’s little joke about being suspicious with Marcy for a while, it reminds me of the fandom in a meta sense! Here’s looking forward to the next one, F-Anne’s!

[saintqueer]

Hi, saw that you are in therapy. How do you approach the subject of 1D in therapy? I'm embarrassed to bring up how much I'm invested in them to my therapist tbh and also worried she's gonna a tell me to drop them cause it's not healthy.

Hey friend! I honestly was pumped when I woke up to this ask yesterday because it’s a really good question. One that I think a lot of people worry about. And is probably pretty prevalent for a lot of us in fandom spaces as a lot of us are mentally ill and/or neurodivergent (and yeah I don’t think that’s a coincidence). I just recently got back into therapy after a few years away. I went consistently from when I was 18 to 24. And I just got back in at 27 because, surprise, life is still hard. But I can tell you that I was not expecting to be going back into therapy with a full-blown 1D hyper-fixation. Yet here I am! 

I’ve always been very susceptible to fandom and, what I like to call, the art of obsessing over things. And I’ve mostly felt comfortable talking freely about those things with friends/family and therapists. But it has become more difficult as the outstanding circumstances of being unemployed, in a pandemic, being unable to get my ADHD meds, and being severely depressed have caused my ‘obsessive tendencies’ to become a lot more intense, focused, sensitive, and longer-lasting which is why I’m using the term hyper-fixation currently to separate it from the general fandom experience. 

It’s come to feel a lot less like a fun extracurricular and more like a coping mechanism that I can’t picture functioning without. Maybe this is similar for you, anon, as you label your investment as “unhealthy.” But I hope you can step back from judging yourself for a moment and acknowledge that this might be a coping mechanism for you. We can sometimes be all too quick to judge coping strategies as healthy or unhealthy when we are simply just trying to do what we can to get by. I am aware that my current hyper-fixation might not be the quickest or most obvious way of healing myself. However, I know that I am indirectly processing my trauma through it which is, for right now, far easier for me than confronting it directly. 

So, yes, in therapy I’ve brought up my 1D obsession, touched briefly on Larry, and spoken at length about how much fan fiction I’ve been reading. My therapist hasn’t really dug further and we just end up moving on to the next thing. He always ends up being more curious as to what’s underneath it and far less concerned about me “being too invested” in something. Any therapist worth their salt would NEVER in a million years tell you to drop something you are passionate about. You are allowed to love things, you are allowed to be a fan, you are allowed to be crazy-obsessed. I highly doubt that she will tell you any differently but if she does, perhaps try finding someone new. Both of my parents are psychologists as well (fuck my life) so I am well-versed in the theory behind psychotherapy and it would never be advisable to tell a client to drop something that brought their life joy even if there were unhealthy aspects to it. You aren’t doing heroine, ya know?

Anyways, if you’d like to then tell your therapist about 1D! What you love about them, how they make you feel, why you feel so invested in them and their music and their story. Explain what resonates or upsets you. That will likely reveal a lot of things about you that might enable her to help you further. For me, the goal of better understanding my hyper-fixation is not to love the thing less by any means. But to make your individual happiness less dependent on said thing. Right now I’m so sad all the time that simply a singular tweet from Louis can give me a huge boost of happiness I would not have had otherwise. My goal is not to rid myself of my hyper-fixation but rather change the nature of it so that I am happy more often even on days when nothing exciting happens in the fandom. A tweet from Louis will still bring me joy but I’d prefer it not to be a glass of water in the middle of a fucking desert. 

So, anon, I hope that helps in some way! Feel free to come back anytime. Also, big props on being in therapy! It’s truly one of the best moves you can ever make. 

[johannas-motivational-insults]

Adora might be autistic too

Alright, most people in the SPOP fandom agree that Entrapta is autistic, as her coding is extremely obvious. However, some of us also believe that our beloved protagonist Adora is on the spectrum as well. She comes off as quite the aspie, and while Asperger’s is no longer a diagnosis in the DSM-V (but is in other manuals), it falls under the blanket diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and its diagnostic criteria is still useful in analyzing people for signs of the disorder. In analyzing Adora’s character I will refer somewhat to both disorders, with the understanding that Asperger’s is a specific manifestation of ASD.

I would like to preface this by saying this is a headcanon and people are free to disagree with me. Some of these characteristics I’m going to bring up could also manifest because of her very sheltered upbringing in a cult-like atmosphere or mental illnesses such as anxiety and complex PTSD (both of which she arguably has). I am autistic myself, so obviously I am inclined to interpret these symptoms this way, but to each their own. It’s also worth noting that Adora has a lot of symptoms that cross over with AD(H)D, a cousin disorder to ASD, and it’s totally possible she has both.

In any case, there is now enough evidence hinting at Adora’s neurodivergence (especially now that the Rebel Princess Guide has been released) that I feel the need to explain this theory in detail instead of just occasionally mentioning it. So here goes...

She’s naive/easily manipulated

This one doesn’t really need explaining, we’ve all seen it. Adora assumes people are telling the truth because why would anyone lie to her? That is such a relatable spectrum feel. She was handily brainwashed by Shadow Weaver in the Horde, while some of the others didn’t seem to swallow the propaganda so easily. This is of course partly because of the special attention and affection Adora got from Shadow Weaver, but she had to be vulnerable to manipulation in the first place for it to work.

Later, she trusts Huntara easily in the Crimson Waste despite Bow and Glimmer’s warnings about her questionable character. Adora happily follows her into a trap even once Bow and Glimmer tell her they're going the wrong way, reasoning it’s probably a shortcut rather than reevaluating her misplaced trust. This can be partly explained by how she‘s gay af for Huntara, but still.

(Interestingly, the episode cuts straight from this moment to the obviously autistic Entrapta going against her own friend's advice and refusing to give up on the portal machine despite the obvious warning sign of Hordak’s violent dismissal. Parallels, much?)

Her difficulty understanding other points of view

A lot of Adora’s conflict with Catra is predicated on misunderstandings, and she has a hard time understanding the effects her actions have on other people, Catra in particular. For instance, she misunderstands Catra talking about ruling the Horde together as being purely about power, while Catra’s actual goals are safety and Adora’s companionship. That miscommunication is not just Adora’s fault, but it illustrates that she has difficulty understanding other people’s needs and motives without being explicitly told.

This isn’t just a problem with Catra, either. In general Adora has a difficult time understanding other’s motives and feelings. For instance, she doesn’t understand Glimmer’s insecurity over Bow’s friendship with Perfuma at Princess Prom, and she can’t fathom why Entrapta would choose to work for an evil faction, going so far as to assume she must have been brainwashed into it. This is because, just like with Catra, she doesn’t understand that some people’s priorities are not the same as hers.

Autistic kids tend to reach developmental milestones at different times than neurotypicals, sometimes being way ahead and other times falling behind. One such marker that is usually slower to develop and often stays impaired is theory of mind, our ability to a) understand that other people have different perspectives and b) understand those perspectives. Adora’s difficulties being able to put herself in someone else’s shoes definitely lines up with this symptom.

She’s clumsy

For someone so athletic, Adora sure lacks coordination. This is a commonly cited symptom of people with Asperger’s, though it shows up in people with other forms of ASD too. In general, autistic people often have difficulty with fine and/or gross motor skills, and this can lead to being accident and injury prone. According to Catra in 3x05, Adora bumps her head a lot. That may have just been a callback to 1x01, but either way clumsiness has been part of her characterization since the beginning, one of her many loveable, adorkable qualities.

Her lack of social and self awareness

Adora can be painfully oblivious to her own inappropriate behavior. There’s several examples of this throughout the series, one of the more costly ones coming at Princess Prom. Shocked by Frosta’s youth, Adora fails to register how maybe this (in front of Frosta, with all eyes on her) is not the time to remark on it. She immediately realizes this was the wrong thing to say (or at least not something she should shout), but that small delay causes both her and Glimmer a lot of embarrassment.

Part of the issue here is that she loses control of her volume, which in itself is a common problem for those of us on the spectrum. This isn’t the only time we see her have this problem, either, and it’s amplified (tee hee) when she’s drunk/infected.

More generally, one of the funniest examples of Adora’s poor social awareness comes when she barges into Huntara’s flirtation with the bartender in the Crimson Waste. She’s so focused on her task of recruiting Huntara that it doesn’t even occur to her that this is an intimate moment and intruding would be rude.

In the Rebel Princess Guide Adora also says she wishes Queen Angella would let her make some adjustments to the uniforms of the Bright Moon guards, which implies she tried to make these suggestions already. Maybe she figured She-Ra could suggest anything, but as both a newcomer and a royal subject that’s a bit of a faux pas. Chances are, that went right over Adora’s head.

She can’t read a room to save her life (literally)

This is another, more specific aspect of social awareness. Adora has difficulty picking up on the implicit rules (social norms) when she enters unfamiliar situations, and has a tendency to step on toes because of it. She also doesn’t understand when her friends try to nonverbally communicate what she’s doing wrong, and nonverbal communication deficits and problems with social awareness and insight are two major symptoms of ASD. One specifically listed example is “difficulties adjusting behavior to suit social contexts”, including:

Lack of response to contextual cues (e.g. social cues from others indicating a change in behavior is implicitly requested)

Unaware of social conventions/appropriate social behavior; asks socially inappropriate questions or makes socially inappropriate statements

Here’s a couple specific example of times where Adora misses or misunderstands nonverbal cues to change her behavior:

At her first Rebellion meeting she doesn’t realize that maybe she shouldn’t sit in the special-looking chair, and doesn’t clue in that that’s why everyone is freaking out.

In the Crimson Waste, Glimmer responds to the growling bar patrons surrounding them by suggesting that maybe these aren’t the kind of people they should be asking for help, but Adora persists. She jumps up on the bar and makes a speech trying to get directions (which is socially inappropriate for the context as well as dangerous), somehow missing all the scowls from the patrons as well as Bow and Glimmer’s wild gesturing.

Panic over unfamiliar social situations

Adora’s anxiety about going to Princess Prom could be attributed to many things, not just a spectrum disorder. Her obvious anxiety, for one, though to be fair there’s a high comorbidity between the two disorders. In any case, it seems the unfamiliarity of the situation is a sticking point for Adora in particular, while Bow and Glimmer are nothing but excited for their first ball.

Adora’s anxiety seems to stem mostly from being overwhelmed by the prospect of entering a new social situation with a whole bunch of unfamiliar rules to remember. She’s still learning behavioral norms outside of the Horde, and this is a huge jump up in terms of difficulty for her fledgling social skills.

To cope with her stress she goes overboard trying to prepare by making a conspiracy board of sorts, flash cards, and an obstacle course. And at the ball itself, it seems like she’s even rehearsed how to behave.

This probably isn’t only relatable to autistics, but it’s very relatable to us. Creating and rehearsing behavioral scripts is a common strategy to avoid embarrassing ourselves in public. Unfortunately, as we saw above, this works for about five seconds before Adora botches the whole thing by commenting on Frosta’s age.

Extreme stress over details

In general, Adora is a very anxious, perfectionistic person who hyperfixates on details, a very autistic trait. As mentioned above, this is wonderfully illustrated by her overpreparation for Princess Prom. She’s broken down the overwhelming list of rules in the invite into categories to make it more manageable, gone into detail categorizing people’s relationships to each other, and learned trivia about the guests in order to feel more prepared. Yet, somehow she missed the important fact that the hostess is only eleven years old.

Unfortunately this hangup doen’t only affect her, but also her friends and allies. The overarching theme in “Roll With It” is how debilitating Adora’s anxiety and perfectionism can be. Her eye for detail and ability to see flaws in plans is actually very valuable, but she gets so hung up on every possible thing that could go wrong that she can’t accept imperfect solutions with calculated risks.

Her propensity to be overwhelmed by too much information (like with the Princess Prom invite) shows up here too. Adora grows more and more frustrated and overwhelmed as more princesses join the planning session, adding more variables to deal with and more people to manage. She begins lashing out and shooting down every possible solution that doesn’t satisfy her need for perfection immediately. Her behavior looks like it may be headed for a meltdown until it culminates in an epic rant revealing all her anxiety and how it ties into her insecurities about her own imperfection.

