#-the same symptom showed up in another context though so idk :/ | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

chicago-geniza · 3 years ago

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well i intended to go for a nice evening walk, ended up having a panic attack, ordering a couple of cocktails at the bougie bar, joining a jam session with a bunch of old hippies on the logan green (one of them gave me a handpainted wooden medallion which seems to be carved out of tree bark, strung on a length of yarn???), met a crustpunk train-hopping dude in town for the month (& his dog, in a leather-studded harness) who's lived in 45/50 states & a 44 yr old guy everyone called "the wizard" wearing a tattered, patch-covered robe who shares most of my parents' conspiracy theories & considers himself a latter-day prophet, he bought us sorbet & ice cream, wound up hanging out with them & staying up all night at their indescribably eclectic, cluttered, blood-spattered (!!!) apartment, belonging to 44 yr old guy's art curator father & decorated accordingly, smoking m*th & listening to music & talking (or rather listening to them rant/rave/recount stories from their incredibly wild lives), i gave them advice on applying for unemployment & medicaid & how to appear compliant enough w/ carceral psychiatric intervention so they won't section you without actually submitting to forced medication or institutionalization, especially if they assign you a case worker & do regular "wellness checks." also how to pass off certain aspects of behavioral dysregulation as executive dysfunction, get them to pay for an adhd evaluation, get an adderall IR scrip, sell the 30 mg pills (cite body weight, high doses of other psych meds as reason for higher dose; look sincere; play to systemic biases toward cis white men, unfortunately), & use the cash to buy m*th, if they'd prefer to keep doing that. you can also pass positive psychotic symptoms--agitation etc.--off as severe anxiety, especially if you have a history of trauma, & they will give you benzodiazepines. it is in their best interest to keep you docile, i.e. tranquilized, particularly if your past convictions & involuntary institutionalizations revolve around a pattern of aggressive behavior, & that's On The Record/there's a paper trail. (e.g. one dude got arrested trying to keep cars away from an injured bird on the road, some genre of raptor i think (???) by threatening them with a shopping cart, not hitting them, but like, running at them as if to collide then feinting at the last minute so they'd swerve out of the way. not the safest or most effective maneuver, lotta reckless endangerment, but the motivation was admirable. probably put the fear of god into some drivers, though. he doesn't seem to have, like, impulse control.) it's a lot easier & you have fewer run-ins with the cops if you game the system & appear cooperative. they gave me this coat, which "just showed up in their apartment one day," like i did. 44 yr old guy walked me back to apartment, stole a street sign & tore down a real estate sign en route, lori lightfoot did indeed take down the pride flag in front of her house on july 1st & replace it with an appropriately patriotic american flag, i walked past the idling plainclothes cop car & another marked police vehicle with their Mayoral Guarding Detail inside at like 4.30 am smoking a menthol cigarette (not inhaling), high on m*th, draped in a neon anime jacket, in the company of a visibly insane, unshaven & unshorn middle-aged man in a technicolor patchwork trenchcoat, holding a lit cigarette in one hand & an upside-down traffic cone in the other, which he was using as an ad hoc amplifier for a noise track playing on my phone. he was also carrying the stolen real estate banner &, inexplicably, a stack of mail. i gave him my old backup phone (no SIM card & doesn't hold a charge long, ancient, but still works), since neither he nor the other dude have phones (cops took them), also one hybrid edible for each of them, as a thanks for the m*th & the kindness. their hearts are in the right place but they have some fucked-up beliefs about "reverse racism" being real, while also saying in the same breath that you can tell our country is irredeemable by the way it continues to

treat black people. we were discussing medical weed for seizures on medicaid & 44 yr old guy mentioned one of his close friends, a black epileptic woman, whose seizures were frequent & severe enough they prevented her from working. then he added, in apparent bemusement, they she hadn't spoken to him in some time, & he wondered why. a little while later he relayed their last conversation & i was like "my dude, i can say with 100% certainty she is not talking to you because you said some *appallingly*, jaw-droppingly racist shit & did not even realize it was racist." then i, comma, a white person, explained to this man that he literally thought of their exchange as, like, an abstract argument over insignificant ideas, a theoretical exercise, & therefore considered it simply a smug gotcha to "counter" hotep theories about egyptian origin by claiming that "if that's true, american slavery & the oppression of black people in america are divine retribution for the enslavement of the jews in ancient egypt, an eye for an eye & a deserved punishment." like, first of all, what the actual fuck, if i were that woman i would also never speak to you again, second of all there's the collapse of historical time & mythical time, history & exegesis, an assumption that rests on spurious claims of biblical literalism (zionist colonization logic, btw! him: what's exegesis? what's zionism? me: never mind, not the point. exegesis is the interpretation of religious texts in a religious CONtext, in this case what you would likely call the hebrew bible.)--but most importantly it is 100% irrelevant to this discussion whether or not black americans are Actually Factually descendended from ancient egypt! you just told this woman to her face that the ancestry she claims, of which she's proud, is the reason & justification for SLAVERY & BLACK SUFFERING--not only that, but that if it WERE true, than black people would DESRVE to suffer, by DIVINE DECREE. you are trying to force her to abdicate her claim on this heritage by putting her in a position where she'd be forced to concede complicity in her people's historical & present-day persecution, oppression, & essentially the existence of structural racism. & using The Figural Jew as a rhetorical cudgel to bludgeon her into this corner. what a despicable thing to say. like, he hadn't considered it from her perspective at all, & once he groked why the comment itself was, like, unforgivable (idk, maybe she's more forgiving; she has a virtue-name), i started socratic-method-ing him through why it was particularly unforgivable for *him* to say to *her*--the individual is not responsible for the systems from they benefit, but they are imbricated in them, they are implicated when they actively perpetuate & uphold them, even with speech acts. & finally gave the same "there is no such thing as reverse racism because racism is not an individual act, it is an institutional, systemic phenomenon, & it is an ideology, one which individual acts can bear out or be in accordance with, & to which individuals can subscribe (this bearing it out in their behavior, in their institutional roles, in their interpersonal interactions--here i gave & solicited examples of each) or be subject (also gave & solicited examples). m*th makes me very good at Explaining clearly & he was surprisingly receptive--like, it was astonishing that it had not occurred to him??? but it hadn't, the same way it hadn't occurred to my mother, & she interpreted it as "reverse racist" when their next-door neighbor called her the "white devil" for disputing their property line, & i had to be like "ok but if you called in a random third party to mediate in lily-white [city], oregon, where white supremacists openly drive down the street in pickup trucks with swastika armbands, whose side do you think they would take, statistically speaking, in your property dispute. that's why racism is systemic & institutional, & your rude neighbor calling you a name over a disagreement does not constitute 'reverse racism,' because 'reverse racism' by definition cannot

exist." now this dude wants to like, read books, so i gotta get him some entry-level Intro To Racism primers??? how did i end up here, but better me than his black epileptic (ex-)friend, i guess??? jesus christ. both of these guys have the most chaotic, reactionary politics in a potpourri with these deep commitments to abolition & mutual aid & a kind of proto-anarchist consciousness, none of which would be called by those names, but all of which is borne out in practice & in the politics of everyday life. they remind me a LOT of my parents. i'm loath to imagine how they'd internalize my stepdad's rambling, street-preacher-style libertarian lectures. probably go out & buy guns & invest in gold on the stock market & double down on the conviction that free speech is being curtailed & individual rights are in jeopardy because you can no longer unleash a barrage of harassment against some guy on the street because you think he looked at you funny. these claustrophobic convictions, like the space to express oneself is getting smaller & smaller every day, *other people* are taking it away from you, suffocating you on all sides with their offense demanding your silence, they are *making* the walls close in--when in fact it's more like a holodeck. you're a member of the Hegemonic Group, afforded the privilege of the default, so you don't question the vast verdant expanse that is your domain--ah, Free Speech, the sun never sets on the empire of ~uncensored expression, you can say whatever you want whenever you want without facing consequences because you control all the organs that mete out consequences & you have also determined that those groups who might be adversely affected by your words--emotionally OR materially--are not, well...of consequence. but of course the vast verdant domain is an illusion, photons & forcefields, held together by the all-encompassing TOTALITY of the dominant group's hegemony, power, etc. once that power begins to redistribute throughout the system--however unevenly, however incrementally, however slowly--as even the smallest pieces are appropriated by those deemed inconsequential, who have endured years of systemic, material, institutional violence that allowed the dominant group to become dominant & retain its dominant position--once those 'inconsequential' groups speak up & say "actually, these words bear an indelible imprint of the violence enacted upon us, these words are the legacy of that violence, these words are a tacit endorsement of the ideology behind that violence, which classifies us as subhuman, & even if *you* can't hear those echoes, the words broadcast on two historical frequencies, so now that we're able to broadcast on a frequency *you* can hear, we request you find other language, & consider the implications of the words you've been using for years." well--once The Subaltern Speaks, the dominant group loses its 'innocence,' & becomes aware the vast verdant expanse of language is an illusion of infinite space, aware of the four holodeck walls pressing in behind the simulacrum of the horizon, & suddenly "what one can say without negative consequences"--largely social, sometimes, rarely, if social media goes viral, professional--feels much more claustrophobic. so they get angry. & some of them are just bigots, obviously, but some of them--like my parents, &, even, this weirdly well-intentioned m*thhead who said one of the most shockingly racist things i've heard in my life & *honestly didn't understand why it was racist*, is really riled up about free speech & individual rights, hates the government, hates "FANG" (facebook amazon netflix google) & has a bunch of dystopian conspiracy theories about data harvesting & personal information that only miss the mark in that they get too nefariously biopolitical (billionaires want to put microchips in everybody for surveillance to monitor our movements & sell us more stuff; they don't need to, they already use our phone location & browsing habits to generate the algorithm & sell the information to ad companies lol, it's digital& cast a

