totallynotstealingcheesecake

[totallynotstealingcheesecake]

studying for cert exams over the summer and I'm once again a lil bit devastated by early brain development.

our brains are so complex. so many moving parts, so many opportunities for things to go wrong. early childhood development has the highest level of neuroplasticity than any other stage of life. from before you were born to the age of 8, your brain is constantly destroying and remaking itself to match what it's learning about the world. what if your world isn't kind. if a few things were different then you wouldn't be you. is that a good thing or a bad thing? who would I be without this? there is a scar in my brain and it wasn't always there but it's a part of me now and I wouldn't be me without it. I'll never learn who I am without forgiving who I might have been. but it's okay to mourn.

[totallynotstealingcheesecake]

If you've ever questioned the whole "if one person in your family is diagnosed neurodivergent first, they will not be the last" thing, I need to tell you a story

I am ADHD among other things. I was the first. I was not the last. It took like five years but now we all got some of the alphabet on us.

My oldest sister and my mom both drive school buses (for work) and both park their school buses in our driveway between routes. today, I glanced at the clock knowing full well that they're both supposed to leave at 2:15pm. It is 2:13pm. I look up. They are both in the kitchen frantically grabbing purses and shoveling lunch into their mouths.

They walk out to their buses. It is 2:20pm. I hear one (1) bus start. I look out the window. My sister is h u s t l i n g back towards the house at full speed. She opens the door, reaches in, grabs her keys and books it back out to her bus.

It is 2:22pm. The door opens again and my mom runs in, patting her pockets. A minute later, she runs back out the door with her phone in her hand, muttering about pants with too-small pockets.

Both buses finally pull out of our driveway at 2:25pm.

Neither of them are late. This happens so frequently that they have both built fifteen minutes of buffer time into their schedules for lateness-induced executive function without the actual lateness.

I make eye contact with my father. He is drinking his third (3rd) cup of coffee for the day, in preparation for an afternoon nap. He has been using the same coffee cup all week because it feels the most correct in his hand.

"How did it take us so long to figure it out?" I ask.

He shakes his head. "I have no idea."

[totallynotstealingcheesecake]

thinkin about people in college who use AI to do assignments and like

listen. listen. I understand. I understand the visceral disdain for homework. I understand the overbearing courseloads and impending existential crises and political dread and you have everything else to be doing right now. I understand.

but listen okay? learning can be fun. I promise that learning can be fun. I promise you, learning can be an enjoyable process that does not involve figuratively beating your face against a brick wall for 2.45 hours.

please please please do yourself a favor, take like a week and figure out what ways your brain likes to consume information, adjust your study habits so it doesn't feel like dragging your eyes across a cheese grater every time you read a page.

we are dumb, weirdly complex animals. we like puzzles. book learning is many many puzzles turned into a pretzel burrito. find the puzzles you like to solve and please god don't tell an AI to solve all of your puzzles for you. we need you to know things.

[totallynotstealingcheesecake]

The lavender lowlight stretches soft ground into a bed And the moon crawls up to give the sun time to rest And the clouds float lazily above the slow-moving traffic And the wind sounds like poems whispered into my ears.

And people always talk about beginnings and endings The dramatic and the daring, the light and the dark But the times that I mark are the gentle in-betweens When the world slows down just to listen.

My favorites are leftovers made and packed with love, And strawberries rinsed with careful hands. And songs sent in text messages with no context needed Other than "it made me think of you" (Which is really just another way to say "I love you.")

My favorites are the words we write when no one is looking And the way you sing when you're alone in the car. I love the games kids make up when they're bored and by themselves And notes hand-written on the sides of dirty cars.

I love the sound of your heartbeat next to mine When I listen over the sound of our evening passing quietly. And I miss the soft touches and annoying little jabs That always seem to slip out as we set the table together.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, But I prefer when you're right here with me. Time flows between and around us in little whorling tide pools And somehow its passage has stopped scaring me. I'll dip my fingers in and watch it drip away slowly In the safety of knowing that it's here.

Not forever, not for always, but for Now. For now, that's all I need.

_____ lavender lowlight, written 4/11/2025 - ask before using/reposting

[totallynotstealingcheesecake]

bringing this back because it HAPPENED AGAIN GODDANGIT

have a fic I'm working on and I added 1.5k to it last night between the hours of midnight and 2 am, at which point I gave up and actually went to sleep. I would write half a paragraph, doze off, wake up ten minutes later, write another paragraph and a half, doze off, wake up again, write another paragraph, doze off--

it is the best thing I have written in three months. I hate everything.

anyone else have absurdly effective and weird creative processes

I have discovered -- to my intimate horror -- that I write best when I'm half asleep. dunno why. I have a process, now, at least, but like--

I have a fic I'm working on that I cannot write unless I'm in bed. I will settle in and edit the last bits that I wrote (because being half asleep does not result in good grammar) until my brain catches the vibe, and then progressively, the sleepier I get, the better I write.

