#your honor i have undiagnosed adhd

[heyftinally]

April 30th is the Day of the Homeschooled Child

I was one of the 1.7 million children homeschooled in the USA.

I am also one of Homeschool's Invisible Children.

I was heavily restricted at home - I was barred from nearly everything that my peers were connecting with. I had incredibly limited access to movies and TV, even more restricted internet access, and was even barred from many of the same toys my peers played with. This on top of my academic isolation made socializing very hard.

I didn't relate to my peers socially.

Children younger than me were more academically advanced than me.

I was socially unaware, and frequently missed jokes or made faux pas comments because I didn't understand how to interact with peers.

My ADHD went untreated my entire childhood.

And the issues were not only social. Despite living in a state that boasted some of the most rigorous checks for homeschooled students, I was missed. My portfolios every year were falsified - much of what they claimed I had learned I had little to no understanding of.

By the time I graduated high school "with honors" (that I did not earn and were entirely false), this is a brief list of some of my academic failings:

I had never written an essay, and did not know how

I did not know how to do a critical analysis of a piece of text or media

I was incapable of math above a 4th/5th grade level

I could not tell time on an analog clock

I could not identify more than ~5 states on a map of the United States

I could not identify more than ~5 countries on a map of the world/globe

I could not spell above a ~6th grade level

I did not know that there was proof of life on earth prior to dinosaurs

I did not know that the lymphatic system was real

And so much more.

I entered college woefully unequipped for both the academic and socal demands that were placed on me. At 18, I was closer to as 14 year old, social/emotionally. Academically I was much worse.

I had to work three times as hard as my peers to achieve the same results, battled my still-undiagnosed ADHD as well as my academic and social neglect.

I didn't fully know who I even was as a person, due to spending so many years being expected to fit a specific ideal that was enforced upon me 24/7 through the isolation of homeschooling.

This April 30th, I'm wearing green for Homeschool's Invisible Children - for children like me.

If you are a child experiencing homeschool neglect, please know that you are not alone. There are resources available to you, and your future is not doomed just because your guardians failed to educate you. I'm listing some resources below that may be of help to you.

Homeschool alumni/survivors who resonate with this story: we deserved better. We deserved education. We deserved freedom. It's okay if you're angry at your past. It's okay if you're grieving the life you might have had without homeschooling. It's okay if you're conflicted. I hope you're able to find closure and healing in whatever form that means for you.

And, because I know it unfortunately needs to be said, if you're an ex-homeschooler or a homeschool parent who feels the need to jump on this post and defend yourself, I need you to step back, sit down, delete your comment, and sit with why you feel so attacked by our truth.

This is not a personal attack on you - this is abuse survivors speaking up to prevent further abuse. It is not your place to tell us we should be silent.

"But homeschoolers test better and are more successful!" I'm sure you're dying to say. To wave your statistics at me.

And you would be wrong. Because here's the problem with those statistics.

Let's pretend we have ten homeschooled children and ten public schooled children.

All ten of the public schooled children take a school assessment. Because some excel at different things than others, the public school students average out to an 85.

Only four of the homeschooled children take the assessment. Of the other six, one is traveling with their family during the assessment, two are not permitted because their parents know they aren't up to grade level and fear backlash or judgement, two are mentally or physically disabled and so their parents don't feel the test will adequately display their knowledge, and the last hasn't received any kind of education in years because their parents keep them at home either doing chores, working a job, caring for siblings, or they are simply neglected and spend all day hungry and scared.

Of the four homeschooled children that do take the assessment, they do quite well, as their parents knew/suspected they would. Their average score is a 98.

A 98 is better than an 85, yes. But just because 4 out of 6 homeschooled children were above the public school average does not mean homeschooling is automatically better. If you tested the top four public school students, they might very well score a 98 as well.

However, if you included those other six homeschooled students, the average homeschool score would very likely be something closer to a 45.

So when we talk about Homeschool's Invisible Children, we're talking about those six that never got the chance to take an assessment. Those six who never had a chance to tell a teacher "I'm ten and I don't know how to read". Those six who may not even realize how far behind their peers they are. Those six who deserved to have access to supports so that they could learn in ways that actually met their needs.

So while your statistics look good on paper, they are not honest. They do not present the full picture of homeschooling. Listen to the homeschool survivors who were one of those six kids who never got to make their voices heard. We have a voice now - don't try and take it from us.

Resources for current homeschool students and alumni:

Khan Academy - basically free online self paced K-12 classes. They have fantastic explanation videos for the lessons, you can review them whenever you want, and you don't have to stay in the same grade level for every subject - great if you're trying to catch up and you're in 6th grad for English but 2nd for math. They have courses besides just core classes (math/english/science/etc), too! They run on donations, but it's completely free to use. Also, this site is used in my local public school system to supplement the existing curriculum, so it's not just for homeschoolers!

Coalition for Responsible Home Education - actively fighting for more oversight and restrictions on homeschooling in the USA. They mostly do awareness and advocacy, but they also have resources on their site for things like what to do if you don't have a high school transcript. They run on donations, but the information is freely available.

Probably the most famous resource on this list. Videos that give you a "crash course" (aka a condensed overview) of a wide variety of topics. These are best used as supplement to more structured lessons like Khan Academy, but they have a lot of merit on their own if they're all you can manage. Knowing a bit about something is better than knowing nothing about it!

[tryslora]

learning sentence level editing

It’s no secret that I hate editing.

I’ve told this story before: When I was in high school, I had an English teacher who told us on our first day of sophomore honors English that she would not give an A for a first draft. She had a rigorous outlining/drafting process that she was determined to teach us. Me, I had undiagnosed ADHD and was a dyed-in-the-wool pantser. So I resolved on that first day that by the end of my time with her, I would get an A on a first draft.

My final essay of junior year AP English (yes, same teacher two years in a row), I wrote about Victorian morals and literature. I read it aloud. I got an A. I only ever wrote one draft.

What that taught me was how to write very technically clean drafts, something that has stayed with me for almost four decades now. Which is great!

What it did not teach me was how to be patient enough to properly edit. And I have never really learned. In fact, that is one of my ADHD sticking points (yes, I know, that’s obvious from my reaction to her statement in the story above). I often feel that a large part of the reason I have never made it as a writer—have never broken into tradpub—is because I do not have the patience to not only write, but then create an outline from the draft, then rewrite, then do it all over again and fiddle with each sentence until it’s perfect.

I’m learning, but I’ll admit, I’m still not there, and I’m not sure I ever will be where novels are concerned. 

But right this moment, I’m feeling very accomplished and proud of myself. I had a short story that every time I worked on it, it grew. Every time I cut it, it felt like it lost its heart and like the taste of the words stopped feeling like mine. My voice disappeared.

I had finally worked out a version of it that was just under 7500 words long, and I thought it was decent. It got no traction, and I was frustrated. I put it up for critique on SFFOWW (a critique group site) while I was active there a year and a half ago. It was chosen for an Editor’s Choice review, and the first half of it got some great comments. Which I promptly had to ignore because I was dealing with other editing problems.

I returned to it recently, because I saw a call I wanted to send it to. The problem was, the call was for stories under 6k, and I wasn’t sure I could cut this story again and still retain its punch. But hey. The biggest feedback I got was about how I handled my descriptions and dialog, and the amount of repetition that slipped into my words. So I absorbed that, and I dug into the story, and I started ripping it apart.