single illuminati figure in the role of comic book villain, controlling the operation behind the scenes like an evil puppetmaster (classic conspiracy fare; again, we gotta take that energy, that suspicion, the understanding that they are being taken advantage of & tricked, the idea that power & capital & resources are concentrated among a very small number of people, however it's not an individual wealthy villain with a desire for world domination who wants to turn Free Americans into microchipped drones, it's a *class* of people--or rather several classes, but *who those people are as individuals does not matter*. if you guillotined bill gates, another billionaire would take his place. bill gates qua bill gates is not the problem. it is classes of people who control the means of production & own property & profit enormously from exploiting the labor of a desperate, rapidly increasing underclass, i.e. from the system as it is. therefore it is in their interest to maintain the status quo, because it serves them. 'the rich get richer, the poor get poorer.' the middle class gradually ceases to exist. if you want to compound it by race, consider the GI bill as an example - you learn about it as the leg up that enabled thousands of WWII vets to buy houses, enabling them to enter the middle class. hundreds of thousands of third-gen middle class white americans still reap the structural, socioeconomic benefits of their grandparents' initial upward mobility, including,, very tangibly, those selfsame houses, which can be inherited & then rented out as a second property if the children or grandchildren accrue enough money to buy their own properties. but only about 100 black vets got approved for homeownership loans, despite the staggering numbers of black soldiers who enlisted & applied through the GI bill. anyway! the impulses are there, & they're only being funneled into conspiracy thinking because that makes intuitive sense on a narrative level. these guys have a high school education; so does my stepdad. their reading habits are...eclectic, sporadic, pretty much dictated by occasional recommendations & like, little free libraries around the neighborhood. it's both interesting & frustrating to see like - hey, here are these people, we agree on a lot of things, they're earnest & open & want to learn & would give their neighbor the shirt off their backs as a matter of principle. they'd give a *stranger* the shirt off their backs; they'd share whatever they had. even what chores there are in their collective--they live with two other guys--(dumpster diving, walking the dog, tidying up the apartment) are allocated by ability & inclination. they made advance plans to look after the dog & their roommate with War PTSD on the 4th of july if the fireworks upset them, jokingly called the dog an emotional support animal. you give them the tools, the reading, talk to them like normal people with a stake in society--like, imagine a society that would have a stake in people like you instead of criminalizing you & consigning you to the margins! that's already *political imagination* because anyone who occupies a marginalized position will have their existence politicized, whether they want this or not, so better to become a self-aware, self-reflexive political subject, no?--talk *with* them because tbh i am them, i'm just better at situational masking & also i am very very afraid of cops so i only damage property in groups during planned political actions (not spontaneously, because i feel a flash of rage at my neighborhood gentrifying, & simply do not have a superego, so i tear down the real estate sign for the fancy new apartment complex in a fit of pique, because in this house we believe that spontaneity can & should be developed into class consciousness, again, the seeds of which are there in the initial trigger for the spontaneous reaction, i.e. anger at gentrification. not opposed to a little direct action, but they're just gonna put up a new sign tomorrow, it doesn't advance your agenda or hinder the gentrifiers' progress. now, if

you sabotaged the construction site for the new apartment buildings & painted a few potent symbols + graffiti'd a pithy, written statement expressing your opposition to gentrification generally & these apartments specifically? in a prominent place, large font, eye level, visible & legible from oh, a block away? maybe as a member of a collective, your neighbors, perhaps? & you could sign it "[neighborhood] or [block] residents" to pack more of a punch, the power of a crowd speaking in unison to say "not OUR home, you predatory developers"? that's no longer spontaneous, impulsive, affective violence, & it's also no longer an individual--acting alone leaves you vulnerable. again--i didn't just *intuit* that he tore the sign down because he was mad about gentrification, i asked, in a genuinely curious tone, not at all accusatory, no hint of reprimand or censure, just...interested, "why did you do that?" & he was like "it made me fucking mad." & i was like "what about it made you mad? the apartments? how come?" & he thought about it for a minute & explained. i'm not sure *he* necessarily made the conscious connection until prompted. idk, i know people talk a lot about the fact that breitbart & drudge report are free while NYT & "all the news fit to print" is paywalled, & q-pilled covid hoax sites are free while "reputable" pandemic coverage & public health guidelines & explanations of mRNA vaccines for a lay audience are paywalled & that's true but also We Live In A Society & if you talk to the wingnuts who AREN'T that way because of any far-right ideology, a lot of them are just...autodidacts without much formal education but a lot of raw intelligence that leads to analyzing The Big Picture & trying to deduce a pattern, find a framework that explains why the world is the way it is, profoundly frustrated, deeply aware of American society's, universalized & figured as the world's, exceptional unfairness & cruelty, & *that can be redirected* with reading, discussion, prompting critical thought, introducing community connections, & perhaps most importantly for this genre of person, getting them to see patterns at work in terms of systems & structures rather than individuals, letting go of American individualism's explanatory power & belief in its liberatory potential (see: the sort of ad hoc libertarianism that goes hand-in-glove with much conspiracy thinking, both stemming from 1) mistrusting the government, & 2) ultimate freedom of the individual as the most sacred value, therefore it is what all enemies want to take away), outlining positive, actionable goals rather than just ambient suspicion & anger at authority, & figuring out how those goals can be accomplished more effectively by an organized collective (but this will ultimately benefit the individual). If the world isn't run by a shadowy cabal, if you begin to understand the structures responsible & how they manifest even on the scale of your block (e.g.!!! predatory developers buying up properties during a pandemic, tearing down affordable housing to build expensive condos on the lot, or giving old buildings a "spit and polish" so they can double the rent, pricing all the current residents out, not to mention all the little local businesses, almost all mexican & run by the mexican families who live here, that give our block its culture & will get pushed out by boutique coffee shops & the like, catering to a more affluent & almost certainly whiter clientele)--you can, in fact, change the world, something both of them repeatedly referred to as their purpose on earth. it may not be as a maverick figure, one against an army, but strength in numbers is an aphorism for a reason.

anyway! thse guys were also really weird about jews, in the philosemitic way conspiracy theorists of a certain stripe often are. the itinerant vagabond guy gave me one of his drawings; it's really lovely. i'm going to give them "are prisons obsolete?" & "the wretched of the earth" & some david graeber. 44 yr old guy has this idea that society is atomized & people aren't connected to each other & have lost the willingness or the ability to communicate with each other, also that the overreach of authority has driven some people to violence, & that makes the world feel unsafe to everyone else. he feels guilty because he is acutely aware that language, when wielded adroitly & intentionally, always has the capacity to manipulate; he is afraid of succumbing to the temptation, because he senses the coercive power of language within himself. the other guy was mostly quiet but said 44 yr old guy is one of the best friends he's ever had. he thinks animals are able to sense emotions and to heal, & he thinks they can mediate between people who have become too isolated, who have forgotten humans' innate ability to forge connections, approach others as social creatures seeking to bond instead of mistrustful, apprehensive, rejecting overtures of friendship because they expect subterfuge, or propriety has evolved to deem such overtures inappropriate outside of strictly delineated, artificially orchestrated contexts. deviation from the norm is not permitted. & back again to policing. they have an idea called "the omega family," omega for the end, a group of like-minded people who come together, who encounter each other serendipitously (predicted through auspicious auguries & recognized on sight through a constellation of signs & wonders, because of course we are all psychotic here, it was nice to just be psychotic & discuss these things like they were normal lol), & serve as catalysts to each other's "personal truth." anyway this is why i don't go out when i'm crazy, i always end up in situations like this, see also: the last time i did m*th, in a pizza hut bathroom in tallinn with an art student from glascow named muhammad ali (he went by ali), the son of white muslim converts--we thought it was c*ke but it got lost in translation & that's how i figured out i had adhd. later i got [redacted] by a filmmaker from kazan & he gave me his business card afterward for some reason, which was extremely funny. thankfully these dudes were better behaved. one of them even gave a speech about how men shouldn't rape people??? & also how our society shouldn't construct women as universal victims because in doing so it makes victimhood almost compulsory & shoehorns women into a victim role as part & parcel of womanhood? i was like yes my dude you are almost there, read the essay "abject feminism." (i did not tell them i was trans bc i wasn't sure how that would shake down, to be honest; couldn't get a read on it. did tell them i was gay & they respected it, though one did say he dated a lesbian once, & i explained that many men feel compelled to interject with an anecdote relating an exception to the rule or insist that they will he the exception to the rule, & it's really just bad manners, not even getting into the bad politics. he took it on the chin & talked about how the girl in question came home to find her partner dead of an overdose & his wife had just died of MS, so their relationship was more about grief & comfort than sexual attraction. i was like that's really, really sad, & it's wonderful that you were able to be there for each other at a time of such staggering loss, & i am a person who totally understands what you mean to communicate, but if a lesbian tells you they're a lesbian & you reply that you once dated a lesbian & they get offended & instead of responding with contrition or correction you elaborate on the tragic backstory of the relationship as though that explains the circumstances in which a self-proclaimed lesbian would date a cis man, other lesbians *will* deck you, or at the very least not take you, an unwashed white guy in

