#(i have a neurodivergent-related explanation to this lol)

[dr3comebackera]

Daniel describing how he broke his arm as a kid, from the Red Bull 2018 On the Sofa video

After Max answers “What’s the stupidest way you ever hurt yourself?” with a story of him drunkenly walking into a door: MV: “You?” DR: “I broke my arm as a kid. Uh, February the 13th, 2003. Basically, how did I- so I broke my humerus,” MV: “Okay” DR: “Like serious bone. And I broke it by throwing a tennis ball.” MV: *in disbelief* “How?! How can you-” DR: “I threw a ball, and my arm snapped.” MV: *grimaces* “Awhh. So how is that possible? DR: “In the end, I- so we found out I had a bone cyst. So something that, I guess some people get, it’s just, I don’t know how, I guess you’re just maybe born with it and over time, I guess it’s some form of like little, disease in a way. Anyway, so it, it’s this thing that eats away your bone over time, and eventually the bone becomes so thin that it-” MV: “It snaps?” DR: “eventually is gonna break. Basically.” DR: “Um, so it could’ve happened like, the doc- the hospital said it could have happened like, getting out of bed, like one morning I could’ve just gotten out of bed and it would’ve just snapped.” MV: *huge grimace and groan* DR: “So I was walking with my friends, erm, it was at lunchtime at school, and people were playing cricket. So the ball came over, so I like just picked it up, threw it, and that’s when it snapped. And I just fell to the floor, and all my friends were laughing at me, like ‘You’re being an idiot. Get up.’ And I was like, obviously crying. And yeah. And the guy that hit the ball, true story, the guy that hit the ball, was, I wanna say, I don’t wanna exaggerate, I wanna say at least 50 meters away, at the very least 50 meters away. And he heard the snap, when it- it was that loud. I’ll never forget it, unfortunately. I wish I could.” DR: “But anyway. So if you like touch my arm now, you can feel like the bone where it grew over, it’s kind of weird. Anyway, broke my arm throwing a tennis ball.” MV: “Impressive,” DR: “Yeah.” MV: “Impressive.” DR: “Yeah.” DR: “One weird thing with that, I’ll just quickly- so I was sitting there at school, like waiting for my mom to pick me up. Cause I didn’t know what I had done, I didn’t know it was broken, I just knew something was up. And I went to move my arm, I was supporting it.” MV: *can tell where this is going, softly* “Oh.” DR: “And I went to move it, and I literally, I could feel things inside, like move, but my arm stayed still.” MV: *mouth drops, loudly* “Oh no, ohhhh” DR: “So like all like the, whatever nerves or whatever, like I could feel them move but my arm didn’t move. I was like, ah. That was the scariest thing I’ve ever felt in my life.” MV: *looks in shock during this whole story, continues to grimace* “Ah” DR: “Yeah. And I’m not good with that stuff, I get-” MV: “So you have like a scar here *points to upper right arm* now?” DR: “Ah, no, so they couldn’t operate on it. So they needed just to, erm, I mean they like, I don’t know what they did in the end. But they couldn’t operate. I stayed in the cast for a crazy amount of time, and then it just, like, grew over. So I got no scar, but you can just feel- I’ll let you touch it later, off camera.” MV: *sharp inhale before smiling* “Ha hah” DR: “I’ll let you touch my arm.”

[wyrmswears]

Hiii!

I know the au ain’t about Jay, but does he have an animal form? How did Edd & Eddna found him or he does not exist?

I do apologize for the amount of questions not being libber related😞

Pd. I also love wolf children i imagine Libby just recreating the feral Yuki scene right?

Hellooooo!! Had to think about this for a bit; I really didn't give Jay too much mind when making this AU lol. Nonetheless, I really enjoyed getting to flesh out this AU further using your questions so thank you so much for asking! :D I made the AU for Libber and Ice but it's always fun to expand on other characters and how the changes the AU makes affects them.

This post turned out longer than I expected (oops. I love infodumping about my AUs, sorry lol) so the answers in their entirety are under the cut! Spoilers for Prime Empire and Dragons Rising (though nothing particularly about s2) are mentioned though.

The short answers are: Jay is still adopted, Libber left him at the Walkers' doorstep before dying. And yes, Jay has a wolf form like Libber does, but he can't access it until after the Merge.

The long answers:

The second question is easy - the comic on my other post initially had a third page that would've answered this but I found it difficult to get to flow well so I scrapped it. When the Walkers arrive home after coming across Libber, they find Jay on their doorstep. The idea is that she had left him at a safe place as a final act before succumbing to whatever killed her. (Much like in Wolf Children, I don't have a particular cause of death thought out.) Ed and Edna don't make the connection between the child on their doorstep and the wolf on the highway of course, because why would they?

As for whether Jay has an animal form... On one hand I find it very amusing when characters of non-human heritage turn out to be just normal humans, and Cliff Gordon is still completely human in this AU, but I also think it'd be boring to ignore his heritage completely for the sake of the bit. After mulling it over I've come up with this:

Jay grows up showing quirks that align with him being half raijū, but nothing that can't be explained by him being the elemental master of lightning or just a peculiar (and probably neurodivergent) child; these are things like a fascination of thunderstorms, abnormal resistance towards electrical shocks, hyperactivity, a tendency to chew on things...

He has no idea that his biological mother wasn't human until after the events of Prime Empire when Wu, now aware that Jay knows he's adopted as he used it to reason with Unagami, requests to speak to Jay privately. He explains that, if Jay has an animal form then he shouldn't feel like he has to hide it from the team as he is sure that they'd accept him, much like Libber's teammates accepted her. This is sweet and all, but Jay is very confused what he means about having an animal form. And thus begins the explanation of who or what exactly Libber was.

After learning that he isn't completely human, Jay isn't really upset - hell, Zane and Lloyd have both dealt with the same thing and it turned out fine - but he only talks about it with Nya. This is part of my general characterisation of Jay where I feel like he doesn't keep too many deliberate secrets, but does only mention certain things about himself on a need-to-know basis meaning that, while he doesn't care if the team knows he's adopted, only Nya, Zane, and Pixal know that he is (Zane and Pixal for being present at the end of Prime Empire). Nya 'needs to know' because she is his yang thank you very much. Nya helps him to research about raijū and they find out that they can come in a variety of forms. Jay thinks he'd look like a noble and mighty creature, maybe a lion or an eagle. Nya thinks he'd be a chihuahua.

Nonetheless, that seems to be the extent of it; Jay doesn't figure out if he has an animal form or how to use it, and all that's changed is that Nya has become a lot more aware of her yin's oddities. That is, until Dragons Rising.

I think after the Merge, Jay has no issues with accessing his animal form: much like his mother, he's a wolf-like canid. If you told him, he'd probably never believe that he had spent the first 20-or-so years of his life with no clue to his heritage and no abilities related to it when his natural state of self after getting amnesia is to flux between forms. Maybe it developed as one of the strange effects of the Merge, or maybe its a new ability as a result of his environment, much akin to Cole's rock golem. Nonetheless, it serves as a message to Nya that this isn't the same Jay she knew before the Merge. He flaunts his heritage to the team that he never told and has changed, both physically and as a person, without her there to see.

As for the P.S, I'm not entirely sure what scene you are talking about - there's quite a few where I imagine Yuki could be described as feral lol - but Libber is overall quite alike to Yuki in my mind, particularly when she is younger and less concerned with hiding her wolf side.