Thankfully her friends are able to reassure her that she has support and doesn’t have to be perfect, but it’s an ongoing battle, one we already saw her struggle with in “Flowers for She-Ra” and “The Battle of Bright Moon”. It’s a strong tenet of Adora’s personality that is proving difficult to shake.

What she misses about the Horde

The recently published Rebel Princess Guide contains a list by Adora of things she misses about the Horde, and this list screams neurodivergent. I’ll go through it point by point, since there’s a lot to unpack here.

THINGS I MISS ABOUT THE HORDE

1. I miss the rigid schedule. It never changed, and I always knew what to expect.

Ritualistic behavior and an insistence on sameness are often seen in individuals with ASD. In fact, it’s a major symptom. Many of us have diifficulty adjusting to changing schedules, changes in diet, or even minor changes in our environment (such as placement of objects, boy do I have stories there). We need warning when things are going to change, and even if we know it’s coming it’s still a struggle to adjust.

2. I miss the constant sound of machines and whirring. In Bright Moon, there’s always music playing, or people laughing, and birds singing. It’s nice but it makes it hard to focus!

Autistic brains process sensory information differently from neurotypicals, that’s basically our disorder at its core. Over or under reactions to sensory input are common and in fact considered a major symptom, and this entry of Adora’s specifically refers to difficulties with sensory filtering. We have a hard time filtering out information that’s irrelevant to our current task, which makes us easily distractable.

3. Believe it or not, I miss my hard cot in the barracks. My bed in the castle is way too soft!

This ties into both the insistence on sameness and sensory issues.

4. Catra… sometimes.

This isn’t autistic, it’s just gay.

Speaking of which...

She’s gay

Adora's relationship with Catra has always been queer-coded, but any doubts about her sexuality were dispelled in season 3 by the way she fawns over Huntara like a baby gay over her gym teacher. Her obvious queerness might seem unrelated to the topic of autism, but those of us within the community can attest there’s probably just as many queer people among us as there are cishets. It’s so notable that there has been quite a bit of scientific research confirming people with ASD are more likely to be LGBT and gender atypical and exploring the cause of this link.

(This needs no proving at this point, but enjoy these gifs anyway...)

In conclusion

Overall, there’s a lot of hints and circumstantial evidence suggesting Adora could have ASD. Was this the creators’ intent? Hard to say. Adora is the protagonist and one of the most developed characters, so she’s definitely not a cardboard cutout or checklist for ASD symptoms (compare that to Entrapta, a secondary character whose behaviors can often easily be attributed to autism). It’s totally possible the creators just characterized her as naive and awkward and obsessive without realizing the implications of that cluster of traits together.

Regardless of authorial intent, it’s perfectly valid to look at Adora and see representation of the ASD community. The groundwork is there. And if someone else looks and doesn’t see it, or sees something else causing this behavior, that is also fair. No one is forcing anyone to accept this headcanon (or at least they shouldn’t be), but in return please don’t disparage it. Even if she is not autistic Adora is definitely autistic-coded, and we could use some more heros with the disorder, given how we’re mostly relegated to being villains and anti-heroes (not that there’s anything wrong with us filling those roles sometimes, but a little variety would be nice).

Adora is often referred to as a dumbass, but she’s actually quite intelligent, just sometimes slow to understand how she should act and how people feel. Still, she tries her hardest, just as she does with everything else. Adora is heroic and compassionate, even if she sometimes struggles to understand others. When autistic-coded characters are so commonly portrayed as cold and unforgiving, Adora is a sorely needed exception.

[rebelscum-2187]

So after nearly 22 years of life on this planet, I’ve come to the conclusion that I am high functioning autistic. I believe I fell through the cracks of an early diagnosis for the following reasons:

1.) I am Female (I learned how to mask myself very early on)

2.) I have a gifted IQ (above 130) and was classified as such in 4th grade so no one considered that I could be both ASD and intellectually gifted.

I am in the beginning stages of unmasking and am currently seeking an official diagnosis. Right now, I’m trying to write down everything I know about my neurodivergent experience so here’s a list of things I’ve experienced and believe to be relevant. If you can relate or you understand please comment and share! I’m new to this community and it feels so good to finally meet people who understand and can relate. Ok, Here we go.

“So the general population doesn’t memorize scripts to movies or watch the same one every day for a year?”

“People think it’s weird that I prefer to have subtitles on when I watch stuff, even though I don’t have damaged hearing”

“I watch movies with subtitles because I won’t understand what’s said if I don’t read it. I have no hearing issues.”

“I cannot hear/understand someone if I have one ear bud in and one out. Too much sensory input at once.”

“I thought I had a hearing deficit because I literally could not understand people at church or parties or other places with a lot of background noise, and I was so confused when they told me my hearing was normal.”

“I love star wars. Not just love but I could tell you what planet each character is from and what kind of ship they use, what model droid that one is and I will gladly talk about it all day if you let me. Everyone now gets me Star Wars stuff for my birthday and holidays”

“Eye contact is so uncomfortable for me that sometimes it ‘burns’ to maintain it, but then I overcompensate and stare too intensely. Over the years, being female, I’ve forced myself to make eye contact for a certain number of seconds and then look away a certain number of seconds but I’m concentrating so hard on that, that I don’t remember anything that was said to me.”

“Giving me verbal directions is a special kind of hell. I need it written down.”

“I can memorize pictures of things and exactly where every kid sat in my 10th grade US history class as well as my 9th grade geometry class.”

“I never fit in anywhere, in my childhood, most of my adolescence, except the swim team and my new church.”

“Team sports are the worst. I can’t communicate fast enough, I’m bad with hand eye coordination and keeping track of a ball. I excelled in individual sports and fell in love with swimming.”

“I often found it much easier to make friends with older kids because I could have intelligent conversations with them and their good social skills could make up for my lack of social skills.”

“But, I had a few friends that were considerably younger who I could still play imaginatively with dolls when I was 13 and one particular friend was 9. I had a lot of trouble getting a long with her sister who was the same age as me.”

“It physically pains me to hear someone mispronounce a word, spell something wrong, or make a grammatical mistake. I corrected my cousin A LOT when we were kids, she frequently got mad and I couldn’t understand why. My grandma would tell me to stop because correcting people is rude.”

“One of my special interests as a kid was dolphins. I was 5-6 years old and I remember being so excited when my mom let me check out like 10 books from the library and I read them quickly and multiple times.”

“I corrected a teacher one time about dolphins. She said dolphins weren’t whales and I knew FOR A FACT that ‘dolphins were a type of small whale’ because I read it in one of my books. She laughed at me and so did the rest of the class and I felt stupid even though I was right. This led to me suppressing my knowledge and real self and ultimately more masking.”

“As per that last one, my memory is impeccable.”

“I had another special interest in dogs when I got a bit older. My mom bought me a book with every kind of breed of dog, where they came from, their temperament, their size, everything. I can still, to this day, tell you the breed of dog just by looking at it.”

“I always wanted a best friend but never had one. I had groups of friends but never someone who would call me their best friend. When I got a boyfriend in high school, I was so excited because he called me his best friend and he was mine and I finally had that feeling reciprocated. He also had a gifted IQ and dyslexia, ADHD and a few other things so we understood each other quite well.”

“I can’t tell if someone is flirting with me because I can’t read between the lines. I also don’t know how to flirt because if I like a guy too much I get soooo nervous and I stumble over my words and it’s a disaster.”

“When I liked this guy (last year, 2019) I would freeze up so bad when I talked to him that I rehearsed every conversation I wanted to have with him so I wouldn’t mess it up. I would write topics in the notes section of my phone before hanging out with him so I’d remember what to ask him. It made for very awkward and forced conversations and probably drove him away.”

“Sarcasm and jokes almost always go over my head. The boyfriend I had in high school was very funny and outgoing but used a lot of sarcasm and it always caused disagreements because I took him seriously when he was being sarcastic.”

“I talk slowly and very monotone.”

“I have no difficulty reading in my head and can read/comprehend it well, but reading aloud is difficult and I often stumble over words and mess up.”

“I need directions repeated multiple times before I understand.”

“I went to the beach to hang out with some church friends yesterday. They all play spike ball and are so confused as to why I sit there and don’t play. I’ve tried playing spike ball but it involves way too much hand eye coordination and I’m so bad at it that it’s embarrassing. So I don’t play.”

“That same night, a group of them said ‘let’s play uno!’ And I was so happy to play something familiar that didn’t involve a lot of coordination. Then they said ‘we’re playing SPICY uno, right?’ And immediately my heart sank because I knew they were playing a different way that I wasn’t familiar with. Again, receiving verbal directions was hell and I didn’t understand it. I was so bad at it and wasn’t getting it, and in the middle of the game I had the urge to cry. I wanted to cry because I couldn’t even get this right. I suppressed the urge, of course, so they wouldn’t think I was even more weird than the already suspected. Another group of people that I wouldn’t fit in with.”

“Making friends has always been so difficult. Once I make a good friend I hang on to them for as long as possible even if they’re not very nice because I’m scared I’ll have to make a new one if I lose them. And we all know how hard making new friends is for me.”

“I’m a perfectionist. Especially with my art projects. When I took a painting class I realized I do it the wrong way. You’re supposed to paint layer by layer over the entire canvas and focus on small details at the very end. I work on one small area at a time and do small details too soon. I often spend way too much time on small details before I realize that the larger shape of the object isn’t proportionate and then it’s too late.”

“I won’t even attempt tasks if I know I can’t do them perfectly.”

“I have perfect pitch. I don’t know if that has anything to do with autism or that I just started music lessons when I was young. I can tune instruments perfectly without a tuner or reference note and I never understood why my orchestra teacher had me play the A key on the piano over and over again while she walked around and tuned everyone’s instruments when I could do it without any reference. I can hear it in my head.”

“When my parents got me a keyboard at age 7-8, they were impressed because I could sit down, without listening to any song and find the notes of a song I liked by ear. I still do that today but my piano is very out of tune and it bothers me.”

“Autistic boys tend to isolate and not care about concealing their stims or weird behavior but girls don’t. I am a ‘loner’ and always have been but I want so badly to belong and have friends and socialize, but I’ve always been so bad at it that I strike out every time. I often drink at social gatherings because it helps me loosen up and talk more freely. I guess it helps me lose the mask for a while.”

“I HATE people touching me. I’ve always hated it and still hate it to this day unless it’s someone I’m super comfortable with. I’ve been told I have the ‘dead fish hand shake’ and I’m an awkward hugger. My friend picked me up from behind and carried me for a few seconds because we were all goofing off and having fun but afterwards I was so mad at him I got really quiet and didn’t talk for a while. I told him later on the ride home that if he did that again I would slap him. “

“Everyone thinks it’s weird that I don’t like touching people, and some of my friends who also don’t like touching people were abused and I always thought, ‘there had to be a reason, maybe I was abused as a kid and repressed it.’ It’s been so long and I’ve finally realized that maybe it’s just because I have Aspergers or ASD. “

“When I make sarcastic remarks or jokes I often have to clarify because I say them in such a monotone way that people think I’m serious.”

“I’ve always joked that I’m just really clumsy and uncoordinated, and chalked it up to being tall and lanky. That’s why swimming was the perfect sport for me. Little to no risk of injury and not much hand eye coordination needed to be good at it. Just hours of practice, technique and endurance.”

“I also injure myself quite a lot because I’m ‘a klutz.’”

“Stims: I scratch my head and then smell my fingers and I will do this for hours if I am able (I know that one is weird so I only do it at home) popping my knuckles a ridiculous amount of times when I feel uncomfortable and don’t know what to do with my hands. I twirl my hair constantly (that one is pretty socially acceptable so I do it in class nonstop). I tap my foot or bounce my leg, I make weird facial expressions and forget to hide those. People notice but they often think it’s funny because I’ll make a face if someone says something dumb and make an expression that people seem to relate to. I scrunch my nose if I’m uncomfortable or just whenever.”

Special interests: Star Wars, Disney (I know every word to every Disney song and I watch animated Disney movies over and over again, like literally every night) dolphins, the ocean, dogs, theology/the Bible.

“With my art work, and other things, I will get so focused on a painting that I will work non stop for 8-9 hours (all day basically) and not eat because I’m so focused that I forget to eat.”

“I think I slur my words a lot and sometimes my friends will laugh and be like ‘did you just say ____.?!?!’And I’ll clarify and they will continue laughing and say ‘oh it sounded like you said this.’ I hate when that happens.”

