#damn you executive dysfunction

[biscuitdragonwithastick]

I think my worst writing trait is that I can't read my own writing. I just. Can't.

It's awful and anxiety inducing, but I'm working through it.

[mantis-a-shrimp]

I’m hungry. I woke up early enough to go to the donut place right around the corner. I just have to get off my ass and go. This is time sensitive.

[roosterbox]

Me: I will not put off the fic rec write up until Thursday night… I will not put off the fic rec write up until Thursday night… I will not put off the fic rec write up until Thursday night… I will not put off the fic rec write up until Thursday night... *repeats ad infinitum*

Also me, inevitably on Thursday night:

[timelykeimiyamadoodles]

this gonna be a long break

no drawing today!! have a lotta stuff to do

[lith-myathar]

Very fucking annoyed that all the solutions meant to help you feel better still just seem to boil down to "just fucking do it" when my primary problem is and always has been the inability to start or maintain things

[subway-boss-jericho]

Guys this may come as a surprise but as it turns out i just might need ADHD medication. Like. Badly. shocker, i know

[maraschinotopped]

hey guys i think i have a new fixation developing

[conshirtoe]

Sorry to complain but wow I am wide awake at 6am thinking about all I have to do bc uhhh I have so much to do!!!

[scienceoftheidiot]

If there was doubt for it, yes, I'm forgetful enough to forget to take meds that allow me to NOT feel like shit all day

And guess what ! I feel like shit !

And I hate myself because this is all and entirely my fault for forgetting to take them !!!! FUCK MY BRAIN

(ps no they are not ADHD meds because I don't have ADHD. Well the people I have seen don't think so, at least. They're BP meds. For hypertension. And I'm going to take them now even if I have a set time to take them because I need to work today and not just whine because my head is exploding and I'm shaking.)

When I was taking contraception I actually managed to find one that didn't ask for me to take a pill everyday at the same time because I just. Couldn't.

How am I supposed to do this with any other medication I just. I don't know.

Yes there is an alarm on my phone. I see the alarm, I cut it off because it annoys me, I do something else and I forget. Even if I tell myself to get up and take the pill immediately there's a big chance I will not because brain not in the mood.

I'm tired. I'm really tired.

[fashion4ducks]

Or like, eating.

I NEED FOOD, DAMNIT!!! I AM STARVING!!!!

But nope.

Kay fine. Milkshake it is, then. OJ it is, then. Protein shake to the rescue.

I fucking hate this.

I think it’s important to remember that executive dysfunction doesn’t just apply to doing chores (work, cleaning, etc). It also makes it difficult to engage with your hobbies.

Some people don’t seem to understand that when I say that I don’t have the motivation to do something that I have said I want to do, it has nothing to do with not being interested enough in said thing. It is just that my brain is not allowing me to do it even though I want to.

[bread-lord-khubz]

me when drinking the apple cider affirms my gender

[h4amarch]

I’m doing that thing where I really really really really really want to draw but I can’t get up from my bed and staring at my phone

[therottenkingsreckoning]

I spend a week away at my mom's place and am immediately horrified upon coming home and realizing how filthy and smelly my place is. Like damn I really do be living like this and not seeing any problems with it

[copperbadge]

I once heard “How long you put off getting tested for ADHD ought be part of the diagnostic criteria” (a joke). Five years for me, incredibly relatable.

I mean sometimes it's not even putting it off -- getting tested as an adult is a giant pain in the ass. I don't know what it is about testing clinics -- I suspect it's that there's an enormously high percentage of people in the psychiatric fields who are neurodiverse themselves and thus the entire discipline suffers from executive dysfunction -- but I could not get a clinic to call me back. The one clinic kept putting me through to the scheduling office who literally never answered their phone, promising I'd get a call in a day or two, and then nothing. That went on for months off and on. Finally I said "I've called you guys like five times, can I speak to a human being? Can you tell me when they actually answer their phone?" and just got a kind of baffled silence.

And of course, because I have the damn ADHD myself, it took me a while after calling to call again, or to find the phone number, or to source a new place, or what have you.

The place I finally did get tested I had to nudge twice to get scheduled, and after testing they eventually required a threat of legal action by the state before they'd send me the physical written copy of my diagnosis that I needed in order to get medication.