I didn’t edit it, exactly, nor did I completely rewrite it. I printed it. I read it twice. Then I placed it on the desk and went a few paragraphs at a time and started with a blank file and filled it in. Some pieces went in verbatim. Most of it changed. Huge chunks disappeared, and a few new things appeared. Some of it got rearranged. The wordiness disappeared.

Here’s an example…

Before:

"You get one hour," Lana says softly. "One hour with him, and then you're leaving him behind. You're taking your fate and you're setting him free."

After:

"One hour," Lana says. "Then take your fate with you and set him free."

The new version of the story came in under 6k. I did it, and the best part is, I don’t hate it. In fact, this was sentence level revision of a style I had never done before. The closest I’ve come to it is editing flash fiction to be under very tiny wordcounts (or drabbles of exactly 100 words, which gods, those take me longer than writing a short fic!).

I’m not sure I could’ve done this without the editing I did for Into the Split over the last many months. I had to dig into that in ways I have never edited a novel before, and it prepared me to dig even more deeply into this short story.

I’m learning. I guess you can teach old dogs some new tricks.

[cripplecharacters]

Hello! Sorry this is going to be a long ask.

I'm writing a cast of four characters, all of whom have some form of disability and I'd like your input, especially since a few of them fall into tropes I've seen talked about on the blog.

I have autism, ADHD, and chronic joint pain that is undiagnosed but probably related to hypermobility. All of them have ADHD and autism but I'm not going to talk about that at length for any of them because I'm pretty comfortable with writing them.

Dispite the amount of disabled characters I have and the questions I have about how to portray them, this is not a story about disability or the disabled experience, but I do want to showcase my disabled characters in a nuanced way that highlights that their disability is not separable from them.

This is also for a fanfiction, and the source has some trouble with how it portrays disability (evil character with an eye patch, bionics that completely negate the disability) and I'm trying to figure out what I can modify and what I need to just throw out.

I'll go in alphabetical order and talk about them and the tropes I'm worried about falling into/what I want advice on.

Autumn (he/they)

He has ADHD, autism, classical EDS, is mildly HoH (about 20-30 decibels less than normal range), and has three fingers on his right hand due to an injury. They use a variety of mobility aids throughout the story, starting with only occasionally using a cane and ending with using forearm crutches on good days and a wheelchair on bad days.

The tropes/things I'm concerned about with them are the “good” wheelchair user, the noble dead disabled character, and finger prosthetics

The "pure/good" wheelchair user trope I'm partially concerned about because he becomes the moral core of the cast as time goes on and he gets more disabled. He doesn't become a better person, really, but everyone else gets Worse. He's still snarky and can be selfish and jaded at times, but I feel like it's harder to demonstrate that at the end.

Being the most honest and least willing to capitulate to doing terrible things leads to his execution, which is a turning point and a point of no return. I feel like this ties into a trope of the disabled character dying first, especially since he's the one who's using disability aids/is most explicitly disabled.

I've seen the posts about why finger prosthetics aren't useful/common, but I was thinking that he'd start off with canon-typical bionic fingers before eventually realizing that he doesn't need them and it's more hassle to put them on and off than it is to just not have them. Is this an okay use of finger prosthetics since it's kind of grappling with the trope itself? Or would it be better for him not to have them in the first place?

Right now I have it so Autumn’s sister Summer died and he named himself in her honor when he transitioned. That's pretty immutable at this point. However, right now I have her as d/Deaf, with much more profound hearing loss than Autumn. (Which is also why he knows ASL) Does this fall into a disabled dead character issue?

Chauncey (he/him)

Chauncey has ADHD, autism, burn scars, chronic pain (unspecified, based on my own experiences) and dyscalculia.

Chauncey's the one I'm frankly least concerned about any specific tropes. There are only one or two concerns I have with him:

As an author, it's important to know what disability a character has even if they don't know. I know in your FAQ you say “I'm disabled is it okay to x” is generally okay, but do you think I should have a more specific disability in mind that matches my symptoms or can I keep it no specificity?

He's a clone who was rapidly aged and I wasn't sure how to figure out if/how that might affect his dyscalculia since it's not exactly a situation that happens in real life but that's about it.

Morticia (she/her)

She's my protagonist. She has autism, ADHD, a visual impairment in the form of a missing eye, and visible scarring on her face.

She's heavily based on the canon character who was an “evil eyepatch” guy. I changed it so she actually has issues with said eye and made her less evil during the period of time she uses it but I'm not sure if I should just ditch the eyepatch all together.

She starts with a bionic eye (it's not perfect, but she can see out of it to some extent). Then she gets into some sci-fi bullshit and starts piloting around a robot telepathically, but her signals get crossed with her bionic eye, so she covers it with an eyepatch while she's piloting the robot. She does use this scheme to commit 28 murders, but the murders are kind of justified by the plot? She's really written as doing some ehh things for what she believes is right. I definitely wouldn't write the eyepatch that way if it wasn't in the source, but it was like the way to identify her character in the source, so it feels weird to not have it at all.

After that, she gets arrested, gets her bionic taken, and gets a prosthetic to keep appearances and hold the shape. Stuff happens, and she gets another bionic with some more visual info that is sometimes too much for her. She gets a lot worse than when she had the eye patch, but she does still have a noticeable eye difference. Her later bionic is totally customizable and she normally keeps it a glowing gold.

I have questions about her facial scarring because she uses it to play on people's perceptions. When she's campaigning and trying to look innocent and kind, she covers it as much as she can. However, when she feels like she is in control and can do whatever she wants without consequences, she doesn't bother or even chooses to try to cover her freckles but avoid her scars because she thinks they make her more intimidating. This results in her having her scarring visible during scenes where she's being "evil" but not when she's being "good." Is that okay? It feels like it's playing into the "villain with scars" but since she as a character is doing that, it feels less like the story itself is doing it (especially since Chauncey has similar or slightly more prominent scarring and doesn't do similar things), but I'm unsure.

She is evil, and disabled, but I don't want her to be an evil disabled character. I try to associate her covering up her scarring more with masking/trying to fit in than with her being “good” but I'm not sure if it comes off that way.

Mortimer (he/him)

ADHD, autism, and limb difference (upper arm amputee)

Mortimer is probably the character I'm most worried about with my disability rep (shocking considering the five huge paragraphs I just wrote about Morticia). He's the trope of “amputee that fixes his own prosthetics/tinkers on himself.” He also makes Autumn and Morti’s aids (at least until the arrest). He also kind of falls into an autistic savant but I'm less worried about how to navigate that since I'm very familiar with the autistic community, am autistic, and have other autistic characters.

I'm worried that if I make the prosthetics he makes not “cybernetic fix-all” it'll defeat some of what I'm trying to do with making him just as good as inventors who have done that in canon. I don't know how to retcon that canon without using an author's note, which feels disjointed and I want to avoid it.

To try to work with this and not ignore the fact he's disabled, I show the prosthetics needing maintenance and try to show them sometimes being uncomfortable or heavy.

However, this leads into my second problem with how I'm handling his disability. His character arc causes him to go from being the nicest one in the cast who is very meticulous but can sometimes have a temper, to becoming reckless, rude, and seemingly uncaring.

