#i have this chronic issue where i struggle so hard to say nice things even if I'm fully thinking them. what's that all about

[purpurussy]

no bc Phil saying in today's interview that they were looking at the social media reaction after the Antwerp show made me feel kinda bad...... I wish I'd documented that show a lot more than I did. I barely took any photos and I only made like 3 posts about it at the time. I think the most I said about it was when I was discussing something which got cut after that show 😭

and I don't necessarily regret being in the real world and actually connecting with people and watching the show with my eyes. it was SO fun to just really talk and connect with phannies and that will always be a great memory <3 but after the show a bunch of us went to a bar near the venue and literally talked for hours about how fucking good it was, and now I wish I'd posted about that a bit more... obviously the point was to have fun and talk and connect with you guys, but if I'd known they'd be in the tags I would've said something nice on here rather than just making a couple of shitposts and then complaining about something. like it sucks that I feel like I didn't say enough nice things about it to balance out my whining 😭😭 I said all the nice things irl where dan and phil can't hear me. this is very parasocial I fear because it shouldn't really matter

but phantwerp really was one of the most fun nights I've had since before the pandemic and I'm not exaggerating. this has been such an awful year for me and it really meant so much to have something to look forward to when I was doing really badly over the summer, and for it to actually exceed my expectations was amazing... dnp are so talented they are truly incredible performers and I actually just wrote a huge paragraph listing all the things I loved about the show but I got embarrassed for some reason dsfgjkl anyway. I can't believe I spent the night bonding with humans in real life I should have been on the internet where I belong

[dark-side-blog3]

Chronic illness has me feeling useless lately with how tired I am and how little I can do a lot of days (I know I don’t have to be “useful” but I want to do so much more). I’m realizing this would make me a dream target for a yandere in so many ways. Caring for myself is hard on bad days? Okay, then they’ll just take care of me (by kidnapping me or controlling what I do and where I go), problem solved! Isn’t it easier to take me from a life of so many tasks and responsibilities when I’m struggling? If I resist, they know I don’t have much energy to fight. I’ll tire out easily and maybe I’ll be easy to break. Obsessive yans or gilded cage yanderes would have such a field day with me, too. A fragile, delicate thing like me? A darling they can treat like glass, something that will break if they aren’t careful? I’m a strong candidate for sure o.o

Anon, I relate deeply to this confession.

I don't have a chronic illness, but I do have chronic pain. And it doesn't stack nicely with other issues... It can be isolating. It feels like even doing hobbies is an arduous task. I'm just waiting to regain energy, regain strength, or whatever that day's problem is.

I think that's why I like obsessives so much. If I can't do something, or take care of myself, my obsessive will do it for me because they want to keep me regular. Sort of like those super crazy dog owners that feed exclusively raw diets that are 100$+ per meal, and do agility courses for show. But it's a human, and the human being taken care of is me. Or like when people watch gator feedings at a zoo, they simulate the gators' natural feeding, even though the goat is already dead.

I just want someone else to spoil me and only give me tasks and work for "enrichment".

And I also like to think of them using my disabilities against me. What am I gonna do, say no? Because they'll just collect my checks and my prescriptions, and give me neither. I won't cuddle them? Why, is it too hot? Well then I don't need a heating pad, or a hot bath to manage pain then do I? Vomiting or fainting just means that they need to pay extra attention and loving care to their dramatic specimen.

[mermaidsirennikita]

ARC Review: A Crown of Ivy and Glass by Claire Legrand

3.25/5. Releases 5/9/2023.

Note: I am reviewing the audiobook.

For when you're vibing with... real world issues in a fantasy context (in this case chronic pain), flirty heroines, soft boy heroes (with a twist), and a dash of darkness.

Pretty and vivacious Gemma Ashbourne is the only member of her powerful family without magic--and with a secret even she doesn't fully understand. It doesn't help that her family is embroiled in a blood feud with a rival clan, and she's functionally useless in the conflict. Until the handsome Talan d'Astier, his own family ruined and destroyed by a tragedy years ago, proposes a deal with Gemma. He's after the demon that supposedly began the blood feud--and if Gemma helps him redeem his family's honor, he'll help her stop the conflict. But killing a demon is much more difficult than Gemma even imagined, especially as she's drawn further and further towards Talan....

So--this is Legrand's adult fantasy romance debut, and it's been met with controversy. I didn't hate it; in fact, I'd say I really liked some aspects, where others were more mixed for me. I think she did swing here, and not everything hit. But I'm locked in for the next book... especially if it does what I think it might do.

Quick Takes:

--I actually really like the fantasy world here. Its structure is not too complicated, but it relies on some good, old-fashioned tropes (creepy forest, terrifying children, fairies, demons, power that is a bit on the "be careful what you wish for" side) and there's a nice cultural balance. I like the parties, I love a blood feud, I enjoy the fact that it isn't a flat "everyone is the same everywhere" world. This is where I'll note that I overall enjoyed Evelyn Rose's voice performance, but I'm not completely sure about the accent choice for Talan. However, I do like that there was a choice at all. Whereas Gemma sounds a bit more standard posh-ish British, Talan has a bit of... Mediterranean...? Influence? And then the rival family, the Basks, sound more Northern. It's a nice touch. I buy that these people would have different traditions and approaches to things.

--Gemma is not only unable to perform magic; her body rejects magic around her and causes her immense pain. I really liked this aspect. Her chronic pain isn't easily managed, and despite Gemma being confident of her appeal, flirty, sexually active, all that--she struggles. She hides it. She's ashamed of it. She hates her body because of it. She struggles with suicidal ideation. I just really appreciated this unvarnished look at pain in a fantasy setting.

--This is what I would call a romance, though it is the first book in the series and not everything is resolved at the end. Therefore, the central romance is where I'm going to focus... and I was really back and forth on it. Talan and Gemma are kind of instantly struck by and attracted to each other--I hesitate to call that initial attraction "instalove", but she does fall hard and fast and I know people take issue with that.

In some ways, I actually did appreciate that Gemma fell so quickly, because it does make sense that she's desperate for relief from her pain, not only physically, but emotionally. For reasons I'll be vague about, Talan can help on both fronts, and it's no wonder that she falls so hard. And I will say, I do think that later in the book, we get some payoff for Gemma's heavy emotional investment in him, in a form that I liked quite a bit because DRAMA.

Where I more struggled with this love story initially was... him? Talan is what I would call a soft boy, a beta hero (cinnamon roll.... may be incorrect) and I generally don't warm to a lot of heroes in that vein. He's emotional, he's not super effective in a fight (though he's not ineffective), he's beautiful, he's more of a gentlemanly courtier than a rake. I was not only the Talan Train for a good while, and if you aren't on that train, you may not get Gemma becoming so smitten with him so quickly. I just thought he was kind of a shallow, weak love interest.

However...... While there were still some things that didn't fully come together with Talan's characterization (I feel like Legrand held back in an effort to write A Different Kind of Hero than what people may have expected) I... I don't know, man. He kind of won me over? I think that Talan was so different from what I generally see in these books--not tough enough to be a warrior hero, not mean enough to be a bad boy, not nice enough to be a Morally Righteous Good Choice--that he kind of Stockholm Syndrome'd me into liking him. Though I will admit, a lot of that was because he seemed pretty good in bed. Like, he'd cry, and he'd have a fever, he'd give her three orgasms in a row--in the end, I kind of feel like I was picturing a mixture of "Hozier" and "anime Howl from Howl's Moving Castle" and I... had my quibbles, but I was not... mad.

--This book does have some pacing issues. I'll be real--I know this is a fantasy romance, but it's still a romance at the core, and I personally don't know that many romances need to be over 400 pages. I think this really could've been a cool 400. Cut down some of the supporting cast scenes; snip it down to setting up the next couple, maybe; put more focus on Talan and Gemma's story. There was a whole section where they were separated right after I finally gave up and admitted they'd won me over, and that was a bummer.

--Gemma's dad: hot? Just putting that out there.

--As I said, this is a romance with some loose threads. However, though I would not say there's an HEA--it doesn't stand alone, there are two more books, and by God if you slowly convinced me to root for this fantasy Harry Styles and the woman who loves him, I better fucking get their HEA at the end of the trilogy--I think we've really gone as far as we can go with the romantic arc for Talan and Gemma. They're in love, I don't think they need any more internal threats (external threats are another thing) and as long as I see them happy in the end of the series, I'm good. I don't know what Legrand's plan is for the other two books. Gemma has two sisters, though, both of whom get pagetime that makes me feel like I understand their general internal conflicts. I feel like there are two ways in which the next book could go with a new love story. And I'm really hoping she takes the way that I felt was teased kind of heavily in this novel. But either way, I guess I'm reading the next one, so as much as I did have real issues here... she won? I guess that's all that matters.

--This book does have what I think of as first book syndrome, which is another reason why I hope Legrand focuses on other couples next, though I did end up liking Talan and Gemma. It feels like she took the path of least resistance with the first couple in her romance series--which is what I see so often in romance series. So I'm hoping that the next two really expand on this world, and offer two more couples, both of which are heavier in terms of like... I don't know. Internal conflict? Progression? Gemma and Talan really did give me "young love", and I'll go with that for a first book, but I need more for the next two.

The Sex Stuff:

And here's where Talan won me over! (And in another way, but that's a whole thing.) I really liked the sex in this book. It's not super sexy heavy, but the sex is pretty explicit. From what I recall, there's at least one good ol' d'Astier fingerbang, a dry humping scene (which ends so hilariously that I did in fact squawk) and three full scenes with the whole shebang. Talan goes down a lot, which is good, because I don't know if he's good at life in general otherwise! Generally, though, the sex did feel very "aww, these two crazy kids", and I appreciated that it was in many ways a distraction from how much Gemma's life sucked. Sure, there are curses and shit, but if Talan is gonna fuck you facedown into the mattress, you can check out of all that for a minute. On that note! Talan is totally one of those soft boys who's like "and now I'm gonna tear it up", which I did tip my hat to.

A mixed bag, yes. But I am intrigued by the series, and I was entertained. For me, a book being messy but interesting is a lesser sin compared to a book being more even but boring. It had rough patches. However, I think there is a very real potential for a stronger second installment. I'll be waiting.

Thanks to Netgalley and Dreamscape Media for providing me with a copy of this audiobook. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

[lacefuneral]

Hello! List 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the askbox of the last ten people that reblogged something from you! Get to know your mutuals and followers :D ❤️

yey! first ask game in a while, ty

1. I really like roses. Like, I wouldn't necessarily say that it's my Favorite Flower, but its one that I think is pretty and smells nice and tastes nice when used in foods. So any time I encounter something with rose in it I'm like !!!!! And then, ofc it's a flower that is mostly associated with love, so I think that's very sweet. Also, rather than taking up another answer slot: this is true of vanilla as well. Love the smell and taste of vanilla, and I rather obnoxiously have it in everything. Lotions, body-washes, body spray, perfume. So imagine my blog smelling like both of these things.

2. I love skirts, and I have a few of them. I don't wear them very often, but it makes me happy when I do. I miss dresses a lot. Before I transitioned I had a ton of cheap sundresses. And I'd like to get some again someday.

3. Making things makes me happy. It's hard with chronic pain, executive function issues. But the act of drawing, or making collage, or editing a video, or writing a poem - it feels very freeing. Especially if what I was working on was especially challenging. I think that's one of the reasons I miss college so much. I miss carving linoleum, swiping ink through silk screens, developing photographs in the dark room. I even miss ceramics, even though it was a medium I struggled with and wasn't the most pleasant for me sensory-wise. Like, I tried to sculpt a TV, but the form became all lopsided because I wasn't very skilled, and I ended up really liking it as it was. Like a sort of surreal, melting, Dalí sort of thing. And I leaned into that when I painted it.

4. Curating things. Probably due to an autism/OCD intersection. I love love love making playlists, running sideblogs where I collate a bunch of different art or photos together, making pinterest boards, assembling gifts for friends and family, putting outfits together (when I have the energy), customizing my blog themes, etc. - I love it so much when I have disparate objects or concepts and I connect them. Probably why collage as an art form has always been something I enjoy.

5. Supporting independent artists/small businesses. Not just because I Acquire Object, but because I feel like I'm helping someone instead of my money going to a faceless corporation run by a billionaire. It especially makes me feel emotional when I buy from other trans artists. Like "whoa, you and I are in different parts of the world and despite our physical distance we share a fundamental part of ourselves and you made this item with your own two hands and now it is in my hands. and i will treasure it forever."

[vizthedatum]

sigh, emotional vulnerability about someone who I really wanted to continue dating

I should go back in time to early 2018 and not have been such a rejection-sensitive dick... but maybe we weren't ready back then?

I tried to be as authentic as possible

but I'm severely traumatized and neurodivergent.

Let me tell you what happened, even though my poor behavior does not excuse how it hurt you. Yes, I'm entitled to my feelings and reactions and all that, but it also means that it can push people away. People don't have to put up with the harm/abuse of my actions.

--

I really liked you. My PhD program was driving me up the wall. I was struggling to do analyses, get my paper published, study for my preliminary exam, TA, study for my comprehensive exam, and keep up to date with my skills. I was on high alert for anything that would hurt me - I felt like I gave too much to people who would manipulate me. It was such a trend. I wanted to break it so bad, but I was also just trying so hard to push "healing" onto myself. I was in therapy but still figuring out my meds and hormones and gender and queerness and my fucking PhD ugh. And my family. And just a million responsibilities.