The struggle is extremely real. So like, yeah it took me a year or two from "Sam you know you have ADHD right? Tell me you knew that" to "I professionally diagnose you with ADHD". But I tend to discount that because a lot of it wasn't me, it was the fairly fucked up way we go about these things. :D

[quixoticprince]

Yayyy!! Yippee!! I finally get to make one of these!! Art without the text under the cut and some long-winded elaborations:

How long I've been playing: well, it hasn't been a straight 11 years, rather off and on - but I have drawings of these guys dating back to when I was 14, so I'll give it to me. And man I had no business reading the fanfics I was reading back then It's also crazy how this was a super influential media for me in so many ways. It's the reason I ever made a tumblr, it changed the direction of my drawings for a long while, my broken sense of humor (gmod animation memes and yt poops were the brainrot back then), tf2 Sniper changed my god damned gender (rather, it was the inspiration for me to start socially transitioning at 15). This is part of my personal lore that I tend to not admit to 😓

Your main: I've always been completely ass at the game, and I can play flexibly, but I enjoy playing Sniper, and more recently as Heavy. Whenever I'm sitting around somewhere, occasionally throwing sandwiches and attracting Medics, I feel like this:

Favorite character: When I was younger it was definitely Medic, and I think you can tell that he's still up there based on how much I've drawn him! However, since getting back into it, I've felt quite a shift in focus towards Heavy, very strongly. It's unfortunate that he's side-lined in a lot of fanwork, and I think I'm also complicit in this so far - but for me it's cuz, how tf2 works is that it's going to prioritize humor over character and consistency haha, and Medic is just so loud and insane that he's really easy to make fun stuff with. Heavy is a more serious and grounded character, not to say that he's not funny or that he doesn't have his own cartoon slapstick moments! But that aspect of him is what is really really intriguing to me. I love his quiet, stoic, and intimidating character, I like how loud and boisterous he is when filled with bloodlust in contrast! I love his bird story and him getting into wrestling as a child from Poker Night. I love his back story setting, there's so much to extrapolate from a young boy in Russia growing up during WWII, what his parents must have been through before that from the aftermaths of the revolution, all the way to his fathers execution and his imprisonment. I love his strong relationship with his family, his role as an older brother, as a protector, as a man - the way that he performs these roles - and because I personally see him as bisexual - how his orientation intersects with all that! He is incredibly fascinating to me and I wish that he was played around with more to see a lot more corners and angles of these things that I listed! There's way more that I want to say here too but this is getting very long 😅

Character I relate to: It's so interesting that a lot of the characters have very strong, tho maybe dysfunctional, families. Heavy, Demo, and Sniper in particular really speak to me in that relation. From Heavy being an eldest brother (I am also an eldest sibling) the parentification that comes with that, especially with him probably being like 10 years older than his sisters from the looks of it. Demo and Sniper both struggle living up to their parents expectations (although there's a lot of love there from everyone), being disappointments in one way or another (not gonna deep dive into that lol), and the general alienation both of them feel. From Sniper not knowing why he's not like other Australians to Demo being "a black Scottish cyclops." And well, I'm Filipino, I'm queer, and mentally ill so - there's a lot to project there!

Class you want to play as: I find Medic incredibly stressful to play as but I find the idea of battle medics incredibly funny. However I usually find myself rushing around madly trying to cater to everyone, and I'd like to just not give a shit and just start stabbing people with a saw lol

Favorite ship: "I just like the dynamic" - The dynamic:

No but fr, they're really compelling to me, I'd probably need a longer more thought out post as to what I like about them and I was already going crazy up there ^ Overall tho I like that they're practically built for each other in terms of mechanics, really plays into my desire to spiral into intense codependency haha. I also think that Medic's drive to cheat death and hide behind meat shields plays really well into Heavy's desire to be a meat shield and a protector, and how nice it is in turn, that Medic can grant this man who's been around death, starvation, and war invulnerability. (He outsmart boolet, yknow?) They're also depicted together a lot and I like how much they enjoy each others company, and bring a lot of joy to each other. It's beautiful to me :'^)

Character you like to draw: What can I say! Medic is handsome! He is very fun to draw and easy to make memes and shit posts out of!

[moniericreative]

Joker and Neurodivergency: The Very Long ADHD Yappathon

So this is mostly just an excuse to ramble, project, and headcanon.

But the longer I've been working on my Dialogue Compilation Project... The more I've gradually started to notice bits about Joker as a character that hit pretty close to experiences I've also dealt with as someone neurodivergent, specifically someone with inattentive ADHD.

So how about we delve into it?

So as a foreward to describe the explanation process: What exactly is Inattentive ADHD?

Inattentive ADHD is a type of ADHD where children have a hard time paying attention but don’t necessarily exhibit hyperactive behavior.

In simpler terms, it's more of an internal hyperactivity. Like your brain or emotional regulation are constantly unrestrained. For instance: - Your thoughts tend to get scattered - Your short-term memory's spotty (i.e. you may struggle to repeat back something you were just told a few seconds ago) - You tend to dissassociate out of the blue due to a lack of stimulation - Your emotions might go 0-to-100 where it may be "nothing" or "suddenly everything at once" depending on what's going on (especially with external stimulants like crowds or sudden noises) - Etcetera.