As he becomes more reckless and less willing to care for himself, he stops doing some of the necessary maintenance on his prosthetic, causing it to break more often and rust. I'm worried this looks like I'm tying his disability getting “worse” with his morality, since he also stops caring for others as much when he stops caring for himself.

I'm also not sure if it is okay for him to paint his bionic arm to try to look like a flesh arm, since he was a criminal and he was trying to make himself look less identifiable at a glance. And if it is, when he stops doing his maintenance on it, it makes sense for the paint to chip, but that would strengthen the association of him being more visibly disabled as he becomes meaner and harsher. I'm not sure if having Autumn bring the only one who's personality remains more or less the same while becoming more visibly disabled balences this out a little bit or if it's a point of having two tropes at the same time doesn't make either better. (If Autumn is a “good wheelchair user”)

Questions involving more than one character:

Autumn knows some ASL. Mortimer is an unrealistic character that knows far more than any one person can know, and he knows basically any language as far as the story is concerned. Autumn teaches Morti a little ASL, as well. Since Autumn can understand most conversation, they generally use it instead of whispering rather than in normal conversation. Is that an acceptable use of ASL?

Currently all of my visible facial and limb differences are due to injury. I have extremely few other characters with any prominence or description at all, certainly to the extent where it would be reasonable to know if someone has a difference due to injury or birth. Do I change/add something to these four so it's less All Injuries?

I mentioned before Mortimer and Morticia trying to hide their differences for different reasons. I don't really want to go into any sense of shame they have over it, just them hiding for practical purposes. If it's not appropriate to hide them for practical purposes, do I have people react as if they had hidden them or is that erasure? (e.g. Mortimer doesn't paint his arm and it's visibly mechanical. Is that something the police are looking to identify him by or do I ignore it? It feels weird to ignore it, but if it's causing problems for the characters it feels like a reasonable reaction would be to try to blend in, but is trying to blend in/hiding their disability just heightening the sense that disabled people need to hide?)

I'm so sorry I wrote an Entire Essay I promise I tried to be concise but I have a lot of questions about the tropes I fear I'm hitting and whether I'm missing anything trying to portray the disabilities I don't have

Hi!

I will answer only some of your questions because I don't have enough experience with a lot of the subject matter here. I'd recommend looking at this post some time after it's published to see if maybe a follower had an answer/suggestion for you.

Now for the questions I'm able to answer:

For Chauncey;

It's 100% okay to base it on your own experience. At times disabilities are mysterious and unspecific, that's just how it sometimes is. The problem with this that appears from abled authors is that the symptoms or treatments just often don't make sense, because they have no clue what they're doing; confusing basic terms, making weird conclusions...

But you are a person with lived experience. You understand how your symptoms work and how you manage it from the best - first person - point of view. If someone is well-equipped to write a character with your disability, it's you.

For Morticia (cool name BTW);

As of the bionic eye; as far as I'm aware they don't really exist yet, but this is a sci-fi scenario so it's a bit different. (If you want to hear about the currently real options, here's a post that could interest you).

I'm slightly puzzled by her eyepatch fixing the signal issues; I would've assumed that it would transmit things either way (?) because with an eyepatch she would still see, just the inside of the patch and not the usual stuff. But my cluelessness here might be my fault by the fact that I'm not familiar with the source material. But if it's meant for a general (non-fandom) audience, I think it would be great if you could elaborate on the science here!

With the later eyes she gets, I advise you to keep her visually impaired even if her vision improves somewhat. It shouldn't be a cure. You potentially could think of it like hearing aids, where they can be more or less helpful, but are often more annoying than anything else and aren't fully "restoring" the sense by any means. Maybe her bionic eye has static, or weird spots, or causes double vision.

Now for the "hmm" part...

"When she's campaigning and trying to look innocent and kind, she covers it as much as she can. However, when she feels like she is in control and can do whatever she wants without consequences, she doesn't bother or even chooses to try to cover her freckles but avoid her scars because she thinks they make her more intimidating."

Please, please, please don't do this. To answer your question; not okay.

I have written a post somewhat about this kind of thing. I really dislike playing with ableism in this way. Portraying scars as "intimidating" on an already dicey character... just no.

To pull this off in a way that's not offensive, you would have to research disfiguremisia in and out. It would need active commentary and a lot of teaching-the-reader-why-this-is-bad, and if you have to ask if it's okay, then you just aren't ready for it. And that's fine! You don't have to write a scenario based on heavy disfiguremisia, so don't. Remember, it's not her acting a certain way, it's you writing her to act a certain way.

I don't want you to take this personally, but please just don't write this. Not like this, at least.

For the "fitting in" part, I addressed it in the post linked above; I don't think that I have anything to add that wasn't included there.

For Mortimer, the best I can do right now is give you a bunch of links that will hopefully be helpful to you. This is just way beyond my answering capabilities and we don't have any mods who are amputees at the moment, so you're at the mercy of follower input for the most part. But;

Post of posts about arm prosthetics

Our general amputee tag

@cy-cyborg 's account, xe posts great writing advice, often regarding prosthetics. I believe that ze accepts asks as well.

For the rest of the questions;

"Currently all of my visible facial and limb differences are due to injury [...] Do I change/add something to these four so it's less All Injuries?

I would say yes! Some of the tropes that you're working if are Not Great, so adding a few additional characters that don't fall into them will help a lot. Try having some characters with similar disabilities that don't tick the issue-causing boxes. Throw someone with a facial difference that doesn't commit any kind of mass murder in there.

"I mentioned before Mortimer and Morticia trying to hide their differences for different reasons. [...] If it's not appropriate to hide them for practical purposes, do I have people react as if they had hidden them or is that erasure?"

In real life they would probably be recognized by it, though I need to say that there is absolutely a part of the population who just Doesn't Notice. People can absolutely be oblivious, especially if the lack of limb is hidden by clothes. Particularly if there are a lot of things going on.

That said, if whoever seen them has noticed, then they would look for that. That's just the logical outcome. But I don't think an eyepatch helps much to hide the actual disability, they would still assume that the person with a bionic eye and the eyepatch-wearing person are probably the same.

You can potentially avoid it by making a large chunk of the population disabled, lol. "Girl without an eye" isn't very helpful information to hunt someone by when there's dozens of people with that description in the city.

For the end, I'm sorry that some parts of it might have come off as Not the Most Encouraging (the Morticia part...), please remember that I'm just criticizing the tropes and implications. I can kind of tell that whatever the source material is, it is way worse about its treatment of disability/facial difference, so I would consider it an improvement nonetheless. Still, it could be better. I hope that the above links and answers will help you with your project.

If any followers are familiar with the topics discussed here, you can leave a reply or reblog with your suggestions. Remember to be constructive.

I hope this helps!

Mod Sasza

Hey! Mod Patch hopping in here to talk a bit about Autumn. I think that you’re aware of the tropes this could fall into is a good first step. 

First of all, you mention Autumn is missing some fingers and has classical EDS. Both of these could make using a manual wheelchair more difficult. Is the wheelchair in question manual? If it is perhaps consider adding a power assist (perhaps like a fantasy version of a smart drive. 