[kira-fluff]

haikyuu!! neurodivergent headcanons 💕

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

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

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

social anxiety disorder (SAD) asahi, KENMA

post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) oikawa

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

autism sakusa, USHIJIMA, kageyama, kyotani, kenma

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

obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) oikawa

borderline personality disorder (BPD) daishou

insomnia kuroo, kenma, osamu

hypersomnia suna

analysis under the cut

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[nyxcharliechaos]

so me and @lemonking00 decided to make a tier list...but it's what neurodivergency/mental illness the cast of Hazbin/Helluva have

Explanations/are they medicated?/extra details or thoughts below because this will be a long post if I don't

ADHD- Millie: unmedicated, she just doesn't like it

Vox: medicated but OH BOY DOES HE FORGET, man will go 3 days without it before remembering then he's medicated for 4 days and they he's out of his ADHD medication! and it's ALWAYS when the pharmacy runs out and won't have it in for a few days

Bee: unmedicated she doesn't care she's just having fun

Clara: she's just here because LK said Odette was autistic and we wanted an ADHD/Autism sibling dynamic, I was going to skip them because we don't know much about either, she's properly medicated, Carmilla makes sure she takes her medication

Autism- Vaggie: we're all in agreement on this right?

Alastor: I know he's a sociopath but we've been joking he's autistic for a bit lol

Lucifer: his special interest is clearly ducks, yes he's canonically depressed but the autism is winnning

Sir Pentious: ok so everyone I know agrees with his so, mans got that autistic rizz

Vortex: ...ngl we just wanted him to be the ASD to Bee's ADHD being the ADHD/autism couple dynamic

Millie's dad: as stated by LK "he just seems autistic" and then explained farmers give off autistic energy, LK's the autistic redneck friend so I'll trust him on that

Lute: ...I have no explanation she just seems autistic, and like a homophobic homosexual

Zestial: so initially we put him in the group therapist tier but the autism won so we moved him

Odette: explanation for why she's here above

AuDHD (written as AUDI relating to a series of inside jokes but long story short half our friend group is AuDHD and one of said friends used to have an AUDI)- -Blitz special interest in horses, bad at emotions, he's not medicated, he should be on several medications, he's not on any of them

Charlie: ok hear me out, we all agree on the ADHD yes, but her dads got that tism ok, she would to. she is medicated, and Vaggie reminds her, but it's a gamble whether or not she'll take her medication even with a reminder

Cherri Bomb: ...bombs and just look at here that's my explanation for why she's here, no she's not medicated, there's other drugs, no it's not the same thing she doesn't care

Velvette: she's better about taking her medication than Vox is but she still forgets, always seems to run out around the same time as Vox...when they don't have the medication...being Valentino during that is great/j the two will lock the doors and make him deal with their unmedicated asses till the pharmacy has the medication again

Fizz: I don't think I need to explain why he's here, he's not medicated, he doesn't like the feeling and he likes himself better unmedicated, and Ozzie loves him either way so fuck getting his ADHD medication

Adam: simple explanation, ADHD and Autism is hereditary, so it had to come from somewhere and in the words of LK "it wasn't Eve, idk how but she's neurotypical", Adam doesn't believe people when they tell him he's AuDHD, so no he's not medicated

Emily: I'm not explaining myself, she is medicated and does take her ADHD medication on the daily, Sera will remind her and if she forgets after that Sera will just give her the medication

Depression- (depresso expresso because funny) Stolas: literally cannon, and while also Autistic unlike Lucifer the Autism is not winning

Octavia: I would be too if my family was that much of a mess

Barbie Wire: just fucking, look, no I'm not explaining this

Sera: (just makes gesture like, look at this bitch)

Twamatised- (referencing a joke in Gravity Falls) neither of these need explanations fucking look at the two that are here!

OCD- Moxxie: we actually added this catagory for him, he's just got those vibes

Niffty: I swear I remeber reading something on an old ZP era sketch dump saying she had slight OCD, I might be misremembering, probably, but got those vibes

Group Therapist- (fun fact this was initially a Husk only category but a lot more characters belonged in it then we thought) Husk: (points to episode 4) and yes depresso expresso as well but, I made this category for him so

Razzle & Dazzle, Fat Nuggets, Keekee, and the Egg Bois: all are here for similar reasons they're (basically) pets that bring joy and improve peoples mental states

Ozzie: I don't think I need to explain this one, since it's basically cannon

Rosie: ok so all the overlord are autistic (minus Vox), but they go to the category that takes priority and she's seen being a person you go to for advice so, this is just cannon

Carmilla: quote from LK "mom", that's why she's here, again all overlords are autistic (except Vox)

NDP- (narcissistic personality disorder) Verosika: we actually added this category for her so

Striker: ok this one's debatable but he definitely has a personality disorder of some sort

Valentino (KYS) was added just for Val to tell him to die

BITCH was added for reasons obvious if you look at the characters, no headcannons here we just wanted to call out these characters for being bitches

[canis-dentem]

how/when did you know you were a therian? like- when did you make the connection; how did you know you were caninekin specifically?

I’m tryna figure stuff out for myself and don’t know where to start. I don’t think I’m a therian, but I’ve always done some kind of animal-ish things (used to have the urge to hiss/snarl/snap when due to annoyance when I was younger, I have the urge to make creature noises pretty often, sometimes my mental image of myself when doing something feels more different, like. tall and elegant?? like sometimes when I turn my head I like. imagine/feel kind of a sloping neck and longer face/muzzle and limbs, canine-y (imagine a maned wolf/african wild dog/other canine) I don’t know how to explain it— but I’m not sure if the noises and biting are some kind of stimming due to my ADHD or not). I also heard the term “otherhearted” as having a deep connection with something, which. mmmmaybe me? so I’m gonna look into that.

anyways woah I rambled a lot more than I intended to but. yeah! I just wanna know what others’ experiences are like so I can see if mine relate to them lol

hi anon!!

tbh, i only awakened of around march of this year. i had never entered therian or otherkin circles, although i knew about it. one of my friends telling me star was a feline otherkin was what got me thinking like.... oh, that's a thing we can do? it happened to me with being trans, too, LOL--it didn't click for me that i could be something until someone close to me was.

what got me thinking was my brain kept saying "ugh i wanna be otherkin. that'd be so cool" and then i looked back on things i've done my whole life and like. oh that was a wolf thing. oh that's a dog thing. oh huh. it has been here. something that helped me when i was researching being autistic/having adhd was i kept a list of my symptoms as i noticed them, so i did that for being a therian. i have my little list of canine "symptoms" that i either notice myself doing or have remembered doing, some of which include feeling the urge to chew a lot, feeling longer canine teeth/wanting longer canine teeth, the urge to bare my teeth and growl when angry, always playing the worgen race in world of warcraft, among others. some of these (like baring my teeth/growling) were things i taught myself not to do bc "it wasn't normal." (i connect that to the 17 years of autism masking i did, so much so that i didn't know i was autistic and nobody around me did either.)

about stimming: me feeling the urge to chew is a stim. it is also connected to me being caninekin. it can be both!! stimming doesn't cancel out being a therian. plus, for me at least, i dont think i'd be otherkin if i wasnt autistic. you only mentioned adhd, not autism, but keep in mind that neurodivergency can and does often interact with alterhumanity.

i don't typically label my alterhumanity as spiritual (as in past-life) or phsycological, because honestly, i don't really care to know. i have it, and that's what matters to me. but being otherkin does overlap with my spirituality in the sense that i feel some yet unexplained connection with the woods. i always have. it makes sense to connect that to being otherkin, even if that's not the only explanation for it.