Oh my god - our chemistry was so amazing. So many things could be said about that.

You were really sweet. I like that you talked to me that way - you liked me :) it felt really good to talk with you. I wanted to explore places with you and know what you think.

I was so insecure. SO INSECURE. It was wild to me that you would even like me. Do you know how cool you are? I love how fucking poetic you are. And I barely knew you - I think you'd blow my mind even if you just narrated to me what you were thinking. And honestly, your eye and mind for art... are simply spectacular. I was looking forward to getting to know you a lot better. I looked at all your photos/work - at least the ones you posted online. You're so talented. I don't care if that's cliche to say.

Shortly after I saw you last, I had a previously scheduled first date with this guy who was also very nice (but we didn't click romantically) but I got triggered by the nuanced and complicated consent situation that was going on with Aziz Ansari.

There were so many memories that I didn't want to deal with. I wasn't ready.

And I think you had bailed on two dates - and I knew in the back of my mind that you probably weren't flaking on me or rejecting me. Echoes of you being upset about "people with BPD" and whatever - I remembered. And like, I know what it's like to have mental health shit, depression, chronic health issues, etc. Ugh, I'm so hypocritical.

I don't have BPD but I felt so rejected, and it was unreasonable. I should have walked away and taken some time and then reconnected instead of lashing out and ending something that I really wanted.

I'm sorry. It wasn't fair.

--

And then I fell headfirst into the chaos of my PhD and SEVERAL more toxic relationships ending with my last two partnerships - both of which were not good for me emotionally. (*mumbles* I mean I basically blew up my whole life by leaving those two, and now I'm so much better, but fuck.)

--

And then you matched with me last spring?! And I apologized, and I didn't expect a response. And you didn't respond.

--

Anyway, I want you to kiss me again and take me out to dinner and then read to me until we fall asleep. And go all in on me. My standards and expectations are very high now, and they will remain that way.

And maybe if we have disagreements, we can come up with good ways to repair/heal whatever we have going on and also take space for ourselves, our passions, our friends, etc.

And other stuff. And you can marry me and I'll have your children if it's a stable and happy relationship where we still retain our autonomy and drive and sanity. I will leave if it's abusive. You should too.

An enby can dream, right?!

[festeringneondistraction]

I want to write poetry again but its just not happening!

Lately I've been so in my head. So many feelings and worries, its just real mental illness hours so in other words: I'm going through it. I've been journaling and posting and that's all fine and good but usually I can take those base thoughts and flesh them out into poetry! I'm very creatively frustrated right now because I have the urge to create but I just... cant. I try!! I definitely try and its not that I'm being a perfectionist about it at least not consciously. I firmly believe in making not-good art just for the sake of art. Bad art is amazing! But its just lots of stress intrusive thoughts then just TV static. The combination of extreme near constant anxiety, and brain fog.

Just to clarify somethings I'm at a very difficult season of my life right now for a lot of reason. I'm also a bit of an neurological alphabet soup (multiple diagnosis) so this is what I'm dealing with. Side note self-diagnosis is valid and you can kindly leave my blog if you think its not :). I'm just clarifying what doctors have told me and what else might be going on. Also I realize some of these are so co-morbid that its a bit redundant but I'm just listing it anyway.

CONFRIMED: Autism, depression, PTSD, ADHD, Social Anxiety/general anxiety, dyspraxia (also called developmental coordination disorder), dermatillomania, and a nice history of self-harm.

COMPLICATED: Chronic migraine (I do get migraines fairly consistently with aura I've had doctors acknowledge my migraines but no official diagnosis yet) mysophobia, ARFID (its extreme obvious for me that I have very real and severe food issues, I've just never talked to a doctor), dyslexia and dyscalculia. I was pretty much treated for both and struggled in those areas significantly. Just never put on paper to my knowledge.

SUSPECTED: OCD, maybe all of this is just CPTSD? who knows.

What im trying to say is there is a lot to unpack in my brain. For anyone who actually read this far thank you i love you id love to talk :)! But really who knows what's causing what sometimes. And when you struggle with brain fog and poor introspection??? What am I even supposed to do.

Id also like to mention im a daily weed smoker. I try not to smoke all day I try and wait till (weirdly enough) 4:20 is actually a great time of day to start lol. But seriously i at bare minimum wait till 420 I usually try to go a little longer.

Weed is one of the only thing that helps with the anxiety. As I am reading all this back and my landry list of diagnosis is right in front of me.... WOW im a high anxiety person. and there's shit I didn't even mention. It all really loops back to Autism and Anxiety. Its to the point where ill go to a friends house.. im feeling anxious but excited and I think im masking well. Then after like two minutes of talking to me my friend will almost always say "Shade you need more weed." Like damn is it that bad. People find it hard to talk to me sometimes because im so high anxiety these days. It used to be that I could talk to anyone and make them feel comfortable. I might be freaking out the whole time but It used to be that I was so good at masking my anxiety and autism people wouldn't notice.

Also hi! My name is Shade and yes its my actual legal name. This rant about poetry turned into like a mental illness recap and informal intro. If my blog gets even the tiniest bit of attention i'll do a proper more light hearted intro. Just really speaks to the ADHD I guess. I have so much more to say but if I let myself keep typing it will become a compulsion and I wont stop for hours so Im done now :)

[system-of-a-feather]

Do you have any advice for someone who’s scared of being happy bc they are afraid some really bad thing might happen?

Hmmm this is a pretty big question that would best be handled / discussed with a therapist as it is usually the sort of thing that needs further digging in terms of what might be a driving force, what "being happy" means and what reasons that is being experienced as frightful thing since it's a pretty vague and nuanced statement that would benefit from some exploration on what "being happy" and what "some really bad thing" are and both why that is connected / anxiety inducing and/or what started this feeling / belie; all of which is more than I can talk about and provide both as a non-professional and some guy in an ask on tumblr

(Usually I would leave it at that, but I have to stay up tonight for a long trip, so I'll continue some.)

So my first advice would probably be to talk to a therapist / professional if possible

The second advice I would say is to take it slow, whether on your own or with a therapist. This is one of the larger and most chronic pervasive issue for me and a couple other parts in this system, and I as a part specifically have been working on it for 6 years and while I've made a lot of progress with it, I still struggle with it myself. It's possible to get better / work with it, but its not going to be something that happens over night.

You can't force yourself to be happy, nor can you force yourself to be comfortable being happy. Regardless of where it comes from, I imagine its a bit deep rooted and been like that for a while and if its anything like how it is / has been for me, it is really comfortable being unhappy / miserable because it is easy to get accustomed to and it is a known world of misery versus an unknown world. I would generally recommend working at whatever pace you are comfortable at slowly introducing good and nice things into your life, things that make you slightly happy / spark a small amount of joy, and slowly trying to increase that in small increments.

Trying too hard to be happy / be comfortable being happy will frequently just end in dissociation, anxiety spikes, or just stress and frustration in general. If its hard, start with the small small things - like buying a table decor or something that is cute even if you don't need it, then maybe slowly work up to something you like engaging in. Slowly cultivate a tolerance for positive affect and slowly extinguish the fear of positive affect. It's kinda classical exposure therapy cause even if it is a " " weird " " phobia / fear / obsession of being happy, it still operates (at least in my experience) like a phobia / obsessive-compulsive thing; and for those well managed (by a professional is usually best) exposure therapy taken slowly is really great.

Again though, just a peer - not a professional by any means and my first advice is to talk to a professional, but these are just some kind of like, peer support pointers.

-Riku

[echo-bleu]

hello! I saw one of your previous asks and I was wondering if I could ask you for some writing help too! I have an autistic character that i love, but I'm not sure how to convey that this character is autistic in a way that feel aunthentic and organic instead of stereotyped, specially since she's a girl and I haven't seen many (accurate) representations of autistic girls in the media. I've seen videos about autistic people and they've been very helpful on what not to do, but + I would still love

to get some of the 'do's' what i have so far is that she has a Fixation on the sea, she has a hard time reading sarcasm and/or emotions in others, and she has an overall seemingly 'detached' personality (even if I wouldn't call her that, since she cares about the people she loves, she's just bad at putting it into words). I jsut want to make sure i'm on the right path! thank you so much for listening and I hope this is not a bother!

Hi Anon! I’m not bothered at all and I’m happy to answer this kind of ask. As always, I can only speak for myself, but I’ll try to give you a few pointers. (The previous ask mentioned is this one.)

First, it’s lovely to hear about an autistic girl! I’m not sure if you’re speaking about an adult or a child/teenager, but either way, it can be interesting to read about how autism can look a bit different in women. The gender distinction that has often been made is something I don’t agree with because I feel that it’s an unnecessary shortcut, but a number of autistic people, in majority women and people socially perceived as female, learn to “adapt” more to neurotypical standards by masking their autistic traits a lot, and might not be detected as autistic until adulthood. Masking takes a lot of energy, which can translate as feeling “socially exhausted” all the time and lead to burnout. This article list traits that can be found that are less common and obvious. It is far from perfect imo, but it can give you new ideas!

You didn’t really say if your character is a main or a side character (which changes the amount of detail you’ll want to go into) but so far to me you seem to be on the right track! Having a hard time reading people is something a lot of us struggle with. It might not just be sarcasm, btw, understanding metaphors and jokes can also be hard. That doesn’t mean that she doesn’t have a sense of humor: it’s entirely possible to be able to use sarcasm and struggle with noticing it when it comes from other people, and a lot of autistic people have a very developed and specific sense of humor that can be seen as odd.

The “detached” personality is something you may have to handle with care because lack of empathy is a harmful stereotype. Maybe look up the difference between cognitive and affective empathy. Some of us do struggle with empathy, many of us struggle with expressing it in a way that’s comprehensible to neurotypicals, but it doesn’t mean that we lack it. It’s fine for your character to struggle with it, but be careful that she doesn’t end up seeming cold/robotic if she’s not the POV character.

Now for some “do’s”: I’m only going to talk about autistic traits here and assume that you’ve fleshed her out with an actual personality outside of her autism, just like you would any other character.

- I agree that it has to come up organically, but it would be a lot better in terms of representation to make her explicitly autistic, ie use the word autistic. It doesn’t have to be at the beginning of the story. If you’re in a fantasy setting or for some other reason you can’t use the actual word, then describing something like neurodiversity would be a good way to make it explicit. In fanfic, I personally think that tagging “autistic [character]” is enough if the fic is short(ish) and the word isn’t used in the story but the character’s autism is fairly clear, but in an original story, you don’t really have that possibility.

- Something I like to do when coming up with original autistic characters is to choose a few specific stims from them, that regularly come back in my descriptions. It falls under the same umbrella as choosing mannerisms, it gives characters their own specific flavor. You can choose a happy stim, a nervous stim and a bored stim, for example. Autistics stim a lot and in a lot of ways, but I think most of us have a few stims that come back often. It can be things like chewing on a toy/finger, flapping in a specific way, rocking on their heels, twirling hair, fidgeting with a toy or jewelry.

- Sensory differences. It’s also something that you can choose for your character: maybe she likes to listen to music very loudly, and often speak a little too loudly, or on the contrary she’s hyperacusic. She might wear sunglasses outside, or need lights on all the time. She might need subtitles to understand a movie, or be super distracted by sparkly things. She might not make eye contact, or make it too much, or seem to make it by looking somewhere close to the person’s eyes. She might find touch painful or difficult, or seek it constantly, or both (can depend on the moment, how tired she is, or if she trusts the person).

- Like I’ve said before, meltdowns/shutdowns are a delicate thing to portray if you’re not autistic yourself, but overloading can and does happen without going all the way to either of them. It’s actually fairly frequent, and happens when there is too much sensory (or emotional) stimuli at the same time or a too long day or something. From the inside, it can look like struggling to think, feeling like your skin is crawling, feeling like everything is too much, and struggling to initiate actions/figure out the steps to do something. From the outside, it can look like the person is rejecting touch, needs to isolate themself, is irritated, might struggle to speak/be very quiet. As long as the character isn’t mocked for their behavior, I think it’s something you can portray without too much risk.

- A specific interest about the sea is a nice idea! The sea is a very large subject, though, so she’ll probably have a predilection for some things. Is it water currents? Fish species? Underwater plants? Beaches? There’s a lot of options to choose from here.

- Maybe think about co-occuring conditions, because most of us have at least one. Some are very hard to distinguish from autism itself, like dyspraxia or ADHD, because they’re linked or similar to autistic traits. A lot of us are also disabled in some other way:  for example there’s a clear (though unexplained) link between autism and hyperflexibility, which can lead to joint pain, gut issues and chronic illnesses like EDS. Many of us have mental illnesses, growing up autistic in this world is honestly traumatizing and it’s hard to find autistics without some kind of C-PTSD or anxiety (on that subject, this post points out that the current diagnostic criteria can probably only diagnose traumatized autistic people anyway).

- A pretty good portrayal of an autistic girl (and to my knowledge the only one where the actor is also autistic) is Matilda in Everything’s Gonna be Okay. I didn’t actually watch until the end and I’ve been told the last episode isn’t great, but the start was pretty good. She’s a teenager, and at one point gets a girlfriend who is also autistic and has a service dog. In Elementary, while Sherlock is only autistic-coded, there is at one point (season 4 I believe) a recurring character named Fiona who I thought was a pretty good portrayal as well. She’s an adult, and she’s stereotypical in some ways but it’s better than most portrayals I’ve seen or read.