“Loud noises really bother me. I jump if I hear an unexpected loud noise and I hate people yelling, even if it’s not directed at me, it makes me want to cry. “

“I loved the color blue so much as a kid (I still do) but my entire wardrobe was basically different shades of blue t-shirts. I also only ever wore baggy t-shirts and baggy cargo shorts (I kinda dressed like a boy) because it was comfortable and I didn’t like getting comments if I looked “cute today”. I hated the attention. I also never ever wore my hair down to school. It always had to be up in a tight pony tail. I still don’t like my hair being in my face to this day and wear it up almost every day.”

“The other day, I was hanging out with a friend and she was trying to tell a story but I kept getting distracted and interrupting her. She said, ‘Emily, you kind of interrupt people a lot.’ At first I was hurt, but then I realized it’s not entirely my fault and it’s an autistic thing.”

“I mask so much that I have rehearsed responses to social interactions and will often get so nervous or start speaking from the script before I realize I’ve said the wrong response. Of course I’ll think about it all day after that and think of ‘well great, so and so thinks I’m weird now.’”

[mcrmadness]

(I’m trying out the bolding technique with this post, I personally don’t like writing with it but I like reading it, so let’s see how it goes...)

***

Thinking about my (undiagnosed) inattentive ADHD and how differently it behaves depending on the weather and seasons. I also have seasonal affective disorder aka SAD, because I live in Finland and winters days are very short and winters themselves are quite dark. Summers are the opposite, there’s not dark even during nights.

I started thinking about adhd for the first time about 10 years ago when I was 19 and had been eating antidepressants and antipsychotics for anxiety for 3 years at that point (I quit them 3 years later), and I felt like they did something to my brain. I was trying to research over this and if they can cause permanent brain damage and if they can “activate” adhd on an adult even if there’d have never been adhd in the childhood. Then I kinda forgot about it until I started questioning myself again several years later. I have been talking about this in therapy too and I have now had about 2 years of time to read about ADHD and especially the adult ADHD and the inattentive version, and I’ve been watching myself the whole time and this is now second year of this and I can now tell what I have noticed. Before I thought this all was just regular SAD but now I think it’s actually ADD that just changes itself depending on the seasons, thanks to SAD. This is what I noticed:

I am always more energetic in the spring and summer, and become very phlegmatic in the autumn and winter. For about 4 years in a row I was working and studying and this happened every year - every autumn I wished I could have just stayed at home, sleeping, and free days were the best. And in the spring I got so excited and I loved going to work and being there (my work was to be a horse groom), sometimes even looking forward the next work days.

Now I have been at home for the past 2 years and this year was the first when I didn’t do any kind of work training in the summer. Since at least 2014, I had always been working during spring and summer so I was so excited to finally have an actual summer holiday that I would spend just at home! And when the spring came, and I had no work to go, I was so full of energy it was insane. It was so difficult to be in one place, I went for walks and I just couldn’t sit 24/7 and one day I was getting so incredibly bored I actually cleaned my fridge - and I hate hate HATE cleaning! Still I think I did lots of other type of cleaning too because I was so bored but way too mentally hyperactive to be in one place. I almost felt like looking for a summer job, that’s how hyperactive I felt.

Now fast-forwarding to this autumn. I’m phlegmatic again. I’m bored very often but I would never ever start cleaning my fridge just out of boredom - I just go lie on the sofa instead of something. I don’t have the energy for cleaning. I barely can even take care of my kitchen. Or myself. I mainly just do the dishes, clean up some of the trashes and take them out when I must, and some days I also manage to cook for myself. But other than that, this place looks like a bomb would have gone off here. My sofa is filled with old drawings, books and drawing supplies I should put away. My kitchen floor is flooded from empty plastic bags + plastic bags I use for collecting recyclable things and yet I can’t even recycle every milk carton because I have no energy for cleaning them so I just throw them in the trash instead. My kitchen table looks like a landfill every other week and I clean it up only because I’m running out of space and get annoyed by that, and yet it starts looking the same very soon because it’s too much to ask to stand up and open the kitchen cabinet door, pull out the trash can tray and put the trash in there. So I just leave everything on the table(s) until I need the table(s) again clear them out.

I also noticed I am more creative during autumn. But because of executive dysfunction getting so bad during autumn, I don’t actually create as much as I would like to. But when whenever I can beat the executive dysfunction and procrastination, I can still sit down to draw and I can finally (hyper)focus once I get past the hardest part of everything: the starting point.

During spring I’m way too (mentally) hyperactive to sit down to draw (so I do weird shit like clean the fridge instead) but might get lots of inspirations I then write down - and if I do get that inspiration to draw, I can’t stop and this year there was this one night when I did 4 drawings in just one night. One or two of them were WIP’s but I still really drew 4 different drawings in one night when normally it’s an achievement to draw 1 drawing in 4 months. Would have done even more if I had more ideas or didn’t need to go to sleep.

I also had this “neuropsychiatric training” that was supposed to help me with home chores and I don’t think it was helpful at all. It maybe looked like that because we started in the autumn and stopped in the summer. And if you have read what I have already written, you already know why. Of course my home started to look cleaner and everything seemed to stay in order better because that’s how it always goes with the seasons! I explained this to the trainer too and she said that I should take credit for my good work and not just look for excuses for why did I succeed at doing a chore. Her opinion was that the seasons don’t affect like that - or so I perceived that. But on me they really do affect. On sunny weeks I got a lot more done than on those rainy weeks. Weather affects me a lot because I don’t only have (undiagnosed) ADHD, I’m also highly sensitive person (HSP) and for me that is a slightly different thing than being a neurodivergent. There’s lots of things that overlap but I experience them a little bit differently depending on which one is causing them. Let me know if you would like to hear more about my thought about the differences between ADHD and HSP, and how having both affect me and how I experience them. It’s kinda interesting trying to get those things in balance!

[cringeclown]

3, 4, 17, 25, 34, 37, 49 for bloodhound!!!! sorry if this is too many but i just Care Her. also maybe bloodhound is the new friend in which case i am excited and going ape fuckin shit

YES SHE WAS THE NEW FRIEND!!! THANK YOU FOR ALL THE QUESTIONS I NEED THEM FOR CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT.. TY 

3. What do they smell like?

GREAT QUESTION she smells like specifically Wolfthorn Old Spice deodorant in people form (but also probably a little stinky because she does so much running around and is not the best at remembering to shower because of The Neurodivergence). In hellhound form she smells like cooking pork and copper! 

4. Rainy or sunny?/Summer or Winter?

Bloodhound’s a fan of summer generally and loves a nice sunny hot day but she LOVES thunderstorms. Like the dark-as-night-in-the-middle-of-the-day storms with the pounding rain and roaring thunder. She doesn’t care for light rain she wants the DRAMA 

17. Who is someone that they look up to?

THAT’S A GOOD QUESTION... I’m not sure I’ve thought about it much yet!! Being that she tends to be kind of lost in her own world she’s pretty much oblivious to the world of celebrity heroes (or villains for that matter) and doesn’t have a whole lot of role models in her personal life. She’s mostly getting by on her own but just generally sees the good in everyone around her so she looks up to everyone she meets :] 

25. What is their opinion on kids?

Oh she LOVES kids she thinks they’re wonderful and has very strong feelings on the wellbeing of children. She would do anything to keep a child safe!! Unfortunately her hellhound form is absolutely horrific to children and her human form is a little scary too so she generally keeps her distance 

34. What is their end goal in life?

At the end of it all, she just wants to be happy in a place where she belongs, and to wants to make the world better for the people around her in any way she can. She doesn’t quite know how yet, or even what she considers “making the world better”, so right now she’s looking for a cause she can align herself to in the hopes that’ll help her figure it out (and take care of her need for community in the process). 

37. If a small child offered them an empty bowl saying it was soup would they pretend to eat it?

ABSOLUTELY. And she would pretend to spill it all over herself and roll on the ground yelling about the hot soup “BURNING HER ALIIIIIVE” to make them laugh 

49. What is their opinion on glitter?

She would eat that shit for BREAKFAST if she could she LOVES IT. It doesn’t align with her aesthetic so it’s not anywhere on her outfit but god she wishes it could be 

-

THANK YOU FOR ALL THE QUESTIONS I LOVED ANSWERING THEM!!

Feel free to ask a question about any of my OCs from this list! 

[afoolforatook]

A RWBY V7 Ep12 rant.....When I say this is long..... Legit was fucking 37 pages double spaced at one point. Sorry....

Before this gets started I want to warn you, this is long (even longer than I thought it’d be going in). It’s probably too long ... actually it is definitely too long but if I agonize over editing it down again and again I won’t get it up before the finale. It’s probably repetitive at times, and most certainly not anything I’ll be showing off as an example of my top essay writing. And I want to be able to say that the length pays off because I have some grand hopeful insight at the end. I want to say I know things will be okay. But the fact that I can’t is exactly why I’m writing this, and why it’s so long. So if you need this to have a hopeful ending, I’m sorry, I don’t have one for you currently. I want to, so badly. But to me false hope would be even worse.  So if you can’t handle another long post that doesn’t end with a way to fix things, it’s okay, take care of yourself. But maybe the most hopeful thing I can tell you, and tell you up front, is that you aren’t alone in your pain. 

I want to preface this all with one more thing: I don’t hate CRWBY. I respect them, support them. I’ve wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt as much as I could.  That doesn’t mean I can’t criticize them or expect more from them or just be plain angry with them. I can be vocal about all of that without harassing them, without hating them. I don’t think they’re just plain evil or homophobic. I still want to believe that they can do things that will allow me to trust them again. Maybe it’s naive, but I want to, at the very least, still have hope that this wasn’t malicious, just very poorly conceived and executed. 

And I know that other people who are hurting like me are lashing out towards CRWBY. And while I don’t at all condone that kind of reaction, I can understand it to an extent. Because I’m very, very hurt and angry and it would be so easy to let loose and say all the awful stuff I want to in my anger. To yell and call people out and not care how I come across. It would definitely be a lot easier than spending all week writing this long thing and agonizing over making it perfect. There is nothing wrong with venting and being raw and open and angry, but just as we want CRWBY to be aware that their actions can truly hurt people, we need to be conscious of the fact that so can ours.  Many people are very hurt right now. And whether or not you think it was queerbaiting/BYG or not, or even whether or not you just think it was bad writing, no one has the right to invalidate the people who are hurting right now, many of whom are queer people dealing with personal traumas and mental illness. 

The few people who are attacking CRWBY and other fans (and there is a difference between being angry and vocal about that anger and just attacking them) do not invalidate the hurt people are feeling. If you are hurt or angry you have every right to be. You have every right to stop watching the show or leave the fandom, or communicate your hurt to CRWBY. But communicate means just that; communicate. Talk. You can be as angry as you are, you don’t have to temper your pain to be more tolerable to the people who caused that pain. But there is a difference between being harsh and honest about how hurt you are, and harassing real people. And I won’t say “harassing real people over a fictional character/show” because I know it’s more complicated than that. My hurt this past week isn’t over a fictional character or a ship. It’s about me and what I’ve been through and the fact that the very thing that gave me strength in hard times was turned into something that confirmed my biggest fears and hurt me immensely. 

The world always gets so sentimental when we see things about fictional stories giving people some comfort, and we celebrate that. But as soon as people say they can be hurt just as much by media, we lash out, say they’re overreacting, that they’re just getting upset over fictional characters. But you can’t have it both ways. We can’t want fiction to be important and inspiring to people and then belittle people who are negatively impacted by the same material, especially when often that vulnerability comes from a history of trauma and/or being neurodivergent. I am extremely hurt. I feel betrayed and abandoned and angry. And it will take time for me to process all of that and move past it. But I can be all of those things without attacking CRWBY or the people who might disagree with me. 

To me, this isn’t about disagreeing. We can argue forever about whether or not this was queerbaiting or bury your gays or poor writing (and I honestly at this moment don’t even know what I think about all of that because I’m not in that headspace currently) but the fact is that there are many, many people who feel it was, and who are hurting because of that, and whether you believe it was or not does not give you the right to invalidate the real pain that they are feeling.  Who is right is less important than the fact that people, people who were already vulnerable, have been hurt. So, please. Respect each other. Respect those who are hurting. Respect those who aren’t and don’t understand, and respect CRWBY. You can still be angry and speak out without attacking others. 