I’m not too concerned about him being “pure” because you mention that they are 1) working with other “immoral” folks. My suggestion would be to try and lean into the selfish and jaded parts of the character. Show his motivations aren't exclusively disability-related. I am a bit concerned about his execution. I understand that you might not be able to change that plot point but can you have other characters who use mobility aids and survive longer? They don’t have to be as major in the story.

mod Patch

[garlimcbread]

Could you do all the greasers and a f!greaser whose neruodivergent? (More so autism but it’s the 60s and no one knows anything then) They know that’s the reason most people don’t hang with her, because she’s not the best at convo and eye contact, but they like her cause she’s cool? Also they know her cause Two-Bits dating her. Idk I think it’d be sweet

RAHHH THIS IS SO ME

SUCH EASY CHARACTERIZATION....... ITS PERFECT 😦

TYTY FOR THE REQUEST!!!!! ITS SUCH AN HONOR 🛐

Ponyboy

Neurodivergent too 💀💀

not like autism but adhd inattentive

Darry's autistic too so he knows how you function

Is really bad at convos too so if you two hung out you would just be sitting in silence until Pony's like

"So....... the weather huh....."

Sodapop

Has adhd (hyperactive)

Again Darry's autistic so he knows what to do

highly recommend talking with him bc you won't have to say anything he'll carry the whole convo

Also bc you CANT say anything 💀

this guy talks so much you cannot get a WORD out

Darry

HAS AUTISM TOO

He likes legos bc Mr. and Mrs. Curtis bought him legos to play with at a young age and they STUCK.

He fs has a lego build in the basement but its like a whole CITY

like in the lego movie

He'd let you work on it if the gang is getting too loud for you

(this is a very high honor)

understands texture things VERY. well

Johnny

Has autism in the undiagnosed way

also its milder for him

his jacket is FS a comfort object so if you have one he one hundred percent understands

if need be he WILL guard it for you

likes bugs and will probably get upset if you scream and run away when he hands you a bug affectionately

Dally

SO.... HEAR ME OUT..... ALSO UNDIAGNOSED AUTISM

makes fun of you.... but just list off all his symptoms and he'll back off bc hes just so outraged

Johnny prob has to protect your comfort object (if you have one) from him 💀

he is MEAN. idk what you want from me/lh

Two-Bit

HE IS SUCH A SWEET LITTLE SILLY GOOSE

makes jokes abt your autism?? only bc he thinks its funny he's not trying to be malicious

looks at all your little special interest glorbos with you bc it makes you happy <3

copies your stimming?? not bc hes making fun of you he just thinks its fun and you look cute when you're excited

like??? "*stimming*" "YOU GET IT HONEY!!!!!!🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️"

would steal things you like for you

Steve

pays you no mind

like??? when you're stimming he doesn't stare or anything or even mention it

doesn't mention anything about odd behavior

would probably make you try something if he knows nothing about the texture might set you off/lh but otherwise he doesn't push

I can't tell if all the greasers means Tim and Curly too or not?? I'm gonna say no bc they don't really hang around Two-Bit...

If you wanted to see them just let me know!!!!!

[escapism-from-the-real-world]

Oh look it’s another post about power rangers

So, Ninja storm. Love it. It’s great, even if it’s not the grand all end all power rangers series (that honor goes to RPM) and it has placed itself in a very fond spot in my heart.

Anyways, the main trio, right? Dustin, Tori, and Shane have the elemental powers of earth, water, and air respectively, but something I like about the show is that, similar to a post I saw about ATLA, is that they don’t act like their elements.

Dustin is earth, but he’s a bit “airheaded” (read: undiagnosed Adhd) and goes with the flow, rolls with the punches, is an overall chill dude who I relate to on a personal, physical, and spiritual level.

Tori is water but I would argue is both the most grounded and levelheaded member while also being hotheaded (I know there’s technically not a fire elemental in the show, but Shane’s red is throwing me off so shush). She’s actually the one I would say is most set in her ways while keeping an air of understanding and compassion. She’s an interesting character to dissect is what I’m saying.

And Shane is air while also being stubborn and almost unmovable in his opinions or his instincts while also being carefree in a way that takes away some of that “I’m the boss you must always listen to me” kind of leader.

And while there personalities are both a) more complicated than just whatever relation we make with different elements and b) are very limited based on screen time and how the writers decided was most important to show for them, I still think that there is a lot of potential with having your characters acting outside of stereotypes linked with their powers.

It’s nice to think about. I like it a lot.

[mahi-wayy]

Favorite PR Season so far??👀

hey this is a unfair ques- let's see top 3

Power Rangers Ninja Storm : I will simply NEVER shut up about this season for reasons. first of which is that it houses like SO MANY of my favorite characters. I think the dynamics of the team are really interesting, even as individuals they are pretty solid. also dustin I see your undiagnosed adhd and I feel it bcz same my baby. I will also never not have a crush on hunter and shane.

Power Rangers RPM : Now that is how you make a darker story. I loved the concept of the whole world is destroyed by a computer program, too close to real possibility idk? I'm a sucker for post-apocalyptic/survival drama. Also yes Scott is one of THE red rangers, Dillion's character arc alone can hold up a season in my opinion but it's supported by great characters with their own great arcs and it just makes it all so much better.

Power Rangers Mystic Force/Jungle Fury : I can't choose between these two, I love both of them equally. one of the reason is how the reds are handled by these seasons. Nick and Casey are very different, almost opposites of each other on the spectrum if you ask me, but they are also somehow similar. their magical/spiritual nature just makes it a whole lot better. Udonna and RJ stay being my favorite mentors.

Honorable mentions to : S.P.D, dino thunder and operation overdrive. I grew up on disney era and early new saban era so I'm a little biased.

[starjxsung]

hi my angel! it’s so nice to hear from you again! i’ve missed you so much🫶🏻

a month kinda feels like forever sometimes, right? i’ve seen many stars and star shaped things and i’ve been thinking about your every time <3 and hoping that you’re doing well.

i’m so excited for the kitten video. i’m honored that you thought of me bc cat lady™️ is my brand! skz with kittens may just heal my life.

im picking up my wristbands for lolla at will call bc shipping was like $80😪 buuuut its beginning to feel so real for me too, it’s crazy. im really really nervous and excited. and im so excited for your ateez concerts too!! (pls send me some good yeosang/san pics pls i beg u). my bf got me two ateez albums for our anniversary but they still haven’t gotten here😪😪

ahhh for kdrama recs i’ve watched the tale of the nine tailed (because im in love with lee dongwook, it can be a lil bit too long sometimes though), it’s okay not to be okay and my demon! and i’ve enjoyed them, especially the last two! now im watching an anime named Nana (my sapphic dream💔)

im so sorry to hear the kitten story💔 it’s always so sad when they pass away, especially when it happens in your care😪 thank you for always helping the kitties out 💜 another cat gave birth at my grandma’s house and the kittens were very sick, only one of them survived and has an upper respiratory infection. but we’ve been treating it as best as possible. one of the older kittens stopped using his back legs and is currently at the vet receiving treatment to see if it’s any neurological disease or something. and im so so so sad about that too </3

as for the comprehensive exams, i barely studied because i have, what i suspect to be, ✨undiagnosed adhd✨ i passed one of them but the other one (which is a really stupid test in itself tbh. everyone was really pissed at that one bc it doesn’t really evaluate anything) was a hard fail😂 im not too stressed because i have a shot during next semester to pass it.