his 40s who isn't neurotypical & sits way too close for social convention in a way that could easily be construed as a come-on, in good faith.) tl;dr made some new friends, did some good drügs (i much prefer smoking m*th to snorting it, basically like purer, more potent adderall, & as such will not be doing it again for a LONG time, because i enjoy it FAR too much; slices through the brain fog & the chronic fatigue & the joint/bone pain, makes me able to pay attention, follow the thread of a conversation, actually be *interested* & want to ask *questions* & expand, build, encourage my interlocutor to elaborate, place more kal-toh pieces until the conversation shimmers into a three-dimensional shape, instead of being listless & exhausted & disengaged & *bored* all the time, so obviously i would get addicted immediately if given the opportunity, & i've known this forever lol)--now going to hydrate, refill pill case, write some emails, & meet C at the beach! not how i expected to reboot my brain, but it works! also putting them on limited facebook view because i try to keep some groups of people in my life quarantined from each other & that includes 1) my relatives & my academic ~colleagues (ne'er the twain shall meet), 2) my exes & my family, 3) my relatives, colleagues, & uh. a couple of lovely, but extremely psychotic dudes with very long criminal records i met while doing hard drugs

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arizona-trash-bag · 3 years ago

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I can totally explain a bit of my thinking behind seeing lwj as autistic and wwx as autistic/adhd!! Before I get into specifics though, let me preface with where I’m coming from. I first saw CQL and then read the EXR translation of the novel. I prefer MDZS to CQL, but also want to acknowledge that because I do not read/speak Mandarin I am inherently experiencing this story second-hand and therefore am probably missing out on a lot of nuances. I am trying to learn Mandarin, but it will be a long time before I am even a little close to fluent lol.

Another preface- obviously not all autistic people present in the same way, and many of the things that I will mention are not solely specific to autistic people either. It’s one of those things where all of it added up together points towards asd, but each one individually would not on its own indicate asd, you know? Also, I will say that many of the things I picked up on for both characters are autistic traits that many autistic people have vs the clinical characteristics (much like most of the case I could make for wwx’s adhd would be adhd traits he has rather than symptoms that would lead to a real-world diagnosis.) Edit: OH! I almost forgot to say, that also all of these traits I’m listing are from a western perspective, and I would LOVE to read more about how autism presents in different cultures and to see conversations between autistc Chinese people specifically, so as to see if these traits are specific to western autistic people or not, but again, I do not speak Mandarin or Cantonese or any other Chinese dialect, so that’s a little inaccessible for me atm.

Ok, SO, for both characters I would list: strong sense of justice, lack of care for society’s opinion (I feel like it could be argued that lwj does to a certain point, but imo he operates more from what he morally considers to be correct and from a place of familial duty vs catering to the opinion of society at large), and then more vaguely, they both seem to be “nerdy” (this doesnt feel like the most accurate term, especially because it's not like being scholarly is specific to their characters, especially in ancient fantasy China- it’s more that their particular hmmm, flavor?? of love of knowledge feels very neurodivergent to me, vs like, being scholarly because it’s the thing that is expected of a Young Master, if that makes any sense at all- like the difference btwn someone getting an engineering degree because it is expected of them vs because they genuinely love engineering), and lastly for both- I would say that they are canonically kinky, and while I can’t cite any statistics, there’s a pretty high correlation between being autistic and being into kink. Obviously, not every person who is not vanilla is autistic, and not every autistic person is into kink…….but there is a high correlation.

For lwj specifically, the things that made me think he might be autistic are his lack of outward emoting combined with his depth and breadth of emotions, how he seems to thrive in and quite enjoy the very structured environment he grew up in, and then the last one off the top of my head (side note, I feel like a week from now I’m going to randomly think of other examples lol) I’m not actually sure IS an example, because I know (thanks to the awesome post from hunxi that you linked to that I had read previously) that his succintness does not equal autism, but I do kind of feel like it is very autistic to Always be so formal and to Always talk in textbook perfect language.

For wwx, I also think he likely has CPTSD! I’m not going to list anything for adhd or cptsd since we both agree on those :) As far as being autistic goes, there is, of course, the high prevalence of adhd/asd comorbidity. For specifc traits- while autism can show up as lack of facial expressions/tone, it can also show up as being overly exuberant and overexpressive. Especially for younger autistic children this can show up as being overly friendly/no boundaries w/ strangers (just?? going home with a random man who says he knew wwx’s parents???), making unusual connections that others do not can be both asd and adhd, his disregard for social status (disregard might be a strong word, and also I feel like this might be one of those things that got lost in translation and if I had read the original text I might have a different opinon, but what I mean here is the way that often autistic people learn certain social rules and try their best to follow them, but often do not pick up on specifics related to social hierarchy that are not spelled out for them- I think jyl’s take down of jin zixun is a great example of the /oppossite/ of what I’m talking about, and is a very neurotypical interaction. An example also of what I mean by disregard for social hierarchy, but from my own life, is how I’ve reflected on past convos w/ my boss only to realize that what I thought was just an interesting conversation about our opinons on a particular subject was actually them trying to tell-me-as-my-boss something they wanted me to do. We ended up doing things the way I wanted to do them because I didn’t realize that they were telling me to do something because they didnt explicitly say so, and because I just don’t pick up on when people are saying something from a social hierarchy pov. Idk if this makes sense or not, so I’m happy to try to expand if you would like me to. I feel like wwx could be described as having alexithymia, which is very common in autistic people, but could also be due to his cptsd. And then, I don’t feel like this is a true point because it is kind of based on headcanon? but wwx feels very demisexual to me, which is much more common for autistic people than it is for allistic people. But him being demi is not canon, just my perception of him (I see him as demisexual gay w/ massive comphet, but I know lots of people see him as bi, which also totally makes sense!!)

Tbh, I’m having a harder time than I thought I would listing wwx specifics. I might go through the book sometime this weekend and see if there are specific moments that pop out at me, but tbh w/ him its more that he Feels very adhd/asd to me?? Idk, I was diagnosed w/ adhd when I was 8, and all 4 of my siblings plus my father have offical adhd diagnoses. I’m 29 now and was only diagnosed as autistic earlier this year. All of my close friends have always been either adhd, asd, or adhd/asd. There have been multiple people I have met that I’ve suspected were neurodivergent who have later told me they started looking into it and are now seeking formal diagnoses. I mention these things, only to give full context when I say that I have spent a lot of time observing the differences between interacting with neurotypicals and neurodivergents. I mean, obviously, it’s possible that I could just be projecting, but to me, Wwx gives off late-diagnosed/heavy masker autism/adhd combo vibes. Again, maybe I am projecting, but I did try to analyze whether I was or not previously, and determined that since in the past with other favorite characters (who I probably share more similarities in personality with) I did not feel like they were neurodivergent, so I figured that probably I wasn’t? That feels like a very convoluted sentence, but what I mean is that I have not thought that about other characters who have been my fav, so I figured that while I do project in certain areas that this particular area probably wasn’t one of them. Or, to say it in yet another way, since i did not project any of my neurodivergencies on past favorite characters, I figured I probably didn’t start doing so now.