I would advise you to have a look through the blog @cripplecharacters. They answer asks about disabled characters, and I know they have answered a number of questions about autism and have at least one autistic mod. Their answers are usually very interesting!

[lightthewaybackhome]

Sorry this is so long. Probably should have done a 2 parter.

"My darling girl, when are you going to realize that being normal is not necessarily a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage!" - Aunt Frances, Practical Magic

 

My whole life, as far back as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be artistic. I’ve wanted to create. I love beauty. I love artistry. I love creation. I love the artsy look: jewelry, tattoos, flowing clothing, and funky hair. It is a personal aesthetic I keep returning to, especially as I get older. As a child, I tried so many different forms of art—painting, photography, drawing— but none of them seemed quite right. None of them got what was in my head out. All of them fell short until I started writing. Writing was a flame, a fire, a drug. Writing allowed me to express what was in my imagination. This is the first thing to understand.

Everyone is artistic and art is everywhere. I’ve believed this as long as I can remember. There are amazing artistic feats in our world: books, movies, video games, paintings, sculptures, and magnificent pieces of music. Yes, art can be very high and very special. But, art can also be found in charcuterie boards, homemade quilts, sourdough bread, cocktails, soup, and all ordinary things if we but look and see. Art can be high magic and art can be ordinary. This is the second thing to understand.

As I’ve embraced being a homemaker, a HearthKeeper, a woman where she’s meant to be, I came across the term domestic artist. As much as I didn’t like the book Eve in Exile by Rebekah Merkle, it gave me this. It gave me the term domestic artist. That stuck with me. It spoke to me because it captured both the first and the second thing. It captured the never-ceasing call to create which haunts me at all times, and it elevated and honored the ordinary in a sprinkling of fairy dust. It said, “Yes, you have to cook today. Three meals plus snacks and drinks. It’s your job, but, but, what if, what if instead of looking at it as some drudgery, some Cinderella enslavement, what if you looked at it as an opportunity to create beauty?”

Not every meal, every outfit, every moment of your day can be a work of art. Some days you just have to do what you have to do. Some days get upended in the opening credits with a broken washer or a sleepless child. Some days plans change. Life changes. One minute life looks like this, and then the next it’s on to something completely different. But, the beauty of being a domestic artist is that you can create art in any of these moments and in any setting. You can find art in any moment and in any setting.

See, the world tells us that homemaking, HearthKeeping, is boring. It tells us it’s pointless. A waste. You could be changing the world. Only dumb useless women keep their homes. And that’s because they’re either tied down by a dictator of a husband or the demands of children or the cultural trappings of their religion. Courage, dear heart. Courage! Homemaking is magic. Homemaking is flexible. Homemaking changes with the seasons and the woman. I, I am a bit bohemian, a bit rustic, a mixture of rugged and romantic. I grew up a tomboy, but have embraced being a woman in her home since I was a child. I love leather and lace. I love cottage-witch aesthetics. I love boots and long flowing things. I like deer heads, linen, skulls, and ruffles. I like feathers and dreamcatchers, but I also love to decorate with open space. I love pies and feeding my husband. But, look at this, one of my best friends is a classic. She loves clean lines, traditional and timeless pieces. She loves modern accents. She loves beachy highlights and hammocks. She’s not into farmhouse, rustic modern, or raw-edged wood. On any given Sunday, she’s in a pencil skirt, simple top, simple heels with her three daughters in matching dresses while I’m in distressed boyfriend jeans, a mullet-tucked top, and wearing my crow skull. We’re very different, but we’re both homemakers who love making our homes.

I have a woman in my life who quilts and that flows out into their decorating. So many of her things are beautifully hand sewn. If she wants it, she makes it. Another friend grew up in Africa and her home is filled with her love of that culture. One dear friend loves plants and grows amazing flowers that she uses to create Instagram-worth bouquets. Another woman isn’t super fluffy-feminine but she has an eye for remodeling and so is constantly making improvements on her home: flooring, painting, and more. My sisters, like me, both enjoy a minimalist approach to decorating and all three of us have a special place for coffee. Both my sisters’ homes are welcoming and peaceful even with kids running around like crazy.

That’s the point, the world tells women to band together, that we’re a sisterhood, that we should go out and change the world, abandoning our homes before we’re relegated to only kitchen and nursery work, but reality tells me that the most amazing women I know are busy in their homes. This is sisterhood. This is where we bloom. It is here that we have flexibility. For over five years, I’ve struggled with chronic health issues. Homemaking lets me decide each day what I can do and how I’m going to do it. Homemaking lets you change what you do for each season of life. Lots of littles? Keep it simple. Empty nest? Explore. Somewhere in between? Keep growing. Lots of energy? So many things you can expand into if you just refuse to believe the lie that homemaking is beneath you. Don’t be normal. Don’t believe that homemaking is a waste of time. Don’t buy into the lie that you are somehow being less than everyone else when you raise your children, love your husband, and create beauty. Have the courage to be strange. We were made for this! It suits us. This is an environment women thrive in.

When I got over my grammar inhibitions and started writing, I felt like my soul came alive. I felt like I’d finally found what I’d been searching for since I came into this world. It doesn’t matter whether I’m writing an epic story or writing about HearthKeeping or just word doodling, writing, words, stories just flow from me. Wonderfully, homemaking is like that for me, too. I want to read books, I want to learn, I want to talk about it, I want to do it. It’s not perfect. I don’t always feel glorious, but I do feel ‘right’ when I’m doing this. I feel like I’m where I belong. I feel like this is a place I can both rest in and grow in. I feel safe when I’m having a fatigue flare up and I feel excited when I think about all that I can do.

A real-life example: Sundays are long hard days. They’re days that generally spike my fatigue and my husband is worn out. They’re both the best and hardest day of the week. When we get home I make a cocktail and we crash. Inevitably, the minute I sit down my man asks for a snack and what we’re having for dinner. For several years, this drove me up a wall. It is Sunday. The day of REST, why is it my responsibility to always make food? Epic sigh. Epic whiny sigh. I would meal plan for the whole week and then wing it on Sunday and Monday, always with poor results and grumpiness on my part. Then, one week as I meal-planned, I realized that I could also prepare for the weekend. Lightbulb. Facepalm. Really? Why had it taken me into my 40th year of life to realize that if I want a quiet, restful, happy weekend, I should just plan snacks, drinks, and meals ahead of time? I’m going to blame it on my chronic health, brain fog addled mind. I’m going to blame it on laziness. I’m going to blame it on being a young homemaker. Some are understandable, some are inexcusable.

Sundays now involve way less stress because I can immediately prepare snacks and know what we’re eating the minute we get home. No more attitude issue. No more stress. Easy and nice.

Did this change the world? Does this matter to anyone but myself? Did my husband even notice? Maybe not, but this is homemaking. This is HearthKeeping. It is my job and my calling. Even without notice or world-shattering consequences, I’m pleased with the outcome. More than pleased, I’m really happy about it. It brings me joy and delight to find a better way to take care of my family. It allows me to sprinkle my Sunday afternoon with just a little bit of artistry. I make drinks, snacks, dinner. I feed my family.

See, one of the lies that the feminists preach is that we’re wasted in our homes. And yet, the majority of the women I know who work outside the home aren’t doing glamorous jobs. They’re not travel bloggers or world-renowned chiefs or CEOs. They’re cosmetologists, retail workers, bank tellers, nurses, teachers, and such. Now, none of those are bad. Working outside the home isn’t bad. (I think each family has to decide what family looks like to them.) Please, please, don’t read that as degrading. I worked retail and I think retail is important. These are all God-honoring employment in which you can strive and serve. I’m not bashing any of those jobs. I have many many dear friends who work outside the home. What I am saying is that I think we as women need to ask ourselves if leaving our homes en masse was worth it. Has it given us all the joy, delight, and fulfillment the feminists promised us?

I’ve done both. I’ve been a co-owner of a business that I helped grow from nothing to something amazing. I’ve worked as an everyday retail worker. I write and am the main editor for a small neighborhood magazine. And I’m a HearthKeeper. I will tell you right now, no qualifications, that HearthKeeping is the most satisfying job I’ve ever had. It not only challenges me every day but it also works with me. The boundaries are what I set in place and so I grow as I can. The work never ends, yes, but it also never ends. There is always something else to explore.

I think being a homemaker is largely attitude. You can buck against what you do, and most women do. Just spend two minutes on Pinterest looking at doing laundry or dishes and the bitter hatred comes pouring out. Look at the complaints women make against their churches: we’re relegated to doing nursery work and kitchen duty. What if, just for a moment, we decided to be Domestic Artists? What if, for just a moment, we tried loving our jobs instead of complaining? What if we thought that dishes meant food and good times and healing of the souls around us? What if we saw laundry as a way to keep beauty and cleanliness around us? What if we saw it as our privilege and delight to take care of the food, children, clothing, cleaning, cooking, gardening, growing of the next generation, and the men of the world? What if we embraced the domestic arts and saw them as truly magnificent, glorious, unique arts? How many of us would be able to say with a straight face that working retail is more fulfilling than managing a small world? Is it more fulfilling to go work in an office than it is to orchestrate a place of welcome, rest, and renewal for your husband and yourself? It might be more visible, but is it truly more long-lasting?

I can say that it isn’t. I can say that I think being a homemaker is uniquely suited for women and that we should have the courage to go against the grain of our world and say no. No, I’m not going to give all of myself to work outside the home when the home is far more challenging and interesting. No, I’m not going to believe the lie that homemaking is oppression and boredom. I will find beauty in the ordinary and I will embrace art in the everyday. This is one of those amazing jobs where it is what you make it. It is what you pour into it. If you think it’s boring or demeaning you won’t get anything out of it. If you think it is challenging and rewarding, you will get the world out of it. You will grow yourself and those around you. Think about what a wonderful thing it would be if we made our homes our careers! If we women really took on the label Domestic Artist in our own individual ways.

[cheeriecherry]

Space Between [Aizawa Shouta x F!Reader x Yamada Hizashi] [4/9]

EraserMic x Reader

Part 4/8

Warnings: some descriptions of violence, therapy/doctor visit, some kiss

When Shouta and Hizashi wake up the next day, it’s to the smell of cooking food.

Unable to stay asleep, you’d given up and decided to be more productive with your time. You knew it was pretty rare for them to have time for breakfast, so you worked quickly to pull something appetizing together.

In any case, they both seemed to appreciate it, sipping their coffees and savouring the warmth of home made food.

“This is the best thing I’ve ever eaten,” Hizashi says, mouth full of food.

Shouta mumbles at him to stop being rude, but you just laugh, “You’ve still got the same shitty tastebuds, ‘zashi.”

It earns a smile from both your friends, but the blond does make an effort to swallow before speaking again.

“So, what’s on your agenda today, sweetcheeks?”

It takes you a second to realize he’s talking to you, and not Shouta. Though you can’t imagine such a nickname for him, it’s still been a while since either of your friends have called you anything but your name. It’s a nice change, even if the way he says it makes your face heat up.

“Not much, actually,” you say, pushing an egg around your plate, “I have an appointment with the doctor at one, and I’ve got some sheets to fill out beforehand. I think I’m gonna put my energy into that, instead of trying to get a bunch of things done.”

You don’t miss the way Shouta perks up slightly, even though he doesn’t say anything. Hizashi, on the other hand, almost looks deflated.

“That’s so...grown up,” he mumbles.

Shouta sighs. “He means boring.”

“I know, Sho.”

“Why don’t you do something fun, too?” the blond continues, “Go shopping, get lunch, see the city, y’know?”

You mind flashes momentarily to the day before, and the catastrophe that had been the mall, and you cringe. “Yeah, after yesterday, I think I’m gonna limit my public appearances.”

And then you remember you’d never told either of them about your eventful afternoon.

“What happened yesterday?”

You groan quietly, and run a hand down your face. This wasn’t the conversation you wanted to have right now, but you supposed you brought it upon yourself. They wouldn’t let you off the hook, that was for sure.

“I...hand a panic attack at the mall. Crowds, and stuff.”

Hizashi eyes you suspiciously. “What else happened?”

“It’s fine,” you insist, “it’s nothing I can’t handle.”

“Y/N…”

Annoyance bubbles in your chest, and you snap, “It’s fine! Just some kid who tried to scare me. I’ve got it, so let it go.”

You’re all quiet for a moment, and you droop, pushing your plate away.

“I’m sorry,” you tell them, truthfully.

“Sweetheart, it’s okay-”

“It’s not okay! I shouldn’t be taking my frustration out on you guys, especially not after everything you’ve done for me.”

Like put them in danger.

“The mission I went on was just so...so…”

They know where I am. They already sent someone after me, remember?

“Stressful, I guess?”

The people I love are going to end up dead.

Shouta reaches across the table to brush his fingertips against yours, a small notion of comfort and support. “We get it, Y/N. That’s why I gave you that list in the first place.”

It’ll be my fault.

Hizashi takes your other hand, rubbing soothing patterns into your skin. “Yeah, honey. No matter what, we’re always gonna be here for you.”

You squeeze your eyes shut, avoiding their gazes, and trying to push your thoughts down. But they’re loud, and they fill you with so much fear you can barely breathe.

Their devotion to me will get them killed.

“You…”

It’ll be my fault. Again.

In a quick motion, you tear away from their grasps and jump out of your chair, skittering a few feet back. “You shouldn’t promise things like that so blindly!” you cry, tucking your arms tightly against your body.