i,once again, am so glad to have heard from you <3 thank you (and momo, what a cute pic!!) for always rooting for me! my kitties and i are always rooting for you as well🫶🏻 i send you so much love from the middle of nowhere to the middle of nowhere. i hope you’re taking care of yourself too and taking time to do what you love at your pace🫶🏻

i love you bb! im here for you💘

-🐈‍⬛

STOP OMG I think of you all the time when I see anything cat related these days 😭 the love extends from me to you and back again like ten times over. I love you so so much

counting down the minutes until skz x kittens video. Jisung with kittens is going to heal me spiritually I just know it (though based on the teasers those kittens dgaf about any of them LMFOSODJFKFKDJ)

I cannot believe Lolla is so close like I swear we bought tickets yesterday??? And tour is going to be announced any day now im genuinely tweaking I need them to stay away until I save more money 😭😭 also I PROMISEEE to get the best Yeosang/San pics I am physically able to. I love you so much in my head we r going to every concert together and we have barricade seats.

Ahhhh I will totally check out your recs!!! I’ve heard so many good things about Nana and I bought a Nana keychain the other day despite not watching the show literally just bc it was so darn cute. Once I have my purse again I’ll post a good pic of it and if you like it I can buy you one & mail it to you !!! There’s a little boutique near my apartment that makes & sells them and they’re so cute you’d LOVE them

I’m so sad to hear about all the kitties :(( Momo had a respiratory infection when I found her and it was so sad watching her sneeze every 2 seconds and administering so many meds to her ☹️ I hope the RI goes away quickly and I hope the kitty with leg problems gets well and that it’s not a neurological issue, that’s so tough 💔☹️ thank you for always taking such good care of them, you’re such an angel 🫶💞

HEY you passed one exam though!!!!! That’s so major!!!!!!! You should be so proud of yourself my angel!!!!!!! Sending you all my love and I’m sure you can nail the other one on the second go around. Sometimes you just need a second try and that’s perfectly okay. You did your fucking best and that’s reason enough to celebrate ❤️💫

I love you so so much and I’m so glad to hear from you too my love. I get through my worst days remembering that people like you exist and I hope you’re taking the best care of yourself possible. precious cargo 🫶💫❤️💘💝 I love you !!!!!!!!! Pic of me and Momo (real):

[lotus-duckies]

The funniest piece of criticism for Mutant Mayhem I've seen is that the voices 'sound too childish'. Like, I don't even know what to say to that. Like, why are TEENAGE turtles, given TEENAGE voice actors. It makes me wonder how many adult people actually remember being teenagers.

your honor the audience shouldn't be forgetting that the main characters aren't even old enough to legally drive (that being 16 in New York)

i really don't think many adults remember being teenagers, or like. they choose not to remember it. i mean just look at every american teen drama ever.

girl you can't even sum up my teen years in 1 sentence because so much happened!! I wrote like. creepypasta and fnaf porn. i had an emo phase. i drew lots of silly little drawings. i wore cat ears before it was Cool tm. i listened to nightcore religiously. i had a queer awakening and started exploring my heritage. i got lowkey labeled as a problem child with undiagnosed autism and adhd. i listened to my art classmates complain about society while i glued woerms to a piece of cardboard.

that's what i need to see the turtle boys doing. I crave them living the True Teen Experience, they are going through life not knowign what's happening and similtaneously trying to have a good time and dying and i'm excited to see what mutant mayhem does

[icarus-suraki]

Oh; apologies if I should already know this. I have a vague sense that I might, but my vague senses don’t match reality much of the time, and if I’m being honest the mismatch is probably growing.

But the question: are you actually a librarian, not just in terms of stereotypical perception of your appearance but in terms of your actual job? And if so (or if not) what are your thoughts on being a librarian?

Uh oh. Are you ready for my Tragic Backstory? (read in "heated basket" voice)

I am certified as a librarian--as in, I have an MLS (Master of Library Science) degree. And I made use of it for something like ten years until I basically had a mental breakdown lmao and now I'm an administrative assistant and much happier.

But, yeah, I was assigned "library duty" in 4th grade as part of the whole safety patrol/hall monitor program and I was actually really disappointed because the kids who got to help with the buses and carpool kids got to wear reflective vests and badges and even official raincoats (bright yellow with "SAFETY PATROL" on the back in black letters). But I got stuck in the library where I had to shelve books and, when the "special" for the day was library time, I'd check out my classmates' books to them. Not exactly thrilling. I guess my reading level was "above average" so the teachers and librarian assumed I'd be happy there? My undiagnosed ADHD ass was not all that happy and I was easily distracted by interesting books (this will become a theme later). I mean, I like books, and I was taken to the library a lot by my mom, but damn I get distracted.

Anyway, because of that, it meant that when I was in middle school and early high school, when I needed volunteer hours for graduation or honor societies or whatever, I could waltz up to the local public library and say, hey, I know how libraries work and you should let me volunteer here. So they did and the head of the youth services department basically counted down the days until I was 16 and they could hire me (rather than just have me volunteering). And, holy hell, I hated it lmfao.

Like, yeah, at least I got paid, but at what cost??? I was basically shelving books for four hours, five hours, six hours at a stretch. I was putting in 20 hours a week in the summers (as my parents demanded) and all I was doing was shelving. Endlessly. And mostly picture books--which meant that, once again, I'd get distracted by interesting illustrations, which got me scolded by the librarians. Sorry I suck so much, I guess?

Anyway, I had to quit when I went to college, but the college library hired me as a circulation desk assistant, which was okay if boring (at least I could play on the internet) except in the summers when we would have to shelf read for four, five, six hours at a time--that means we'd take a list of all the books that should be on the shelf and in what order and check each shelf and each book individually to make sure they're all there and all in the correct order. (I read most of the original Amityville Horror book one afternoon rather than shelf-reading and I learned one could ride on some of the smaller shelving cards like skateboards.)

Once again, I had to quit when I graduated. I wanted to be an editor or maybe wanted to get a PhD in literature (with a concentration on Modernist literature mostly because I had a 22 year-old's obsession with Ulysses). Skipping the disastrous summer of 2004 backpacking in Europe, I went to talk to my academic advisor about PhD stuff, and she suggested I get an MLS instead. She thought I'd be happier with that. Dr. G, I love you but... I was still hung up on the PhD thing so I got a job at a Barnes & Noble bookstore in November as a seasonal hire but I wound up staying there for a little over 2 years. I had a friend working on an MLS and she was pushing me towards it but I think it was the evening I had to do a turnaround, closing that night and opening the next day, and I heard a child being violently sick in the bathroom stall next to me (there was no staff bathroom) and knowing that I might have to clean it up, that I thought maybe I should get an MLS.