I would love to hear more of your perspective on this, particularly because I worry that I do not have the cultural touchstones to realize when something wwx or lwj is doing is not actually a sign of being neurodivergent. I try my best to research things I don’t know about and to listen to fans who actually do have that cultural understanding, but there’s only so much I can look into on my own when I only speak/read english. And also, I love mdzs and I love talking about both adhd and autism, so I’m glad to talk about these subjects with someone else who also likes all of those topics :) Sorry for sending a book of a response and also I hope you are having a great day!!

wow wow wow anon THANK YOU for doing your research and acknowledging your blind spots you seriously made my day. I wanted to get to this as soon as I made that rant while sharing cyan’s post bc this is specifically an example of a well researched proposition based on actual lived experience and critical thinking.

I almost want to ask you to come forward so we can take this convo elsewhere for a more nuanced discussion bc you’ve already hit upon an issue that’s been holding me back from making a big blathering masterpost on the matter - that the ND experience is so unique and individual, and no one person can dictate someone else’s experience. at the end of the day, if you personally relate to these characters and gain more understanding of yourself and your experiences from them, who am I to take that away from you?

in a public space though I have to make the discussion very broad in order to accurately contextualize these issues, bc in typical autistic fashion I feel morally compelled to Do My Best and Get It Right even as the masses show no inclination of returning the favor, so apologies for the boring backstories I have to get out of the way before we can approach anything resembling new ground.

first from a diagnostic standpoint, while I recognize the traits you listed (and appreciate your clearly nuanced understanding of ND expressions) and would find value in exploring them in a personal context, they are not unique to adhd and/or autism and wouldn’t constitute a basis for diagnosis in a clinical setting. I know that's probably beside the point for this anon, but there's enough edgy teens hoarding labels out there without tacit encouragement from scientists (yes I am technically a scientist, even though my ideologies these days range from conventional to... wildly esoteric, shall we say)

from a cultural standpoint, it’s important for me to emphasize that the concept of neurodivergence is a uniquely western notion. for those unfamiliar, the term 'neurodiversity' was only coined in 1998. I was born in 1991. I existed for a whole 7 years as an autistic person before the idea of being neurodivergent was even a thing. this ND acceptance thing is very, very new - people were not making tiktok confessionals about their adhd diagnosis journeys when I was growing up.

china, like most asian countries, is about 20 years or more behind on just about every social issue compared with western countries. to better illustrate, the experience of being ND in china falls much closer to the conventional experience of disability (i.e. being eugenicized out of existence) than the tentative ND acceptance movement that’s been kickstarted in the past 20 years in the anglosphere.

safe to say, there is no ND coding going on in chinese media. characters are either explicitly ND or they're not. there's no basis for a creator subtly inducing ND-like traits in a character, because there's no such thing as ND awareness in the cultural context of where mdzs was written and consumed. any resemblance is purely accidental, as they say.

as to how this resemblance could exist - I could go into the layers and layers of historical, cultural, social and religious context that make up these characters and the xianxia genre as a whole. for this anon in particular i'm happy to, because they've done the work. please please get in touch in some way where we can have a fully fleshed out chat if you're interested in taking this further, I realize i’ve basically addressed none of the finer points you’ve raised but honestly it’s another level of discussion to be had that cannot be summarized in one blog post haha.

as for those who would scream 'but special interests!!' at a character whose sect was founded by a literal monk - what would be the point?

PS. to comprise a starting point for why it's possible to see ND4ND everywhere in media if you looked hard enough - I refer you to the seminal red oni blue oni trope 💁‍♀️

#neurodivergence #neurodiversity #actuallyautistic #autism #adhd #danmei #mo dao zu shi #the untamed #mdzs #lan wangji #wei wuxian

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florenceisfalling · 3 years ago

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i think people don’t like the red eyes specifically with c!wilbur because he’s canonically mentally ill and it comes across as demonizing him/treating him as pure evil for his symptoms/actions? but that’s mostly with the added context of people calling him ‘vilbur’ and assuming that Everything he does is manipulation/abusive but not showing that kind of treatment to any other character who has also done shitty stuff like him. Or something like that idk that’s my understanding of it personally i don’t like it/calling him ‘vilbur’, i honestly prefer when he’s depicted as Just Some Guy with funny red sunglasses. do with that info what u will tho

OKAY i didnt see this until now here are my thoughts (the rest of u blease be aware that im not caught up in the series and i try to stay out of mc//yt disk horse as much as possible):

i understand what u mean now!! thank u!!

see the thing i have with it is.

1.) red eyes are like One (1) aspect of villainizing him so idk why that specific thing is such a Big Deal when there's plenty of art that shows him totally villainous without red eyes, i legit saw people praising some art for "not being ableist by using red eyes" when the person was using... another ~spooky~ eye design that just happened to not be red. i understand when it has the added vilbur context tho that makes sense

2.) i've never seen people using techno hearing voices and stuff as a reason for him not to be portrayed as a villain?? youd think the fandom would at least try to be consistent?? maybe im just not as exposed to those parts of fandom

3.) i agree that wilbur isn't Big Bad across the board or anything, i love the lil man. but i think that for Every Single DSMP Character there is someone who sees them as a manipulative, abusive villain. i've legit seen takes about Every Single One except like... niki?? where someone was portraying them as downright heartless. he ain't special.

4.) when people were talking about red eyes being ableist i thought they were referring to something with actual real world implications. like i thought it was a bad stereotype relating to people with albinism or something. not even joking. love to hear that its completely isolated to fandom discourse lmao

5.) again i dont think wilbur (nor any other dsmp character) is a set villain either, but i completely understand why some people see him as a villain. its fine. thats fine. its fine

6.) i think it wouldve been really funny back when heathers: the musical's fandom was in its prime, if people applied the same logic to jd. "all the popular animatics by a//nidoodles are ableist! they portray jason dean with red eyes in some scenes, and villainize him even though he had signs of mental illness!!" like omg jd and wilbur are BOTH people who blew shit up while wearing trench coats <3 <3 <3

#thats all im saying thamk u #discourse tw #im not trying to debate or anything btw!!! ur opinion is urs and mine is mine :]]#it do not matter

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minkdenmilo · 4 years ago

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💙 Autism Trait Listing Time 💙

I am self-diagnosed as of now but I'm in the process of trying to get tested and my diagnosed friend said that a lot of what I told her lines up so it's likely I am autistic.

+ Constant Fidgeting: Bouncing of my leg, Tapping of my fingers - If I stop I am physically uncomfortable and tend to shake my ankle/foot or shake my wrist/hand

+ Sensory Oveload at Noise: Usually it's not the loudness of noise for me, but the overlapping of noises. Hearing a television play a show + someone talking + someone somewhere else talking etc. makes me get a headache and I sometimes feel like crying because I can't focus or really hear myself think.

+ Sensitivity to Sudden/Loud Noises: I flinch and startle at loud noises frequently- to the point in which it is noticeable by friends. If the bell goes off when I don't expect it to or the fire alarm I nearly fall out of my chair. If my dad raises his voice or if anyone gets upset and raises there voice I instantly assume they're yelling and tense up- even if they're just raising their voice a little.

+ Tactical/Texture Sensitivity: I detest certain textures and actively avoid them like cotton balls (which feel like how nails on a chalkboard sound), fennel/rosemary, any texture in drinks, nuts in bread, etc. in which my family has noticed and teased me over. Where as other textures I adore and constantly seek out like tree bark or soft fur like textures.

+ Stimming(?): I constantly pick at my skin and when I try to stop I can briefly before I go back to doing it without thinking because it's relaxing. I constantly play with the joysticks on my Nintendo Switch to help compensate and give my hands something to do. I use a fidget spinner sometimes as well to help relax and when I get anxious I use it more often cause the noise it makes and the action of spinning it is helpful. I also do the ASL (sign language) alphabet without thinking to myself just cause it's relaxing and when told to stop I get a bit anxious. I tap my fingers together repetitively a lot and my friends have noted this and have mentioned I tend to do it more when I'm stressed or bored.

+ Hyperfixation: I have the habit of finding something I like and then focusing on it violently. When I was a kid I would watch the same three movies (Newsies, Highschool Musical, and Hairspray) on repeat until I memorized the lines. I went through a phase where everyday I watched Total Drama for like half a year- I still remember the events of each episode. If I watch a video on a video game I have to look up the Wikipedia entry on it, read everything in the fan wiki, and watch video after video deconstructing the game until I'm satisfied. I'll listen to the same song for hours at a time for a week or more and then ramble about it to my friends. My habit of infodumping everything I know about a subject bothers my families and friends. I'll ramble for an hour about an idea I have for a play to a friend before realizing I haven't shut up cause I know most people don't care about minute things like I tend to.