And because of that lack of internal structure, it's difficult to: - Maintain habits or time awareness for some folks - Bodily queues like hunger or sleep simply don't register unless in extremes (like a low blood sugar, hunger shakes, or overall sleep deprivation crapiness).

And that's not even getting into the executive dysfunction or auditory processing issues... Hoo boy... 💪🥲

There's a wide variety of symptoms for each individual, nobody's the same. Heck some of these are experiences someone else might not even have, either.

Some of them even overlap with autism as well (and some folks might have both), but out of respect as someone who isn't autistic, I'll personally refrain from discussing about it here to avoid accidental stereotyping (but feel free to add to this with personal anecdotes if you like!). Mostly just going off my own experiences with ADHD.

So how exactly does any of this apply to Joker?

Well, some of the oh-so-fun things about being ADHD is:

- Needing consistent reminders for tasks

- Executive Dysfunction (especially when things go wrong or you feel like crap)

- Being able to Hyperfocus (i.e. "being in the zone" to a degree that you tune everything else out including the time spent on the task).

We know based on the Persona series' time-slot system that typically, Joker will spend hours doing a single task and only that task. There's no multitasking or anything. He is focused solely on whatever he starts doing, be it studying, making tools, training, etcetera.

(There's also smaller moments like the P5 Anime as well, where he'll actually get mildly frustrated with anyone that distracts him from a task he's focusing on. Specifically Akechi when he keeps trying to have a conversation with him while he's concentrating on using a pour-over. Or he's shown getting frustrated by an ever-increasing list of tasks in Mementos Mission:)

That sounds about normal for anyone though, right?

Well, here's the thing.

He usually doesn't stop until Morgana suggests he should.

This is different from previous Persona protagonists like Yu or Makoto/Kotone because they don't have someone like Morgana constantly reminding them that they've done plenty of work, or that they should head to bed. They just do it themselves.

On top of that, while party members (both from P5 itself and prior games) will occasionally remind you to "do [blank] by a certain date," Morgana's the one character that will consistently remind Joker (and you) several times in a single day, ranging from maybe a line or two, to three/four different ones every day the week before the deadline.

The one time Morgana's not present do this?

No afternoon or evening events to work on, Joker's just so damn miserable without his close friend that he holes himself up in Leblanc's Attic and does nothing for two days straight. Not even in said attic, it's standing around missing Morgana or going to sleep. Good 'ol depressed-flavoured executive dysfunction if ever I've felt one. 🥲

And on top of the "reminders" bit... Joker's also the only protag who has handwritten notes about events in the game on top of the Calendar Menu's summary too (courtesy of the notebook Sojiro gives him). Sometimes the date in the menu itself will be blank, but Joker will have these written down anyways:

Which is something that's often super helpful for ADHD folks when recalling our long-term memories (one of our bigger strengths), as specific details like these can help us piece the entire situation back together even if it was months/years ago.

(Good thing too in his case especially, considering the Interrogation Room plan hinged on him remembering everything)

So that's surely it, right?

NOPE.

There's another very important detail about Joker that's gets heavily underlooked:

Now we already know some key bits in regards to this information:

Sojiro absolutely doesn't starve him, and in fact he's not only willing to feed Joker on his way out the door, but he's also willing to teach him how to make Leblanc's food too.

And we also that eventually culminates in Strikers as a beloved game mechanic: Joker's Kitchen, which Joker does entirely of his own volition.

It's probably safe to say that he at least doesn't have a food aversion. I mean come on, he's got endless pockets full of random crap from vending machines, some of which sound absolutely inhumane. Or he's at a clinic guzzling random drugs with reckless abandon like the unhinged weirdo he is.

But with the above context that he has a tendency to lose track of time without Morgana's input, it adds a layer to this line that makes a lot of sense. Between being distracted by a task, and sometimes not having "hunger signals" at all, a lot of us tend to not even realize we've been starving all day. It's usually a state of "normal" nothing until oops it's Sudden Hunger Shakes O'Clock.

Which can also develop into just generally eating small portions of food as well, because again, we tend to "not feel hungry" unless it's extreme, and that can really affect our degree of appetite/intake.

Or in other cases, including my own and probably Joker's too until Strikers, there's a lack of general interest in food as a whole too. It's yet another time management task that you have to remember to do, every few hours, every single day, every single week, every single month, every single year. So you'll probably grab anything just so long as it's filling enough to get you by for the day. (Unless you have food aversion... Godspeed us all in finding filling safe foods that don't suddenly change and make us hurl 🫡💦). It's necessary of course, but there's a tedium to it sometimes regardless of the meal that you really have to fight with just to keep living.