I quit B&N when I got a part-time library assistant job in the public library system here. I started about the same time as this other guy and every time a work email came in announcing an opening for a professional librarian position (needing an MLS), we'd look at the salary range, look at each other, and say that we needed to get our MLS degrees. So we did. I mean, we had to kick around at that library for a bit while we wrote admissions essays and the like, but we ended up at the same school, starting in the same semester, but in different concentrations (I was library science, he was information science). No, I didn't marry him. He was my work spouse. That would be weird. And, yes, of course I worked part-time in the library at my grad school. Obviously. I was a student reference assistant and I got really good at dealing with gov docs and showing undergrads how to use Wikipedia without using Wikipedia (the links, kid, the links at the bottom).

And then began my four year nightmare of applying, interviewing, getting rejected, getting rejected, getting rejected, hiring freezes, hustling, temping, driving all over the county, getting pushed around, getting insulted, having to smile and take it, and hating it all. It was 2010 and no one was hiring and I was hustling so hard as a temp in that same public library system that had hired me when I was 16. But hiring was frozen (it was 2010, after all, and everything sucked) and all I could do is work as a temporary library assistant for 39.5 hours a week and drive across the county to get those hours to prove I was worthy of hiring. It still took four years (and in between I was told I was "grumpy" and "huffy" and kept getting rejected in favor of more internal candidates) but I got hired and then I had to hustle even harder. Because even if you're not driving all over the county, you still have to prove that you're worth keeping around. The jockeying, the politics, the metaphorical chessboard--holy shit, it was awful and it only got worse. I have Tales.

After about 5 years as a full-time professional librarian, I burned out. But I didn't realize it. I just started calling in sick all the time because I couldn't get out of bed. Or I'd just not really participate in meetings. Or I'd just kind of sit there at the reference desk, waiting for my shift to be over. It was Bad.

So I put in to move to a different location--a new location, with a new building, a new staff, a new everything. I figured that would fix me. Spoilers: it did not fix me. And I just got worse and worse. I got put on an improvement plan and everything. And, eventually, I just straight-up took a demotion and went to do internal, support work. Still full-time, at least, right? That didn't help either. I kept calling out, I had notes from my psychiatrist, I was calling the EAP, I was taking FMLA, I was running out of FMLA, I got an official warning, I got a second official warning, and, in the end...I got fired.

So I went home and stayed there. For two years.

And, yeah, I was a NEET: not in education, employment, (or) training. (I was also verging on hikikomori status, but since that's more of a culture-bound phenomenon I don't think I can really claim it. But I digress.)

I had been saving up with the delusion of buying my own place at some point in the near future, so I had more than a few months' worth of living expenses saved up. I talked to a job coach, went to therapy (a lot), playing Animal Crossing (a lot), applied to jobs, slept (a lot), and just kind of...hung around, doing nothing. And it was, ironically, both the best and worst time of my life.

And this whole story is glossing over a lot, but that's how my career in libraries and as a librarian ended. I like to joke that I was apprenticed to a librarian but it really feels like I was just shunted into librarianship without any input on my part. I've never really had any idea of what career I wanted to pursue because it didn't seem like there were other options. I was going to go do library stuff whether I liked it or not. It was acceptable, it was safe (physically and financially), it was secure, it didn't matter if I wanted to do it because it was just a set of skills to be used to earn a living--no different from, say, HVAC repair. I didn't like it but it was like I was set on a track when I was 9 years old.

To close it out, after about two years of recovering from nearly 20 years of library work, I was hired at my current job and I'm much happier here now than I ever was in libraries.

[skyhon]

I thought for so long that I couldn’t finish my highschool diploma, let alone start a college education. But now I’m a straight-A student who’s made the vice president’s (fall quarter) and president’s (winter quarter) honor list. I can confidently say that the reason this is possible is because of two things: my diagnosis of ADHD (and the tools that brings) and my support group.

I dropped out of highschool at the age of 17 with no hope to ever finish because of mental health issues and my undiagnosed ADHD and bipolar. I was sure that I would be stuck in dead-end retail forever. I even tried to get back into highschool two separate times, but I couldn’t juggle school and my full-time job without triggering a hypomanic episode and then immediately dipping down into depression.

I am now part of my school’s top 5% GPA President’s honors list. And I am constantly feeling as if I shouldn’t belong on it. I have to keep reminding myself that I’m actually smart, and that the reason why I failed before wasn’t because I was dumb and stupid, but because I wasn’t given the proper tools and support. My education and importance wasn’t cared for by my parents in a way that actually mattered for someone with ADHD. I wasn’t even aware I had it, because my mom just didn’t talk about it. (She’s tried to gaslight me by saying she did. I actually learnt from here, on Tumblr, that I might have it, and then I got a psychiatrist who diagnosed me officially. I shouldn’t have realized my neurodivergence from memes on Tumblr. I should have been told by my mom, who, as I said, KNEW the whole time, but did nothing about it, even when I struggled through highschool and had to drop out).

It's okay to take time away from school. It’s okay to drop out when you need to. You are not a lost cause if you ever find yourself having to take time away from education because of your mental health. It does NOT define you. But please be aware — those who drop out likely have no support network. They don’t have people to help and provide encouragement. They don’t have loved ones who care enough to support you as you seek out something like a professional diagnosis, or a program that would help you create a useful structure that will boost you up and not drag you down. They don’t have the love and hope that they desperately need. And this is not their fault. That is not something they, an adolescent, should have to struggle through and feel helpless about. They should be engaged with and cared for and they should KNOW that they are cared for not just by the means of words from others, but by ACTION.

I slipped through the cracks, just as my father did before me. I lived without the support I needed and I failed. But that wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t the reason that the people around me failed to provide for my most basic of needs.

And I might have to keep reminding myself of this. I likely will have to. But I won’t do so alone. I have support now, in my found family. I have it in my teachers, who actually care. I have it in my meds, my psychiatrist, my psychologist, my therapist. I have it in my healthy coping strategies, my learnt self encouragement, my specific way of working with my ADHD and bipolar, not against it. All of this is possible because I have people around me who give a shit. Who remind me of my worth as a human being, inherently and without a needed ‘reason’ to be important in their, and my, life.

So if you’re struggling... if you can, please take some sort of first step to building that new network. I had to abandon my old one because it wasn’t working. Even though it was my own parents, I had to let them go as my source for support, because they just weren’t giving me any. I found people who care. I found people who support me. I found my home, my family.

And yeah, it might be a bit unorthodox. But I don’t care. Who gives a shit. The people before weren’t helping me, and that wasn’t my fault. Do I feel wronged? Of course I do. They were supposed to be my parents, and they were supposed to be ready and willing to help their kid succeed not only academically but also health-wise, mentally or physically. But I have to acknowledge this, and then keep walking. I can walk backwards for awhile, both middle fingers up to the world, but some day I’m going to feel okay enough to turn back around and keep walking forwards. And that day will be so fucking good for me.

The first step is to realize and process this reality. That you are not bad or wrong for having needs as a kid. Your support network neglected you and your needs. And you can be angry about it. You don’t even have to “move on” in the way most people think “moving on” means — which is usually framed as “forgiveness” for the neglectors’ behavior. Fuck that.

But someday, you’re not going to give them as much thought. They’re not going to be as important to you as they once were. And you’re going to have others there to care about you and love you. And you’re going to feel powerful, because you are. You’re going to feel capable, because you are.

You can do it. I believe in you.

Just as I’m learning to believe in myself.