With that said, to fully understand why this has affected me so much, and why it’s going to take a long time for me to get back to where I was, regardless of how the volume ends, there are things you need to know about my history. It’s a lot of background and this is already going to be a longer post than I’d really like, but it’s important to understanding why RWBY is so important to me, and thus able to have such a negative effect on me. So please, bear with me. Also, fair warning, though at this point it’s probably obvious, but my story isn’t happy. I still haven’t found my own positive ending to it. If it’s too much for you to read right now, please, like I said before, take care of yourself. 

I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Farley. I’m 24, nonbinary (they/them), biromantic, demisexual. I have MDD, GAD, ADHD, Panic Disorder, OCD, Comorbid PTSD, and am trying to get an official autism diagnosis. I’m a full on alphabet soup. I struggle with imposter syndrome, intrusive thoughts, self-isolation, dermatillomania, and multiple trauma related phobias. My queer and neurodivergent identities are huge parts of my life and I try to be as open as possible about them, in the hopes of helping end the stigma around them. One of the main ways I cope with my mental health issues on a day to day basis is through hyperfixations. While it might not technically be the healthiest method, it’s what I’ve found to work for me when I’m in a really bad place and unable to practice more active coping skills. Through stories and characters that I relate to, I can separate my problems from myself a little and both escape from them for a while when needed, and view them a little more clearly from a new perspective.  

That’s some important info about me, but what really matters here is the past five years of my life and the trauma within them. 

In October of 2015, a few months into my sophomore year of college, I went into a deep depression, mostly brought on by multiple family deaths and stresses over the past summer that I had not properly had time to process and recover from. I quit my job as an RA and withdrew from school and moved back home with my parents.  While this was the right decision at the time, it wasn’t easy. I left a very close group of friends at school, and didn’t really have a strong support system at home aside from my parents. My friends from high school had all gone off to college themselves, and the few that still lived in town were often busy with work or school. And because I have an intense fear of driving and needed time to get myself in a better place before starting a job, I ended up spending most of my time home alone. I became more and more isolated, to the point of verging on agoraphobic, and my parents and I started thinking about ways I could basically get my life started again. 

 But isolation messes with your head, and makes you want to just isolate more and more. In mid February of 2016 I started to really work on being social again. Mostly because I started talking to my best friend from high school, Emma, regularly again. She knew I was struggling, and while I’ve always had a hard time keeping in touch with people, Emma has always been the person I never felt self conscious about going to. We talked everyday. After high school, Emma’s mom and younger brother had moved to Ohio (I live in NC) and Emma had gone to school in Oregon. Her father lives in Germany. So between visiting her family in Ohio and Germany she didn’t have a lot of time during breaks to come back to NC to visit friends. Since we graduated I’d only seen her once for about 12 hours during that awful summer. But now we were skyping and chatting everyday. And slowly I started to be less and less scared of being more social. I wanted to hang out with friends. I was excited about going back to school in the fall. 

Something important to understand about me and Emma is how close we’ve always been. We’d been best friends since 8th grade. We told each other we were soulmates, soulfriends, when we were 15. Nearly everyone in our small high school thought we were dating at one time or another. I always knew I loved her. I was fine with our relationship being “only” platonic. Because platonic wasn’t “only”. It was absolutely perfect. It was having her as one of the most important people in my life, and me in hers, and that’s all I wanted. But I also knew that if she ever wanted to try a romantic relationship, I’d be open. 

Around the time I left school Emma had been going through a lot herself. She was finally getting help for her own mental health issues and she was, for the first time, really thinking about her identity and sexuality. On May 4th 2016 she texted me like always, but this time she was nervous. She wanted to tell me something. She said she was still confused about her sexuality and didn’t know where she fell. But when she tried to think of being with someone, the only person she pictured was me. And I told her basically what I just told you. So we started talking about testing out us being a couple. She had already been planning to come to NC to visit after she went to Ohio later that month for her brother’s high school graduation. And my parents were going on a two week vacation around that time as well. So we decided that she would come and stay with me for two weeks. We would keep this to ourselves until then, so that we could see if this was really the best thing for us. And if so, then we’d tell people. We’d always talked about living together after school, but now we wanted to see exactly what we wanted our relationship to be. She bought a bus ticket for May 26th and would stay through June 10th or so, which would mean she’d be there for her 20th birthday on June 5th. We talked everyday about our plans for her visit. How excited we were, how we could cook dinner together and dance around the house in our underwear, and just get to be Us again. We talked to friends, planning to visit friends from high school and maybe even my friends from college.

On May 18th I texted Emma around 11 pm. I hadn’t heard from her all day which was unusual but she was in Ohio celebrating her mom’s birthday and getting ready for her brother’s graduation that weekend, so she was probably just busy. We’d told each other goodnight every night for months at that point. So I told her I loved her and was so excited to see her in just over a week.

The next morning it was a bit odd that she still hadn’t texted me back but again, I just assumed she was busy with family. And then the mail came, and the last part of a birthday present I was making for her arrived. So I got to work, giddy. 

Around 2 pm my other best friend from high school, Juli, called me. For some reason I decided I’d just call her back later, I was too engrossed in making Emma’s present. About 20 minutes later I heard a knock on my door and turned to see my parents standing in the doorway to my room. I vividly remember spinning around happily and saying “Hey! Everything okay?” even as I noticed the tears on my dad’s face and how pale my mom was. My stomach knotted and I stood as my mom said “N-no. Honey…..” and walked towards me. I took a deep breath, preparing myself for her to say that a grandparent or aunt or uncle had died. But as she got closer and put a shaking hand on my shoulder, I got a little more confused, a different kind of scared. One of my cousins? One of my baby cousins?  

Nothing could have prepared me for her telling me that there’d been an accident in Ohio. That Emma, and her mom, and her brother, and her aunt had been in a crash…. And that all four of them had been killed on impact. The only thing I remember about the rest of the night is the pain of continuously screaming, punching the wall until my dad stopped me, and calling my friends from college, trying to have someone to talk to, someone who I could call who wouldn’t also be mourning. I couldn’t handle my own grief, let alone anyone else’s at that moment. 

There’s a lot more to that story. There’s the memorial service in Ohio and meeting her dad and stepmom for the first time. There’s the service we put together at our high school and seeing our friend group all together again, except not. There’s the panic attacks every time I saw a garbage truck, or my parents drove off to work. 

But most importantly for what you need to know right now, is my sliding back into isolation. I barely ever saw my friends from home and every time I did for the next two years it had something to do with mourning Emma. I saw my college friends a few times; them coming to visit or me taking a bus to stay the weekend. But eventually they went back to school and I stayed at home. I drifted away from high school friends because I didn’t know how to handle being with them when everything we did together reminded me of what I’d lost. I didn’t know how to talk to them because I needed their support but knew I didn’t have it in me to be supportive of them, and that wasn’t fair. I drifted away from my college friends for the same reasons, and even more so as the group dynamic that I had left slowly changed and faded until I didn’t know who was talking to who anymore and I again felt bad for dumping my shit on them when I couldn’t do the same. I began to think that all I brought to any social interaction was my pain and hopelessness. I would just bring everyone else down. They shouldn’t have to deal with my pain. So a year after I left school I was even more alone. I’d lost or pushed away all the people in my life that I’d expected to be lifelong friends, family. And I didn’t know how to begin to fix that. I didn’t know if I wanted to. I didn’t know if I deserved to. 

The only reason I was even still alive was because anytime I even got close to thinking about hurting myself, I could just sense Emma glaring at me, yelling at me, telling me that I couldn’t let this stop me from living out all those dreams we’d talked about. And I knew that my life wasn’t just mine anymore, that all those dreams, that bond, the parts of my favorite person that only I knew, would be lost if I died. 

But I didn't have my friends to vent to, and as supportive as my parents were (I’d told them and a few close friends about me and Emma that first terrible week) I needed friends. But I didn’t know how to reconnect and I was too scared to go out and meet new people, especially knowing that at some point I’d have to drop the “dead girlfriend” bomb on them, and who’d want to stick around after that?  So I tried to use media and hyperfixations to pull myself out of spirals, like I always had. But it was hard. Because most of the things that had been comforting before were all things I’d shared with Emma, and so now they were just more reminders of her absence. And even new things I found soon turned rotten because I couldn’t help but think about how I wish I could show it to Emma. Everything that made me happy for even a moment would pretty soon make me sad. 

Eventually I found things that comforted me and helped me be creative again and that led me to starting school again, nearly three years after I’d left, at SCAD.  I loved the classes. I wanted to be there. I’ve always been a fiction writer but now there was so much in my head that I needed to get out, to process, and to share with people, especially people like me dealing with an unimaginable grief. Those past few years had been made even more difficult by the lack of representation I found in grief material. Everything was either about grieving the elderly, not someone who’d barely even gotten to live. Or if it was about someone young it was due to suicide or disease or violence; in other words things that at the very least, left the grieving with some cause to care about, or something to be angry at, some real world outlet. I didn’t have that. I didn’t relate to that. And even harder was finding anything I could relate to that included the complexities that my queer identity put on my grief; there were people I could and couldn’t tell about our relationship. Did I say I lost my best friend or my girlfriend? What if her family didn’t approve and wouldn’t talk to me, wouldn’t let me have any of her things, wouldn’t want me around? And one of the biggest things I kept thinking those first few months; why had my life become a ‘bury your gays’ soap opera plot line. Was Emma supposed to just be my tragic backstory now? Was I just supposed to use this as angsty fodder for the rest of my life? What about her? What about her dreams, her potential? What about her progress? She’d just gotten to a place where she was accepting herself. Where she was overcoming her mental health issues, where she was proud of who she was. Why was I allowed to keep going and she wasn’t?  I couldn’t find any support for these feelings. Not books or groups or forums. So I decided to make them myself. I started writing and drawing, putting together what I called my Grief Scrapbook. I was working towards the thing that mattered to me more than anything; telling our story. I was getting the chance to create the content I’d so desperately needed. 

But I was still alone, even at school. I was 23 living with mostly 18/19 year olds. And while there wasn’t anything wrong with them, I was struggling with a strong sense of dissociation. Everywhere I looked I saw Emma, forever 19. And there I was, continuing to age and getting further and further away from her. 

My first year at SCAD I made two friends, and while I love them, they didn’t fulfill the hole left by the large close knit groups of friends I’d lost. I tried to get back in touch with my best friend from college, only to find that she was no longer talking to me. And I don’t blame her really. Yes I’d been going through things, but so had she, and I hadn’t been able to be a good friend for her. So if she needed to move on for her own good, no matter how sad that made me, she had every right to do what was best for her, just as I had been trying to do. 

I’m now in my second year at SCAD and recently started hanging out with a new group. And they’re great and I’m slowly feeling more confident and secure around them, but I still struggle. I still miss the relationships I held so dear, the relationships I let dissolve. I still worry I’ll never have that kind of connection with people again, and that if I do somehow manage to find it, I’ll mess it up again.  Some days are particularly rough, when I sit with my thoughts too long, or see something that reminds me of any one of the many people I miss, and I ache for the happiness I had. And it’s those moments when I turn to hyperfixations (I do promise this is getting to RWBY). 

This past February the final How To Train Your Dragon movie came out. The HTTYD franchise holds a very dear place in my heart, as it was my main hyperfixation during high school, and something I shared with Emma and other friends. The second film came out the day of my graduation. It was the last movie Emma and I saw together before she moved to Ohio and then went to school in Oregon. It was the last movie we saw together at all. I knew it was going to be very emotional for me to see the final movie, alone now. But I had to see it opening night. And (spoilers for The Hidden World I guess) the movie ended up being about the reality of having to let go of the important people from your childhood as you grow up. About dealing with the fact that sometimes the people you expected to always be a part of your life, aren’t. I loved the movie, but it destroyed me. A few months later I had to get through May, the 3rd anniversary, away from home for the first time. And it was extremely difficult. I’d had to take a break from HTTYD and process things. 