+ Being a Kid: As a kid I was definetely the odd one out. I would hug everyone regardless of who they were, how close we were, or if they were receptive. I just had to hug people- I would get upset if I couldn't hug people. To this day I have stuffed animals I hug because I get anxious without the physical sensation of hugging after too long. I never seemed to be on quite the same wavelength and would stare people down just randomly, even I didn't really understand why I'd do it but I would just lock eyes with someone and not stop until they told me to. People would openly mock me and it would go over my head because I genuinely thought they were my friends and were being nice (I would get called werewolf due to my messy hair and sharp teeth and I would just smile and say I preferred being a vampire). I wore the same velcro shoes everyday until they wore out and demanded my mom buy the exact same pair. I'd cry whenever someone hurt my feelings even once I turned 10 and 11. I accidentally hurt my friends by punching them or pinching them cause I didn't realize how much I was hurting them until I drew blood or they demanded I stop.

+ Routine: I hate being late. I hate being on time. I have to be 10 minutes early to everything. If I have to be somewhere at 9 and its a 30 minute drive then I have to leave the house at 8 or 8:10. If it hits 8:11 and we aren't on the road I lose it. I cry and panic and I shake like a leaf until my dad starts the car. In elementary if we were even a second late I'd sob uncontrollably and panic. Now I still cry and shake but it's not as bad. I am an avid rule follower even when I know I'm being silly. My friends and I went to an abandoned building and I was anxious that we'd be arrested despite knowing people did it all the time and it was fine. I had to stay at school after hours for a project and I wouldnt stop worrying we'd get caught and expelled even though our teacher said we could. When I was like 8 or 9 I read about how not turning off your heater started fires so every day before I left for school I'd check to make sure the heater and oven were turned off three times each. Even if we'd never turned them on in the first place. I haven't been able to focus in online school without the structure of being physically in school no matter how hard I try. When my dad takes the family places last minute I feel unbearably anxious and out of it, even when I am aware I am overreacting. I have noticed executive disfunction issues in the past and when presented with multiple things I need to do I get overwhelmed and panic and do nothing instead. I hate clutter and in the desire to clean one item I end up deep cleaning everything just because I start one chore then think of another in the process and it spirals from there.

+ Misc: I have always been the sensitive emotional child. My mom frequently teases that I never get her sarcasm. I can't decipher how people feel unless I can hear their voice and see their face which makes texting and to a lesser extent voice calling anxious and weird for me. I actively avoid eye contact with people I don't know well and avoid conversation on elevators or in public spaces. I adore watching slime videos and stim boards are wonderful now that I've discovered them. Math isn't my strong suit because the numbers don't make sense to me- I can't decipher even simple algebra equations but I've always been great at reading and I pride myself on my vocabulary and way with words. Despite this I can't give speeches or explain things to save my life even if I know exactly what I mean and want to say I just cannot verbalize it properly so I have to write down exactly what I want to say before I say it. Even then I ramble too long and my dad frequently notes I can never "get to the point and trim out the unnecessary details" but like- I can't tell which details are necessary or not. I can never be presented a broad piece of information and understand it, I need every minute detail first otherwise I cannot understand the bigger concept and thus when I speak I provide every detail to make my point crystal clear. I also feel uncomfortable around authority figures and adults- way more than seems normal- and avoid eye contact and tend to be especially anxious and respectful because adults and authority figures just scare me.

These are all just like the immediate things that jump into mind + context around them. Idk if these could actually point to me being autistic but if anyone has any advice or help then please let me know. I'm kinda worried I'm being a hypochondriac but that might just be because my dad doesn't believe in autism so I'm internalizing that.

I've had close friends say some of my symptoms seem like anxiety or OCD but the texture based stuff and the fact that I have purposefully tried to stop stimming and fidgeting and have tried to repress my natural behaviors due to being seen as like weird and "off" makes me think maybe it might be autism and I just didn't realize because I assumed everyone dealt with similar things and I just was bad at handling it.

#autism #possibly autistic #asd #autism advice?#plz help i am very worried im overreacting and i dont want to talk to my parents unless im like 100% i have it

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deathgatesideblog · 4 years ago

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I Use Too Many Words to Say Absolutely Nothing About Hanahaki AUs

So I just had this thought (these thoughts?) and it’s all very unrefined and stream-of-consciousness but

TL;DR: I think Hanahaki AUs are dumb. But I keep trying to find ways to make them interesting because that feels like something I should be able to do, right??? And then I try to do that for a while. And realize that no, despite all my efforts, I still think Hanahaki AUs are dumb and not very interesting.

Okay so I’ve never really liked Hanahaki AUs, because 90% of them are like “you pine, you get sick, you angst, you nearly die, surprise your feelings are requited and you get better” and that’s just not a compelling story to me necessarily, and it’s hard to figure out how you WOULD make a compelling story out of it. But because it’s hard to figure out I have spent a nonzero amount of time thinking about how you could make something compelling out of it? Like, I think the biggest strength of the Hanahaki AU is in making Good Angst Moments. The catharsis can be kinda cheap, but the angst moments are good. I dunno if there’s any way to actually make Hanahaki AU satisfying overall but idk here’s what I’ve thought about it in a Death Gate context:

(So firstly, I think you’ve got to eliminate the part of Hanahaki that makes you die, because Hanahaki is a metaphor for the pain of unrequited love and the urgency of near death takes some of the complexity out of the already interesting situation of having a difficult time being in love and having to deal with that. So. Hanahaki is now more like a chronic illness that occurs when you love someone and feel guilty about that love-- instead of having it be strictly unrequited love, because again, Hanahaki is a metaphor for the PAIN of unrequited love, not, I think, unrequited love itself.)

I mean, Patryns are a whole race of people whose culture is both very loving and very in-denial about it, so I can easily imagine that kind of Hanahaki being abundant, possibly even to the point of death in some cases, even if not all Hanahaki is lethal in this version of things. Patryns falling in love and finding themselves tormented by the knowledge that they’re not supposed to care about another person so deeply, or that the Labyrinth is unforgiving and they’ll only be hurt by this, and then starting to choke up flowers on top of it?

More specifically, Marit leaving Haplo because she’s started coughing up petals and knows what that means, only for Haplo to wake up alone the next day with a petal in his mouth and swallow it without opening his mouth to look at it. I mean, that really doesn’t add much to the already-existing story about Love Is Difficult, Man, but y’know, Hanahaki isn’t supposed to add much more than an illustration of Love Being Difficult, Man, so I think it’s semi-valid.

And here’s the thought that actually made me sit down and write this post-- what about Alfred having Hanahaki on and off throughout his life? The guy strikes me as both a person who falls in love pretty easily and also as someone who feels guilty about it, so. You know. Just constant mild cases of Hanahaki. When he first realizes he has feelings for Lya, and he thinks that’s normal enough-- he starts coughing up flowers, and then stops when he finds out his feelings are mutual, la dee da that’s pretty standard for Sartan. But then maybe he’s in disguise as a chamberlain and there are mensch, sometimes, who are nice to him or express interest in him and of course he turns them down because, I mean, they’re mensch, but then there are petals again and he feels guilty about the petals and what they mean, so they keep showing up until he closes off contact with whoever’s triggering the disease and the symptoms are manageable again, but it’s hard to make friends that way, so Alfred’s still miserable either way.

Oh, and then there’s Orla. Can you fucking imagine Samah’s face seeing Alfred vomit up a flower and they both know exactly what that’s about? Can you imagine his face when Orla tries and fails to hide the petals in her clenched fists? (Again, I really do think the main strength of Hanahaki is just in enhancing the Angst that already exists in the text of a story about feeling guilty about love.)

And of course it starts up again when Alfred feels what he feels for Haplo. But what I think is potentially interesting about that is what if the symptoms don’t ease even after the feelings are requited? If the disease is based on being guilty or uncomfortable with one’s feelings, there’s really no reason reciprocation should stop the symptoms. And I imagine there could still be a lot of shame to work through there, especially in my headcanons where Sartan society is homophobic af and Alfred has both normal angst about Haplo/Marit existing and also internalized homophobia, etc, that doesn’t go away even knowing that his feelings are reciprocated, because that was never the only source of the shame.

And what would it be like to be Haplo or Marit in that case? I mean, they know what it’s like to feel shame for feeling love, but I don’t think either of them would be suffering from it post-canon. I guess the Hanahaki is still just an illustration of a mental condition-- in this case a physical representation of internalized shame. Mild symptoms, maybe, but still there, and still hard to watch a partner suffer through when there is, in theory, no reason for them to still be pained by these things. Alfred assuring them both that this is just something that he’s used to, that it doesn’t really go away and that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong, even though they both know it as a potentially life-threatening disease. There is something interesting about a situation like that, maybe?