you can absolutely consider yourself otherhearted, if that makes sense for you! my suggestion? don't worry too much about the label. the word isn't actually super important. there's a big emphasis in this community on figuring out the specific type of animal you are, the specific type of otherkin (or -hearted etc) you are, where it comes from, etc. i don't think that's worth stressing yourself out about, not at all. if it works for you, it works for you--by all means, go ahead. if the process of finding a really specific 'type or word to call yourself brings you meaning and fulfills you, please do it!! i'm all for it. but if it stresses you out to figure out the finer details, let them go. it's okay. in my opinion, the biggest question is not "am i really a therian?" and instead, is, "does it make sense/bring me joy/fulfill me to connect myself to an animal?" if it does, move on from there.

good luck, anon! sending all my love to you. feel free to send any updates about your experience, if you wish to! i hope ur having a wonderful day <3

[babyfairy]

here’s a much needed life updates post! even though generally speaking not a whole lot has happened lol

life has been pretty difficult since i lost my grandpa truthfully. it’s been a lot of struggling since then. lately in particular (as in the last few months) i’ve been struggling mentally more than ever. i think im going through one of those really painful transitional/growth periods (which figures, it’s about time for my saturn return) but i also think i am neurodivergent in some way? as in im like 99.99999% sure i am neurodivergent. i can’t think of any other explanation for the way my brain works and for the way i am struggling.

it’s weird because i have a lot of guilt about exploring the idea of possibly being neurodivergent. i’ve been talking with my doctor about it and every time we’re done talking i feel like im a liar or that im manipulating her or others into believing i could be neurodivergent in order to have an excuse for just not being a good person, friend, daughter, sister etc. i’ve been talking with her about OCD specifically. there are a lot of things im learning about OCD that i relate to and that have been completely taking over my life since the death of my grandfather. but i also relate to a lot of the traits of autism, so truthfully i don’t really know what’s going on and not knowing has been isolating and sort of difficult and scary. i have this intense need to know what’s “wrong” with me or why i act/think/feel the way i do. i think that in and of itself is a symptom but i’ve always been that way. i think i have trouble relinquishing control. and lately i just feel very out of control. my work, friendships, family life, self esteem, and everything all just feel extremely unstable lmao and i know the primary reason is me. because i’m always bracing for the next terrible thing to happen and i’m always worried about ruining everything or hurting someone or i don’t even know what. i worry every moment that i am awake.

i’ve been adjusting my meds under the advice of my doctor and a psychiatrist and im trying to get back into therapy but god is it intimidating lol! i don’t know why! i think the thought of starting all over with a new therapist just scares me a lot. i know i have to do it though because i can’t manage this on my own anymore at all. and i have no idea how to make it any better or manage my stress. so physically and mentally im doing really poorly. i think maybe worse than ever. but i’m alive lol and i’m trying to get back to a point where i feel ok and not so paranoid and distressed all the time. im just trapped in this horrible cycle. it’s really frustrating. and i just want to understand why but i don’t for now and i have to be ok with that.

it isn’t all bad though lol and i do have things to look forward to. im trying my best to build and deepen new relationships so i feel less isolated. being agoraphobic in your early 20s really does a number on your social life!!! i managed to get beyoncé tickets and im planning on flying to visit some of my closest friends later this year. so i have things to look forward to and that helps keep me going on the days where i just want to give up. it’s hard 😅 but hopefully it won’t be this hard for too much longer and i’ll be able to look back on this time period and feel proud of myself for pushing past it. because right now truthfully i just feel ashamed and sad most of the time. i think shame and guilt are like my primary emotions lol. and just general tiredness. but i’m trying my best to claw my way out of it

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

I love love love reading your posts, and the reblog re your food rules really stood out to me. As someone who has always had food issues and struggled with disordered eating (did not identify neurodivergence until adulthood) I have struggled without the help a parent who had the kind of insight, empathy, and compassion you describe. Do you have any thoughts on repairing dysfunction as it relates to food? Or on how to identify food rules that you subconsciously have that are Not helpful, and how to replace them with helpful rules? Please infodump if you so desire even if it’s not directly related to those two questions :D

I think maybe where I want to start is that my mom's actions as I described them are - I suspect - more the outcome of her own neurodivergent (undiagnosed) resonances with my own (late diagnosed like literally two years ago lol). There were a lot of good resonances! But some really bad ones too. She and I have had some good talks about that recently, although ironically this comes in the wake of her having a stroke and throat surgery with the result that she can't speak in long bouts anymore which has essentially FORCED her to start listening to other people when they talk instead of jumping in over them (her own ADHD presentation is in part deeply impatient and struggles with filtering the though to speech pathway, same as my own unfortunately). She's actually a very good listener these days! It was an adjustment for her not to get annoyed about not being able to talk, and she can still really only hold a conversation for at most 45minutes before she becomes to irritable to continue listening. But those are good 45 minutes! And I'm really proud of her for realizing that this was actually a good thing for her in multiple places and putting the work into it. She has always really struggled with change/transition and with long term consequence evaluation (shocker, same hat again) so I think it took the really dramatic and immediately visible consequences (of for example me going no contact, me explaining to her my experience of shared events/history, and literal near-fatal medical condition and post-op recovery) for her to navigate change. But she's doing it, and she'll be 65 next year so it's pretty cool that she's taking the time now to enhance and improve her life and relationships.

I think when my mom heard me ask her to tell me where to start eating on my plate, she had watched me struggle to eat for so long and had just never considered that I might not yet have the infrastructures that she so relies on to function.

See, my mom's approach to child-rearing was essentially: "my child will remain by my side as close to all times as possible, and while I am going through my life I will simply externalize my internal monologue at my child so it can absorb knowledge and context about the world"

And like. On the one hand. Mom. That is the MOST "I am not neurotypical" way you could possibly raise a kid, what the fuck how did you live long enough to have me and NOT KNOW???

On the other hand, because I am my mother's child, this naturally worked wonderfully and was a veritable Garden of Eden upbringing for me.

The places were it wasn't ironically enough, were the places where my mother submitted to someone else's expertise about how to care for me and then had to facilitate compliance with a parenting plan that neither of us could tolerate or work with. I couldn't understand why my mother was no longer communicating with me but rather passing edicts and overriding my concerns - a thing she had historically done incredibly rarely and almost always FOLLOWED UP with an explanation for why it happened. And my mother didn't know how to force me to do things I didn't want to because that was simply never something she'd wanted to or tried to do with me before.

The end result was about a decade of incredibly traumatic domestic violence that neither of us came out of unscathed. And that sucks. But we're both growing and learning together these days, so hope!

Anyways, as far as identifying and changing food rules, the answer is deceptively straightforward.

If I find myself pacing the kitchen in agitation about there being "nothing to eat" or I realize that I have reached within 3hrs of bedtime and still haven't had anything to eat, I literally sit down and stream of consciousness journal for the prompt "why did/didn't this happen?"