So my main hyperfixations weren’t helping me get through a really difficult time. But around the time HTTYD 3 came out I happened to get back into RWBY. I’d watched the first season or so when it first came out, but then had just kind of forgotten about it. And so, in the absence of HTTYD, I got caught up. And I can’t say there weren’t things that hurt, that made me have to take a moment and collect myself.  Watching the end of volume three, watching Pyrrha and Jaune finally kiss, and then watch their relationship die with her before they even had a chance to be together, hit way too close to home. Logically I should have projected on Jaune more than I did but I think I couldn’t, because it wasn’t just similar, it felt like I was literally watching the worst moment of my life play out. He was too much like me to handle. But there was Qrow. And at first I just kind of latched onto him because I liked him. I like his characterization, his design, and I was a fan of V*c ( I hate to even mention him here for fear of causing a totally different discourse, but Emma and I were big fans of his and high school and met him and when everything happened with him it was just another thing that felt like a good memory of Emma had been tainted.)  

And so I was watching while the last half of volume six was airing. And I was watching Qrow slip further and further into his depression. I watched as he felt betrayed by Oz after grieving him and then getting him back. I thought more about how he’d basically lost his sister, about how he’d grieved for Summer (regardless of whether it was platonic or romantic), how he lost hope in having strong relationships ever again. How he felt cursed and how he pushed people away to protect them and himself from more pain. I saw how the Apathy affected him and how close he was to giving in before Ruby and Weiss snapped him out of it. I saw him struggle to get himself back together for Ruby and the rest of the kids, but not know how. I saw every single fear I’d struggled with those past few years in him. I related to Qrow more than I’d ever expected to. And so my hyperfixation on RWBY grew. His addiction was my isolation. His insecurities of hurting others and thus pushing them away was my fear that for the rest of my life, I would be alone because I was always going to be too broken to be worthy of friends and love. 

And then everything happened with V*c and for a bit everything hurt again and I had to get away from RWBY and the toxicity within parts of the fandom. And when I was able to come back I was excited but worried. I hoped that Qrow would continue to develop, continue to progress alongside me, that I would like his new actor enough to finish healing the sting I’d felt over V*c.  I just wanted Qrow back, I wanted this character to be there to help me again.

Because Qrow Branwen gave me hope. He gave me hope that I could get better. He gave me hope that even with my insecurities and trauma, something I’ll never be fully free from, I can deserve people who care about me, and that there are actually people who will care about me. He gave me hope that good things can still happen to broken people. And not just people who were once broken and have healed, but people who are still figuring out how to heal, who know they will never fully heal, but also know they still are worthy of support and care. And then volume 7 started and I got more than I’d ever dreamed. 

There was the hug with Ironwood. And even though I shipped Ironqrow, the idea of there being a romantic aspect to that hug wasn’t what made it important. It was the fact that we got Qrow connecting with an old ally (and an adult), finding that he even still had an old ally. That despite everything that had happened with Oz and Lionheart, despite all the trust he’d had broken, maybe he wasn’t actually alone yet. And then we got Clover. I’ll admit I was wary of him at first. I was worried about the traitor theories, the death theories, and then the theories that he’d negatively affect Qrow, making him feel worse about his semblance. But then he grew on me so quickly. Because he smiled at Qrow. He got him to talk about himself, called him out when he was putting himself down, told him how well he was doing. And while it’s wasn’t because of Clover, he was sober, and Clover had to at the very least help him stay that way. Qrow was hunching less when he walked, opening up, being more vulnerable and social. He was smiling, laughing, making jokes. He had a steady partner that he trusted and worked well with, likely for the first time since team STRQ. And yes, I shipped them, but honestly while I would have still been disappointed if it was never canon, given how blatant it really seemed like it could be, it would ultimately have been okay. Because again, it was less about Qrow finding love and more about him finding support.   And then I saw Qrow and Clover and Robyn team up, and whether it was canon or just fandom I felt represented. Not just in the way I had with Qrow about my mental health, but as a queer person struggling with complicated grief; the exact thing I had never been able to find and had taken upon myself to create for others. I saw Qrow being loved (again, whether platonic or romantic isn’t as important) and healing. Even if Fairgame never actually happened, I could still see them as queer characters helping each other process trauma. And maybe I set myself up in a bubble part of the fandom that fully convinced me that Fairgame was possible, but at the very least I truly, undoubtedly thought that Clover would side with Qrow. 

And as I watched episode 12, I could feel my stomach sinking. Okay Clover didn’t side with Qrow at first, but maybe he’ll come around. Okay maybe he won’t come around, but maybe he’ll take Qrow in and they’ll have time to talk, maybe even with Ironwood. But then Clover abandons the ship, abandons Qrow and I was scrambling even more for hope that things would be okay.  Maybe he’s trying to get away to diffuse things. But then “Never pegged you for the manipulative type” the first sign of Qrow doubting their entire relationship, of feeling betrayed again. And then Clover calls Qrow cynical? Maybe I’m forgetting something, cause I haven’t gone back and analyzed every scene with them, but I can’t remember Qrow ever being cynical around Clover this volume that we’ve seen. Self-deprecating yes, but this is legitimately the happiest and most secure we’ve ever seen Qrow. But okay maybe they’ll reason and Clover will come around. But then “We don’t have to fight, friend.” and it’s friend not Qrow. And then “You don’t know my friends. That’s how it always goes.” and I broke. I almost stopped there, a part of me wishes I had. Because it was already so broken, this thing that had even in the past few weeks, been a main pillar of hope for me. But maybe they’ll come together to fight Tyrian. And then Qrow goes after Tyrian and Clover keeps attacking Qrow. Well maybe he’s really trying to protect him, or has some plan. But then they continue to fight each other. And they don’t have even a moment of “who’s the bigger threat here? Us or the serial killer?” And then Qrow works with Tyrian?! Tyrian the serial killer? Tyrian the unstable maniac? Tyrian who tried to take Ruby? Tyrian who nearly killed Qrow? Tyrian who fucking worships Salem, who Qrow has spent most of his life fighting, has lost Summer to, and countless other traumas? (and I get the possible reasons, realizing that Clover won’t lay off of him so Tyrian is his best bet and then he can take care of Tyrian, but I still don’t like it. But this isn’t even about whether or not I think it’s good writing or characterization and it’s too long already to get into that.) And then Tyrian and Qrow fight so well together and I honestly felt sick. We haven’t seen Qrow work that well with anyone. Not RWBY, not Ironwood, not Clover.  And now we see it with fucking Tyrian? And maybe it’s a stretch but it honestly felt like another nail in the “Qrow attracts bad” coffin that is his insecurities. Qrow and Tyrian fight nearly perfectly together and it felt so damn wrong. Clover’s wrong here, Qrow’s wrong here, and it all feels so very very wrong based on the entire progression of their relationship throughout the volume. And then Qrow takes down Clover’s aura and I’m just empty.  There’s no hint of him trying to just beat Clover and not kill him. He has no reason to think that Tyrian won’t actually go for the kill during this fight. But they continue to have these snippets of “We don’t have to fight” or “I want to trust you” while showing no signs of holding back and still caring about the other’s well being. And then Qrow’s voice breaking during “Why couldn’t you just do the right thing…”. We’ve literally never seen Qrow this emotionally compromised, let alone during a fight. He’s crumbling because he finally had someone who made him think he could get better, that he could have close relationships, that he could be good for the people around him. And now he’s losing it. 

I was broken here, I was already spiraling. I knew Clover would get hit. I knew I would be struggling to deal with this episode because I had so fully expected a different course. But I thought there could still be hope. There had to still be hope. CRWBY wouldn’t give us all that development, wouldn’t show Qrow finally happy without leaving some hope for things turning around in the finale. He’d get hit by Tyrian’s stinger and Qrow would have to work to save him and they’d work things out. But then “I trust James with my life… and I wanted to trust you.” And I’m sobbing. Because I get it, Clover’s loyal, but when Qrow’s face hardens I know what he’s thinking. What he’s trying not to think but it’s so hard to fight: “Maybe it is me. Maybe I can’t be trusted. Maybe I’ve ruined things again”. Even though he knows what James is doing is wrong. But he trusted James, he trusted Clover. And he thought they trusted, cared for him. And now they’ve both turned against him and no matter how much he knows he’s doing the right thing, he can’t help but worry that he’s still the thing broken here, that he still messed up somewhere and ruined the relationships he needed so much. I was breaking more and more as I watched this source of my own hope lose all hope. 

And then Harbinger. The weapon Qrow built himself. That he modeled after his hero. The literal extension of his soul. And only moments before, Qrow destroyed the one thing that might have protected Clover. Clover’s emblem falls. Tyrian with “Like you killed Clover”. And yeah yeah Qrow being framed is heartbreaking. But it’s more that he’ll believe it. He did. He fucked everything up again. He tried so hard to do the right thing and still managed to hurt the person he cared about. And if Clover, the foil to his bad luck, could be destroyed by his semblance, how does anyone else stand a chance? And then blaming James. Swearing to make him pay (I honestly don’t remember if he says make him pay or kill him but I physically can’t rewatch that scene to see which it was). And yes he blames James. He hates James. It was the last straw breaking on someone he wanted to trust so much, wanted to have as a friend. But he still blames himself. He still knows he’s cursed and all the progress he’d made with Clover’s help is ripped away. 

And then “Good luck”. I’ve seen people saying it’s sweet, that it’s a moment of reconciliation, of Clover showing he still cares. And I don’t necessarily disagree. But I hate it. Because Qrow won’t take it that way. It’s just another reminder that good luck is out of his reach. And then the goddamn sky and the bi flag colors. And then we see Qrow cry for the first time. And then…. The scream…. I literally nearly vomited and that was the thing that sent me over the edge into full blown panic attack. Because I know that fucking scream. I know how it feels. I hear it ringing in my ears, I feel my throat getting raw. I could hear and see and feel myself in the same position. The nightmare I’d fought off for years; kneeling over Emma’s body and there being nothing I can do but scream and scream as the last of the hope I was clutching to faded with her… with Clover’s eyes.

It wasn’t that Clover died. It wasn’t that my ship won’t happen. It was how traumatizing it was. It was that Harbinger was now defiled. It was that Qrow set it up to happen. It was the sky. It was seeing the light go out of Clover’s eyes. It was Qrow’s scream. We’ve never seen a death like this on RWBY before. Yes we watched Pyrrha’s death. But there was no blood. We didn’t see her bleed out. We didn’t see the exact moment the light left her eyes. We saw Adam stabbed and some bleeding and then hitting the rocks, but we weren’t right there, seeing the exact moment of his death close up. If Clover had been stung by Tyrian and died I’d be upset still, and many of the issues I have would still be relevant. But using Harbinger like that, playing directly into Qrow’s own insecurities like that, after having him do things that felt extremely out of character in order to set things up for Tyrian to kill Clover like that and blame Qrow? It felt vile. 

It didn’t just feel like bad writing or different narrative choices. Hell, it didn’t even just feel OOC. It felt malicious. It felt like twisting established plot and characterisation completely in order to make it fit some tragic climax that was only chosen because it would have the biggest emotional impact, not because it was the best way to continue the plot. And they can’t say that they didn’t expect people to be so attached to Clover. Because if they didn’t expect that to be so emotional for viewers, then why do it like that in the first place? Why put in the climatic cinematic shot that mirrors when Yang lost her arm? Why have Qrow screaming over Clover’s body be the final shot?  If Clover was never meant to have significance to both Qrow and fans, why make his death so painful? They can’t say that they didn’t know fans would get so invested at the same time that they say that it was necessary to make it that traumatic. It’s not that you can’t kill off beloved characters, no matter how long they’ve been in the show. But if you do, it’s got to feel important, it’s got to feel necessary, and it’s got to make sense for those characters, or else it just feels like you’re playing with peoples’ emotions for no reason other than shock factor. 

I’ve seen a bunch of theories and discourse. Arguments over whether or not it’s queerbaiting or bury your gays. Over whether or not it’s bad writing or out of character. And I’m sure I’ll eventually have a stronger, more thought out opinion on that, but right now I can’t even get there. 