“Y/N-”

“No! You have no idea what kind of people I have after me! Letting me stay here is putting you guys in enough danger, I don’t need you fighting by my side!”

Shouta stands slowly from his seat, coming around the table quietly and making sure he doesn’t leave your line of sight. He manages to get about two feet from you before you’re shrinking away again, like some kind of frightened deer.

“You don’t deserve to die for me. And I certainly don’t deserve to have people like you on my rotten side.”

He reaches for you again, but you skirt around him and weasel away to the bathroom, where you shut the door and lock it.

You don’t bother turning the light on, opting to stay in the dark where no one can see you and you can’t see yourself. You can see your friends’ shadows under the door, hear their low voices, and you sink to the floor with tear filled eyes.

You hear one of them sit on the other side of the door, and it’s Shouta that speaks, “Y/N...whatever you think is going to happen to us, it won’t.”

You sniffle pathetically. “You have no idea how much power these people have. They kill pros all the time. All the time, Shouta.”

Hizashi says something from a few feet away, but his voice is muffled by the sound of your heart beating in your ears. Your friends talk back and forth for a moment, clipped and worried, and guilt washes over you.

I’m making them worry. Over nothing. They don’t deserve this.

A quiet knock on the door startles you. “You there still?” Shouta asks.

“Mhm…”

“Okay. I’m...I’m going to stay home with you today. Make sure you get to your appointment.”

Like a snap, you go from frightened, to frustrated and patronized. “I’m not a child! I don’t need someone to hold my hand everywhere I go! I’m fine!”

“Kitten, you’re hiding in the bathroom because you think people are after you.”

“People are after me, they made their message very clear! But it’s my battle to fight, and one I refuse to bring you two into. I’m going to do this on my own, appointment included.”

You’re all quiet for a bit, nothing but the sound of your own breathing in the lonely dark room. But a sigh eventually emanates from the other side of the door, and when Shouta speaks he sounds remarkably sad, “...we can’t force you to accept our help. But know that we’re here for you, whenever you need us. Always.”

You don’t reply to him, instead tucking your knees up to your chest while you finally let tears escape down your cheeks.

You remain like that until the sun comes up and floods the room with light, long after your friends have locked up and gone off to work.

----

You drum your fingertips against your thigh while you sit in the waiting room at the clinic. There weren’t many other people there with you, and all of them were more interested in their phones, but you couldn’t help feeling watched.

After your friends had left the house, you’d shamefully slinked out of the bathroom and back over to the couch. You knew you wouldn’t be able to sleep again, not without missing your appointment, so you’d set your energy into completing the needed forms.

Self assessments, symptom tracking records, confidentiality agreements, the like. It felt incredibly strange to be so honest about what you were going through, and a little piece of you wanted to lie and say you were okay, but logically you knew you’d get the best care if you told the truth.

You glance up at the front desk, where a receptionist is typing at her computer. Then, you glance at the clock on the wall. You were early, and though you’d only been in the building for five minutes it felt like time was dragging on.

You pull your phone out of your pocket with a shaky hand and open the news sites you’d been frequenting since coming home. You never found any updates on them, but they were the most reliable places you had access to, and-

You pause when a new article pops up.

‘Five suspects convicted after ties connecting them to drug trafficking, uncovered. Sixth suspect remains unfound.’

Your stomach sinks at the headline, and you click on the article.

‘Five individuals have been apprehended and sentenced after their involvement with one of the world’s largest international drugs trades is brought to light. Evidence strongly supports the presence of a sixth villain, though they remain elusive to the forces trying to bring them in.

A public warning has been issued, urging citizens and heroes to report any kind of suspicious activity…’

You stop reading after the first paragraph, staring blankly at your phone. So one of them had gotten away, just like you were worried about, and you had a pretty good idea of which one. The most wily of all six of them, and arguably the most dangerous. Smart, manipulative, a taste for violence.

Your heart rate begins to pick up, and you swallow the lump forming in your throat. If she was able to get away, then she knew she’d had people coming to get her, which meant she’d had information leaked to her, which possibly meant other information had been leaked alongside it, which meant-

An aura of unnatural calm washes over you, just as a woman comes to stand in front of you. You look up at her slowly, eyes wide and scared, but all she does is smile down at you.

“Miss Y/N?” she asks, and you nod. She offers a hand to you, which you politely take, and she gently pulls you to your feet. “I’m Nurse Himeno, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I apologize for using my quirk on you. You looked like you were having a hard time breathing.”

“It’s...fine.” Your tone is carefully devoid of any emotion, though the feeling of the womans’ hand in yours sends electric spikes up your arm.

“I’m a member of the daytime staff here,” she explains, leading you down a warm hallway lined with doors. “I handle patients who struggle with anxiety, be it chronic or trauma related. Since this is your first appointment here, the on staff physician, Doctor Masaki, will be seeing you today, to determine which programs will best fit your needs. Is that alright with you?”

You nod again, mumbling a quiet affirmation.

The two of you stop in front of a door, and Himeno ushers you inside. It’s...different than you imagined it would be; cozy and warm, with dim lighting, soft carpet, and pleasant artworks on the walls.

“Please take a seat, Miss Y/N. I’ll return shortly.”

You do as you’re told, sitting on the very edge of an overly plush chair. The calmness you’d felt slowly begins to fade, and your leg starts vibrating, thoughts beginning to race again.

You had to assume that the missing villain knew your location, as well as your involvement with the takedown of her subordinates. She’d be angry, furious, that she’d let you slip away. She wouldn’t be thinking straight.

If you could find a way to take advantage of that, she might be prone to rushing into things, to messing up and letting something slip. If you could catch her at unawares, you could have the upper hand...you could have a chance at beating her, before she got the chance to use her quirk.

It meant you’d most likely have to seek her out, ask around the local underground scene and see if anyone had any information on her. It would be risky, especially given your current state, but it would likely be your only opportunity. You’d have to keep it from Shouta and Hizashi, too, knowing that they’d try and stop you-

A wave of calm rushes over you again, and your thoughts stop in their tracks. Seconds later, Nurse Himeno and a woman you’re assuming is Doctor Masaki walk into the room.

“Good afternoon, Miss Y/N,” the doctor says, greeting you pleasantly before taking a seat across from you. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise,” you reply.

She taps at the tablet in her hand, scrolling around until she finds what she’s looking for. “I’ve reviewed the forms you submitted earlier today, regarding the symptoms you’re struggling with. Do you mind if we go over them?”

You nod.

“Alright. So...trouble sleeping, nightmares, intrusive thoughts, flashbacks, panic attacks...is there anything else on the list you weren’t able to mention?”

You slouch back in the chair, thinking to earlier in the day. “Agitation...uh, paranoia, I think. Guilt. I have trouble functioning sometimes, too. Like, today was the first time i showered all week, and I didn’t eat breakfast…”

“Why not?”

“...I was hiding in the bathroom.”

Doctor Masaki makes a few notes, and you idly pinch at the skin on your knuckles.

“Do you have any idea what may have triggered these kinds of responses? Trauma, a stressful event…?”

“Yeah.”

You’re both quiet for a moment, before she says, “I need to know what it is, dear.”

You fluster for a second, thoughts jumbled momentarily. “Oh- um. Okay, so. I was undercover for two and a half years...”

You go on to fully explain your situation, going into uncomfortable detail about the things you’d done and the things you’d witnessed, the things you were now dealing with, and your fears and stresses about the entire ordeal, including the recent arrests and villain misplacements.

“...and now I think one of them is here and out to get me, which is illogical, I know, but I’m so high strung all the time and I’m sick of having to constantly look over my shoulder, and wonder if I’ll come home to find the people I love dead!”

The calming aura surrounding you grows stronger, and though you try to fight it, you eventually let it be and fall back into your chair. All the while, the doctor makes more notes in what you assume is your case file.

“It sounds like a rough time,” she says, “Exhausting, too. It’s no wonder you’re experiencing so many symptoms; you’ve been through a lot.”

You twiddle your thumbs, waiting for her to continue.

“I think solo sessions would be a good place to start, twice a week, as well as some low dose medications to help you manage your anxiety and sleep. Does that sound agreeable?”

You shrug, not really knowing the answer. “Whatever you think is best, I guess…”

You talk a little bit more about private therapy and what sorts of things will happen there, as well as what kinds of medications you’re to start on. By the end of it when you’re leaving, prescription in hand, you’re beyond tired. Physically. Emotionally. Mentally.

You take a deep breath when you exit the building, letting the familiar smells of the city ground you.

You’d taken the train to the clinic earlier, but now you’re not sure you could manage being in such cramped quarters with other people (you barely handled it the first time). The walk home would take an extra fifteen minutes, but you were willing to foot that if it meant you wouldn’t have another panic attack.

----

Ten minutes later found you regretting your decision.

You hadn’t taken into account the fact that the train had an entirely different route than the one you needed to walk in order to get home, meaning you were smack dab in the middle of a run down neighborhood. Normally it wouldn’t bother you; you knew that most places like this held no danger.

But in your years working as a hero, this particular place had been notorious for mischief and small time villain activity. Sure, it was daytime, and you were physically capable of defending yourself, but the back of your mind was still on edge.

Keep your head low, walk fast, don’t make conversation, you think, speeding up your paces ever so slightly. You couldn’t see anyone on the street ahead of you, nor in the alleyways as you pass them...

You slow your steps again, hearing the soft echo of boots behind you. It was only a fraction of a second before the person matched your footsteps again, but it was enough time for you to know.

As you pass the next building, you dart into the narrow walkway beside it and find a place against the wall. Shortly after, a strikingly familiar hooded figure follows in suit, and you lunge.

Their back hits the brick with a thud, and they gasp as the air is forced out of their chest. You twist your fist in their sweater, pushing hard against their collarbone to hold them in place.

“Why are you following me!” you hiss, glaring up and down at the teen. Same as the other day, they’re in dark baggy clothes. The only difference is the grey mask covering the top half of their face, which is slightly askew from their struggling.

“What the hell, lady-”

“Cut the bullshit, you threatened me the other day, and now you’re tailing me. What do you want?”

They squirm for a couple more seconds, but eventually give up and slump against the wall. They looked tired, and a little nervous, but then so were you.

“You should keep your ears open, lady. You’re Y/N, right?”

You’re silent, and press them a little harder into the wall.

“Geez, you’re even more wound up than the other day! Relax, I’m not here on her behalf. I’m here to warn you!”

“What the fuck does that mean,” you hiss.

“I’m a vigilante!”

“Bullshit.”

“I swear!” by now they’re looking a little uncomfortable, and their breathing is slightly laboured. “I go by Oracle.”

You pause, then, grip loosening ever so slightly. You’d heard that name before, multiple times, from people who’ve complained over the years about a kid and their freaky quirk. One of the other names you’ve heard them called is Ill Omen, a messenger of death.

It’s bad news, if they’ve sought you out.

“Let’s pretend I believe you,” you say. “If you are who you say you are, then you know something. Tell me. Now.”

“If you could let me breathe-”

You release them, and they gasp for a few moments against the wall, rubbing the new undeniable bruise on their chest. They only take a few seconds of respite before they’re standing up again, staring at you with intense sincerity.

It’s a little unnerving.

“Like I said, I go by Oracle. My quirk lets me see the future, but only specific parts of it. And I don’t have control over whose futures I see-”

You roll your eyes. “I know who you are, kid. You see people’s deaths, and warn them about it.”

“Ehh…” the kid shrugs. “Close enough. Anyways, you. You have some powerful enemies, don’t you?”

“Assuming they know my identity and whereabouts, yes.”

“Best assume, then. In two weeks -I think- you’re going to die. A lot of people are. At the hands of a woman who calls herself Akuma.”

Your blood runs cold. Of course you’d assumed she would be the one to hunt you down, she was the only one of your targets who escaped capture, but hearing it spoken out loud has a much stronger effect than you’d expected. As if suddenly...the threat was real.

“Where?” you ask, “And what time of day?”

Oracle shrugs again, stuffing their hands in their pockets. “I...don’t know exactly. There were tall buildings, highrises, and a lot of people caught in the crossfire, so it was pretty busy.”

“That’s most of Japan.”

“That’s what I’m saying! Look, I only see the moments before a person dies, a couple seconds at most. I have to rely on visual cues in order to get the specifics.”

You step away from them, and start pacing around the alleyway. If their timeline was correct, then Akuma would already be in the country, no doubt. But if you still had some time before she struck, then it was likely she didn’t know your exact location. She wasn’t a patient person; if she had your whereabouts now, you’d already be dead.

I’m safe, for now. Shouta and Hizashi…

“Is there anything at all that you saw that could tip us off to a time?”

Oracle watches you walk back and forth. “I- there was a flyer in a shop window, dated two weeks from now, like I said. But I don’t know if that was the time it was happening, not for certain.”

You sigh deeply. Not certain, but certainly something.

“Can I know how I die?” you ask, quieter now. “I mean, I have a hunch, but…”

They scrunch their face up, in a way between disgust and a frown. “It’s kind of like. Akuma secretes this kind of...sludge? It looks like tar, reeks of despair-”

“-chokes the victim and makes them hallucinate while they drown. Yeah, I figured. Fuck, of all the ways to go.” Your mind dwells back to your partner while you were undercover, the only person you’d ever seen escape Akuma’s grasp.

Only to get a gunshot to the head.