It usually starts with a lot of griping and crabby feelings and resentment of self and then eventually I will realize I'm no longer answering the question "why did/didn't this happen" and am literally just like. Mocking myself? In my head? For being a fuck up? And. Well, I know that's not helpful and makes me feel bad and also isn't an answer for why my day happened the way it did. So I remind myself that I am welcomed to feel upset at how things went, but that right now we're only asking why something happened, not how it made me feel. That usually helps me return to the logistical issues. Missing ingredients. Waiting too long to eat and forgetting about my grab and go's. Missing a dose of medication. Being more tired than usual. Carrying more emotional weight related to work than usual. Having an over-burdoned to-do list. That sort of thing. Those are places where I can problem solve. And like. Problem solving is executive functioning, and that's not really my strong suit even on the best of days but certainly not on days where I'm already not eating safely. But I find that writing out the problems like this makes them clearer, and then I can make thought maps** for each one. Once I have those down on paper, it's a lot easier to navigate the actual process of choosing and executing a solution to that issue. Often, it's basically a flag that something else in my life is Asking Too Much of my executive functioning, so there's not enough left for eating. That's uh. Not a sustainable or healthy thing! So I've found that treating it like a sign to start a "system review" so to speak can be really valuable. And often, literally the feeling of knowing what is happening and what I'm going to do about it, and trusting that because it's in my thought map notebook I won't just FORGET like ALWAYS is enough to let me get up and get a snack or a meal. Sorta like a pressure release valve on a pressure cooker I guess right? You vent the pressure before opening it up to see what it made you, you know?

Journaling is the vent. Acknowledging my feelings and hearing them as a communication of need from myself to myself and integrating them into my solutions that way rather than treating emotions as a direct 1:1 of need or problem. It's an abstraction I guess? Puts enough space between me and The Issue to look at it a little more openly. Makes it feel safer to trust that when I am asking for something from another person it's because I have identified a specific thing that I need and cannot or shoud not address effectively myself rather than making asks in anger or hurt. Also lets me realign my internal resource distribution to my needs. Win win!

I think the thing I always worry about is like. When I talk about my system, I use a lot of really confident and clinical language, and I worry that even when I emphasize that I am talking about a thing that is a part of my personal system, people will hear that as "and so if you are experiencing the same manifestation of Issue than this will work for you" but like. It's not the thing, you know? It's the mechanism/algorithm prescribing the thing, right? So like. That's really dependent on Your Personal Context Of Self, and there is REALLY rarely going to be any honest 1:1s. Plenty of coincidental successes! But it can be risky to put too much stock in that right?

Food rules work well for me in part because I am largely a wilful person who has a reflexive rage response at constriction of any kind. I love rules because they help me not have to make decisions, but I also hate rules because they make decisions for me that I would rather make myself. This means that a "food rule" is not just a support system for me. It's a litmus test. Am I fully in reflex mode? If so I will probably lash out at and reject the food rules, which means the food and the food rules aren't the problem, something else is enough of a problem and I am abscuring it enough from myself that I have turned FOOD into a threat to my system. And like, even that is a flattening of the role this serves right? Let alone why it works for me personally. I really don't want to suggest that food rules are the answer to not being able to eat because for you they may well not be! For a LOT of people they may well not be. And even some of those who find it effective may benefit from understanding WHY it works for them in case their why is different from mine.

Honestly what it really comes down to for me is "how can I look back on a situation where I did something I don't want to do in the future or want the OPTION not to do in the future in a completely non-judgemental way?" It's pure function right? If I don't feel in control of my choices, for me that's statistically likely to me emotional or physiological causes of dysautonomia. So the question is: am I in threat mode? Or is it a medical symptom? If the former, why am I in threat mode and how do I have autonomy in that dynamic? Etc.

Finding measure points where I recognize "I have not maintained that conscious thought pattern, how do I get it back" is helpful to keep me from getting too far away from my baseline before I can correct course I guess. My relationship with eating is one of them. What "downtime" activities I can tolerate or enjoy is another. The ranges of time that I conceptualize as equivalent in experience to each other is uet another. Some I can keep track of myself, others I ask wifey for help monitoring.

I think of it kinda like leaening to bowl with the guardrails up, right? You still have to learn what you can do to ensure you bowl WELL, but there's some scaffolding involved to keep you from falling down into the gutter when you aren't yet perfect at performing your life. You gotta find out what guardrails matter to you and why and how you can create them or seek them when they aren't immediately acessible. It's a lot, but it's always felt worth it. I think what matters most is learning how not to scold yourself when you're thinking about something that didn't end up how you needed it to, even if literally only you could have changed the outcome. A mistake is a learning opportunity, not a festering wound. Getting that to become your truth just kinda. Changes what your options are somehow. And if you live in a life where that's not treated as truth, it can be devastating to try and make that switch, regardless of whether or not it ends up being worth it to you.

[otakween]

Digimon Tamers - Episode 8

Hmm this episode was just okay. There were some really nice animation moments, but it kinda felt like there was a lot of drawn out fluff. I still enjoyed myself, but I spaced out a couple times so I guess it didn't have me super gripped.

Notes:

Impmon was a fun little asshole in this episode. It's funny how he doesn't ever really get the reactions he wants. Renamon just kinda ignored him and Guilmon is too innocent to realize he's being trolled. Love a goofy villain who's bad at being evil. (I'm sure he'll get something darker to do eventually tho)

Terriermon has such an interesting personality. You would think such a cute little guy would be nice and affectionate but instead he's very blunt and says whatever's on his mind without much care for other's feelings. The way he inappropriately reacts to things yet seems to have a sort of wisdom...neurodivergent digi? (he does kinda look like autism creature lol)

The fact that Guilmon has a hobby of burying and digging up his food makes me think of enrichment for a caged zoo animal...at least he can technically leave

This episode did a really good job of making big digimon actually big! Adventure struggled with that at times (Greymon's size in the movie vs. the anime for example). I feel like showing off the hugeness of digimon and making them feel intimidating is all about the angles/perspectives they're "shot" at. Devidramon and Growmon felt properly intimidating in this.

Asanuma-sensei's JP voice is very monotone. She kinda sounds dead inside. She also barely reacted to a giant goth dragon flying inches from her head lol. I'd be screaming and peeing my pants and she was just like "what was that...?"

It's hard for me to not read "Grow" as grow...I get that it's from "growl," but that romanization is confusing out of context...

Takato being sucky at strategizing with his cards felt relatable to me lol. I'm bad at strategy games...

Seeing Guilmon digivolve for the first time was exciting and I look forward to seeing more Growmon in the next episode. I'm not super bothered that his design didn't change much. It's just annoying that digivolution is so inconsistent and sometimes they look completely different and other times its more gradual. Also, wait...when he was born Takato's digivice had to scan the drawing of Guilmon but this time it just kinda happened. Hope we get an explanation for all this eventually...

Speaking of unexplained mysteries, Culumon randomly shows up right as Guilmon is digivolving and his head lights up. The timing was suspicious, but I have no idea what the connection is yet.

I don't really get why Renamon and Terriermon couldn't have helped Guilmon with his fight. Renamon was like "that's Guilmon's prey..." which sure, makes sense with Ruki and Renamon's style of battling for power, but what was holding Jian and Terriermon back exactly?