I'll hit a point where I am no longer making conscious decisions about the plot. I'm less writing, more copying down what I'm seeing in my head. I have fallen asleep writing more times than I can count because at that point I cannot tell what is conscious and what is a dream.

and it always ends up being somE OF MY BEST WRITING. WHY.

[totallynotstealingcheesecake]

How I Am Kicking Agoraphobia's Ass

With a little help from Horse, of course

I have struggled with agoraphobia since 2017, when I was sexually assaulted. This is a common cause of agoraphobia, and it is more likely to develop in people who have CPTSD (ding ding guess who).

Anyway, I got so fucking sick of people telling me to "just go outside" as if it's so easy-peasy. Maybe for someone without agoraphobia, it feels seamless to stroll out to your car, but it's not so simple when your brain tells you that Bad Things happen when you leave the house. What are those Bad Things? idk, brain never told me. Just Bad Things.

I organized my life around my agoraphobia for many years; it's the reason I have a remote job. And the "just go outside" advice never, ever helped. The best I could do was leave the house with an Emotional Support Human (or dog), but rarely, if ever, alone.

Now I'm leaving the house at least four times a week! Voluntarily! ALONE! Without getting scared!

And sometimes I even spontaneously decide to leave the house and go to big events where there are dozens of people. Just because I feel like it.

This is momentous. If you have agoraphobia, you know how intense that is.

So what did I do? What can you do?

It's actually so simple and I have no idea why no one told me to do this years ago.

Schedule a regular event that is so exciting that you simply cannot afford to miss it.

Something you care about. Something that's so insanely tempting that you would walk over hot coals to do it. Think about something you used to care about before you became housebound, or something you've always wanted to try. For me, it was (and still is) horseback riding.

But! It must meet these conditions:

It has to happen on a regular basis at a scheduled time. Say, 6 pm every Friday. If it's just "whenever" or "once every few months," you probably won't agree to go to it every time.

There has to be a cost to missing it so your Sunk Cost Theory is triggered. Ideally, there will be multiple costs: that could be disappointing someone who has agreed to go with you every time, and that you have already prepaid for it so you'd lose money.

It has to be something that makes you happy and is just for you, not an obligation. So, therapy doesn't count. Going to the gym also doesn't count if you feel like you have to do it for social reasons or health reasons.

If you want to make this an ironclad thing, it should ideally meet these conditions too:

You learn something while there, which develops a sense of efficacy and confidence.

It's a social activity where you will make friends.

It is a physical activity that releases endorphins. (Again, pick something fun, not just going to the gym if it's not fun for you.)

There are no costs to failing. If I screw up at horseback riding or rock climbing, I'm not going to miss out on a promotion or whatever. I might be mad at myself, but I don't really lose anything by not doing it.

It has an indefinite end date; ie, this is something you could theoretically do every week forever if you want to. So if it's a class you want to take, make sure it's one where you can sign up for more classes if you feel like it.

So how do you find your thing??

Think back to a time before you suffered from agoraphobia. Might be hard if you've struggled with it for most of your life, but you might have glimmers of what you liked before.

What did you enjoy doing, or what did you want to do but couldn't? For me, I got to horseback ride as a little kid but then had to stop for money reasons. Now I can afford to do it because I'm an adult with my own adult money.

Find classes or groups in your area that cater to Thing. If they don't exist or are out of your budget, go back to the drawing board and workshop a new Thing.

Sign up for the class ahead of time. Pick a time that is within the next two weeks but preferably within the next week so you have time to prepare yourself.

If it's a paid class, pay your deposit before you get there.

Tell people you are going - as many people as you can. Now you have social and financial pressure that will make you commit.

Now, the most important part.

Research the particular place you will be going during the time between when you sign up and when you go. Learn what to expect when you get there.

Read reviews. Look at pictures online. Analyze the Google Street View. Practice driving or walking there with directions.

If you're trying a new activity, read up on it. Get beginner tips for what to expect in your first session. Watch videos of other people doing it, and read other peoples' experiences trying it out. Visualize what it will feel like to be there and what you will be doing.