I’ve seen theories as to why CRWBY did this, why it’s important to the plot. And maybe I’m wrong, maybe I’ll be just as surprised in a good way next week as I was in a traumatic way this week. But it will take a lot, and I will still need time to recover and dig myself back out of my own intrusive thoughts that saw this episode and rejoiced because “See!? See, good things can’t happen! You’ll always lose whatever good you find. You’ll always ruin whatever good you find.” And none of the theories I’ve seen make that better. Maybe they’ll bring Clover back with the Staff of Creation or some other method: doesn’t matter, the damage is still done. Qrow still is betrayed and traumatized. And even if Clover came back and Ironwood realized he was wrong and stopped, even if everything went back to exactly what it was, Qrow still would have lost all the progress he made this season. Because even if everything was fixed, Qrow would still have to fight down the newly boosted fear that everything will fall apart again. And similarly even if I come back to RWBY and things are good, I will still have a hard time trusting the show, and will still have to climb my way out of a hole I had just gotten out of, except this time I won’t have the comfort of RWBY to help me. 

Or maybe Clover won’t come back and Qrow will relapse and try to kill Ironwood and lose his mind like the scarecrow he is. And what will that do but reinforce the fear and idea that “broken” people can’t escape their vices? That they’ll always come back to pain. Yes, it’s important to show that people can relapse and still get better, that relapse doesn’t mean all hope is lost. But there’s a difference between a relapse and new trauma that directly undercuts all the progress you’ve made. That’s not inspirational, it’s exhausting. Yes, you can come back again, but what about the next time and the next and the next? When will you just get to be secure in your happiness without worrying that at any moment you’ll thrown back to square one?

If it turns out there’s some great plot point this creates, some big revelation that fixes things, I still think it wasn’t done properly. Fine, have that, have that pain. But don’t end on that and leave people for a week. It’s not about it being a cliffhanger. It’s about people who are traumatized being abandoned. (Again, I’m not even getting into how, if this did happen, how episode 12 would still feel off from a characterization standpoint and whether or not it was poor writing. It’s an analysis I can’t currently do.)

And maybe my least favorite theory and the one that I might see as most likely; that Qrow won’t relapse. That he won’t completely lose it and instead Clover’s death and influence will be what keeps him going. Because yeah, that sounds great, that sounds heroic and strong and like the progress that came from knowing Clover did make a difference. But it feels wrong in this instance. Qrow’s had that. He’s had loss that hurt him but he kept going to finish something or honor them. He kept going after Summer died. He kept going for Ruby and Yang and Tai. If he didn’t have that, why would he have kept going when things were so bad? But Qrow doesn’t need that again. He doesn’t need another pain to spur him on. He needs support. He needs proof that his hard work, his struggle, has been worth it and that he still has allies. And not just the kids. Because as much as he respects them, as much as he believes in them and their abilities as hunters, he’s still protective of them, they still aren’t on an equal level. He still feels responsible for them. And that’s good for him, but he needs adults too. He needs people who aren’t his responsibility. He needs adults who can call him out on his shit. He needs adults he can lean on, who can take care of him. And now who does he have? Summer is gone. Raven is gone. Tai is back at home. Oz is gone. Lionheart betrayed him. James has now betrayed him. Winter has sided with James and might not be alive much longer? Robyn is there, but also hurt, and we haven’t seen anything to suggest that they are particularly close. And now Clover is dead. Clover, the only person we have ever seen Qrow let his guard down around like we did this season.

And it’s not that the “Staying alive for the person you’ve lost” is a bad plot line, and if I’d trust any show to do it I would’ve thought it’d be RWBY. But I can tell you from fucking experience, forcing yourself to keep going in honor of someone? Yeah, it might keep you alive. It might give you meaning and even lead you to do great things. But when it’s just you and your head? When you’re alone because you’ve lost everyone who kept you going and now you have to keep going without them, for them? It fucking sucks. It’s not poetic. It’s not this heroic strength that lifts you up. It’s a crushing weight of fear that you will fail again, that you’re the only one who can carry this burden, but this time you’ll let down the person most important to you.  And then not only will you have fucked up your life but you’d have made their suffering and loss meaningless. 

And I can see why CRWBY might take this route, what their message might be, and maybe for them and for some people it’s good, but personally it’s crushing. Because it can be a good thing to have the desire to honor someone spur you on, that’s literally why we still have RWBY. But if that’s the only thing you have? It’s toxic. You have to have other support and motivations of your own to keep you going without becoming hollow inside. And right now, Qrow doesn’t have that. Right now, if Qrow uses this to push him forward, it’s not recovery, it’s not avoiding a relapse; it’s falling into a new, much harder to spot, addiction.

Yes, shitty things happen regardless of whether or not you’ve recovered from previous shitty things. Yes, life isn’t fair and sometimes it feels like you just get hit down over and over. And yes, people die in war and it’s ruthless and unfair. But RWBY is still a show. It’s still a show about hope. It’s still fiction, an escape from the cruelty of reality. And to me there were multiple other options for the plot to create conflict and sacrifice without doing it in a way that seems so needlessly cruel.  

This is complicated and layered and I think there have been mistakes made on multiple sides, and in the end, we still don’t know what CRWBY has planned and how things will go from here and why they chose this. Because everything has a meaning in RWBY. At least I want to believe that. But right now it’s very hard to think that all the meaning that was what made this my favorite volume, was anything more than a trap to make the end that much more painful. And that hurts. I want to believe that’s not the case. But it’s very, very hard. And like I said before, even if they pull it off amazingly and everything makes sense after next week, damage has still been done. No matter what happens, there were ways things could have been handled either throughout the volume or in this episode that, while still having emotional significance and sacrifice, could have been less traumatizing to a large portion of the fandom who supports CRWBY specifically because they trust them not to do something like that to them. 

In the end I’m hurt because right now it feels like the entirety of this volume was just a build up for the shock value of tearing Qrow down again. And I’m just tired of it. I’m biased I know, and maybe for some people it’s an important narrative. But to me it just feels like angst just for the sake of being cruel to a character who can’t catch a break. Since Emma’s death I understandably haven’t been a big fan of really angsty fanfiction. At first seeing fics where a character lost their partner made me irrationally angry. Because why can’t good things happen in fictional worlds? Why do characters I care about have to suffer like I do just for the sake of being angsty? Why would someone do that to a character they love? Why inflict that absolute agony onto a character when you could just, let them be happy? Yes conflict and sacrifice are crucial to good storytelling, but you still have to leave a character some hope, or else what’s the point of just watching them linger in misery? This kind of pain isn’t just a plot point that gets addressed for one or two episodes and then is fully dealt with. It’s a part of who you are now and will be for the rest of your life. 

I’ve been sad over shows before. I’ve thought plot lines were bad and like I’d lost a character that deserved better. But I’ve never had something take me from a (relatively) stable mindset to a truly frightening spiral like I’ve been in this week. If this had happened when I was younger (granted if it had happened before Emma’s death it wouldn’t have had the same meaning), if it had been during that first year? It really might have been a breaking point for me. The final straw. The only reason I’m able to know that as truly devastating as this has been for me this week, I’m not in actual danger of getting to a critically low space, is because I’ve learned how to deal with those low places these past four years. I’m still in a dangerous headspace but I know how to handle it.  I know to reach out, to vent, to ask friends to keep an eye on me, to keep an eye out for critical signs that I’m getting worse and I need more professional help. But if I’d had this trauma as a teen and saw this, or if I’d seen it before I’d built up this method of keeping myself safe even when in the worst headspaces?  I don’t know that I would have been able to deal with it. 

There’s a loud part of my head that is berating me for letting this affect me so much. For letting a show and fictional characters be the catalyst for me having to actively ask my friends to keep sharp instruments away from me for the first time in years. I’ll have a moment of clarity of “It’s not that bad, you’ll get past it” before being swallowed back up by the hopelessness. I have moments of “How could you let a fictional character’s death put you in this place, but not Emma? How is he more important?” 

But it’s not about RWBY or Clover or Qrow. It’s about my brain, and how I as a neurodivergent person deal with things. It’s about this how thing that I use to filter parts of my life through so that I can handle them in more reasonable chunks, is now a trigger itself. I currently don’t have any other hyperfixations, which means every time I have a moment of silence, or start to get feeling down again, my brain goes to RWBY, because usually that’s how I pull myself out. But that just reminds me of the loss RWBY currently represents. Not just the trauma this has brought up, but the fact that I’ve lost this source of comfort. And then I’m left scrambling for anything as I spiral further and further. I’m at the point where unless I am having constant outside stimulus to keep my brain occupied I go right back into a nosedive. And there’s nothing I can do on my own to stop it. So I just have to ride it out, fight back dozens of overwhelming intrusive thoughts, and try to think that I won’t always be this miserable, even though the current thing that was helping me believe that has just shown me the opposite is true. 

And no, creators can’t be held responsible for the mental states of fans of their work. But when things are done that directly hurt so many people, that even if not intended to, feel so calculated and malicious, they have to acknowledge the part they played in that trauma. 

The point of whether there was queer baiting/byg, and mlm representation and how its handled, is very important, but it is also something I just can’t even begin to look at right now from an analytical viewpoint. I can’t begin to come at this from an activist place right now. And I know there are plenty of other people who can speak on it better than I could currently.  My queer identity is largely wrapped up in my grief and how it affects me, but that also means that when I’m spiraling, it is very hard to focus and make good points about things that are not issues I’ve directly experienced. The only reason I can write this at all is because these are really just emotions I’ve dealt with for years that were dragged back up.

RWBY has always been about finding hope when it feels impossible. But this feels like it’s becoming “keep finding new hope but know you’ll lose it too and have to start over”.

RWBY has been what gave me hope that even when bad thing after bad thing happened, there was a reason to keep going, that eventually something good would come your way and you don’t have to live in fear of losing it. That you can still be broken and be worthy of good things. But this episode ripped that all away and told me that sometimes a person is never meant to be happy no matter how hard they try. 

A big reason I have clung to RWBY so much, and admired CRWBY so much, and in turn been so forgiving of plotlines or details that I maybe wasn’t the biggest fan of, was because I see myself in them. They lost Monty so suddenly and tragically and I understand that as much as anyone who isn’t them can. I understand the drive of keeping the show going. When I’m working on my own writing and art about my story and my loss, they are a huge inspiration to me to keep going even when it feels impossible. I can barely listen to Indomitable because, much like Jaune losing Pyrrha, it is uncanny how close to home it hits. They have been through more than we as fans can or should ever expect to know. Because even as someone very open about their grief, who wants to get rid of the stigma of expressing grief, I know that everyone deserves to keep as much of their grief and pain private as they need. And I can't even begin to imagine how hard it is to work on a show that is literally a feat of love and honor to a person you’ve lost, and then have people attack it and you, and make huge accusations, even try to use your loved one’s memory against you. It’s my biggest fear in creating something so incredibly personal but so important. 

And I know that everyone handles grief differently, and no matter how many people you have to support you it can be an extremely isolating thing. I know that no one has the right to tell someone else they are grieving wrong, and I would never dare do that to them. Because I know that the ways I grieve and the things that piss me off about grief and people’s reactions to it, will not line up with everyone else’s, and that’s okay. So the exact things that hurt me so much may be the things that CRWBY find cathartic. 

But I still think it’s important to talk about something that hurts you. To help people understand a facet of grief that might not be what they’ve experienced. Because even people who want to help, who want to provide representation to those hurting, can never please everyone, and even can even hurt people. I want to trust CRWBY. I want to believe they care about the queer community (even if they don’t always succeed in providing good representation), I want to believe they wouldn’t purposefully try to hurt queer fans with queerbaiting or byg. I want to believe they don’t actually hate mlm. 

Narrative is complicated and sometimes things are done that will unknowingly cause harm, or that were topics that the writers didn’t understand enough to properly execute. Things that may seem so obvious to the people who were hurt could truly be things that hadn’t occurred to the writers. And that’s not to excuse those writers from acknowledging their mistake, but to give them a chance to learn and improve. I think a great example is The Adventure Zone (slight spoilers ahead), and how Griffin McElroy handled the fans’ reaction after Sloane and Hurley died in Petals to the Metal. He hadn’t wanted to hurt anyone but he made a decision that was very upsetting for many people and that wasn’t okay. But he listened and apologized and from there on not only tried to provide better representation, but asked about how he could do so, consulted the people he was trying to represent in order to do everything he could to not cause that kind of pain again. Creators are human and deserve second chances, as long as they show they are actively trying to improve.