[ahopelessprincessreincarnation]

Hey there, my name(or more so an internet alias currently at the very least)is Emanuel Marco aka Daniel, Julian or Edgar and welcome to my official alternative and somewhat not-exactly-secretive more diary-type internet journal space known as my blog on my brand new Tumblr Dot Com blog(aka where you are right now). I am a teenager and soon to be adult in my real physical life that's not on the interwebs, but I feel more as if I am some sort of childish adult, or atleast have felt grown up for awhile now due to stress. I guess you could say I'm "mature for my age" but that's barely the case to be honest with you and besides, I've sort of come to associate that term with creepy older men attempting to chat inappropriately in private direct messaging or whatever. Lmfao anyways, while I do want to keep my age a little vague for the reasoning being of an attempt at interweb safety(despite how far too late it seems considering other stuff at the moment), what I can say more in depth is that I am a neurodivergent person who is professionally diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum along with ADHD. I am considering that I may have other neurological conditions/disorders but I don't really know or care too much at the moment, by the way, I am also a white-latino who is bilingual in both English and Latin-American Spanish despite how I may struggle with the language along with attempting to reconnect with apart of my culture. I am an LGBTQIAPlus/Queer community member and supporter of other identities that I may not even fall under completly, though specifically I am a genderfluid bisexual aceflux person who uses both he/she pronouns(please don't use they for me unless I specifically asked to, thank you). I used to identify as a transgender male(ftm)but due to realizing the amount of harm being inflicted on women of both cis and trans due to violence and misogyny, I thought the most correct thing to do morally would be to stop being such and to instead just lean into more masculine types of gendernonconformity(I am still pretty feminine though so it's just an idea I guess lol(Please know that there's nothing inherently wrong with transitioning from female to male or something male-ajacent or whatever, I know it's probably more complex than just "all men are bad" like no duh but still, it's been really hurting my heart that I could possibly be giving off the idea that misandry is real or something roflmao. Sorry if that explanation is stupid, but I'm not the best at phrasing stuff sometimes♡).

For what I am going to be posting on here, it's probably gonna be different from my main page and other social media platforms but at the very least I wanna keep my alternative/side-blog more clean and organized when it comes to my interests and other stuff relating to my thoughts and ideas for different types of subject matters. While I am am an admittedly mostly digital artist and animator who intends to make more stuff involving my inspirations such as making more gay yuri anime and bara yaoi manga style graphic novels/comics, I want to use my alternative page/side blog to write not only fictional stories involving my original characters and even fanfiction, but also stuff about my life almost as if they were written storytime videos that would usually he formatted visually on my YouTube Channel. To be honest with you, I've been looking more into stuff involving the subjects of alterhumanity, soulbonding, therianthropy, fictionkin and just otherkin over all on here atleast. I don't know how much more I can possibly explain without falling asleep since it's night where I am on the planet Earth at the moment, so this is probably just gonna remain as a temporary pin but please keep in mind that updates are probably going to come soon♡.

I know nowadays on the interwebs and most public mainstream social media platforms, users usually put some sort of "before you follow" and "do not interact" criteria as a set of boundaries specific for those who want to support their account and become mutuals with them. Since I want to avoid any sort of needless drama situations or scenarios involving meaningless discourse, I am just going to leave my simple requests here for those who care enough to read through my little ideas of what I consider to call my own boundaries♡:

•Obviously, first and foremost, please just be normal as you would not using the computer or phone infront of you which means...use basic common sense and maybe possibly even kindness perhaps I don't even know anymore. This specifically means no racism, xenophobia, ableism, queerphobia/LGBTQIAPhobia and so on. If I do something that's considered any of the above, I can assure you that it was an accident and to please educate me on whatever I have done that may be offensive or wrong since I recognize I do have certain privilege♡.

•Secondly, please do not come to me if you support problematic fictional media or internet communities such as lolicons/shotacons/kodocons, radqueers, pro-paraphiles, fujoshis/fudanshis or himejoshis/himedanshis, proshippers/comshippers/profiction/darkshippers or whatever other name these groups go by nowadays atleast or enjoyers/condoners of feral nsfw content. I am against these groups due to the harrassment, sexualization/fetishization and grooming that runs rampant in these specific internet spaces though please don't attack any minor users in these communities. Many of the younger ones are traumatized children who don't have many healthy coping mechanisms and while these habits should absolutely not be encouraged, they still should be guided and helped into the right direction by others who know better atleast♡.

•Thirdly, If you are apart of other insensitive and hurtful groups such as endogenic/non-traumagenic "systems"(that's not how being a system works dummy), if you support mspec lesbians or male-lesbians aka "lesboys"(you literally cannot be attracted to men while being a lesbian or be a man and also identify as a lesbian so please stop making non-men loving women and the rest of the LGBTQIAPlus community look bad because you're literally just scared to admit you're straight or bisexual or something I don't know???) and others who use marginalized communities in order to hurt others by disregarding their concerns♡.

•Fourth, my last but not least important request, is for you to leave my alternative/side-blog(and other social media platforms if you know who I am yet somehow)if you support the unneeded cyberbullying towards those who may seem "cringeworthy" but in reality are harmless and at worst cheesy on their own(Examples being neopronoun/xenogender users, alterhumans/therians/fictionkin/otherkin/soulbonders etc or furries and cosplayers). Humanity can be very beautiful when using all of our differences for good and not for evil, otherwise we end up creating a very ugly and nasty pathetic excuse of a community for us all to reside in. We all have a story to tell, whether we're comfortable sharing or not and at the very least we should attempt to be understanding of others despite how cheesy such a thing sounds I know. Just please bare with me here)♡.

So it seems I've gotten atleast almost all thw words of what my brain wanted me to pour out onto the screen as I sometimes carry concepts that are hard to explain with me even through textpost lol. For those who care, my DMs are open 24/7 though sometimes I may not be motivated to reply exactly on time(again, please bare with me here. I know it sounds dumb but still-), now I'm gonna be signing off until something pops into my mind and makes me attempt to come up with a coherent post again, yours truly ~AHopelessPrincessReincarnation.

(P.S:Thank you to the kind internet strangers on here who have happened to wander onto my post somehow[maybe through the tags listed below]and were able to read through my whole, long and crushed up pinned introductory textpost. It means a lot to me that certain people on here are interested in what I have to say, so your support is very much not only appreciated but cherished! You all really do rock)♡.

Have a great day or night wherever you may be in the world right now and please never be afraid to check in and stay tuned for more>:]♡.

[lokiinmediasideblog]

hi! :D you've said before that you see mcu loki as ND-coded, and i'm curious about your specific thoughts on that. personally, i've mostly thought about this in terms of acquired mental illness stemming from trauma, but if i'm interpreting you correctly, you see him as innately neurodivergent? which is a fun + interesting take. are you thinking of a specific diagnosis, and/or is there a specific moment that stands out to you as ND Behaviour, or is it more of an overall vibe?

It started by thinking of Loki being ND-coded metaphorically, but I think he shows some behaviors. I will be breaking this down into actual behaviors and metaphors. I have ADHD, so I tend to skew his diagnosis towards that or AuDHD (and I have a mutual that thinks BPD also fits rather well and they're welcome to join in, lol).

Metaphors (movies):

1. The Jotun reveal. Aliens and changelings (both of which Loki is in cannon to Asgard) are common in metaphors to describe autism. From both the ND’s perspective as being in “Another planet” and from the NT’s perspective.

“A persistent trope in some autism communities is that autistic people are aliens, or, symmetrically, that non-autistic people seem like aliens to autists. Some autists are attracted to the metaphor of the alien to describe their own condition, or to say that they find other people alien (Hacking, 2009).”

“In addition to failure to thrive, before the development of modern medicine and psychiatry, it is very likely that any number of childhood disorders were interpreted as stolen children. Several modern authors have suggested that, in pre-scientific eras, children born with autism and other developmental disorders were probably considered changelings (Ashliman 1997; Wing and Potter 2002). By the late nineteenth century, science had begun to provide non-supernatural explanations for children who did not thrive or otherwise did not meet the normal expectations for a healthy infant, and belief in changelings faded. ”

2. Loki does not fit in at Asgard, the only home he’s known. His friends are actually Thor’s rather than his, and seem to tolerate him rather than like him.

3. Loki also gets blamed for misdeeds without good evidence: The W4 start suspecting a crown prince based on an enemy’s words and they assume Loki wants to harm Asgard. I think it’s important to note that they don’t assume he just wants the crown; they assume in his very short reign, that he’ll harm Asgard, which is never in his plans. And it’s unlikely they cared about Jotunheim since they wanted Thor back right away.