This is mental rehearsal and it makes it less scary to actually step into the place for the first time. You will feel more confident when you arrive because you know what you are doing, where you are going, and what to expect as soon as you arrive.

The climbing gym I go to had a "What to Expect On Your First Visit" page that helped me a lot, and then I watched a lot of rock climbing videos and learned about the techniques so I wouldn't feel stupid. I even looked up what climbing shoes look like and how harnesses feel so I wasn't scared when I put them on.

I can't promise it will help you, but I encourage you to give it a try.

Having something to look forward on a regular basis will make it less and less scary to leave the house because, after a while, you won't even think about how unnerving the transition from Safe Space to Unsafe Space is. More and more places will become Safe, and less places will become Unsafe (within reason).

The route you take will become familiar, as will what to expect when you get there. You'll be able to practice and perfect the technique of psyching yourself up to leave home until you no longer need to; it becomes automatic.

And, most importantly, you'll see that your home isn't the only place in the world where you can exist comfortably. Everything's out there waiting for you, and you deserve to be there, too!

[totallynotstealingcheesecake]

Hey did you guys know that if you constantly feel like you're being watched and/or judged and if any time you go into a semi-public place you're incredibly conscious of your image and appearance and mannerisms and actions and if any perceived failure in any of these areas causes a significant amount of distress and if you're usually fine in a lot of familiar places or with familiar people but if you don't have the option to leave any location or situation without difficulty or embarrassment then your anxiety immediately rockets up to an 11 -- that's actually not an objectively "normal" human experience?

On an unrelated note, I have a new diagnosis.

[totallynotstealingcheesecake]

okay so this is so not the kind of thing that I normally post but I am actively dying of wholesome and I needed to share. Long post inbound.

Okay so for context, I'm not *super* close with my youngest (closest to me in age) brother, but we vibe pretty well and generally have fun together, just our interests don't align very often.

A few months ago we basically looked at each other and went "hey wait a second, we're both like. in our early 20s and not tied down with partners/demanding jobs/children, but heck its probably not gonna stay that way for very long -- lets do that sibling bonding roadtrip we keep talking about."

So we did. We took a roadtrip back to our hometown, which happens to be in a very northern part of the US, and we had a lovely time.

But that's not the important part -- the main thing to take away here is that while we were on a sibling bonding trip visiting our hometown up north, we went to a hockey game.

Now, I am not generally a sports person. I'm on tumblr, so maybe that should be obvious. I don't mind hockey, though, because generally I can follow the flow of the game and occasionally the players deck each other, so its a fun time all around.

My brother convinced me (it didn't take much convincing) to go to a hockey game, and it just so happened that his favorite team had a home game the week we were gonna be in town. So we went to that.

Reader -- I loved it.

Did I understand everything that was happening? No, not even close. But I knew which color jersey to cheer for, and I made an attempt to remember names, and I knew which net was the good one for the puck to go in. But at some point during that game, it became so much less about understanding what was happening, and so much more about the atmosphere, the intensity, the hive-mind group energy of a thousand people cheering at the same time, for the same thing.

If you have never experienced a big sporting event like that, do it. I beg you, do it at least once, give it a solid try, take earplugs if you need to. It is addictive.

So we finish the roadtrip and go home, and some time passes. My brother invites me to watch a hockey game with him, and I don't have anything going on, and I can see a bid for connection when one is presented to me, so I accept. And it's fun! I still don't know what's going on, but my brother is more than happy to answer my questions, and it turns out I actually picked up a few things from the live game we went to. I have a great time, I hug my brother, and we part ways again.

Another month goes by. I'm back at college now and obviously stressed out of my mind. I'm not doing much of anything recreationally that isn't tangentially related to my chosen course of study. I'm slowly losing my mind. My brother texts me -- "hey, idk if you actually wanted to get into hockey or if that was like, a one-time thing, but there's another game happening this weekend. If you have time, we could watch it on my TV."

I don't have much homework due that weekend, and I'm losing my mind anyway, so what the heck. Yeah, I'm sufficiently intrigued. I watch another hockey game.

A week goes by. My brother mentions in passing that he won't be able to watch the away game happening in a day or two, because he'll be at work. I glance at my calendar. I have time. I've already downloaded the hockey team's app. Eh, what the heck. I watch the hockey game, on my own. (I watched the hockey game, on my own, of my own volition.)

In the middle of the game, I text my brother to ask a question about something the commentator said. He types for a few minutes, then texts back:

"Are you watching the hockey game? Right now?"

Oop.

"............maybe"

He answers my question and is quietly smug. I look up the team calendar and we make plans to watch the next game together.