But again, the problem with this version of Hanahaki is still that I don’t think it can ever be “cured” in a way that gives a compelling narrative-- at least, not in a single moment of catharsis. Because either way, Hanahaki is a representation of an internal pain. And in this case, where Hanahaki isn’t about unrequited feelings, but instead about guilt and shame, it isn’t satisfying if someone else simply “cures” it, because that’s not really how internal pain works. More likely, in the case I described for Alfred, he would experience mild symptoms for a long time, and maybe eventually the petals would come less frequently, but there would never be a single moment of catharsis, I don’t think, where he’s just cured of it.

But again ALL OF THIS JUST PROVES THAT HANAHAKI AUS ARE STUPID because I didn’t need a stupid flower disease to think about a story that was ultimately just about the guilt and shame that can come with love, I could have just written THAT story instead, all the Hanahaki part does is be a physical representation of that, and I don’t know WHY that doesn’t work for me? Soulmate AUs are basically the same thing but I find those interesting!!! What’s the difference??? I don’t know! I guess that’s why the Hanahaki diseases are usually lethal? So that you add an element of life-or-death stakes to an ordinary unrequited love story? But AGAIN that just makes every Hanahaki AU the SAME ugh

#this is only BARELY death gate related #but there is some content there i guess #shipping #i mean it's a discussion of hanahaki disease

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didim-dol · 6 years ago

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Explanation of Shamanic Rituals in 손: The Guest

This is not the most organized of thought pieces, so I do apologize for that. I’m not being paid, so I honestly don’t care enough.

Disclaimer: I am not a native Korean speaker, nor do I have any academic training, except access to academic texts, and a significant interest in the subject. Also, I’m married to a native Korean speaker, so trust me when I say, I badgered him all the time while we watched the show, asking questions that allowed me to better understand what I needed to look for in research. I can read Korean and type it, so I was able to find a lot with information he provided me. Google Translate sucks balls, but it’s often good enough, and/or points in the right direction. If you are a native speaker, and I’m totally wrong, please let me know. I will fix it and credit you!

I know there were lots of vagueness and unanswered questions about the rituals, who Park Il Do was, and what the ever-loving-fuck was going on most of the time, so I want to address them. I don’t speak to the Catholic part of any of it, except to say, in Korea, Catholicism is one of the more tolerant of Christian denominations that proselytized/evangelized there. As you can see, while not the same, they are compatible with one another, like in structured rituals dealing with possession, among other things. If you are Catholic and want to contribute to the post, please do!

First let me point out that in the entire show, the terms “possession” and “exorcism” are used rather loosely, and encompass many different rituals that don’t have obvious English translations. Some were more confusing than others, which I want to clarify.

Episode 8-9: Seo Joon (the little girl)

In Episode 8, when Seo Joon is questioned about what happened to her, she tells Hwa Pyung and YukGwang she was approached by an old lady ghost in old-fashioned clothing, who was frightening at first, but later wasn’t

YukGwang asks about the symptoms she had (digging, aching body), and says she has been “possessed” and she needs an “exorcism.”

The translations are a bit funky here: The English subtitle is “possession” which is true, but not in the way we think of it the west, which is primarily from the Catholic Church. What is actually happening to her is called: 무병 (巫病, mu byeong), or “spirit sickness/ghost sickness,” and she is experiencing 신병 (shin byeong) or “self-loss”, which is what happens to someone destined to be a shaman. They serve their spirit guide, take a new name, and thus “lose” their former identity.

Then he tells her grandmother she needs an “exorcism,” which is not a very good translation. He says she needs 내림굿 (naelim kut) which is the initiation ritual of a new shaman, meaning she needs to accept her role and become a shaman.

But when Seo Joon says the lady is gone, replaced by spirits with knives, they realize that can’t happen. The old lady she saw was the spirit who should have become her spirit guide, and the one she would serve as a shaman, but Park Il Do destroyed her, leaving Seo Joon without a guide, and vulnerable to the evil spirits that come for her instead.

In the end of the character’s arc, he talks about another “exorcism” which is, yet again, a different ritual. This is the 눌림굿 (nullim kut), or the ritual to suppress a potential shaman’s abilities to see spirits. It is the same one that was used on Hwa Pyung when he was a child.

Episode 12: The Blind Shaman

Choi Yoon goes to see the shaman who performed a 굿(kut) on Hwa Pyung as a child. She tells Choi Yoon she remembers the boy from the 세습무 (saeseummu), or “hereditary shaman” family. He asks which kind of ritual she performed on him, and she says nullim kut, but its effects are wearing off. She refers to the 큰귀신 (k’un gwishin), or the “great/powerful spirit,” which they call Park Il Do, that wants him. This weakening of the ritual’s power is why he is able to see the ghost of his father again. It doesn’t explain why his eye hurts or why he can’t touch the cross, though.

Episode 16: The Ritual to capture and contain 손

In the flashback in Episode 16, we see Yukgwang telling Hwa Pyung how to trap Park Il Do in his body. He uses two words the translators didn’t even bother with. I don’t blame them.

The first word is the ritual that Hwa Pyung should use to trap Park Il Do, and is called the 팔문금쇄진 ( 八門金鎖陣; palmungeumswaejin) or “The Eight Gate Lock Formation,” which comes from the Chinese novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms. It is a fictional military formation, but also a real ritual used in Korean Shamanism. It probably comes from the influence of Buddhism and Taoism from China, which goes back to the 3-4th centuries.

Each gate represents one of the Eight Generals/Gods of the Eight Doors and the Eight Directions (If you have a better translation for these, let me know. I did my best.):

North- 휴문신장 (休門神將) - God of the Gate of Rest

North East- 생문신장 ( 生門神將) - God of the Gate of Life

East- 상문신장 (傷門神將) - God of the Gate of Injury

South East- 두문신장 (枓門神將) - God of the Gate of Fabrication

West- 경문신장 (驚門神將) - God of the Gate of Fear

North West- 개문신장 (開門神將) - God of the Open Gate

South- 경문신장 (景門神將) - God of the Gate of View/Scenery

South West- 사문신장(死門神將) - God of the Gate of Death

The act of doing this ritual is called 팔문진경 (palmunjingyeong).

In the actual ritual, an intricately cut piece of paper in the shape of a cylindrical net is hung from the ceiling where the ritual is taking place. Eight nets are then strung out from the center net to eight more hanging nets with the names of the above deities written on amulets in red ink, pasted to the corresponding net. The image of the ghost or spirit that needs to be captured is then placed in the middle of the net, like so:

Source

Because Hwa Pyung is trying to trap the spirit of Park Il Do in himself, he carves each of the god’s names into his body in, roughly, the proper directions. It’s much more gruesome, but works. His blood is red (the color of the dead) which is a substitute for red ink. The last one, he writes on his arm which is significant because 팔 (pal) means “arm” in Korean, as well as the number “eight” in Sino-Korean numbers.

The characters are Hanja, and correct as far as I can tell. I can imagine it would be quite difficult to carve complex characters into one’s skin, upside down, and they are kind of hard to read.

Side note: I tried to find out how these directional gods corresponded with the 오방신장 (obang shinjang), or the “Gods of the Five Directions” in Korean mythology, but I was unable to find anything. It may be that the difference is in pre/post-Buddhist and Taoist influence. I’m not sure.

손: The Guest

The term 손 (sohn or son) It means “hand” as well as “guest/visitor.” In shamanism is it referred to an “ominous force,” which is why the villagers call the thing from the sea, sohn.

It was unclear from the beginning if sohn and Park Il Do were the same or different, even in Korean, as Korean is very vague. Pronouns aren’t really used, so there is no real reference to who they are talking about except in context or direct questions. This is why Choi Yoon assumed that “he” was Hwa Pyung, not his grandfather, when the shaman said sohn was still in the body he had possessed back then.

So at one point, they were not the same. Park Il Do was possessed by the ominous force known as sohn, then transferred to the driver. Then I’m not sure if he went into Hwa Pyung’s grandfather, or if there were more in-between. I can’t remember.

As the grandfather was from a hereditary shaman family, his body was powerful enough to hold him for the 20 years, along with Park Il Do’s body buried in the backyard. This is like the crow that allowed Park Il Do put in the pickled shrimp, so he always had access to Hwa Pyung, even when he was far away. How he stayed attached to Park Il Do’s body, idk, except because it wasn’t destroyed or cremated. Wrapped up like that, the body didn’t decompose.

Miscellaneous Words

살 (煞 sal) - “invisible arrow,” “evil spirit.” Sal is also a homophone for death in Chinese, and in pure Korean, it means arrow. Therefore one is struck with an arrow of misfortune. More generically, it is evil/bad things that are caused by malevolent spirits.