Oracle takes a tentative step towards you, reaching out for a moment and then thinking better of it. They seem sympathetic, in a way, concerned, even though you’re a total stranger.

“Is it...not possible to escape?” They ask.

“It...is. Technically.” You turn to her, “The way Akuma’s quirk works is vile. Yes it causes hallucinations, and yes you suffocate if you’re under her control for too long, but it’s how she keeps her targets subdued.”

“How?”

“The tar she makes has a special property. As it soaks into the skin and overtakes you, it destroys the will to live. And it’s mighty hard to fight your way out of her clutches when you don’t see a reason to. You need a lot of willpower. And stubbornness.”

You fist a hand in your hair, and tug. You weren’t the kind of person who could get away from her. Maybe you used to be, but now? Now, you’re all but a ghost of the person you used to be, or a shell of the person you could become again. But not right now, you were too damaged, too weak.

You glance at Oracle. “I should go. Thanks for the heads up, kid.”

They reach out for you as you walk past them and back onto the street, barely missing the sleeve of your shirt. “Wait! If you want to live, you have to stay away from her-”

“Oracle...kid. You can’t save everyone. You’ve done your part, and where I go from here is up to me.”

“And where exactly is that?”

You don’t miss the frustration in their voice, but you pay it no mind.

“I don’t know.”

----

You startle at the sound of the front door closing, looking over from your spot on the couch. Some mediocre netflix show is playing quietly on the TV, but you hadn’t really been paying attention to it, too lost in thought.

Hizashi wanders into the room a couple seconds later, looking deceptively pleasant considering the way the day had started. He smiles at you from across the room, and tosses his jacket over the back of the couch, coming around to find a seat beside you.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he says softly, and you can’t help but smile.

“Hey ‘zashi. Where’s Shouta?”

“Late patrol. He should be home by midnight.”

You both fall quiet after that. Neither one of you want to address the tired atmosphere of the room. Neither one of you really want to bring up what happened earlier in the day. You certainly don’t want to talk about your visit from Oracle. But…

“Sorry I don’t have dinner ready today,” you begin, “I...kind of had a long day. I’ve been distracted since I got home.”

Hizashi rearranges himself on the couch, getting more comfortable as he turns to face you. “You had your appointment today, right? How’d it go?”

For a moment, you contemplate not telling him everything, of sparing him the details and only mentioning your appointment. You knew that wasn’t fair, though, and if you were going to get anywhere and improve, you had to let people in. And your best friends would be your first choice.

“It went okay. Doctor was nice, place was tidy. I’ve definitely got some kind of PTSD, but I’m pretty sure you guys already knew that.”

“Just a little.”

You shove him gently, a smile gracing your lips. It soon fades, though, giving way to the downtrodden expression you’d been wearing most of the afternoon.

“It’s actually not the doctor I’m stressing over,” you say, chewing on your lip. “Hizashi, I…”

You pause, taking a shaky breath. Hizashi leans closer, some inkling of youthful hope gleaming behind his eyes. You don’t know what he wants you to say, but the next words out of your mouth certainly aren’t it.

“I met someone today.”

You can physically see him deflate.

“That’s not what I thought you were going to say.”

You watch him carefully, wanting to ask what it was. Ask him anything, anything to get away from the conversation you’re about to have. “Have you ever heard of the vigilante called Oracle?”

All at once, his posture stiffens, and a wrinkle forms in between his pinched brows. He’s smart, you know he is, and you know he’s already figured it out. “The kid who predicts people’s deaths. You met with them?”

“They sought me out.”

“That’s even worse!”

He clearly stressed now, starting to fidget and pluck at the loose threads on his jeans. His gaze is focused on something far away, as the gears turn in his head.

“Please, please tell me they didn’t-”

“Two weeks from now,” you supply bitterly.

“Y/N…”

He looks heartbroken, like he wants to throw up and cry at the same time. You don’t blame him. If you were in his position, you’d be throwing a fit by now, trying to find ways to fix it, to make sure he was safe.

“Well, then maybe this is a good thing,” he says, ever the optimist. “You have a heads up. You can avoid-”

“No.”

He looks at you like you’ve grown a second head, anger bubbling in his expression. “What do you mean ‘no’? Y/N, if you’re going to die, and you can get out of it-”

“Not for long!” You wince at the volume of your voice, shoving off the couch to pace around the living room. “Do you know who kills me, Hizashi? Akuma.”

“Who?”

“Akuma! She was my...boss, of sorts. While I was undercover. She escaped arrest. Oracle told me that I get caught in her quirk. I’ve only ever known one person who escaped it, and he’s dead.”

You come to a stop in front of him, slouched slightly, tears welled up in your eyes. “She’s so strong, ‘zashi. Unstoppable. Deadly.”

He stands up off the couch, taking up most of your personal space, but he doesn’t seem to care. “We can stop her. We’re heroes, it’s what we do. It might not be easy, but if we get the city on alert-”

“It’ll only delay her,” you shake your head, “She thrives in the underground world. She’s got connections. If I don’t face her now, I’m going to spend the rest of my life running.”

“But at least you’ll be alive!”

You’re both surprised and not, to see him lose his cool like that. He grips your shoulders tightly, holding you in place. “You can’t just give up and let yourself get taken down! Just because some kid says you’re gonna die, now you gotta? It was a warning, Y/N, a blessing, to get you to stay away!”

“I never said I was gonna throw my life away!”

“That’s exactly what confronting Akuma is!”

“It’s not!” You glare up at him, refusing to soften over the tears and desperation on his face, refusing to back down to his fears and worries. “I’m sick of always looking over my shoulder! I’m sick of being afraid, and angry, and tired, all the time! If doing this means I might get my freedom back, means I might win, then I’m doing it.”

“Or,” he spits, “you’ll end up dead.”

“Well, either way, it’s my life! And my choice!”

You move to shove him away, shake him off of you, but he only pulls you close and crushes you in a hug. He holds you tighter than you think he ever has, his fingers digging almost painfully into your skin where he grips you. You don’t even realize he’s crying, until a pathetic sniffle sounds in your ear.

“Please,” he whispers, voice wet and trembling. “Sweetheart, please. Sho and I...we thought we lost you once already. Please don’t do this.”

Slowly, you snake your arms around him, returning the gesture in a more gentle manner. Your own eyes water uncontrollably as you bury your face in his shoulder, dripping onto his shirt.

“I’m going to face her,” you say.

“Y/N, Oracle’s visions-”

“-Are a warning. I know when Akuma is going to strike, and I’ll be ready. Hizashi, I promise.”

He pulls back slightly, releasing you from his hold enough so that he can rest his forehead against yours, and for a moment, your feelings for him resurface. His soft breath fanning across your face, his thumbs rubbing slow circles into your arms. You want to tell him more than ever now, how you feel about him. If you were going to die, you couldn’t bear something like that being unspoken.

“‘Zashi, I need to tell you something else.”

Your gazes connect, then, his eyes piercing and swimming with so many emotions. Your words die in your throat, lost in the moment. The moment where there is no Akuma, no impending death...just the two of you, holding each other close, silently sharing the love you feel for one another.

He looks so tired, so scared, but behind it all there is a fierce determination and a fiery hope.

If you’re going to die, you don’t want those words left unspoken.

“I-”

But he already knows what you're going to say, so he cups your face, and cuts you off with a kiss.

[highwaydiamonds]

Um. Excuse me. You had cancer??

Yeah... I mean I guess I really haven't discussed it much on tumblr. I have a little bit, but only in vague ways, or rarely made veiled references in tags.

SO, get a drink, get a snack, because this is a bit of a saga, and you already know I am longwinded at the best of times. I'm going to do like Vizzini said, and go back to the beginning. I hope you're ok I'm making this public Shells, it seems easier to? And I'll put this behind a cut because I really do wax on ( and on).

It's the end of August 2018 and i appear to have gotten some kind cold/respiratory infection. I'm at work the first day of it and it feels like a cold. No big deal. (Also this is all pre-COVID so no I didn't have COVID). The next day I feel really awful, so I call off work, and figure all I need to do is rest and I'll be ok. Turns out, NOPE. The next day I feel worse- now I can tell I have a bit of a fever, my appetite was basically, " eat one baby carrot and my appetite is exhausted." Finally, I get to the point that I am having trouble lying down - as in I am becoming short of breath when I try to lie flat (sorry if I am using the wrong word - lay/lie was always a grammar issue that eluded me.) So, I decide, ok, i will be sensible girl and go get medical attention. But I am stubborn and feel the ER is overreacting, so I go to urgent care. i park in the front row of urgent car parking, but by the time I reach the intake desk I have to put my head down because I am so winded and a bit lightheaded.

They take one look at me and tell me, point blank, "we're getting a squad for you to take you to the ER." I say, " what? no, I don't need that, this is not that big a deal." They counter, " you could barely walk in the door and you you are having significant trouble breathing. We don't have the ability to see you here." So, for the first time in my life I have to go via ambulance from urgent care to a free standing ER.

I get to the ER - where they decide, OK, lady, you're a mess. Let's get some chest x-rays and we're gonna slap some IV fluids and I can't even recall if they immediately put me on IV antibiotics or not. But after two hours there they informed me, " hey.... So, we think you need to go to the hospital-hospital not the freestanding ER." I tell them well you better hand me my laptop ( I'm that bitch who takes the laptop with her juuuuust in case I am stuck in the hospital. you never know.) Because i am not going to a hospital until I figure out if they're in my health plan. I do so and then for the second time in my life, all in one night because sometimes I am an over achiever i guess, I go via ambulance to the hospital.

They admitted me and over the next few/couple/ hours ( it was hard to tell) I progressively felt worse. I had trouble breathing if I didn't sit absolutely straight up, and at that point I hadn't gotten good sleep for around 60 hours or so. Me being me I started to get teary and panicky, because I was so tired and wasn't sure what to do. I called for the nurse and she came in and then within the next half hour your girl got taken down to the ICU. By the time we arrived down in the ICU I was really getting panicky. My mom died in the ICU ( different hospital but still) and I knew the fact they took me down there was no laughing matter. I started to think about, " ok is this what death is like? this isn't what i thought it was going to be - this is panicky and scary and not all white lights and peace."

The next thing I knew - it was two days later, and I woke up intubated. Did you know that you can be conscious and intubated? I did not. I'll speed things up a bit here. I spent a total of 8 days in the ICU - I had one hell of a case of pneumonia, and there were a couple of other diagnoses thrown in ( nope, not cancer. promise, we will get there.) . The nurses I had were AMAZING. I was intubated for about 6 of those 8 days. Then I got weaned off of it. Funniest moment on the ventilator: Physical therapist comes around and says, " Hey let's get you up and walking, you think you can?" I nodded and shrugged my shoulders to try and communicate, " sure, ok!" It went totally fine, but there were nursing students, residents, other doctors and who knows who else looking out of rooms and over desks at the two of us just y'know... *walking down the hall*. I gestured to the people because it was just flipping weird. I had an audience at the exact time NOBODY wants an audience and it confused the hell out of me. PT advised me, " there aren't too many times ventilated patients are ambulatory. You're a bit of a curiosity so people want to see."

Once I got out of the ICU and was put back on a regular floor, I got to meet with other doctors re those other diagnoses I mentioned ( chronic things I just have to manage) I also mentioned that it had been a really long time since I had been to a GYN and as had been noted in the ICU I spotted quite frequently ( I have never, ever in my life been regular period-wise and it just got weirder over time, but I just didn't really consider it. So I asked while they were setting me up with new practitioners ( my previous doctor had retired) too please set me top with a gynecologist.

So I'm out of the hospital by September 10th, 2018. The gyro appointment occurs i want to say by mid- to late September. I go in and meet her and she's lovely. While I'm up on the table she says, " hey let's do all the things and get a uterine biopsy!" I say, " excellent, do the things!" We agree it's likely going to be nothing but hey we're smart people and we will play it safe. Huzzah Gyno visit accomplished! (if I were a gamer I'd make some kind of ladybits achievement unlocked now, but I'm not a gamer.)

Two or so weeks go by - or however long it takes to get those test results back (some of these spans are lost in the mists of time). Dr Boyle calls me and apologizes that the test results that she was sure would be nothing... they are not nothing. Turns out, it's endometrial cancer.

At that point you could have knocked me over with a feather. Shells, I wanted my mom to be there so badly, I can't even express it. She would have understood how I felt - she'd been there with her breast cancer. But at the same time, I was glad she wasn't there? I remember how heartsick my mom was to tell Grandmommy when Mom got cancer. I didn't want my mom to have to hear that news, to worry about that. Dr Boyle advised me that she would be referring me to a good oncologist and i should hear from them in a week or two.

Thus began MRIS and PET scans and ultrasounds, and blood work etc. The oncologist diagnosed that he figured I might be stage three, but it depended on my lymph involvement. It brought back memories of when Mom was diagnosed and when she told me she was stage three. I asked my Dad later, "what does that mean?" He told me, " there are only four stages, so what do you think?" This time around I knew what it meant. So, we put me down for surgery November 9th, 2018. That's two days before my birthday - so I joked that I was getting my cancer out for my birthday - hooray! My best friend actually flew in from texas for my surgery ( my best friend is a SAINT, and I love her more than pearls and rubies.)