A parallel to being ND is that people distrust and even villainize you due to your mannerisms (e.g. “weird and quiet”). And I’ve talked about how I think Asgard promotes a very ridiculously straight forward mannerisms on its population to make self-policing easier. So Loki’s mannerisms must have clashed with the general population’s for them to distrust them so easily.

4. Loki’s main power-set being illusions, and unbeknownst to him, being changed into something he wasn’t born as (Jotun -> Asgardian), is a power-set analogous to masking (i.e. the process through which NDs camouflage themselves to fit in better).

Masking involves a lot of rehearsing and suppression to act in a more socially acceptable way. → Loki also needs to be useful to be appreciated

5. Thor being preferred for acting in ways deemed more socially acceptable by Asgard and Odin. A personal experience from me is getting shit to this day about how I was “so difficult as a toddler, unlike your brother!” and some mean comment about how I made life hell because they couldn’t take me to public places.

Some traits Loki showcases (and seem relatable to my ADHD-ass):

1. Tendency to fidget (in the movies and series). I think it’s even more noticeable in the series, where he’s doing random shit with stamps and hammers while he speaks to people (S2E1 talking with OB). It’s like he can’t stay still.

2. I pulled something very similar to the salad scene around an older mentor figure. It was rice I kept squishing in my hand while going off in a rant. My former mentor found my behavior amusing, for the most part, and never let me live that down.

3. Tendency to info-dump about how his magic works.

4. Poor impulse control (Loki series, gets drunk in a train, and cut Sif’s hair just because ← I HC he wanted to sabotage the relationship out of fear of vulnerability).

And that’s on top of the trauma-based extreme fear of abandonment he showcases in pretty much everything he’s been in.

Badly-formatted Sources:

Hacking, Ian. (2009) https://www.jstor.org/stable/40543987

[dr3comebackera]

Daniel describing how he broke his arm as a kid, from the Red Bull 2018 On the Sofa video

After Max answers “What’s the stupidest way you ever hurt yourself?” with a story of him drunkenly walking into a door: MV: “You?” DR: “I broke my arm as a kid. Uh, February the 13th, 2003. Basically, how did I- so I broke my humerus,” MV: “Okay” DR: “Like serious bone. And I broke it by throwing a tennis ball.” MV: *in disbelief* “How?! How can you-” DR: “I threw a ball, and my arm snapped.” MV: *grimaces* “Awhh. So how is that possible? DR: “In the end, I- so we found out I had a bone cyst. So something that, I guess some people get, it’s just, I don’t know how, I guess you’re just maybe born with it and over time, I guess it’s some form of like little, disease in a way. Anyway, so it, it’s this thing that eats away your bone over time, and eventually the bone becomes so thin that it-” MV: “It snaps?” DR: “eventually is gonna break. Basically.” DR: “Um, so it could’ve happened like, the doc- the hospital said it could have happened like, getting out of bed, like one morning I could’ve just gotten out of bed and it would’ve just snapped.” MV: *huge grimace and groan* DR: “So I was walking with my friends, erm, it was at lunchtime at school, and people were playing cricket. So the ball came over, so I like just picked it up, threw it, and that’s when it snapped. And I just fell to the floor, and all my friends were laughing at me, like ‘You’re being an idiot. Get up.’ And I was like, obviously crying. And yeah. And the guy that hit the ball, true story, the guy that hit the ball, was, I wanna say, I don’t wanna exaggerate, I wanna say at least 50 meters away, at the very least 50 meters away. And he heard the snap, when it- it was that loud. I’ll never forget it, unfortunately. I wish I could.” DR: “But anyway. So if you like touch my arm now, you can feel like the bone where it grew over, it’s kind of weird. Anyway, broke my arm throwing a tennis ball.” MV: “Impressive,” DR: “Yeah.” MV: “Impressive.” DR: “Yeah.” DR: “One weird thing with that, I’ll just quickly- so I was sitting there at school, like waiting for my mom to pick me up. Cause I didn’t know what I had done, I didn’t know it was broken, I just knew something was up. And I went to move my arm, I was supporting it.” MV: *can tell where this is going, softly* “Oh.” DR: “And I went to move it, and I literally, I could feel things inside, like move, but my arm stayed still.” MV: *mouth drops, loudly* “Oh no, ohhhh” DR: “So like all like the, whatever nerves or whatever, like I could feel them move but my arm didn’t move. I was like, ah. That was the scariest thing I’ve ever felt in my life.” MV: *looks in shock during this whole story, continues to grimace* “Ah” DR: “Yeah. And I’m not good with that stuff, I get-” MV: “So you have like a scar here *points to upper right arm* now?” DR: “Ah, no, so they couldn’t operate on it. So they needed just to, erm, I mean they like, I don’t know what they did in the end. But they couldn’t operate. I stayed in the cast for a crazy amount of time, and then it just, like, grew over. So I got no scar, but you can just feel- I’ll let you touch it later, off camera.” MV: *sharp inhale before smiling* “Ha hah” DR: “I’ll let you touch my arm.”

[cookii-moon]

I'm here to spread my Ninjago neurodiversity headcanons

because this fandom does not have enough of it and I felt like it. Also because i missed neurodiversity week by one day.

uhh yeah. I wanted to have an art too but I didn't expect posting this so soon-

Anyways.

Zaneeee the classic yay.

He's definitely neurodivergent.

I don't think he'd identify as anything in particular, but he identifies as neurodivergent cuz he's a nindroid and because of that doesn't fit in or think like neurotypicals.

He's a bit of an outlier because of that tho, even in neurodiverse places.

He's decently public because he's too innocent to see how anything could go bad just because he shared it. Poor Zane, bless him :,) he definitely ended up being harassed at least once.

Cole because everybody overlooks him and I'm disappointed /hj

Okay this man is autistic. Tell me otherwise. Tell me otherwise right now. Like have you seen him.

He's very closed off about being autistic. I feel like Lou was definitely not very accommodating of it and encouraged him to mask n stuff, (which btw can lead to a huge number of anxiety and self worth issues later down the line, so do not force people to mask).

There's a lot of stigma associated with autistic people that I feel like Cole definitely wouldn't enjoy, so he keeps it pretty tight under wraps and tries to mask when he can.

He especially doesn't like telling people he knows because he doesn't want a close friend to potentially start treating him like an infant or helpless, or assume he has no emotions or starting to distance themselves from him.

He hid it from the Ninja for the first few seasons. Around after S4-5 when he and Jay had become close again he decided to tell him. I feel like he was jealous or impressed by how open Jay is in comparison (we'll get to him in a moment) and how accepting the others were. Jay's reaction is easily summed up as *HAPPY NEURODIVERGENT SOLIDARITY SCREAMING* but also "I feel stupid for not connecting the dots" and then they went from bffs to... also bffs. But now they get to make adhd and autism jokes together.

Jay helped him be more comfortable and feel more confident in himself and he finally told the other Ninja after DotD because he ended up experiencing several massive sensory overloads at some point, since being autistic made it so that the issues you'd have from finally being able to touch things after a year or two would've been amplified ten fold, so he kinda had to tell them because it stuck around for several weeks.

He still isn't very public about it towards strangers, but he's getting better about feeling comfortable with it himself and not, yknow, experiencing social anxiety 24/7 around his friends.

He's definitely on like the mild-mid end of the spectrum. He doesn't need too many accommodations, but he does experience sensory issues and might need alternative explanations for some things.