살푸리 (salpuri)- ritual to remove curses and evil spirits; or remove the arrows of misfortune.

I’ll probably add more to this later on, but if you want to add to it, please do! If you have any corrections for me, you can message me or reply. But don’t be an asshole.

11/23/18 - NEWLY ADDED

구마 (guma) - the Korean term for the Catholic Exorcism.

저주 (chaju)- a curse (what happened to Choi Yoon)

Sources:

Shamans, Housewives, and Other Spirits by Laurel Kendall

Illustrated Guide to Korean Mythology by Choi Won Oh

Other random sites I didn’t save. Sorry.

#the guest #ocn the guest #손: the guest #손 #Korean shamanism #korean mythology #Korean drama #ocn #Rituals #Spells #Ghosts #Spirits

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lymanjosh · 6 years ago

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do you have any tips on bringing up ADHD to a therapist? I desperately need help for it but I don’t want my concerns dismissed because stuff like adderall is heavily misused :(

i had like two pages of an answer for this (and it was coherent, even, if you can believe it) and then i refreshed the page like a dumbass so this is take 2, which is Less Coherent and im sorry but theres nothing i can do about it

so im not an authority on the subject or anything, and i don’t know your situation, and also ive been diagnosed for like 2 weeks, so you can pretty much take everything i say with a grain of salt. what im gonna do is im gonna run through my own experience / what i wish i did differently / what im doing now, and i hope it helps, and you can totally feel free to come back if you wanna talk more at all once im finished!! and i really hope that at least something i say here is of help to you

also this is gonna be rambly and im sorry about that but i don’t know any other way to be. im gonna preemptively forgive myself because youre like me so you get it but im sure it’s not easy to read so for that i apologize.

tldr: know concretely why you think you have ADHD and what treatment options you want to pursue, do like 3 times more research than you think you need to do, write down all your symptoms in advance, cite your past history of mental health treatment if you have one, and try not to worry too much. if your therapist is any good at their job they’ll know you’re not just drug-seeking, and they’ll recognize the symptoms and problems you discuss when you bring them up in the context of ADHD. probably you’ll be okay, and you’ll get the treatment you need.

so i spent most of my teen years in a drug-addled haze. i was depressed and anxious because i couldn’t Fucking Do Anything, and my parents were worried so they took me to the doctor, and the doctor was worried so she sent me to another doctor, and this continued for a long time and i was on like 4 different antidepressants and 4 different antipsychotics and also some anti-anxiety meds between the ages of like 15 and 16. it was heavily traumatic and also not fun, and the reason all this happened was that nobody stopped to think that maybe i might share some genes with my dad, who has been diagnosed inattentive since before i was born.

right off the bat i should have been way more up in arms about self-advocating, which is something you’re clearly doing, so that’s awesome and you should give yourself a pat on the back because that’s really difficult in the mental health industry especially when you’re already fighting your own brain on most things.

hopefully you haven’t been through a wringer of false diagnoses and nonsensical prescriptions, but if you have, then you can guilt your doctor a little bit. “i was traumatized! i was given dangerous psychoactive drugs during a critical phase of neural development! you have to give me stimulants to atone for your sins!” phrase it exactly like that, it’s like a silver bullet. in all seriousness if you ahve past diagnoses of anxiety or depression or anything to do with emotional dysregulation that can help your case, because you can point out that a) these things are common misdiagnoses for adhd, and b) the symptoms for these things logically emerge from things like emotional hyperarousal and rejection-sensitive dysphoria.

what i should have done, and what i think you should do, is write down your symptoms in advance, because then you won’t have to spend an hour hemming and hawing and trying to thnk of them all in the doctor’s office. i did not do this. it didn’t prove to be a problem because my doctor was kinda irresponsible but i really should have done this, just for my own benefit.

when i actually brought it up to my doctor that i might have adhd i had a couple different things going for me. i was talking to my GP, and not my therapist; im not in therapy (which you can probably tell) because therapists creep me out, but i think physicians are probably more inclined to throw drugs at it than therapists are. my GP was also brand new to my case– i had never even met the guy before. i mentioned my history of mental health treatment, and i also mentioned my dad being diagnosed, and im also a girl (girls are chronically underdiagnosed and extremely likely to be misdiagnosed with either anxiety or depression), so i had some concrete facts to support why i had suspicions. i had also done a shit ton of research beforehand, so i advise you to do that�� know concretely why you think you have adhd and what treatment options you want to pursue.

you might benefit from talking about it with your doctor before your therapist, but idk that might just be my fear of therapists talking. i think a doctor is less likely to want to taco bout it than a therapist but that may just be my specific experience– you know your situation better than i do. and admittedly a therapist is more likely to, like, Know You and know what you’re talking about when you say (for example) that you’ve always struggled with emotional dysregulation, or whatever.

something else that might help you– i wish i had done this not because i don’t want to look like a drug-seeker but because i Miss Coffee– is to bring up non-stimulant treatments like strattera (for adults) or kapvay or intuniv (both for children but sometimes prescribed to adults) because it’ll show you’ve done your homework and it might be a point against writing you off. stimulants are usually the first resort for adhd, so it’s highly likely you’ll end up on adderall or another stimulant, but it’s good to bring up as an option. might also be good to research it as a serious course of action, especially if you suffer with anxiety, because stimulants are likely to make you more anxious.

i would also advise you not to fixate on adderall? idk enough about your situation to know if you’ve done that but it’s good to be open to other medications and treatment plans bc if adderall doesn’t work for you it doesn’t work and there’s not a ton you can do about it. you should for sure read up on other treatments– you might find one that sounds more appealing, or at the very least you’ll know what to think if your doctor brings up another one unexpectedly.

so i brought up to my doctor that i might have adhd and he immediately plonked a questionnaire in front of me. i filled it out (spoiler alert most of my answers were “often”) and he was like “oh this is textbook, let’s get you on adderall” which like WHAT. i didn’t even ask about adderall. like im not gonna argue with you but let’s talk about this first before we break out the stimulant medication. but i’ve been on it for a couple days and no major side effects yet so maybe he was right who knows. anyway he was super irresponsible don’t let your doctor just prescribe you meds at random go through the side effects. always ask about the side effects. i get such bad headaches after it wears off. i have one now and its Bad.

but as an addendum you should for sure be prepared to use other coping mechanisms. i’ve started using a bullet journal since i was diagnosed which i’ve found works really well, and youtube channels like howtoadhd are really helpful to me!! i try to use the meds sparingly because i Don’t Like taking pills and also bc adderall can be habit forming, and because i hope to eventually be able to function without it, and i advise you to think of it the same way. drugs don’t have to be a permanent fixture in your life– you can use it as a temporary tool while you build up the necessary coping mechanisms and mental pathways to function without it. adhd isn’t broken brain, it’s just brain on hard mode, if you know what i mean. i try to think of the meds as training wheels– i learn to function with it, and then i gradually learn to function without it. so idk if that’s a useful way to think about it for you but to me it feels more hopeful than resigning myself to a lifetime on more drugs. idk.

but even if you’re okay with that, adderall isn’t gonna make you functional (it might. kinda feel like you’re magically functional. that’s how i feel right now, that is to say when im not headaching.) so you have to have systems in place to make it easier for yourself. some kind of productivity app might help ig (i used ike for like 3 days and then my phone died and i forgot to charge it for a week because that happens to me sometimes, but i liked ike!) but i like analog todo lists. feels good checking stuff off. either way is good though.

also get your phone to send you alerts. also rearrange your stuff. like, make the world around you conducive to your functioning. do your best to create and live in a space that enables you to do the things you need to do. get accommodations at school if you need to (i haven’t done this and can’t tell you how but there are a ton of online tutorials and you can probably just google your school + accessibility, or something, and that’s assuming you even go to school)

but yeah i hope any of that was helpful to you and im sorry to make you do 1 million hours of deciphering my shitty informal writing style and i love you and i want to help you please come back and let me know how everything goes bc im gonna worry about you otherwise

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moiraineswife · 8 years ago

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satans-armchair replied to your post“I looove Chaol and I agree he gets a shit ton of hate for no reason!...”

I think it's vital that there's a character that needs to grow to accept. It shows that not everyone is born accepting and it gives Chaol the massive opportunity for character development. Even if he doesn't fully accept Aelin, he loved her and she will always have a space in his heart whether he comes to terms with what she is. I kinda don't want it to be just "Chaol understands Aelin is okay and accepts her" I want it more steady and slow and meaningful if you get me? I don't understand why he gets so much hate either :/ I didn't really like him because DORIAN but he is such a cool character and I want to know more about where he's from and his family and his relationship with everyone he's such a good man to his guards

Okay, okay I agree, I do, I really do but like...okay this is a point I’ve been wanting to make for a while so bear with me (I’m not going to get involved in the discourse Lauren said, Lauren lied) but Chaol is not the only one who has to change and grow with regards to his feelings towards fae and magic?