Best surgery story from this experience: For my total hysterectomy (uterus and ovaries go sayonara and then also two signal lymph nodes in the chain of nodes on either side of the pelvis to se if there is any lymph complication.) I had to be tilted back - so with my head down to move as many organs away from the uterus etc during the laparoscopic procedure. I knew this going in, However, when I woke up back in my hospital room I looked at Bestie and said, " I hurt in places I didn't expect to hurt. Oh wait. My shoulders hurt because they're not used to being weight bearing, but the procedure was laproscopic - so why the heck does my vagina hurt?" Bestie in one of her best moments ever says, " I know why." I replied, " wait, YOU know why MY vagina hurts?!" She said, " yep. So your surgery was supposed to take 3-3.5 hours ended up taking 5 hours instead. Your uterus was really big. The oncologist told us they need up having to cut it in half to pull it out of you." bestie admitted she joked with the oncologist that it was like I had just birthed a baby, he looked back at her (NOT laughing) and said, " yes, that's basically what she did." I laughed so much at that ( i mean i was also well medicated, but still) I told Bestie, " I had a Uterus! Let's call it George!" ( In retrospect I am disappointed in myself that I misgendered my own uterus, I should have called it Georgina.)

So, after healing from the surgery, by about January of 2019 I started two courses (each with a few rounds) of chemo. First came what the doctors and I called "low-pro" chemo - that we did along with radiation. Honestly, though i was making a heck of a lot more bathroom trips, you wouldn't have generally known I was sick. Most of my coworkers had no idea. I just was a bit more tired than usual. After the low pro rounds - then we moved to the bigger guns. Radiation was done but I moved to more significant chemo drugs, This wasn't because things were bad - this was the plan all along :) But I knew the "high-pro" chemo was going to make me lose my hair. THAT was a psychic struggle. I cried so much knowing that was going to happen. I got hats and caps and I even got a very nice wig. I mean, I planned as much as a girl can plan when she hears that news. I even preemptively cut my long hair. It was about half way down my back at that point. So I went in and asked the stylist please braid it and put it in between two hair ties - and then cut it - so i could keep my braid. I couldn't do locks of love anyway as it was colored, and I know it's selfish, but I wanted my hair. So, the hair went from half down my back to a face framing bob. then I just waited. And then in a few weeks it happened. I could put my hands through my hair and easily, painlessly pull it out. I am not a cute bald girl. That's when people KNOW you have something going on.

I was very lucky though, there ended up NOT being lymph involvement, and even the high pro chemo didn't make me nauseous or lose appetite. I did have HORRIBLE bone pain usually the first week after chemo ( i'd get it every three weeks). I learned a hell of a lot from that. I also was able to get some meds to help alleviate it a bit, and I took time from work when the pain was at its worst. But I have never experienced pain like that - where no matter what I did - no position changes helped. Even ice packs or heat pads didn't help or do much. It was just a waiting game, a painful waiting game. Oh also - I learned that IV benadryl is nothing like oral benadryl. IV benadryl is like walking right into a brick wall made of sleep. That stuff knocked me the hell out right quick - amazing.

Right before COVID started and the world shut down I got the flu because my immune system was in the toilet- and so I spent another week in the hospital and except for the bone pain that comes with chemo, you know what is worse than chemo injections? POTASSIUM injections. Among other things, my potassium levels were low and so I got those injections with other meds. Those suckers HURT. they BURN, and so i spent a week in the hospital only to eventually come out and find out the world was starting to shut down from COVID. Not my job at that point, but my oncologist told me, " GO HOME - YOU KNOW YOU ARE IMMUNO COMPROMISED - DON'T STAY AT WORK." So, I went home until about a month after I finished chemo.

Since finishing chemo it's been about scans, which have gone ok so far... I'm not willing to talk about the R word. I just think I'll have to be careful the rest of my life - My mom always said, "once you've gotten cancer, you always have cancer." So, maybe it's the anxiety talking, but it's kind of like waiting for the other cancer shoe to drop. In the mean time though, it's business as usual - try to find good stuff in the midst of the hot mess. Cancer has been a crisis but not a reason to lose my sense of humor. I've needed it more than ever :)

So, sorry for the SERIOUSLY LONG ASS answer, but sometimes it's just better to lay it bare. I'm not ashamed of this stuff. It's been a lot. It's been a journey... It still is... it's part of the rest of my journey, which i hope isn't over by a long shot yet. I don't believe things happen for reasons - the world is WAY too absurd for that in my opinion, BUT good gravy have i been able to learn so much from this whole three ring circus. I'm not grateful for cancer, but I am grateful for the lessons.

Thanks for checking in, Shells. You're a complete sweetheart.

[seven-oomen]

Please talk about Noah! Your takes are super interesting and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this!

(hope you're having a nice day!)

Alright then strap in! Because I am about to tell you why I think Noah Stilinski is;

A. Bisexual

B. Has the inattentive type of ADHD

Let’s begin!

First off, I think Noah Stilinksi is a bisexual man who has a preference for feminine presenting people. (As one would typically see women dress/appear in western society.) I don’t particularly have evidence for this, I tried scouring S3 to find clues of it, but honestly, I think this is just one of those, I headcanon it and therefore to me, it is true. If you have a different opinion, then awesome, you do you. 

I mean there are some looks between him and Chris Argent that can be interpreted as interested, but you’d have to look very closely. For now, it’s just one of those things, to me it’s like that, and I have fun with it.

Like father, like son right? Except Stiles would be more on the 50/50 scale of bisexuality where I think Noah is more on the 70/30 scale leaning towards feminine people.

As for his ADHD, I did find a lot of clues and tidbits there, so: 

Notice how the sheriff is frequently standing with his arms crossed as if he’s either trying to protect himself (trauma-based) or trying to keep himself from moving too much (ADHD based). This would also explain why the sheriff is often seen standing too still. He also tends to talk with his hands, which is another thing a lot of ADHD people have in common. Though to be fair a lot of NT people do this too.

However here in 3x01 we see the sheriff fully focused on this person while they’re trying to work something out.

Then the next second, Melissa enters the hallway and Noah’s undivided attention is suddenly on her, he barely remembers to utter out an excuse me before addressing Melissa. And he does it as if every neuron in his brain is suddenly focused on her. “Oh hey, Melissa!” 

*Brain switch. Undivided attention is now on Melissa.*

This is a form of hyper-focusing, and if you’ve been trained from a young age you do this while making it look NT-passing. You mask it. I do this. People with ADHD-C or ADHD-I that have a basis in trauma tend to this in my experience.

Like Stiles tends to do, the sheriff too, is moving around fidgeting in the blurry background. He’s talking faster than he can process which is picked up on by his stutters. While he’s trying to figure out a resolution to this conflict. 

You can also tell that there might be some RSD at play here due to the fact that he seems very keen to keep the peace in the scene and wants everyone to get along and let’s keep everyone around me chill. This may not seem like a stereotypical ADHD thing to do, but it’s very common in ADHD-I types.

In the scene with Deaton that he shares in this episode, as well as numerous scenes with Stiles and other characters. You can always see him thinking, you can practically see the wheels turning in his head as he tries to make connections and tries to focus on what lies ahead of him and what people are saying to him. 

Sometimes he successfully succeeds in listening and processing. You see this by his frowns, little head movements. But as soon as those arms cross or his frown deepens you can tell someone is trying to flip the switch, but the light’s not turning on. The information isn’t being processed by his brain. He’s trying to defend himself.

Again, this is a typical thing for someone with ADHD-I who’s been trained and has had extensive therapy to cope with his symptoms. For a while and for general conversations/problems, you are capable of holding the thread. When things get complicated, that’s when you start to see the thread unraveling in Noah’s head.

In 3x02 there’s a moment of impatience as he wakes the boys up but also clearly a look on his face that says a few things.

1. Omg Stiles has done it again.

2. Look at the state of this room where do I even begin? I don’t know, so I just won’t bother.

3. Oh no I have absolutely been here and now I have to deal with my son being in this state too.

So he does the most logical thing to him, he doesn’t deal with it. Just his executive dysfunction going off and thinking; nope I’m not dealing with this, I need to get work, I don’t have time to sit down (hence the mug in his hands.) Man is probably running late already and only now waking the boys up because he realizes they’re A. still in his house. And B. not off to school yet and he needs to get going too.

He has a moment like this in multiple episodes where his impatience and incapability of dealing with a situation in front of him causes him to physically drag Stiles away and using too much force to do it. Though judging by Stiles’s reactions, and the way he relaxes after being grabbed, the sheriff seems to realize how hard he is grabbing and eases up every single time.

And that seems like a little detail, but not knowing your own strength is also a thing that can correspond with ADHD. (Though it can occur in NT people and other conditions as well. Or generally, be caused by anger.) But for the sake of this essay or meta, I will attribute it to Noah having ADHD.

In 3x09 Stiles finally clues him in on what’s happening in Beacon Hills and we can clearly see that he’s struggling to process everything. One could attribute that purely to; 

1. Noah is trying to come to terms that supernatural creatures are real and this would be a lot for anyone to process. Which is a fair and a totally valid assumption.

2. However, we see signs of Noah already starting to believe something is up from the very beginning. There’s always been a side to the sheriff where he was willing to believe or give people the benefit of the doubt when it came to the supernatural. Like in 3x03 when he tells his deputy: “She saw something.”

This leads me to believe that the real matter at hand is that Noah simply can’t process all that information at that time and he needs a few days to think it over in order to do so. Which could be a sign of a processing problem due to ADHD. (Although as I have pointed out, it could also be interpreted as an NT just getting a lot of crazy information at once. Take it as you will.)

In 3x07 Stiles and Scott argue over whether or not to tell Noah what’s going on with the sacrifices. Stiles points out that they shouldn’t because his father is completely overwhelmed.

This can be attributed to several things and interpreted in different ways. Let’s lay down the most obvious one; the sheriff has no idea what’s going on, he has the FBI on his case, and multiple murders on his hands and essentially a serial killer. All of these on their own are enough to be overwhelmed by, yes.

I choose to interpret it as a combination of all of these factors combined with an inability to process this much information or information in general. Which is another symptom of ADHD-I.

We also hear him frequently telling Stiles and the other kids to ‘go home, get to class, go to school.’ Basically what he’s doing in moments like this is 1. looking out for them. 2. Unable to cope and process with all the information he’s been giving during that time and instead of lashing out at the kids, he tries a coping mechanism that’s called divert or redirect. Where you try to redirect people/thoughts/object into a direction or thought process that’s far more manageable to you. 

Which is something that I’ve been taught to do myself in therapy. And that is why I think it’s something Noah has been taught to do as well. Either in the Army/Police Academy. or during therapy sessions.

Now, this is what I like to call Noah’s; I’m trying to process what you’re trying to tell me face. And so far, I’m keeping up. You see the pursed lips, the frown on his face, the slightly squinted eyes. He’s focusing on what Stiles is trying to tell him.

Here he is looking away for a second, processing, trying to manage information. We see him frown further, his lip tensing further, he has to try harder.

He’s processing, processing, he blinks. And then this is the face he pulls right after the blink.

The frown has deepened, he's still following Stiles for now but you can see he’s starting to lose the train of thought here.

Stiles keeps explaining, pulls out the chessboard to explain what is going on.

And Noah has completely lost his train of thought. He has no idea what Stiles is saying to him anymore and no way to process all of the information that Stiles is giving him after this moment. He gets impatient, is annoyed at the things Stiles is telling him. That is because he’s emotionally, and physically overwhelmed. 

He deals with a lot of things in his job and he always seems utterly exhausted because of it. I think that is because his job is exhausting. But I also think it has to do with Noah not being able to filter sounds, stimuli, the inability to process things like an NT. I think Noah suffers from a high level of empathy, this combined with sensory processing issues results in someone who’s constantly trying to filter them out and failing. Resulting in chronic fatigue, turning to other means of dealing (Alcoholism), impatience, etc.

He also seems to have trouble regulating his emotions, as we see with his frequent snaps and jabs at Stiles but he also seems to try and be better about it and regret it when he does snap. We also know that in order to numb his pain and his emotions Noah turned to Alcohol to cope, as sad as it is, this is common in people with ADHD. Who often turn to substances to cope with their symptoms and their inability to regulate themselves, anything to numb all the feelings and their own shortcomings. Noah seems to have fallen into that trap too.

-

I think my favorite moment in this scene comes right after with this face:

And the question of; “Why is Jackson the Kanima?”

Which tells me a few things.

1. After everything, that’s the first question he truly asks as he leans back and tries to process things.

2. This may point to an inability to prioritize tasks/thoughts, which is another symptom of ADHD-I. Which for Noah seems to occur when he’s not on the job or with people he trusts and doesn’t have to mask for. (He does this too when he asks Derek at the station; “But if he doesn’t have a mouth, how does he eat?”) Suggesting that this is a more regular occurrence than we see on the show.

And at this point, I can no longer concentrate on this since I’ve lost my hyper-focus. But I think I managed to compile a pretty decent list.

And that is why I think Noah Stilinski is Bisexual and has ADHD.

Tagging: @mostly-vo1d and @artemisa97 since they are usually involved in these things too. You don’t have to respond of course, but if you feel up to it, join in.

[thedreadvampy]

look it's very simple most main cast tma characters (except possibly Basira and Sasha and MAYBE Tim) are reacting to not just supernatural trauma but clear, explicit childhood trauma and I think that's important to take into consideration.