Things will be learning experiences, but the people who are hurt in those learning experiences, and who are often the ones hurt in such things over and over, are still allowed to be hurt and upset. Intent is not effect. And for creators who want to be inclusive and supportive, it is their responsibility to accept criticism and work to avoid making the same mistakes. Like I said at the start of this, criticism is not harassment and harassment helps no one. Be as angry as you are, be as open as you need, but cruelty to people who are honestly trying to do good but will still make human mistakes just creates more pain and conflict. You don’t have to like it or forgive it but you can’t invalidate the people who are hurt, who do. 

I love RWBY. I want to love CRWBY. I want to keep watching. I want to keep supporting and trusting them. And maybe I’m letting a show have too much influence over me. Maybe it’s unhealthy to project so much on a character. Maybe things will prove to be necessary to tell the story they want to tell. But speaking as a neurodivergent, traumatized, grieving, queer person, I still feel betrayed and hurt by something that I trusted enough to be vulnerable about and I don’t want to sugarcoat or hide that. 

I can’t say I hate CRWBY or I’ve lost all hope in or respect for them, because I’ve related to them so much and know how complicated things like this can be. And because I don’t think I personally can write someone off while still in such an emotionally raw space. I’ll have to take some time to see if I’m able to watch the finale this weekend, but I will most likely watch it, if not just a bit later than I usually would. And RWBY has thrown big surprises at us before, and I can’t know what will happen in the finale and how it will feed into or try to heal some of the pain we’re feeling. But regardless of what the narrative intent is in Clover’s death, it needs to be acknowledged that episode 12 alone, ending on such an intense scene that wouldn’t be resolved for at least a week, hurt people. And CRWBY needs to acknowledge and take responsibility for it. I can’t say that I’m the most up to date on social media and what each person involved with volume 7 has said in the past few months. But I know that numerous official twitter accounts posted things that led people to put more credibility in Fairgame, myself included. And that even after seeing how big the ship had gotten, and knowing what the outcome was, some of CRWBY continued to seemingly feed into the excitement, even teasing about how hard episode 12 would hit us. 

That’s honestly one of the reasons I think this feels not just like bad writing or something, but betrayal. Of course RT can’t control everything everyone involved with RWBY posts, but for a company that has tried to seem so supportive of lgbt and mentally ill fans, they should have, at the very least, not have fed the flame and given people hope and supposed credibility that they knew would crumble after this episode. It feels like, even if they hadn’t intended this entire plot point to come across the way it has, they saw us going down this path and egged us on for added shock factor. 

And even if somehow the finale fixes everything, it doesn’t undo that hurt. It makes me think of the trailers for Insatiable when it first came out. How toxic and fat shaming they seemed and how people reacted poorly to it, but then all the people involved responded with how positive the show was, and that people shouldn’t judge it before they saw it. Or those “joke” videos or posts of kids coming out and the parents getting angry but then it’s about some stupid other thing. It’s meant to trigger a very sensitive issue, that people who have gone through traumas related to those issues are all too familiar with seeing over and over. So why would they have faith that this wasn’t just another one of those times when everything they see points to the opposite? Why trigger people who have already been hurt, for the sake of shock factor? It’s poor and callous writing. 

And that’s what this feels like. It feels like we were exploited in order to make this hurt more. And maybe that was a very unfortunate accident. But CRWBY still needs to acknowledge that they made mistakes, and do what they can to prove to the fans that they still deserve our trust. And that’s not going to be an easy one and done thing. For some it may never be enough, and that is completely valid. 

Of course everyone has different histories and issues that can lead them to be drawn to a certain show or character. And creators can’t ever know for sure that they won’t bring up painful things for any of their fans, and often trying to do so can make the content and message suffer. But even though everyone might not have a story that is as “obviously” traumatic as mine, might not have things they so directly relate to in Qrow and in Clover’s death,  they’re all still valid in the pain they’re feeling. One of my least favorite things about living with grief is people thinking that their traumas and struggles aren’t as big or important as my own. 

This week I’ve told people how hard a time I’m having, and why. And the people who know my backstory understood. The people who didn’t know though, brushed it off as crazy fangirl, tumblr discourse drivel. Even to my face after I told them how much I was hurting, they would groan about people getting so obsessed with fictional characters. You shouldn’t have to know why something negatively affects someone the way it does in order to respect the fact that it does. And I’m not more valid in my pain than people with “smaller” reasons. The fact is that a lot of people are hurting. A lot of queer and mentally ill people are reliving trauma. And like me, many of these people trusted CRWBY to be supportive, to be a comfort in a world where it’s hard to find sometimes. And that makes it hurt all the more.

I wasn’t in the fandom when Monty died, so I don’t know a lot about how CRWBY handled it, what they said publicly, what inevitable fandom discourse there was about how to navigate things. The only reason I bring him up at all, (because I’ve seen people mention him in discourse posts before and it’s usually hurtful and out of line and I truly hate it) is because he, and how CRWBY continues to honor him by keeping his creation going, is a huge part of why I feel so attached to it. My creative focus is on talking about Emma, about honoring her, telling her story, about sharing my grief with people. And while it’s extremely important to me, it’s also terrifying to think about people one day saying I let her down, or that because I made certain decisions I ruined the work or anything like that. And whether or not I am currently happy with every member of CRWBY doesn’t affect the fact that I will always keep in mind that RWBY is something directly tied to someone they’ve lost and it can be extremely difficult to have that kind of work criticized and not get defensive or angry (that’s not to say we can’t criticize things that are made in honor of someone, but that we need to remember there are still people dealing with grief on the other end of what we say). They’ll react poorly to certain things, they’ll say the wrong things, they’ll but heads with opinionated fans. And that’s not to excuse them for that, or to say we shouldn’t hold them accountable and communicate our problems with them and expect them to learn from past mistakes. But they aren’t faceless monsters in some big corporation who just make this for the money. They have real emotional investment in their work and I honestly believe they are well intentioned and want to support lgbt and mentally ill fans. But good intentions don’t ensure there won’t be negative impact, and if they truly want to keep, or regain fans’ trust and support they need to show they understand that. 

It may be naive and there may be things I don’t know that might have changed my view but until now, even with some writing choices I didn’t love, I've really liked CRWBY and trusted them. I personally can’t say I hate them and write them off right now. I understand if you can, if this was the last straw or just proving your view, and that’s all valid. But I want to, as much as possible, believe that they’re well intentioned. RWBY is far from perfect. CRWBY is far from perfect. But that’s ok. As long as there’s effort to improve and acknowledge mistakes and try to make amends

It’s possible that things I’ve said here may anger some people, and unfortunately, as much as I tried to avoid it, may hurt CRWBY. Because as hurt and angry with them as I might be right now, I don’t want to hate them or hurt them.  I’m human as well, and I’m very passionate about this and have a very personal attachment to it. So I acknowledge that it is totally possible that I have said something here that I could have handled better. If so, please, let me know. Constructively. If you need to, privately. Don’t attack me for it. I know when a conversation is toxic to me and I will not put myself in that position and will block people. But I want to be open to criticism, just as I want CRWBY to be. I want to know what I did wrong and how I can work to do better in the future. There are also certain things that I firmly believe that I know not everyone will like. And that’s okay. I have my own ways of dealing with grief and pain that will inevitably conflict with others. In those cases, while I won’t apologize for being honest about how I feel, I will understand and listen to how I may have hurt you. Different opinions and ways of coping will always be a part of grief conversations and it is less about making others agree with you and more about giving people a place to express their pain. 

This is ridiculously, stupidly, long and honestly I’m not sure there’s a clear point and if you read through it all the way, you’re a saint. But I just needed to get this out, and I hope that maybe, somehow, through the ranting, it might help someone feel less alone in their pain, or feel validated. I started writing this on Sunday and wanted to post it before the finale. It’s now Friday and who knows if there’s really any point to posting it now, but still. 

I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. I don’t know how I will handle it. I’ve seen discourse that made me anxious all over again all week. I’ve seen jokes or edits or trolls that made me sick. But there are people out here for you. There are people to talk to who will just listen. You aren’t alone. And while I can’t promise you that everything will be okay, I can promise you that there will be people here to help you get through it. There are ways to get through it. They’re not always fun or ideal, but they’re there. And eventually you’ll be able to feel okay again. The pain might not be gone for good, but you’ll have good moments again. You’ll learn how to create good moments. I still want to believe that “broken” people can be happy again, even though the world may try to show me otherwise over and over. It’s not easy, and sometimes I honestly just don’t see how it can possibly be true. But I keep trying to get back to those good places and appreciate them, for as long as I can. 

[mxc-vstheworld]

Are you able to elaborate on what you told your students about the rise of Nazism and which graphic novel you had your students read? Do you have Autism? I saw you use the phrase info dumping which I typically associate as being used related to Autism and special interests.

Oh lord, it’s always hard to decide what to tell the 6th graders because this is my first year with that age group and we’re in the middle of a fascism resurgence. So I both want to edit my info to appropriate things for the age but also prepare them for the realities of the world. So between my excitement to be talking to students eager to hear about the topic (from me) and trying to make it appropriate, I’m sure I made some mistakes.

First, the book is not a graphic version of her diary but of her biography. It’s by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon and its authorized by the Anne Frank house museum in the Netherlands. My students took to the subject so much that many of them asked to read her diary.

Second, I wanted them to understand that while Jewish people were the largest part of the focus of their hate, they weren’t the only ones. I mentioned queer people, the romani (even mentioning that we often call them the g slur and it is a slur), immigrants of color, political prisoners, and those they deemed mentally/physically unfit. Later when I asked them what they learned from reading Anne Frank (what we shortened it to) a few mentioned that the Nazi’s hated and killed many different kinds of people. We had a long conversation about how Germany allowed this to happen. There are a lot of ways to answer this question. The book talked a lot about the economic and social factors that lead to it, the kind of stuff you get in your average high school history class (or maybe my HS history teacher was good). I kinda touched on that, but as this is something that I always wanted to know too when I was young, I mostly went a different route. The route is that of the social elements that were already in place that Hitler used to rise to power: things like rampant antisemitism weaved into European history, fear and shame from the Versailles treaty, lash back from the more liberal government prior to the first world war (it made a lot of social advances that the people associated with that shame, familiar *cough, cough*), how the pressure from confirmed Nazi’s wasn’t always outright. This last bit was a very hard line for me to walk because I wanted so badly to reference the current political climate, how there is a group of people who respond by rolling their eyes or shaking their head when they see a large group of Nazi’s parading in the street or, as a recent example, driving to polling places. We’re rural and chances are high that at least one of their families voted for him if not most, so all I said was that Nazi’s are still around.

Oh they had questions about this one. There are still Nazi’s? In Germany? No children, well maybe, probably, but mostly in this country and the United Kingdom etc. That we hired many German scientists after the war regardless of their political affiliation or war crimes committed. We call them neo-nazi’s in our country now, or things like the 3% or proud boys or the KKK. But there were many Nazi sympathizers in our country which is part of why we waited to enter the war (this almost got me into a tangent), there was a Nazi rally in New York City in the 1930′s and no one did a goddamn thing. They were also really curious about why people hated Jewish people, what started that. To be honest, I wasn’t sure but I suggested it came from the split of Christianity becoming a mainstream religion when the Romans started adopting it. But really it’s more innate than that, unfortunately. Whatever caused the hate to begin with doesn’t matter because of the thousands of years of building on that hate. There were periods of time in Europe where people genuinely believed that Jewish people stole babies and ate them as part of a satanic ritual. And like all things when people hate, anything different about the object of their hatred fed into that hatred. It’s a self perpetuating cycle that no one had stepped in to deal with. Much like anti-black racism in this country, among all the other kinds of racism in the country. 

That’s as much as I can remember at the moment. I told them all this over multiple lessons over 6 weeks, some of it repeated because they asked similar questions and because there was a lot of info to take in. 

As to your other questions, I am not diagnosed with ASD or ADHD, though I am currently considering, perhaps, ADS. However, the term info dumping for me came from writing. In writing, we apply it to mean when an author just gives a lot of backstory all at once in a less than skilled manner. I have heard it in the ADHD and ASD community as well and when I used it previously here, I guess I meant it in the writer’s term and hadn’t considered it through a neurodivergent lens. Hopefully that answers your questions.

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

Aaand now it’s time for episode 6 of The Witcher! Rare Species is the title and it’s intriguing, are we going to learn more about witchers?