[ace-fandom-dumbass]

Was working on cleaning out my dorm, found a piece of paper with a thing, and I'm just going to dump it and extra thoughts under a readmore because I need to do something

I wish I could say that I'm sad because we don't talk like we used to

But I never really did talk to you, did I?

Anxiety's a bitch I guess

In any case I suppose it would be more correct to say

I'm sad I can't listen to you like I used to

I sad I never talked to you like I wanted

I miss sitting in your presence, paying attention to every word and assuring myself that this time surely I would join the comversation

But that sounds weird doesn't it

As summer approaches and I dont have Honor Guard to look forward to at the end of summer, don't have the trainings each month, I'm missing the people there. And I found this thing I wrote about those people, about some of the problems I had.

I mean, I mostly joke about it but really truly that above

And this quote is why I like and latched onto Darcy as a comfort character, I don't think I'd felt this seen and also kinda called out outside of percy jackson (which was the then undiagnosed adhd looking at Percy's adhd struggles and going "oh hey same, except I don't have adhd" and not putting two and two together until recently, but that's a tangent for a different time)

I dont know, I know I'm not the only person who does this but god i feel like crap for several reasons, but finding that paper just added to them, missing my honor guard people but not really being sure if I can or should think of them as "my honor guard people" because I didn't, and don't, really talk to any of them, and I don't know this is just me kinda dumping/venting while procrastinating and whatever

[to-my-mom]

Dear, Mom.

The anger I feel in my heart is second to none. The pain that you’ve inflicted makes my arms and legs feel like they’re on fire, and like I want to use that fire to burn down the world.

You laughed in my face while telling everyone who would listen that I was an accident. You threatened to leave me on the side of the road if I was too loud for you. You kicked me out of the house at ten years old for picking my skin apart in a fit of undiagnosed mental illness. You drugged me in my sleep with your antidepressants all because I wasn’t happy enough for you after losing a loved one.

There’s so much you’ve done to me. And now that I’m away from you and living my life all these years later, I’ve decided to write you letters in the form of blog posts. Telling you every terrible thing you’ve done to me, and saying every terrible curse I want to tell you. I won’t tag these posts, or do anything to promote them, because nobody deserves to deal with what I have to say, nor do they deserve to bear witness to the trauma you inflicted. But I want these feelings on the internet, so that there’s a permanent record of my anger and pain.

Maybe one day you’ll find these posts, and you’ll read them. You’ll read every single word I have to say, and you’ll finally listen. Maybe you’ll even feel guilty. But I doubt it, because that’s never been your style. Because you’ve never been the mom I needed. Because you’re a monster.

When I was a kid, I thought you loved me. I did everything I could to make you proud- I earned straight A’s, made art like you, and smiled even when I was ready to die. But it never worked. I tried to be vulnerable with you. I tried to be sociable with you. I put on the pretty dresses and did the makeup and straightened my hair for you. I went shopping with you and listened to every order you have. But there was always something you had to complain about.

I wasn’t feminine enough. You asked me if I thought I was a boy, because I didn’t like pink, or to wear dresses, or wear makeup. I wasn’t white enough, because I didn’t straighten my hair. I wasn’t skinny enough, because I wasn’t stick-thin like my sister. I wasn’t smart enough, because I only made honor roll in eighth grade, rather than dean’s list. I was lazy, because I didn’t want to clean up dog shit at noon in the middle of summer. I was a slob, because I had adhd and couldn’t do laundry every week.

I remember when I was in elementary school. You stood me in front of you every single week, and told me that I was a “fat, disgusting slob” and that it’s no wonder people weren’t friends with me. You would yank my hair and say that it was a matted mess because I “didn’t take care of it”. When I did have friends, you would say that I wouldn’t have them for long, because who wants to be with a disgusting slob like me? When I inevitably lost friends, I would come crying to you about it. You would say “Well yeah, it’s because you’re a fat, disgusting slob. Nobody wants to smell that.”

I remember when you would get mad at me about my hair. It’s different than yours. Yours is straight, but mine is tight curls from my dad. I was never taught how to properly take care of my curls, and had to learn on my own. You would say it was matted, and gross. You would stand me in the kitchen and scream at me while waving scissors around. I was afraid you were going to cut me with them.

You would force me to sit perfectly still, at the threat that if I moved you would cut my ear off. You were dead serious. Then, you would forcefully cut off all of my hair because I “wouldn’t take care of it” and thus didn’t deserve it.

If you were too tired to cut it, you would take me to a stylist. I would cry and beg to not have my hair cut, and you would tell the stylist “Oh, she needs to have it cut really short because she’s a slob who can’t take care of herself.”

I still can’t stand having other people cut my hair because of how deeply you disrespected my hair and bodily autonomy.

Fuck you.

[absolutamente-todo-lo-contrario]

Life in 2022

Here I am, sitting in our cozy living room, thinking (cue possibly undiagnosed ADHD) oh I better light the candles to set the mood for my writing session. I am feeling unbothered about exercise and excited to just sit here and write. I have just gotten distracted again. Since starting this paragraph, I have gotten up to eat a hummus sandwich, turned on and switched my music, thought about meditating, lit some candles, turned on a table light, and done everything except face this fact: I want to write or create something epic. I have so many feelings and I don’t know if I’m getting good at understanding them or burying them or what bu I can tell you that right now I am feeling the vibe for some reason, which I hadn’t in ages. Also, something super funny is that all of a sudden I’m dead tired. My eyelids are heavy. 

I just thought that I missed having weed because passing out when your eyelids are heavy has a unique deliciousness to it, but I guess if I overanalyze it, as I tend to do with everything (cue smile), then I can surely say that... Oh my God my brain just went on this tangent as I was writing this and I swear it got super upset because I had a flashback of me doing my speeches for my speech class in college and I just realized that I’m not the public speaker I thought I was... which is pretty crazy but I was just thinking that it’s true what they say, if you lose practice you lose style and that means that I shouldn’t have lost practice and now I’ve lost my style but on the other hand I teach a room of five year olds on a regular basis and they don’t seem to get bored with my ways, so IDK... 

I was just looking at Instagram and saw this video with the guy who used to be married to Katy Perry, whose name I forgot but who was in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and I honestly love his podcast and everything. 

I am feeling so tired, that I low key am going to try to nap. 

I feel a bit disappointed in myself because I am writing what’s on my mind but not what’s on my soul. 

You want to know what’s on my soul? 

It’s blue, with holes that have endless sorrow for so many things. It hits an unpleasant softs spot right in the middle of my heart to think of all the misery in the world. All the darkness. I try to avoid it, I think. I want to eat up the world from a fantastical lens in which I’m a Disney princess, followed by clean birds, surrounded by sunshine and wearing lavish gowns that are magically made, never to leave a carbon footprint. 

Actually, my soul is phenomenal. The previous paragraph is more about a part of my outlook, especially when it comes to our connection (or, rather accurately, whatever the antonym for that is) with the mother nature, with our humanity. 

Edgar always said that we are nature. I miss asking him questions in the staff room. 

I wonder, sometimes, if being a one-time bestseller will set you for life. I don’t believe (which is hilarious because it’s my reality) in having to work 9-to-5. I don’t believe that work needs to be forced and structured. But I’m also lazy because I am really just asking for an easy life of stress free-ness. And I think it is all pointing to mindfulness and the power of now again. To letting things go. And in a funny way, in a way that contradicts the whole ego-centered world man has made, it is actually the easiest thing to do. 