Jon evidently came from a difficult place in the first place, and he was taught that he was an unwanted annoyance who'd derailed his grandma's life, that his intelligence was unpleasant, arrogant and inconvenient, and that the worst thing he could do was get in a grown-up's way. Of course he's bad at talking to people about his feelings. Of course he apologises for seemingly random things and tries to hide big problems and power through on his own. He had a really lonely childhood where he felt like an inconvenience, and now in adulthood it's deeply difficult to believe that anybody will help him and not hold it against him. Of course he comes across staid and aloof - he doesn't believe that anyone will like him if he isn't Doing Everything Right. It's so easy in that situation to worry so much about not being a burden that you freeze your friends out even as they can see you spiralling and you end up hurting them when in fact they'd be more than willing to offer help and get you out. It's why addiction is such an easy hole to fall in, because it feels like a way you can be self-sufficient and deal with your feelings without being a burden. Jon ISN'T a very closed off person naturally, he wants to reach out and be close to people, but he's been taught over and over (as many autistic children are) that he's too much, that he takes up too much space, that it's unfair for him to expect people to go out of their way to help him, so he boxes it away and shoves it down and turns to cigarettes, paranoia and denial in an attempt to manage the problem by himself. He's trying so hard to not be the Weird Kid, he's trying to play the part of what he thinks an archivist and a boss should be and blah his way through; he knows believing in weird shit opens the door to all sorts of stuff so he sticks his fingers in his ears and goes LALALA. he's deeply avoidant which ironically is why he often ends up diving in recklessly - it feels safe to only put yourself at risk (you who think you don't particularly matter, are unloved, and are an annoyance anyway) rather than wait and let others get involved and either judge you or get hurt. He didn't tell ANYONE that his encounter with Daisy had hurt him for SEVERAL YEARS because he didn't want to upset anyone. This speaks to me so much of a kid who growing up was always treated as underfoot, in the way, abnormal and with emotions and problems that weren't nearly as significant as the Important Grownup Things. I don't think anyone knew how to help 5 year old Jon with navigating his parents' deaths, and his grandmother's grief at losing her child probably made it very hard for them to connect whether or not she actually resented him the way he thinks she did. He was treated with bitterness and coldness his whole childhood, and he's never been given space to be angry about that because she was doing her best and dealing with a difficult situation, but it certainly left him with an expectation that trying to turn to anyone for emotional help and support will get you in trouble AND is unfair on them. Being with Martin, and indeed all his friendships and relationships, is hard to navigate when you've been taught for so long that exposing your vulnerability will get you yelled at or will upset people. You try to harden up and develop an exoskeleton but you're so chronically soft and in need of help and love so it spills out messy and you don't know how to take the walls down or build better ones up.

Martin's obvious, because his parental abuse is at the centre of his arc and is explicitly spelled out by Elias. He's so sure it's something he's done that's made his dad leave and his mum despise him, and he's hoping against desperate hope that if he can be Good Enough, little enough of a problem, helpful and invaluable, he can make up for whatever chronic flaw in his personality makes him unlovable. Of course he ISN'T unlovable, and none of his parent's treatment of him is his fault, but it's much safer to believe it's your fault and you can change it than it is to believe people who are meant to love you can just not hold up their end of the bargain for reasons totally outside your control. Much like with Jon, Martin has been taught to believe that he's a Problem - where Jon puts up walls and tries to be aggressively separate, Martin tries as hard as he can to prove himself Useful and Valuable while walling off an excess of humanity. Honestly though Martin's coping with it better than Jon throughout the series because he knows what it is and he's TRYING to push past the impulse to Not Be A Bother and actually let people love him. But he's still seeing the world through the lens of someone who's spent his whole life believing that the only way he'll deserve love is to become invaluable, to be useful, to be caring, to be needed, to be all give and no take, and that's not sustainable. And how much must it knock him back from trusting enough to ask for help when his boss (leave aside the love interest bit) talks about him like he's a buffoon and a waste of space however hard he's trying to be helpful and valuable, just like his mum has for years? Finding out that you matter enough to that person for him to risk his life to save you, and to really truly see you, goes a long way towards showing you that you're not always right to assume that people are lying when they say nice things about you and honest when they say cruel things about you - sometimes you are genuinely loved by people who ALSO see you as flawed. and while obviously after that the circumstances are very different I think we've seen Martin become more comfortable with his own tendency to acidity and sarcasm, anger and messy feelings, around not just Jon but in general (although also I can't talk about this without as usual observing how weird it is that people read Martin as sweet, servile and wimpy when he's consistently tough, sarcastic and brave AS WELL AS deeply lacking in confidence, afraid of conflict, emotionally giving, and terminally people-pleasing. He's right when he repeatedly says people underestimate him and don't see him - it's weird that the fandom is a big culprit of that)

Speaking of characters whose trauma responses are often overlooked, Melanie doesn't talk much about her pre-statement life but she's clear that it hasn't been good, and that other than her dad she's had nobody in the world she can trust. I am positive that her childhood was marked by parental abuse/neglect to at least a certain degree, because she was willing to kill her mum/let her die without much compunction (I THINK that's the implication of Elias' line about her mum's life insurance paying for her dad's care). To me (projecting), Melanie's fear of losing control of her own anger speaks to somebody who grew up in a volatile and probably physically violent home, and I suspect her mother was struggling to cope and lashing out at Melanie and her dad. (I also think that while it's unlikely to be made explicit because Jonny generally shies away from talking it writing about sexual abuse, that it's very probable that Melanie experienced adolescent sex abuse from some source and wasn't protected or supported. That's pure conjecture though based on how she acts.) I think she's definitely had issues with everyone in her family except her dad when it comes to her sexuality and that she's been largely estranged for a long time, and I think those are the kinds of things which, coupled with abuse and sidelining in adulthood, leave you with a lot of rage and nowhere to put it, and with a huge amount of difficulty trusting people. Undeniably, Melanie has been on the sharp end of other people's violent anger often enough to be really, really wary of ever giving her own anger free rein, or losing control of herself.

We don't know much about Daisy's childhood beyond what happened with Calvin (Pretty Damn Traumatic), but I think what I find interesting about Daisy is that she's definitely someone who, like many girls, struggled with that point in childhood where you're supposed to Stop Liking Boy (Fun) Things and Become A Girl. I think it's safe to say that Daisy was fairly subject to bullying and alienation in primary school, and I think people often overlook how badly that affects you your whole life. But also to be severely injured and traumatised, to tell people what happened, and to not be believed? That leaves marks. Marks that teach you that you can't trust that justice will be served, and you have to take the law into your own hands. I think there's also a lot of the Gendered Traumas happening around Daisy - she clearly has a conflicted relationship with femininity - but that's another post.

[midearthwritings]

Could I please get an Lotr and The Hobbit Matchup, of you're still doing them? Thanks so much!

🌱 18 year old Woman // Bisexual // Autistic and Disabled with a bonus Anxiety Disorder

🌱 I have a litany of Chronic Illnesses including Autism, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Depression, Dyscalculia (Dyslexia for Math), Scoliosis, Sleep Apnea, Asthma, a Growth Hormone Deficiency, Insomnia, and a very bad Overbite. I also have a condition where my right leg is physically longer than my left, which causes pain in my hip and right leg, as well as trouble walking. My usual symptoms include Fatigue, Back Pain, Executive Dysfunction (struggle to get tasks done), Difficulty breathing and talking, Very short stature, and difficulties with my balance. I also stim by pacing around in circles and talking to myself.

🌱 I have a serious fear of heights, partially because of my balance issues. It's so bad that I can't even use stairs without holding onto the railing.

🌱 I know a lot of Home Remedies and Superstitions for like no reason. For instance, did you know that Raspberry Tea helps with Menstrual Pain, or that knocking on wood invokes the protection of the tree spirit and that’s why it’s said to give you luck? I don’t know why I know that, but I do.

🌱 Winning a fight is on my bucket list, but it has to be for a good reason. I’m not one to just pick fights for the sake of fighting, and I’m actually pretty conflict-averse due to trauma, so I need to actually have a solid reason for throwing hands. But I’ve always wanted to do it for some reason.

🌱 I really like studying Witchcraft for some reason. The first spell I ever performed was a Healing Spell to help my friend who was sick with Crohn's Disease. Thirty minutes after performing the ritual, I got a text saying he felt a lot better and he was released from the hospital a couple days later, so I guess it must’ve worked. 😁

🌱 My love language is definitely gift giving. I’m pretty cheap, but I’m also an artist, so when push comes to shove I’ll just make something for someone when I like them. I pay very close attention to what people like because it gives me more ideas on how to interact with them. I’m essentially a large, flightless Crow. You were nice, so you get something shiny. But though I like giving gifts to others, I’m not very materialistic at all. I prefer to be practical when it comes to things, and I get very nervous when spending money on myself.

🌱 I’m an avid writer and am actually planning on publishing a book this summer!

🌱 I LOVE going outside and getting messy. Playing in the mud, getting soaked in the rain, I’m the type to go outside and come back home covered in dirt and twigs. It’s just really fun to me.

🌱 I've been told that I'm a very good cook, and I can bake pretty well too.

🌱 I’ve always wanted to be a really good gardener. My dream house is just covered in flowers and plants and such. I want to live in a Greenhouse, basically.

🌱 I have a habit of giggling to myself just by remembering something funny that happened, even if it was a couple years ago. I also laugh when I do something stupid, because I find my flaws and shortcomings funny for the most part. I love to laugh with people, but never at them.

🌱 I know way too much about Spirits and Fae. My favorite book is called ‘The Encyclopedia of Spirits’ and it shows you how to contact and interact with a ton of different deities and spirits, and I’m addicted to reading it. It’s the best.

🌱 I’m basically like a tiny, less-impressive Aragorn. I love travelling on foot, getting messy outside, I was kind of a Horse Girl as a kid ngl, I’ve always wanted to be a knight or king of some sort, chances are that I haven’t bathed in awhile, and I too would pine for a hot elf girl for literal years on end.

🌱 My closest friends say I give off “Dwobbit” vibes. That’s a ½ Dwarf and ½ Hobbit btw. I’m around 4’ 10” tall, I don’t shave, I love crafting and art, I live in the Mountains, I’m tomboyish but I also love gardening and can be a bit of a homebody, I love going barefoot, etc.

🌱 I really love History, Folklore, Mythology and Fairy Tales. My favorite is the Irish myth of Oisín in Tir Na Nog. Look it up if you don’t know it, it’s a fantastic story. But I also appreciate myths from all sorts of different cultures, like the myth of Annapurna in India or the tale of Princess Kaguya in Japan.

🌱 I’m an Aquarius, INFP and 4w5 if that means anything. For reference, characters who are also 4w5 INFPs include Lydia Deetz (Beetlejuice), Wirt (Otgw), Frankenstein’s Monster, Luna Lovegood (HP), Napstablook (Undertale), Erik The Phantom of the Opera, and Celeste from Animal Crossing. That kinda tells you a lot about me, doesn’t it?

🌱 I am naturally very shy and take awhile to open up to people. I also get flustered very easily and tend to avoid social interaction a lot. I’m a huge introvert, but I also really do love meeting interesting people, so I try to talk to them when I have the energy to.

🌱 I have very long Disheveled brown hair, that actually used to be blonde when I was little, so there’s a few lighter patches in there. It's essentially a fluffy mane at this point, but because of my poor hand-eye coordination I never learned how to braid it. I have really pale skin, with lots of moles, freckles and scabs. It’s also warmer out, so I almost certainly have a farmer’s tan. I have very light blue eyes and glasses.

🌱 I have a habit of seeing shadows move out of the corners of my eyes, frequently mistaking them for people or animals, but when I turn to look there’s nothing there. I’ve gotten my eyesight checked multiple times, but there’s nothing out of the ordinary, so it’s either a lack of sleep, or the Fae are getting antsy with me. Probably the former of course, but part of me would like to believe the latter too.

Sorry the description is so long, I can't wait to see my results! Thanks so much, wishing you the best!!

Hey darling! First, wow that was really long! Sorry for taking so long to make it, as I mentioned before, I'm a fucking procrastinator.

Aragorn

For LOTR, I'm pairing you up with Aragorn.

Aragorn had probably loved you for a really really long time.

But he's extremely patient and careful with you, so it took him a while to confess his love.

When he did, it was kind of overwhelming for you, and you were really doubting the whole thing. But again, he was really patient with you.

Aragorn doesn't cover you in gifts to show his love. He shows it by remembering all those little things that make you you.

The two of you can spend hours telling stories and tales to the other. It's your favorite thing to do together.

He loves that you write and always ask to read your work. Although, he never pushes you and respects you when you refuse.

He knows about every single one of your illnesses and makes sure that you always have what you need.

Bilbo Baggins

For the Hobbit, I picked Bilbo.

Bilbo loves you deeply and truly. He thinks all the things that are annoying to others are what make you the most unique being he has ever met.

He thinks listening to you tell tales is more fascinating than reading.

Most of all, he loves when you read to him the stories that you have created.

Sometimes, your illnesses are a bit complicated for him to understand, but he does his best and listens to your needs.

His favorite thing to do with you is cooking. Sometimes, you will even compete over who is the best cook. Although he admitted more than once that you were.

When you are out gardening, he sits outside with you and watches you. He thinks it's beautiful how hard you work to make his garden look so gorgeous.

He is often insecure about losing you. He is scared that he won't be able to provide you with what you need, or won't be able to show you how much he loves you.

As for you, you fear that one day he might grow tired of you.

But the communication in your relationship is great and your insecurities are even washed away by promises of eternal love.

Again, sorry for the wait! I hope you liked it!