Anyway, let’s do this. F.lux off, luminosity on, earbuds, clean glasses, and we’re ready. Nobody cares about that but whatever.

We start directly with Jaskier which is always welcome.

Geralt’s employers for the case think he’s dead by now and take Geralt’s stuff... but some strangers just show up and help out. Stranger dude introduces himself and I immediately forget his name and don’t try to learn it. Now he’s Suspiciously Helpful Guy, for short Beard Guy. The ladies with him are gorgeous.

This is about a dragon!!! That’s super exciting. Hope the dragon looks cool.

Jaskier also thinks the ladies are gorgeous. He probably thinks everyone is gorgeous but still, mood.

The reward for killing the dragon is huge, because it’s about the reputation of a king. Makes sense. Suspiciously Helpful Guy isn’t suspicious after all, he just wants the lord title and whatnot and wants Geralt on his team because Geralt is like the Cristiano Ronaldo of monster hunters, and that makes sense.

Beard Guy doesn’t want the reward for itself, but wants a last adventure before he gets too old to do anything exciting, apparently. He tries to appeal to Geralt emotionally, but Geralt is still unconvinced. Aaaand now we get what convinces him to join. The world is small :)

So welcome to Deadly Gishwhes.

Yennefer is there as a fancy escort to Pompous Knight. I think they haven’t started yet and she is already Done with him.

Meanwhile-not-meanwhile Ciri is walking right into Fake Mousesack’s trap...

Deadly Gishwhes for now is a camping trip. Isn’t this fun! Geralt is convinced that the most dangerous thing on the mountain isn’t the dragon, but Yennefer... we’ll see. I mean, definitely.

Dinner is an awkward affair until it gets a more intimate affair, then it’s cute. I’m afraid these nice people won’t survive this.

Dara suspects Fake Mousesack, but Ciri doesn’t...

Meanwhile Yennefer has been sleeping and has lost her escort. Oops.

Oh, he’s been found. Double oops.

The dwarves suggest a shortcut, our team accepts, but we’re gonna have some Yennefer-Geralt drama first.

And of course Yennefer is meaning to use the dragon to get her uterus back.

Geralt says she’d definitely made a bad mother and, well, is he wrong. Apparently it’s customary to make witches and witchers sterile, and he acknowledges that their lifestyle isn’t suited for children. Which I can’t really disagree with... if you really want a child, you can adopt one after deliberation, and not risk to produce a child accidentally that will be thrown into a very unstable environment. I get where Yennefer is coming from, though--it’s not really about a child, it’s about reclaiming the possibility of a choice that was taken from her. I think it’s more about having a part of herself taken away, and maybe she’s been rationalizing her feelings as wanting to be able to have a child, but I think it’s about the integrity and wholeness of her body, of getting back something of herself she got robbed of (even if she chose it at the moment--but it was a choice dictated by the desperation of fixing what had caused her a lifetime of abuse, suffering and self-loathing).

I love how this thing is all leading to Geralt becoming a mama duck.

(Yeah, I don’t know how this story will progress exactly, but I am assuming the plot is going to be about Geralt becoming a mama duck until proven otherwise. I mean, this episode is yelling at us that Ciri is going to become his adopted daughter, we just got hammered with a reminder that she’s tied to him by destiny and Geralt is now babbling about the fact that it’s not a good idea for him to have a child. But for some reason I expect Geralt to go through the story being imprinted on by every orphan or lost soul he meets, like baby ducklings with mama duck.)

(I can’t really think of Geralt as a father but I can only think of him as a mother, does that make sense? I’ve watched too much Supernatural.)

AAAAAAH he’s “thought about this--often”. He’s thought about children and parenthood. Excuse me, I needed that heart, who gave you the right.

Oh my god, he’s been avoiding the surprise because he knows he’s supposed to parent the child, and does not want to subject the child to the life he leads!! I am having feelings!! He does not want a child to go through what he goes through!! He’s literally been tormented by the idea that destiny wants to give him a child but he doesn’t want the child to suffer through the horror and pain of his life!! Wasn’t one (1) show with these themes enough, did I have to add another??

Well, now Yennefer is going to be bitter that she’s been trying to get a child for decades and this dude stumbled into magical adoption just like that.

Also love how Geralt is like “why do I start babbling like an idiot when I’m near you”. It’s called being neurodivergent Geralt. I know this isn’t the take I was supposed to get from the scene but I’ll go with it. It makes sense okay?

Ciri catches Fake Mousesack, and They(TM) get fed up with the whole thing... Ciri is savage af.

The shortcut is terrifying and Jaskier is being perfectly reasonable thank you very much.

Nooo Beard Guy!!! Goergous Ladies!!!! I mean, I expected it, but still. :’(

Oh bby he’s trying to console Geralt and also working out his own pain.

The directors have a favorite angle to shoot Geralt, uh.

Yennefer has made a Tardis Tent. And they have an emotional (emotionally mature, at least for they standards?) moments. They suffer a bit from a-man-and-a-woman-share-a-pencil-syndrome, but that’s just how the show has been working so far, it’s a lot about negative space, so I’m giving them a pass.

Me the other day, as a joke: the horse is the fantasyland equivalent of the Impala. This episode: if he wasn’t a hunter witcher he’d work with cars horses. *deep inhale* Okay.

Ah. Her dream is to be important to someone, yes. A child of her own would be a sure way of achieving that.

Alright, this scene was sweet. They lil stupid faces when they wake up together. They’re dumbasses but cute.

And Ciri is caught. This guy is either feeding her some fat lies or not, let’s see. He speaks destiny stuff so he probably believes what he’s saying. The camping party was talking about the religious zealotry of Nifgaard peeps. He’s probably the religious righteous type, which is the most dangerous type.

OH! Now this is intriguing! It’s Them(TM). And yes, he believes the prophecy stuff, and the shapeshifter thinks he’s insane. Yep.

Yennefer cheats at track and field.

I have a theory about the dragon, let’s see.

Ho ho ho! This is great, the ladies are alive, Suspicious Guy was not what he appeared uh.

I was right, the dragon was a she and had a baby. That was my theory. Yennefer was after it for motherhood reasons... but the real motherhood was the dragon she was after all along.

Suspicious Guy was indeed a gold dragon, the rarest, the ones with the very peculiar mutation... of course. I should have expected it. He hired the only person who’d empathize with dragons and could protect the baby dragon. 

Mama Duck Geralt Foreshadowing Abounds!!

Sorry guys, Team Protect Baby Dragon are the most badass people around.

Dracarys.

Ah, I’m so happy about how this episode went. Sorry for poor dragon mama, but the rest was 👌🏼

Dara is done with white people bullshit, which we can’t blame him for.

And now it’s time for draa~ama! They break up. I mean, I knew I’d happen because they’re dumbasses and just at the beginning of their character development arc. I want them to be each other’s weird ex that somehow is always involved accidentally in everything the other does.

Dragon Dude is like, forget heterosexuality, embrace your true nature as a Mama Duck.

Well, dumping your frustrations on Jaskier doesn’t seem fair. Aw, that’s so sad. Yennefer and Geralt speak the same emotional language, but Jaskier is a lil dumpling.

Fringilla boosts Creepy Religious Dude’s self-esteem. They have a Mission!

And we’ll see how it goes in the next installment...

This episode was really good. Yep.

[purplepeoplelickingtruthpeddler]

Need Food

So for those of you who don’t know me, I’m a disabled, chronically ill,  polyamorous queer person of mixed ethnicity. My household growing up was half alcoholic neglect and half abuse, half veteran and half immigrant, and %100 anxiety. I’ve never had much support, and learning to take care of myself to any extent I’m able has been a steep learning curve.

I was in what I thought was a supporting and loving relationship for several years, six years. But when I came out as polyamorous, and expressed love for a long-time mutual friend, my support vanished. My partner became emotionally abusive. My long healed trauma flared back up to full-blown PTSD because of it, and after short apologies, and an improvement that lasted all of a week, he stopped caring, started resenting my disability, and started emotionally cheating on me with a woman at his work that he’s spoken all of two sentences too. He himself is neurodivergent as well and I gave him more credit than I should have because in the past I hadn’t given him enough and was still paying for it. I spent a few days self-harming, and got very close to suicide, because I learned that someone I thought loved me, someone that I was at one point engaged to, had put an expiration date and conditions on his support. I got help pulling myself most of the way out of that by a few supportive people in my life including my girlfriend; I’m eternally grateful to them. 

I’m disabled. I have agoraphobia and panic disorder, that have been professionally diagnosed, and other anxiety disorders that have gone undiagnosed professionally; OCD and trichotillomania. I’m self dx autistic most recently. I’m partially homebound. I have crippling executive dysfunction and time-blindness. I have physical medical endocrinological disorders, also diagnosed and undiagnosed, including PCOS, diabetes, some form of hypothyroid. I went a few years without insurance and was about to see someone through my ex’s, but that’s gone now. Endocrinological disorders run in my family and finding a doctor who can handle all of these things integratively is incredibly difficult, I live in the South. Most doctors aren’t entirely interested in treating me beyond making me capable of having kids I don’t currently want or erasing my secondary sex characteristics. I’ve been seeing a counselor for a couple of years, but she doesn’t specialize in either agoraphobia or anxiety. To continue seeing her I’m going to have to risk driving through multiple panic episodes and dissociation, putting me and everyone else on the road at risk. Public transportation and ride sharing causes even more severe anxiety. 

I’ve contacted my long estranged father in desperation of getting any kind of help, he’s agreed to help me apply for disability, a thing my counselor never followed through on. He’s agreed to help me find and pay for medical insurance so I can keep taking my currently four prescription meds and see better doctors more consistently. He’s agreed to help me find and pay for a place to live until I get on my feet, or find any kind of income. I don’t have anywhere to go immediately. Everyone I’ve talked to, about agoraphobia specifically, has told me that it takes years and several appeals and legal help to get assistance. I’m weary, and sad, and struggling to find the self-love I had, and I have a battle ahead. I’m struggling to manage having to continue living with my ex right now, sleeping in the closet and only moving around when he’s either at work or asleep because it’s the only way I feel safe, partially because of trauma. Even though I’ve had many reasons not to be associated with my dad in the past, and it’s been a fair few years since we talked, I am cautiously as optimistic as I can be. I have concerns over what kind of emotional trade-off he will expect but I don’t have much choice right now. I’m layering as many supportive friends as I can gather around me so I can survive. An excitement for the fact that I can be myself and love who I love without feeling guilty and wrong is growing however hard things are right now. 

I hate asking for help of people I know aren’t exactly wealthy themselves, and I’m not asking for much because everything I can possibly do on my own right now is getting done. I have a couple of weeks of 3/4 of my meds left. What I really need rather urgently, is food. My dad doesn’t have a car or a currently valid license, he also lives several cities away. My girlfriend doesn’t have a car or a currently valid license, also lives several cities away. Asking even half as much as I need wouldn’t feel right anyways because she’s actively getting on her own feet and we’re a relatively young relationship. She’s raising money herself for transportation to train for her upcoming promotion and I’m super proud of her after what she herself is going through. My dad is a recovering alcoholic with PTSD, a veteran on disability himself, he can only do so much. All of my other trustworthy friends or relatives live in other states. My plan is to use a grocery delivery app, doing the minimum to save and ration and the maximum required for the cheapest delivery fee at a time. And it’s a thing I can use paypal to pay for, which is my only current available payment method. I’m fighting to regain even some of the self-care and functionality I once had, and maybe without the toxicity that was in my life, get even better. 

So if you can give literally anything, and I mean anything because even just a dollar will afford me some milk or a few fruits and veggies that I can divide up and freeze for a few small meals at a time. I grew up with food insecurity and malnourishment at the hands of my abusive parent, this isn’t new territory. If you’re starting your own life, focus on you. Share/reblog if you feel comfortable doing so, please. Anything extra will go into feeding my cats, who are a huge support to me right now. 

For ease of access here is my paypal link (please ignore the name I haven’t legally changed it yet, not until I get fully out of range of my abusive parent, and come out to the past neglectful one): paypal.me/elirria

Cash app update: gf told me I could use cash app to pay for places that have free delivery and don't accept PayPal (such as Walmart), so that's the preferred option (but I'll still use either as I can, and not everyone has cash app): $elirria