I am going to lie down and be meditative for a minute. I am going to place my laptop on the table and let go of the stress that later on I will have to put it away in my cupboard. I am alive. I am no more or less wether I write a book, start a business or stay in my role. I make decisions that honor my wishes and feelings and that are noble and true. I am already free, I am happily discovering so. I am already complete. I am me. I am light. It is all right. Breathe. 

[bakapandy]

after sleeping instead of studying for the science test I got 3 on the test that was worth 10

What do you have to say about 🤨

That just tells me you gotta work on some time management skills, my friend.

[vsa-pieldepapel]

Your Kris grill post is very based. In honor of autism awareness day, do you have autistic headcanons for them and/or for any other Deltarune characters you hc as autistic? Like, the characters’ special interests, stims, etc? Go wild.

Only kris, really - ralseis social awkwardness gives me autist energy that can be funny to jest about but I pin it more on him being alone for most of his life. I like to think susie may have undiagnosed adhd, inspired by my husband who got his diagnosis this year (birds of a feather kek) and thats why her academic performance is so shit. I remember I made a very stupid drawing that does not reflect my actual takes on the characters about it as a joke lmfao

Okay disclaimer I grew up being an autist on a 3rd world country and many of the attitudes muricans on tumblr dot com have about it are alienating as fuck. I think the site romanticises and makes being an autist funny (not new, Ive been on tumbly since 2013 and saw it even pre dashcon), especially the teens and Its not. Especially when youre a girl and a tomboy like I am and you could cover it up just well enough No one can figure how fucked up you are, but not well enough to ever be respected by teachers or peers as an equal kek. I don’t like to share my history with it but it is for the most part very negative and self acceptance a struggle So im sorry, Ralsei^2 this answer may not be happy or generally positive- I’m in therapy to assess these things about myself but they are open wounds as of now

So. Kris

I’ve said in some kriselle post I see kris as xx chromosome/afab/whatever the socially accepted term is (I cant keep up with these language changes and policies because oh shit, imma fucking autist, that on top of that doesn’t even live near the same cultural context as the USA lmao) that is, in part, because of that too. My takes on it are rather simple

-kris is seen as the town weirdo because of their unusual behaviour and demeanour associated with being on the spectrum

-the little quirks like the spinning/jiggle jiggle/ball of junk/overt gestures when ACTing/putting stuff on the ground and patting it when you drop it/ etc are overcompensation for this aka kris is a bit of a social clown to compensate for their social deficits (real)

-toriel is kind of a tiger mom but kris can cover up their weirdness well enough they’re seen as “quirky” instead of anyone ever thinking to look into it (projecting there hard lmao) which is also why alphys tries to emphasise they’re “normal”

-the reason kris rarely talks or is said to be quiet (in canon, I make them talk lmao) is because they go mute under certain circumstances and generally suck at verbal communication

-has a fixation with knives and, on a wider spectrum, with smithing/metalwork

-likes bath bombs because of the smell and warm water

-noelle confides her own quirks with them because she just sees them as “quirky” but that gives her the confidence to

-susie and kris become such good friends in one day because autism/adhd solidarity that I have experienced myself irl (kinda crack headcanon here)

That’s it really. This ask was so hard to answer and I feel very cringey and afraid posting it but oh well autism awareness day etc etc if it gets too bad ill just delete the post

[theoi-crow]

Hi there... Kind of shy about asking this so sorry if my question seems a bit all over the place. I kind of lost myself a few years back and stopped working with the goddess I was before. I've tried recently to slowly get back into my shadow work and loving myself again. Fortuna made herself known in ways I didn't expect. I think she wants to work with me but I don't think I should be working with anyone because what happened last time. How do you get over such self doubt and forgive yourself?

Hi!

please don’t worry about being shy and I apologize for taking so long to reply, my school is often very demanding of my time and my summer SADs make it hard to work in the summer. .

It is not uncommon for someone to lose a connection with gods.

I myself have experienced this on so many occasions, and it was even the reason why it took Aphrodite so long to convince me to start working with Greek Gods in the first place after I lost touch with a different pantheon.

Losing a connection with the gods is a lot more common than most followers will have you believe.

It teaches us about ourselves, our limits and the need for spiritual boundaries and clearer communication, not so much for the gods but for ourselves and how we approach the gods and expect the gods to communicate with us because everyone is different with different limits and needs.

According to the ancient Greeks, everything came from Chaos which birthed the first primordial gods: (LINK)

This is the reason why chaos tends to be a lot easier to reach, while order takes more effort.

This is also why intention is important when addressing the gods. Between the social noise of the media, personal expectations, social pressure, capitalism, surviving etc, it's easy for our thoughts to get muddled, so it's important for us to be clear about our plans with the gods so we create order within ourselves instead of letting life get a hold of us and lead us back to Chaos.

Setting spiritual boundaries can help you develop a clearer communication with the gods.

This applies to everyone but it is especially important for people who are disabled (physically, neurodivergent, a spoony with energetic limits, people that are prone to depression or anxiety which latch on to negative self talk and thus add confusion to life, etc.)

One of the main reasons why acknowledging and honoring your own limits and conditions when working with the gods is important is because not acknowledging them might affect how you view your relationship with the gods and might lead to feelings of guilt.

For example; I grew up catholic with undiagnosed ADHD and when I was going to church, I’d often get pinched whenever I got distracted.

As someone that finds it hard to focus, I assumed I was unfit to follow a god I couldn’t even focus on and the pinching I received for having ADHD incorrectly taught me that "my disability was bad and unfit for gods."

I didn't deconstruct my christian expectations, and accidently carried those same expectations with me when I started working with pagan gods and assumed I was never going to be able to work with pagan gods for the same reason.

It took me a while and a lot of self reflection to accept that paying attention to gods was going to be a lot more difficult for me, versus someone who was neurotypical.

One of my personal boundaries with the gods is asking them to patiently repeat something I forgot they said or gently guide me back to something I forgot to do.

The gods are a lot more patient than I'll ever be able to explain.

It's also possible that any guilt you experience could have potentially come from personal expectations that were not met. These kinds of expectations are common and have the potential to lead followers into developing imposter syndrome:

Imposter syndrome manipulates one into assuming they are not good enough to work with the gods, or have them wonder why the gods are bothering with them in the first place. Or have them worry that they might be bothering the gods.

It also encourages them to assume they are not doing enough to keep the gods happy and forces them to go beyond their limits.

Failure becomes inevitable and the devotee suffering from imposter syndrome comes to the conclusion that they are a terrible follower and shouldn't ever work with gods without ever realizing that they were going beyond their limits until they finally reach a breaking point.

Breaking points look different to different people but it often leads to a disconnection between the person and their gods.

The gods understand humans have limits and they also know the shadow self influences a lot of how we see them and how we expect ourselves to behave around them including the consequences we give ourselves for not abiding by that, or negative experiences from not having others respect our boundaries.

You are not a terrible follower because it's very common to fall out of relationships with gods, please don't let anyone guilt you into thinking this is a rare and personal problem.

May Fortuna help re-establish and enrich your relationship with the gods and help you find your voice within your own spiritual journey.