Sumi gag aside, come on. Look at the sheer difference. That bun's smaller than Morgana's head and it's the barest minimum snack you can find anywhere.

"But what about the Big Bang Burger Challenge?" Come on man, we all know he's not doing it for the sake of eating. He's doing it to get smarter and prettier and kinder. The power of processed junk food filled with microplastics and employee tears I guess.

Distractability and focusing on a particular interest.

Obviously we don't go "SQUIRREL" at the drop of a hat like an excitable dog (despite how often people like to use that stereotype). But for some of us, our minds do tend to flitter around a bit in search of something to stimulate our brains.

Kinda like a zoo animal pacing around an enclosure, except it's our squishy brain trapped in a cage of bone and too little dopamine. 🫠

And in the abscence of something to work on or talk about, that can range from zoning out in classes/discussions (which Joker does a lot) to dissociate the boredom away (which ironically most people tend to see as "endless patience," if only they knew...), or looking for things to work on or talk about (which he... also tends to do a lot, depending on how much of the maps you explore).

And in Joker's case specifically, a lot of that tends to end up with him sticking his nose into situations that benefits the specific thing that gives him a purpose/drive (being a Phantom Thief), but are absolutely not normal things a teenager should be getting into.

Like dealing with the Yakuza. Or being the fake boyfriend of a drunk woman. Or paying his homeroom teacher to be a maid for him. Or a homoerotic shoot-out (... well, three separate times actually if you count an arcade game) with another teenage weirdo. Or T-Posing in a church to understand The Passion Of The Christ. Or unholy amounts of burger-eating to raise his "social stats."

He's willing to get into all kinds of mischief if it helps the Phantom Thieves. If it doesn't, then he's not particularly interested in starting anything with someone. More often than not, it takes Morgana mentioning how someone's services or skills "could help the thieves" to get Joker to be interested in them.

Or the person being especially pushy for him to cave in Maruki's case, to which Joker will make the same rationalization instead despite his initial pushback:

He's so dedicated to being a Phantom Thief that it's equal parts inspiring, relatable, hysterical, and sad to watch.

Especially since at the end of almost every single confidant (bar the party members', and Akechi's and Maruki's who both peg him as a thief pretty quickly through happenstance), every single one of them find out he's a Phantom Thief on their own. Because this poor boy is so tunnel-visioned on his role as "Joker" and helping people that he's about as subtle as a steel chair to the face and woefully unaware of it until it's told to him. 🥹

Lastly, NO TOUCHY.

Honestly, probably my favorite underrated bit about Joker that barely gets talked about.

Across the different P5 mediums (well, two as far as I'm aware of), there's at least one on-screen instance in each of Joker being touch-aversed whenever other people invade his personal space. Usually whenever he has physical contact with someone else (like any of the romaceable confidants, or Akechi), he's the one initiating it first.

In the P5 Anime you've got the bathouse scene between him, Ryuji, and Yusuke after Madarame's palace. In it, Ryuji jumps away from the hot water coming out of the faucet and bumps into Joker.

His response directed at Ryuji?

In English: "Please scoot back."

In Japanese (according to subs anyway): "You're making it hotter."

Both of which he says while hunched up with his shoulders to his ears and shooting Ryuji an unhappy expression.

Seriously. That is a "dead-inside and accepting reality" stare if ever I've felt one, choppy animation quality aside.

In P5 Royal meanwhile, you've got Yusuke's third awakening in Third Semester, where Joker says this when he suddenly grips his shoulders:

Both of which are basically the exact same message, just told in different ways.

... And that's not even going into how more often than not, any time we see Joker being touched on-screen by someone else, they're usually restraining or physically abusing him.

Whether you want to chalk that up to trauma from his initial arrest in the Shido Flashback, or as a ND aspect of his, is entirely up to you. Personally I'm leaning more on the latter as he usually only establishes this boundary with people he trusts (whereas he just outright avoids contact altogether around strangers), and he only breaks this boundary himself around specific people he cares about.

So with all that rambling finally done, hopefully this helps others notice some really cool bits of characterization around this loveable goofball. I won't say this a "100% accurate" interpretation of Joker as a character because everyone sees him differently. He is a self-insert after all.

But compared to the previous Persona protags (hell, even Atlus protags in general), Joker's always the one I immediately fall back to as the favorite for some reason. The coat is snazzy, he has a smirk that makes all the ladies and gay detectives weak at the knees, but... I could never really pinpoint the actual why until now.

Whether Atlus intended Joker to be neurodivergent-coded is up in the air, but there's just so many aspects about him beyond the player's control that hit really close to home, and I'm glad that he's such a popular and beloved character for the traits that make him him.