He's usually pretty closed off when he first gets to know somebody, but overtime when he does get to know them and becomes comfortable with them he gets pretty social and sarcastic with them, which doesn't always go well since he can't tell when someone gets legitimately hurt or offended or when it's just part of the joke, so being more public about it with his friends has made it so they can communicate better with that type of stuff :D

...You may notice that this one is substantially longer than the rest and the reason for that is because I'm autistic so I feel more confident about writing about an autistic character. And also because autistic Cole makes me feel represented because way too many autistic characters are either robots (which is fine, but one of my symptoms is I have difficult to relate to those types of characters) or very stereotypical. So.

I try to keep the others shorter because I don't trust myself as much with those LOL.

Also he may be colorblind, but he's not sure.

Uhh Jay

Yeah

He has adhd, probably a comorbidity too like OCD or smthn. He's in the very hyperactive group, and he's pretty public about it because he feels comfortable with who he is and doesn't really care if some idiot takes issue with it (or well, pretends like he doesn't care, except he actually does)

And ye, that's uh, about all I have to say because I'm super hungry and tired sooo

Byeeee

[daydream-the-demon]

my mentally ill friend™️ says I’m “autism zesty”

and idk what to think abt that. (I know I’m zesty, i mean the autsim part)

from what I’ve seen from you’re reblogs, im NOT autistic. But I got that “neurodivergent energy” yknow?

im like the definition of a golden retriever theater kid sor I knor smth isn’t right in the brain but I have NO IDEA WHAT

I’m kinda jsut like at this point “I’m just not normal. No scientific explanation or anything, I’m just weird”

(i mean that’s pretty expected for someone who uses [tumblr] tho)

I dunno, yeah you give neurodivergent vibes and are super Golden Retriever vibes (my dog Mira is a German Shepherd and she has the same Golden Retriever vibes as you, lol).

I think maybe since you grew up around a lotta neurodivergent people you took on their traits. And of course, I don't recommend giving yourself mental illnesses (I know I'm not right since I would say the weirdest Shiz ever and people would be like "Wtf are you on about" and I do stuff people don't like and things. I have a lot going on, I don't want mental things going on but there is practically no other explanation).

My best advice is just be you. If you're concerned about yourself (considering your family history with ADHD and autism) tell your parents to get checked just in case. Also, autism can take many forms! Some people I met with autism I had no idea were autistic until they told me.

I identify with a lot of things on the DSM-5 so I am pretty confidently autistic (if not then wtf else is this???). So yeah. You don't seem to relate to a lot of the autistic traits (but hey, I don't know your brain).

You give off super friendly Golden Retriever theater kid vibes.

Neurotypical people have personalities and weird tendencies too not just autistic people. A lot of neurotypical people have autistic tendencies.

Also [tumblr] is a secluded community so it's basically also having another culture on its own! (Like I'm Russian in America, you're a [tumblr] user in society).

But yeah, saying something or someone is "autistic" or "autistic vibes" isn't the best when autism is not confirmed or present.

(I don't know what else to say, this is my only comment. Awkward ending now. This is yes.)

[khodorkovskaya]

thanks for sharing!

honestly this is so relatable. so for me growing up i was always taught (not explicitly but it was just the general vibe) that religious people are weird and stupid. like no one would ever openly say that, but it was often implied through jokes or like when someone would say that they were religious my family would give the side eye lol. and plus, yeah, its a government backed institution yikes.

and yet! i was baptised, we'd bake cakes for easter, when people would ask me what my religion was growing up id say orthodox, etc. like there was always this weird contradiction.

what you said about after school activities i also have a funny little story to share. so when i was 6-7 yrs old my parents signed me up for this like art club after school. and once this old lady showed up and started an embroidery club in the same classroom. and so when i got bored of drawing, i decided to go over to her and do embroidery. and i really liked it, so instead of sitting with the art club, id go to the emroidery lady.

and she was super religious and would always tell us stories about god. and i found it super annoying and in my head i was like "oof granny is loosing her mind". i specifically remember her telling us about the tower of babel and i sat there like "damn, she is so delusional". but i liked embroidery, so i stayed and didn't say anything.

and turned out, she was there illegally! she was this like orthodox missionary who snuck onto school properties to convert the kids. it was a huge scandal. so yeah, that incident made me even more prejudiced towards religious people. that and also the fact that my favourite book growing up was дорога уходит в даль, which is basically communist propaganda lol.

so yeah, it's strange. because whenever id go inside an orthodox church everything would feel so familiar and yet so foreign. i never felt like i belonged there and plus, as you said, no one ever explains to you like what to do or welcomes you in any way. like i don't want to sound entitled and im not saying that im owed anything, and maybe, hey, it's my own prejudice. but the only thing people tell you there is "we won't let you in dressed like that". and growing up it made me even more hostile. like i remember we went to visit a monastry in montenegro once and it was like 35 degrees outside and i was 12 and i was wearing shorts obviously. and like 3 people came up to me to tell me that im not allowed in. and i never got an explanation as to why. i mean yeah, modesty, whatever. but instead of being so judgemental towards a child, an explanation would be nice..? idk, that really put me off religion.

but then, here's the thing. when i was 14 i was being neurodivergent as usual and i got hyperfixated on religion. idk where that came from. but i told myself that i would research a new religion every week. so id borrow a bunch of books at the library evry week and i kept a journal detailing all my findings. i went to the lutheran church, i even found a hindu centre here and scheduled an appointment and borrowed one of their scriptures. like idk what was going on in my 14 year old brain but i was fearless and i would like show up to all these religious centres with my little notebook. and id even interview people... likeee.

anyway, one week i was researching orthodoxy. so again, i showed up to the orthodox church here, absolutely fearless, no headscarf, wearing my desigual jeans. and i went straight to the choir and asked if i could sing with them. i have no classical training in music btw, i know how to sing but like as a hobby, i know little to no theory. and, again, i don't know where this audacity came from, but i went straight up to the choir director and was like "im singing with y'all bitches". so i started going every sunday to sing, but id never stay until the end bc id get bored. and then i stopped all together after like maybe a year.

and again, i have no logical explanation as to why. i was just hyperfixated and decided that the church choir was my new thing. and i didn't make any friends there bc i was still prejudiced against religious people. i wouldn't pray, i didn't respect the dresscode. id just show up, not say hello to anyone, sing for like 30 minutes and leave. 💀💀 at that age i constantly felt like i was in some sort of bubble, like id always be half dissociating, id do things not understanding how or why, things would just happen, it was weird.

fast forward to this year, i went to church for easter with one of my friends just like to hang out. and i heard the choir for the first time in almost 10 years and fell in love again. i couldn't remember any of the hymns (probably because when i was 14 i was just so dissociated). but i was like i have to join again!

except now im more aware of my own surroundings and im more normal. so i didn't really know how to approach things. but i was like you know what, if 14 year old me could just show up and not explain anything to anyone, so can 24 year old me.

so the week after easter i came up to the choir director and asked if i could sing and she asked me if i was classically trained and i was like "oops no, but i sang with you guys 10 years ago". and then she asked me why i had stopped and i was a bit at a loss for words bc like idk why i stopped. and then i asked her what brought her here and she gestured at the ceiling. and that was our conversation.