[supportivespaceforsurvivors]

Tw: mention of suicidal thoughts

Do you have any tips on how to get through the stress of the beginning of school for people who suffer with chronic issues? This is my last first week of school and i can't handle it. I suffer with intense depression and anxiety, and even though I'm medicated I'm finding myself drifting further and further to my metaphorical edge. I don't know why school is triggering it so badly but i feel like I cannot physically survive school if it keeps going on like this. It's hard to wake up in the morning and all I can see is the negative opportunities in between classes. I know I can call crisis lines, but I'm like this constantly and no one can even fix it. One doctor even suggested this would just be my life now, even as this has been my life for several years.

hi anon, i'm really sorry to hear you're struggling so much. i was in a super similar situation my last year of high school (i was diagnosed with depression at 12 years old, and while i've been medicated and recognize i'm a lot better on my meds than i am off of them, i still struggle with it pretty bad), so i know just how difficult it is to push through, and i'm very proud of you for reaching out.

i wanna start off by saying: there's absolutely no shame in dropping out or taking a bit longer to graduate if you decide it's just too much right now. while i was able to push my way through my last year, i recognize that the main reason i did so was because i felt i had no other choice: my parents told me repeatedly that they wouldn't accept anything else. if you are able to, taking some time off of school until you feel more stable is always an option.

if you don't want to take a break or are unable to, i do have some tips for you - but i'm gonna break them up to make it easier to read.

talk to your teachers. there is absolutely no need to tell them everything, or even go into details - but, a lot of the time, when you tell a teacher you're struggling and need a bit more time on an assignment or a bit of help, they're glad to do so. some teachers won't be as nice, but most teachers (in my experience) genuinely don't want their students to fail. its absolutely terrifying to go to a teacher and say you're doing bad mentally, but i think - especially considering the pandemic - a lot of teachers will be understanding.

keep some headphones on you. if you find you tend to work better while listening to your own music, or that you get overwhelmed during passing time (or any other time that class might get loud), you can keep some earbuds on you so you can plug them in during these times. if you need them during class, i recommend talking to your teacher first; most teachers don't like seeing headphones while they're teaching, but in my experience, they don't mind as much if you're getting time to work on something.

if you find you simply can't stand how crowded the halls are during passing time, try to hang back for a little bit to see if the hallways clear at all. this isn't an option if your school is large and your classes are on complete opposite sides of the school, but it is something to keep in mind! if you have too much school to cover inbetween classes, however, i recommend getting your speedwalk down and figuring out routes to your classes that might be less crowded.

some days, all you can do is just... show up. and that's okay! i had days where i showed up to class, copied whatever was put on the board, and that was about it. i still managed to graduate on time, because i was able to look back at notes whenever i needed them. on those days, i didn't really force myself to work on homework unless it was a super important project; i kinda just.. went home and checked out. sometimes it's better to give you time to recharge rather than doing every single piece of homework every day.

try to limit classes to just the things you need in order to graduate, or things you enjoy doing. my senior year, i had about 4-5 classes each semester out of 8 blocks. everything i took that year was required in order to graduate, or things i genuinely enjoyed doing. the ability to not overload my class schedule was extremely important for me; i had several free periods where i could do homework, catch up on lost sleep, or spend time in the art room to get some extra work in on my projects there. while having a full class schedule might look good to your teachers or school, its important to do only what you can handle. however, i know this isn't necessarily reasonable for everyone; i had packed my schedule full of classes in my first 3 years of high school, so i only had a few prerequisites left to take, while some of my friends had less wiggle room.

i know this is a lot, but i wanted to make sure i gave you a lot of things to help you get through the day. i really hope i was able to help at all, and i wish you the best of luck, anon. 💗

- mod berry

[hopevalley]

I've actually enjoyed watching new episodes of the show for the first time in a LONG time! I thought Lucas being frustrated w/ Elizabeth was contrived and misplaced. Was his mom like "me & your father are separated btw i told elizabeth before you?" The bit felt off. But hey, these past three episodes have been fun & much-better written than anything last season. How much of this season's improvement over recent prior ones do you think is due to the season having a new showrunner?

As to Lucas and Elizabeth, I feel this is an issue with shows in general of this runtime and episode length. I like to compare WCtH with Road to Avonlea because both shows had short seasons and 40ish minute long episodes, were family shows, and featured ensemble casts. Avonlea had a similar issue with pacing in the occasional episode. I know I like to nitpick WCtH a lot about its writing, and I never shy from honest critique, but I really do think the hiccup with Lucas and Elizabeth in Ep3 was just a product of needing a few more minutes of screentime—preferably the start of Helen telling Lucas about the situation with his father, since it did feel like him knowing everything came out of almost nowhere. We knew Helen would have to talk to him, but we never really saw her resolve to do so, and I think we earned the emotional payoff of the truth coming out. (As an aside, Helen should have apologized for telling Lucas that Elizabeth knew as well as putting her in a position where she had to keep a secret from someone she cared about. Elizabeth being put in a bad position was awful enough, but then she went and told Lucas that Elizabeth was aware the whole time? Yiiiikesssss...)

I’m pretty confident that Helen told Lucas something like: “I have to tell you something important... Your father...left me...a few weeks ago. I need to apologize for keeping it from you but I didn’t know how to bring it up...” and then probably responded to something Lucas said with a comment about how she’d talked to Elizabeth about it, or Elizabeth suggested she be honest about the situation because Lucas would find out eventually and it would be better if it came directly from her. I could definitely see Helen accidentally being too honest in a situation where she’s nervous about admitting the truth to her own son. She’s probably extremely embarrassed and ashamed, and the episode doesn’t really go into how Helen feels about it. They just jump into talk about love and how it needs to be nurtured and nobody ever asks Helen if she actually loved/loves her husband, let alone if he was a good man/husband to her. 

Not getting a scene where Helen confesses the truth weakens the entire plotline. I’m hoping they’ll just keep improving on this specific aspect of the show, and consider getting rid of unnecessary scenes or entire unnecessary storylines in favor of stronger, more complete stories.

I know their hesitation is based on the idea that not everyone cares about (for example) Lucas, so focusing really hard on Lucas’s relationship with his mother might feel Bad, but the entire “chair” plotline with Rosemary and Lee was unnecessary, as were the longer Florence and Ned scenes. Don’t get me wrong—I enjoyed them! But if they cut those out, or mostly cut them, then there would have been enough screentime for a full scene showing Helen telling Lucas about the truth.

And Chris McNally is clearly an actor who can handle an emotional scene like that, so it would have turned out well, and been well-received by the fans...even the ones who aren’t rooting for Lucas. Because what people who watch this show want to see is...depth, I think. So many relationships feel tacked on or fake. I’ve seen improvement this season, but they could definitely do more to bolster the “community” feel of the show.

--

As to the quality of the season so far...

@trash-god​ and I were chatting earlier this week about how wild it is that we’re both, like, actively looking forward to the next episode regularly. Sure, it’s still pretty early in the season, but we’re 25% of the way through. If the writing stays this consistently decent I think we’ll have the best season in a long time on our hands!

It’s funny because if you lurk on the WCTH subreddit, you’ll see most of the fans there are bored of this season, but I disagree with them in a bit way; this season is DEFINITELY better-written and smoother. As to where to place the credit, I think it’s worth considering the last few seasons and what the writers/writing teams have struggled with.

Season 4: They knew something was going to happen with their lead man so they tried introducing other things and in many ways had success. There were some REALLY GOOD scenes in S4, but there were also scenes or arcs that had a lot of potential that just fell flat. For example, they had that plot where Frank and Abigail got annoyed with each other over the fact that he’s kind of still living (mentally) as a carefree bachelor, and even though it wasn’t as thorough as it should have been, it was a pretty good and realistic storyline. But then later in the season, they introduced Carson, and Frank is suspicious of him for almost no reason (or at least, no solid reason), and then actively is...like a BAD PERSON for NO REASON. Two completely different plots, one was good and felt natural, and the other was awful and cringey. We also have the AJ plotline in S4. It started out super good because it was one of those plots that was genuinely built up to over the course of several episodes. We find out the accountant that was going to testify has withdrawn their statement, then we find out they’ve disappeared and we have a name. Bill discusses it with Abigail and Frank both, multiple times. He thinks it’s a payoff and he’s determined to prove it so he starts poking around. Eventually he gets a lead and follows it, and it’s revealed that AJ is a woman. Bill is annoying. AJ is a liar. I think conceptually this is one of the more interesting plots they’ve cobbled together, but in execution it was lacking toward the end of the story. Bill spent two episodes fighting AJ’s attitude and in the end he just lets her go with a smile? That isn’t like Bill at all. There’s a scene or two missing to make that reaction make sense. They don’t interact enough to give us the idea that Bill *understands* her, let alone would be okay with her literally breaking out of his jail ON HIS WATCH.

Season 5: They had to write Jack out of the story and had to rush a wedding in to “appease” the fans. They also had to write Shane, Philip, Frank, and Dottie off the show in this season (Dottie because the actress deals with a chronic illness and can no longer do acting work—I want to say she has Lyme’s). So they cobble this like, awkward storyline to write Frank out that doesn’t really make a lot of sense. They put this dramatic story together for Philip (when him just moving away would have been better/more interesting), and they try to bring AJ back for another 2-part episode, which sounded fun until we actually had to watch the episodes. It was at this point that I thought, “The people writing this show...think they’re writing a movie script.” It’s not that I think AJ isn’t pushy or emotionally blunt, but it definitely came across in those episodes that they wrote her that way specifically because the plot wouldn’t work out if she wasn’t. She does unreasonable things. For some reason Bill still has feelings even though she’s done nothing to earn them. (And vice-versa; he’s just so mean to her...why would she be interested?) Everyone was like :O when the AJ episodes weren’t very well-received. But like, I didn’t want AJ to come back for a huge dramatic rattlesnake bite scene. I wanted her back to see her emotional struggle with facing prison. I wanted to really see where they’d go with her seeing Henry Gowen. She says she wants to start over in Hope Valley after prison, but like...WHY? The only people who are nice to her are Dottie and Abigail! And then after this super dramatic poorly written set of scenes that pretty much ensured AJ would never be seen on the show again (because her presence was actively mocked by a lot of fans) they actually kill off Jack and try to have a deeply emotional and thoughtful episode.

The worst part is that...the post-death episode was good. The actors were great. Then you look back at the dramatic rattlesnake stuff and you’re just like, “What went wrong here?”

Season 6: They decided they were going to introduce a love triangle, so they start doing that, but then Abigail’s character AS WELL AS CODY’S CHARACTER has to be cut from the show, so they edit those out. I still think doing this was the right thing—Abigail as a character was literally UNBEARABLE throughout most of S5—but I also can’t deny that it probably brought the cohesiveness and overall quality of the season down by a bit, particularly with Abigail acting as a buffer between Nathan/Lucas and Elizabeth. I have no way of knowing if they edited other characters into those roles (it’s possible Bill became a buffer between Nathan and Elizabeth, for example), but the editing still gave us some scenes that just didn’t...quite work, like the one where Elizabeth comforts Henry, or when Lee becomes Bill’s confidant regarding the position of judge being offered to him.

Season 7: In their attempt to make Lucas seem “mysterious” they accidentally made him come off almost creepy. More than once. They had some good ideas in this season, but the writing felt a bit choppy and isolated from episode to episode. Of course Nathan’s father was innocent. Of course it was resolved in five minutes. You could see they were trying REALLY hard for cohesiveness at certain points (Elizabeth tried talking to Henry about his attitude; Jesse mentioned Frank; Dottie was mentioned), but each episode felt very isolated from the others, almost as if most of them were written completely separately from the rest.

And you’ll notice in S4, 5, and 6, we kind of have a similar problem, where some plots feel like they were written or inserted into the story independent of the other plotlines. Frank breaking into Carson’s room at the saloon to snoop through his stuff was one of the worst things in the season (literally cringey—and not in that “character is doing something in character that is hard to watch” way, but rather, “this character would literally never do that” way). The AJ storyline in S5 felt like the person who wrote it watched AJ & Bill’s interactions in S4 and absorbed ONLY the fact that they bickered a bit (and then didn’t know how to write that dynamic in a pleasing way). Writing Abigail out of the show was for the best, but it forced cracks in the plotlines that weren’t necessarily filled, as well as gave us interactions that didn’t feel quite right.

And I think S7 was trying to get on the right track, but wrote episodes in a very disjointed, haphazard kind of manner. There were good things about it, yes, but there were also some very...bad things. 

And overall the problem almost universally was that it felt like some of the episodes/interactions were written as if they were part of a movie, as part of a one time deal, instead of something that would need to be carried forward. If you go back and look over some plotlines you can start to see where the writers...didn’t know how to write fanfiction. S5 AJ is not the same character as S4 AJ. She doesn’t feel the same. She’s not written with S4 AJ in mind. She’s not a natural version of the character that exists a year later in the storyline...and then she was given a storyline that they had to force the character to fit, instead of tailoring a storyline to match the character. And they continued this trend...over...and over...and over...and over.

And now, finally, it feels that they may actually have a head writer who knows how to write television, who knows that in order to write a successful television series, you have to go back and watch the early episodes. You have to see how the characters have evolved. You have to consider how they’ve gotten to where they are, and where they will LOGICALLY go from here based on things that happen to or around them.

I don’t want to state this as Fact too early, but I definitely think it’s a factor. We’ll see how the rest of the season plays out, but I hope the quality continues to be as good as it is.