Fast forward to few days ago, I am, unfortunately(?), hooked. I've watched more hockey games in the last month than my entire life. I have a favorite player. I understand approx. 40% of what the commentators say. The other day, I yelled at the TV because a hockey player did something dumb. (the net was empty and he missed, how do you miss an unguarded net--) I felt like a middle-aged suburbian father who emotionally neglects his three and a half children. But still, I'm actually having fun, and spending more time with my brother.

We watch another hockey game together. I've taken to wearing the freebie hat I got at my first game because it's the only thing I have with the team logo on it. It's a very dumb-looking hat, but I wear it with a slowly-growing sense of pride. I joke with my brother that I'm gonna have to buy an official hat so I can watch a game without looking so silly.

Fast forward to yesterday. I get home from college, and my brother is also there, looking a little sheepish. He hands me a brand new, officially licensed t-shirt in the team's colors with the team logo on the front. "So you don't have to wear the stupid hat," he says.

I give him a hug (because what else was I gonna do, not hug him?) and in the hug, he says quietly, "Thanks for being interested in my interest."

Reader, I am one of two people in my family (other than him) that has taken any kind of interest in sports. Reader, I thought he was just being nice when he was answering my numerous questions, but he was actually just very quietly goddang thrilled that someone was taking his interest seriously, that he got to explain the game to a willing audience.

BUt that's not all! No no, reader, today I looked up the official merch store, because I still kind of want a better hat.

Reader. Everything on that store is egregiously overpriced.

Reader, reader, my brother is broke.

He spent. A not insignificant amount of money -- that would otherwise have been spent on buying the little things like food and rent and gas for his car -- to buy me a t-shirt. Because I decided to give hockey a chance.

Reader. I am going to cry.

[totallynotstealingcheesecake]

anyone else have absurdly effective and weird creative processes

I have discovered -- to my intimate horror -- that I write best when I'm half asleep. dunno why. I have a process, now, at least, but like--

I have a fic I'm working on that I cannot write unless I'm in bed. I will settle in and edit the last bits that I wrote (because being half asleep does not result in good grammar) until my brain catches the vibe, and then progressively, the sleepier I get, the better I write.

I'll hit a point where I am no longer making conscious decisions about the plot. I'm less writing, more copying down what I'm seeing in my head. I have fallen asleep writing more times than I can count because at that point I cannot tell what is conscious and what is a dream.

and it always ends up being somE OF MY BEST WRITING. WHY.

[totallynotstealingcheesecake]

yesss I'm so glad I'm not the only one noticing the intentional changes Syk has made for the character

I would also like to add - I'm not sure Yuno entirely understands that ocean dumping can literally mean They Aren't Coming Back, but even if he does I feel like that reflects So much on his motivations. Would you rather die or remember? Don't worry, he'll make the choice for you. It'll be okay.

So many people are treating 4.0 as like a kind of 3.0+ with very little being different but it's been five years buddyboi things have changed Yuno had an identity crisis the cleanbois are dead (rip) and we're here to play in the ashes! Go sit and think about how the changes reflect a deeper understanding of intentional narrative framing! Start giving Yuno credit for being a closet psychopath, stop making him look like a damsel in distress (without reason)!

bro, you dont understand bro,,

the people on twitter talking about "of course yuno sees ocean dumping as a casual thing, because he's been ocean dumped by friends before, it's his way of coping" and like, that's great! that's some excellent insight! and i would like to raise you: !

yuno does not use ocean dumping to send a message. when dundee shot him in the mines, it was to teach him a lesson. when cg ocean dumped him, it was to make sure he knew they wouldnt take no for an answer, not even from him. no, yuno doesnt do that. yuno uses ocean dumping to help his friends forget. he wanted to help eli forget the pain of being betrayed and dumped. he wanted to use it to help his parents forget and overcome their struggles.

yuno doesnt ocean dump people because he's used to it himself or because he's coping by ignoring the gravity of it. he ocean dumps his friends because somewhere in his brain, he knows he'd rather forget too. he'd rather curtis had left him further out and he'd washed up on the shore, none the wiser that his friends tried to kill him. he'd rather dundee hadn't immediately called ems so he wouldn't remember his closest friend and mentor shooting him and leaving him in the dark.

and ooc, i know sykkuno seems to really just go with the flow and do things for content most of the time, and he does, but as someone who's watched him for years, i can see him digging out these old incidents and using them in 4.0 yuno's character. it's not an accident that yuno evolved from pacifism to ocean dumping just after he started opening up to some people about these old memories of his friends threatening him or leaving him for dead