and the thing is, now that im more aware and awake, singing there is even more fun. because i haven't read sheet music in 10 years. i didn't know i was capable of reading music. but i am! and it's this weird almost like spiritual feeling. because i look at the notes and even if ive never seen that particular hymn before, i know exactly what to sing. and my hand moves up and down and i nod to the rhythm. i don't know how, i don't know why i know all of these things, but i do. and it amazes me every time. like i look at something ive never seen before, but i can read it. idk how to explain this feeling. like imagine all of a sudden being able to read a foreign alphabet and you don't even know how you read it, you just do. it feels magical.

but yeah, i totally get what you say about churchgoers being mean. i always feel like an outsider or imposter in literally any social setting, so feeling like an alien at church isn't something that scares me. and i haven't talked to anyone there or made any friends. but just from the looks of it and the way people push and shove each other there like i can tell that i probably won't get along with any of them unfortunately. and there's always people shoving when queuing up for eucharist and there's always passive aggressiveness and everyone is always on edge. even in the choir like i rarely get the music sheets handed to me for some reason. like when they're distributed they often skip me and i don't understand why. it makes me feel like more of an impostor but tbh nowadays im so chill when it comes to self esteem i literally do not care. it's just annoying bc unless i literally grab the sheet out of the person's hand, i always have to look at someone else's. but yeah, little things like that give me the impression that the majority of people who go there are kind of mean.

and what you said about people all knowing each other is very true too. because literally everyone is always in their little groups. and if you're not childhood friends with someone, you can't make friends. again im neurodivergent so i just like struggle with making friends in general. but making friends at our church seems impossible. people are always huddling together and whispering and i just know i won't fit in. because at some point in their little conversations they always point at the ceiling and i just don't know enough about god or the church to be able to fit in with these sort of conversations, you know?

but anyway, as i said, i love going to church nevertheless. singing there makes me euphoric. i love the aesthetics, i love the drama. i love the over-the-top-ness of like people falling to their knees and crying and the priest talking about the devil. it's so cinematic, im obsessed. and if i don't "belong" there or if i don't have the right relationship with the church, so be it. i think it's better to look forward to church every week and to truly enjoy it, than to be mean and go there to ask for forgiveness 👀

@atomicanechka

[sparkyblizz]

Why was Chidi in the Bad Place and is the reason kinda ableist?

got some The Good Place thoughts and I wanna talk about it

spoilers for the entire series I guess under the cut:

it's been a while since I've watched the series so bear with me. I know why Chidi is in the Bad Place—I think—because his indecisiveness, his overthinking, and his inability to generally do things like make decisions or be wholly honest damaged his relationships. and I also know that the show explores how the system is screwed up and how no one's gotten into the Good Place for centuries because life on Earth has become so much more complex and the system hasn't accounted for that and also it's flawed in general because it doesn't allow people in the Bad Place to get better, it just punishes them for eternity.

but when I think about the traits that Chidi has, it just makes me think he's neurodivergent in some capacity. I'm no psychologist or expert in general, but he seems to at the very least have anxiety, though he could have OCD. I would love to hear other people's opinions on this, especially anyone who has things like OCD!

and so when I look at this I wonder: is the Good Place (as in the place, not the show) ableist? well we know the system is flawed so I guess very much yes.

is Chidi actually a bad person, though? through the entire show ethics and morality is discussed at length and our ideas of "bad people" are challenged. looking at Eleanor, she's a bad person at the start of the show because of her selfishness and how that hurts people, but it's more nuanced than that. the way she was raised made her the person she is and she didn't deserve to be treated the way she was by her parents but it's an explanation, not an excuse. in the same sense, Tahani was doing good things to impress her parents or one up her sister Kamilah and her actions in relation to that are what made her a bad person as designated by the system, but her parents raised her and Kamilah to compete that way, so explanation but not excuse there as well. I may be missing some nuance here because it's been a bit since I've watched the series lol. Jason... I don't even know if Jason was really that "bad" or simply just ignorant? and got judged by the flawed system as bad. I honestly can't remember lol.

but when I think of Chidi, from what I can remember, his issues were his overthinking and indecisiveness, he for the most part didn't want to cause harm to anyone, hell, it was the opposite, he was often fixated on trying to be good! of course, we know his relationships suffered and per the system it put more bad into the world, he got more points taken away, etc. and so he ended up in the Bad Place. but even by the flawed system's standards, did he really deserve it? his issues seem to be symptoms of his potential neurodivergency.

then again, with Eleanor, Tahani, and Jason, I guess you could say as well that they were all judged too harshly, for while I don't remember there ever really being malice behind their actions, they ended up doing harm anyway and being sent to the Bad Place.

(the show does challenge what our idea of "bad people" are and shows that they can change and grow and that the system is flawed in not allowing that, and the ultimate conclusion is that it wasn't deserved, at least, the punishment for the people assigned "bad" didn't allow for redemption, rehabilitation, or change was flawed. and also Chidi and the rest of the Cockroaches do get into the Good Place at the end of the show anyway, so I guess my question is answered. but what are your takes?)

[qprstories]

So I just wanted to give a little overview of my situation to show what a QPR and the process of figuring out how to define a relationship can be like. I'm a nonbinary aroace, and my partner is an allo bi woman. We've known each other since we were children and have strongly overlapping social circles in general, which consist of pretty much all of the queer people in our age range in the small town we both lived at that point lol.

The history: We considered ourselves best friends for a long time, until we were teenagers and she came out as bi and admitted having a crush on me one day sat on my bed. At this point I believed I was a girl, thought my attachment to her must also be a crush, and that I must therefore be either bi or a lesbian myself. Not long after this, I learned the words to express being asexual, and for a while considered myself an asexual lesbian. Then whoops, not a girl. Started calling myself asexual trixic to combat dysphoria I personally had with the word lesbian at that point. Slowly realised I wasn't alloromantic either, and struggled with a specific label for that for a while. All throughout this, we called our relationship many different things, went through a little bit of a pseudo-breakup at one point when she didn't understand what I was trying to express about the way I experience attraction.

I've only settled on 'fully aroace' pretty recently, which prompted me to re-evaluate things all over again.

As of right now we call each other our partners and I think QPR is the best descriptive term for our relationship, but that may change again in future, and in general we don't like to label our relationship.

My partner is also polyamorous, and has intermittently been with two other partners (who are also partnered with each other) during the time she's been with me, so I guess I'm loosely part of a polycule too?

A little bit about the peculiarities of our relationship: We don't spend much time physically together due to distance after we both moved out of the town where we met, and I'm not good at speaking over the phone due to neurodiverging reasons, so our primary interaction is texting. We send each other memes, cool videos to watch, things related to the other's interests- a lot of the sort of stuff you'd find in a typical online friendship, really. When we are together, we cuddle, hold hands when walking around, lay on the couch together, and we have kissed a few times. We wouldn't do anything more intimate than that. She has no issue with being casually naked in front of me (which she absolutely wouldn't do with a friend, for example) and I've seen her that way many, many times, but I wouldn't be comfortable letting her see me even partially undressed (which she understands). She's told me she would like to sleep in the same bed as me (in a literal sense lol), but even though that idea does appeal to me in theory, for sensory reasons I wouldn't be able to enjoy it. I've spent around a year living in her house over the last few years, in two stints of about six months each. Both times I only went to visit, and whoops, guess I live here again. There's currently an open offer for me to move back in whenever I want, but sadly I can't for the forseeable future. She has a child with one of the aforementioned partners, and the child calls me by my name and knows me as her friend. Nobody considers me to be a parental figure to that child in the slightest.

In summary: I, an aroace person, am in a QPR with an allo person who has little to no exposure to anything aspec outside of me. It's taken a lot of explanations, conversations, and sometimes compromise on both parts, and here we still are!

<3 thank u for the first story anon!!!