Aelin reflects in ToG that it’s maybe for the best that her magic/magic in general is gone. Pretty much her entire arc in HoF revolves around HER not being able to accept that part of herself. That’s one of the biggest reasons she can’t shift/fully access her power - she’s afraid of it; which is natural after all the propaganda she’s been exposed to?

Dorian too is terrified of his power because of what he’s been told/taught/the society they live in. He spends a huge amount of time fighting it, trying to control it, terrified of it. It takes them both a long time to accept their magic and themselves and they both spend pretty much an entire book coming to terms with it?

Chaol has to figure out the same things too except he doesn’t have the benefit of actually possessing magic himself? He has no firsthand experience with it but he still spends all of HoF helping...both Aelin and Dorian deal with their magic? He helps Dorian in trying to find a way to free it/hide him better...and he ensures that Aelin can get to Wendelyn where she’ll be safe/won’t be executed if she’s caught because of what she is.

I also think...and idk I don’t know if anyone else reads it this way so maybe i’m way off the mark but I think people misunderstand Chaol’s reactions towards Aelin in QoS? It is not just because of her magic/her fae heritage (he accepts Dorian’s magic, he accepts Aedion, and he works well with Rowan too) the problem is not what she is/that she has these things...it’s what she does with them.

Like, okay, picture things from Chaol’s POV for a second? We as readers know exactly what happened in Wendelyn, we know Maeve is a piece of work and we know that Aelin didn’t actually hurt anyone. We see things from her POV, we are quite literally inside her head. Chaol is across the sea, all Chaol hears is that the queen of Terrasen decided to encircle an entire city with her fire magic...and that’s an entire city of her people, fae, people like her. He’s sitting in Adarlan at this point, suffering from PTSD after what’s happened to him, Dorian is enslaved and suffering and Chaol blames himself entirely for that and then he hears this. and he’s sitting in a kingdom that he knows full well what it’s done to Aelin and her kingdom and he justifiably gets a little bit worried that she might turn that power on his people, his kingdom, his king. (who...she spends...a very large portion of QoS.........trying to kill.

I feel like we forget this/don’t discuss it...and actually I’d like it discussed a hell of a lot more in the books as well, Aelin was flat out ready to kill Dorian. She refused to listen to Chaol. She refused to try. She was just like nope, I know best, he’s got to die, I’ve got to kill him. And I understand exactly where she’s coming from with her experiences but the fact of the matter is she was wrong. The point here is that there’s a lot of things going on perspective wise. Chaol is correct given the information that he has; Aelin is correct given the information that she has and this is why they clash because they can’t see past this, they both have solid, logical reasons that they’re right and they don’t understand things from the other person’s POV and neither does the fandom. This generates Problems.

So I don’t actually think that Chaol clashing with Aelin in QoS has anything to do with prejudices towards magic users. At this point in the story the man is actively working as a leader of a literal rebellion inside the city. He has been working for weeks at this point repeatedly risking his life over and over again to help magic users. And he does this throughout the book. He doesn’t have a magician problem he has an Aelin problem...And it’s a reasonable one as far as I’m concerned. (I’m not saying Aelin is unreasonable but I’m saying that I understand both sides. And there is genuine merit to both sides. And fandom makes this look so much easier than it actually is)

Chaol is, essentially I think, a good man. And what’s most poignant and interesting for me is that he is an incredibly human character. I mean that in the sense of him being..well literally human when there are all these fae and magic users running around but I also mean in his reactions, in his humanity itself. Chaol has always been, I think, what should have been one of the strongest voices for a reader/every day person to relate to?

Chaol, for me, presents a really interesting kind of trope subversion actually? Because he’s presented to us as this big, capable guy, very disciplined, an excellent warrior, an elite guard with a position that carries a huge amount of responsibility despite being at a young age. He’s aloof, he’s very loyal, very duty orientated, very serious and sensible.

But he’s also incredibly moral (I think a lot of these characters are presented to us as emotionless and unfeeling robots who just kill and do as they’re told etc and Chaol undermines that trope and that kind of toxic masculinity incredibly well) And this doesn’t show itself only in him looking down on other characters but he holds himself to those standards as well. Until the end of ToG Chaol had never killed another person before. And the way that he reacts to that is actually...incredibly human? He’s in shock. He seems to display a lot of the symptoms of PTSD in CoM (he stops wearing his sword, he struggles with the idea of him taking a life- even though it was in self-defence, even though he would do it again, even though he knows it was right- it still breaks something in him. He has nightmares about this, he reacts to it in short and it’s an incredibly visceral, empathetic, human reaction which is not something we’re used to seeing from characters like Chaol.

He shows an incredibly strong incredibly human and incredibly down to earth reaction to violence. Like, I’m pretty sure if I stabbed someone and got covered in their blood and they died as a direct result of this I’d be pretty not okay with that. And this is what I mean what I say that Chaol is a pretty good reader voice in these books? Because this is...realistically...how I and how I think most people would react to this sort of thing? He isn’t emotionless. He isn’t invincible. He struggles with these things and that’s human and it’s compelling and it’s interesting because we don’t get to see it.

Usually protagonists just sail through this stuff. They have no qualms, they have no morals, it’s all about ‘whatever you have to do to get the job done’, they kill and torture and hurt people and it has no effect on them whatsoever because they’re Tough and Strong and capable of dealing with all of this. But people, you, me, Chaol, aren’t made that way. Killing bothers us, violence bothers us, we’re emotional beings and this is in our nature and Chaol reflects that nature incredibly well?

He’s flawed, yes. He has a lot of prejudices that he has to work to unlearn but he’s more than that. He’s not just a lesson for ‘sometimes you think bad things and have you fix yourself’ he’s also a very compelling, very broken character in a lot of ways.

I can make a pretty reasonable case for Chaol’s position in the castle being the way in which he escaped from an abusive household (the way that his father talks to him and treats him and emotionally manipulates him is not normal. Nor is the way that he talks about his mother. And repeatedly Chaol not being with his father is referred to as him having ‘freedom’ and giving up that freedom for Aelin’s sake. But it’s freedom. People with happy, healthy relationships with their parents don’t tend to think of being on their own and without them as freedom in the stark terms that Chaol does)

And when you consider his story with that context..it makes a lot more sense. Chaol (a lot like Lucien’s position in ACOTAR at the Spring Court) doesn’t have anywhere else to go and he doesn’t have anything that isn’t this position. He’s dedicated his life to this because it was a place where he mattered, where he seemed to be treated well, where he was doing something that he wanted to do and that’s a huge thing to do if he’s leaving an abusive situation- the strength to step out and actually do something that is fully his choice, to claim his independence and know that if he fails, if this backfires, if he loses this, he’s screwed. He has to go back. And that’s a terrifying prospect for anyone in Chaol’s situation.

So he clings to this and it’s not just blind loyalty, not after a certain point. I think it was when he was younger but he crosses a line. And it’s not just loyalty to the king or a corrupt regime it’s loyalty to Dorian - the first person who likely treated him fairly and with genuine love and compassion. It’s loyalty to the only thing that he has, quite literally, something that he’s given up everything for, something that he very seriously risked his freedom to attain and losing it is...not an inviting idea.

So by the time you swing round to QoS Chaol has basically lost...Quite literally everything. His position, his honour, his king, his humanity. He’s thrust into this war, becomes a rebel leader, is trying to do what he can for people while shouldering massive amounts of survivor’s guilt and PTSD over the things that he’s been through. And he just..keeps going. And going and going and going in trying to do the right thing whatever that may be.

I think that has always been Chaol’s driving force. I think it’s taken the guise of various different things, duty, loyalty, respect etc but it’s always been about that, it’s always been about trying to do what’s right. And before that was being loyal, it was keeping his word, it was doing his job to the very best of his ability. But it slowly becomes other things. It becomes fighting what he once defended, it becomes questioning everything that ever gave him a shred of safety and stability. It becomes taking on a war and a responsibility that is so much larger than he ever thought he would or could deal with and carrying it anyway because it’s the right thing to do.

And that for me is Chaol and Chaol’s arc in a nutshell and I....Like that a lot. I like that we have someone who is presented to us as being so, damn human. Moral and breakable and flawed and scared and hurt by the things that he’s done and the things that he’s seen. But he embodies one of the things we so often see with deeply human characters - that perseverance, that will to survive, to go on, to just keep fighting, just keep living, just keep going because that’s what people do, that’s what Chaol does and it’s just...idk dude I like this character a lot idk what else to tell you.

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