#i know this math stuff anyway i literally just need to not lose my negative sign when integrating fractions w exponents in denom .

[yumaelove]

doing calc homework and all i can think about is grinding jades to get e1 the herta

[bigskydreaming]

I’ve often thought that a common sentiment in the public that people carefully avoid mentioning around Bruce - but not around Dick - is that Dick was adopted as a ‘consolation prize’ after Jason’s death. Ugly thought, true, but from the perspective of a public who loves gossipping about the Waynes and who have made their opinions of Dick all too clear in both canon and fanfic.....like, from their perspective, how must it look that Bruce raised Dick from the age of eight without ever making him anything other than his ward....and then they had that big fight apparently, that led to Dick moving out and basically being persona non grata around Gotham and never seen coming home.....whereas Jason was adopted by Bruce within months and was constantly seen being called son by Bruce, etc.

And then again as far as the public knows, Dick Grayson only ‘comes back’ after Jason’s death and he and Bruce seem to slowly be working on rebuilding their relationship....and a couple years after Jason died, and several years after Dick’s wardship expired on his eighteenth birthday without any mention from Bruce Wayne as to his now ex-ward’s status or even where he was or what he was doing with his life....no indication that Bruce was ever seen celebrating Dick’s eighteenth birthday or expressing any sentiment on what was effectively the severing of their legal ties at that point, and the end of Bruce’s obligations to Dick, no sign of him in Dick’s life or vice versa in years to follow, Dick rarely if ever seen keeping company with his somewhat little brother Jason....

Its only years after all of this that Bruce finally adopts Dick.....or like, people guess that’s what happens? Its not clear, exactly, because one day Dick’s got no legal ties to Bruce and hasn’t for years, and the next he’s been adopted. There’s no real scoop, nobody that got the exclusive about the event, because as far as anyone can tell....there was no event. There’s no story. Just he wasn’t adopted and now he was, and....neither Dick Grayson nor Bruce Wayne seem to have a comment on this, when it happened, WHY it happened, why NOW? After all this time? Why not earlier? Its just...there. Bruce Wayne, who famously throws parties for anything, pretty much, makes no official announcement about his son’s new status, there’s no party or celebration to honor it or mark the occasion, mark the adoption as noteworthy whatsoever.....

Because after all, it was just Dick and Bruce in the Batcave, Bruce handing him the adoption papers to sign and saying this is long overdue and doesn’t change anything and he’s always felt this way anyway.....

And to a guy who has not so secretly wanted this for YEARS, who has had Bruce literally throw his own knowledge of that not so secret yearning of his YEARS ago and thus who KNOWS full and well that its absolutely BULLSHIT to claim that ‘he’s always felt this way and knows Dick always knew that and didnt need a piece of paper so its not like this changes anything’.....like this had to be anticlimactic as HELL, but what do you say to that? How do you tell the dad who has caused you no small amount of angst and hurt and uncertainty as to where you even stand in his life that no, he didn’t take it for granted that Bruce felt this way, like, say, when Dick’s eighteenth birthday came and went with no sign of Bruce, no attempt from Bruce whatsoever to express in any way that he still wanted Dick in his life, still wanted to BE in Dick’s life, even without them legally bound to each other any longer.......how do you give your dad any of the well-earned shit he DESERVES for taking his precious time on this due to his own rejection and inadequacy issues in the moment he is at least FINALLY offering the thing you’ve wanted for so long and saying at least some of the things you’ve spent so long wanting to hear.....like...you can’t? Not then at least?

Whatever the intentions of the writers, the sheer anticlimacticness surrounding Dick’s actual adoption kinda....backed him into a corner where he couldn’t really express any emotion other than gratitude or happiness over the adoption without coming off as a total ungrateful asshole.....even though you kinda gotta wonder.....what did he tell his best friends about it? How did he relay the story to Roy, to Donna, etc.....the people who actually KNOW what this meant to Dick and how badly he wanted it, and would want him to dish on every single moment of what happened, they wanted to savor it.....and thus who would of course know the second he hesitated that something was wrong, Bruce had done something to fuck up even Dick’s biggest wish, if Dick was obviously trying not to say anything bad or negative or hint that it wasn’t like.....how he’d envisioned it or what all he’d been hoping for....but also not wanting to tell them the truth without embellishment, because you KNOW Donna and Roy and Wally and Garth would just be sitting there like:

“Wait. Hold up. You’re telling me you and Bruce had just got done with a case, you were getting ready to go home, you’re both STILL IN COSTUME, and in the BATCAVE, freaking ALFRED isn’t even present, and Bruce just.....kinda hands you the papers and pen and says here, I know I should have done this years ago but I really mean it, be my kid please? THAT’S IT????”

Yeah. I do NOT see that retelling ever having played well with the Titans, which makes me suspect Dick kinda...delayed in telling them until he could sneak it in and mention it as something that had happened awhile back and he’d just been too busy with hero stuff to make a big deal about it at the time and now it felt weird like it’d been too long. Because imo he wouldn’t have WANTED the Titans to weigh in on how they REALLY felt about how Bruce went about it, because he was likely trying to hold on to all the POSITIVE emotions it’d kindled for him and not like......focus so much on the Bruce-ness of it all making the approach something of a letdown after all the time he’d spent waiting and wanting.

And like.....when you’ve gone about adopting the kid you have a monumental track record of fucking up on telling how you really feel about him....in such a way that he probably felt awkward directly relaying to his best friends in a ‘omg this is huge news, tell us everything’ kinda story....

YOU’VE FUCKED IT UP.

But anyway, point is, Dick’s actual adoption came and went with such a HUGE lack of fanfare in any and every community, superhero and public, and probably didn’t even become KNOWN until someone went to write something about them and got fact-checked like “according to public records, Richard Grayson IS actually the legally adopted son and heir of Bruce Wayne as of this date etc etc”.....and when THAT news hit the public, how else were they going to view things?

Like, a gossip hungry readership not known to view Dick Grayson favorably were never going to think “oh its probably due to personal feelings about his parents and not wanting to replace them, I bet he was the one who never wanted to be adopted before now, that makes sense.”

LOLOL. Like. No. That’s not how the DC public sees it, I bet you anything.

Nah, in my head its FAR more likely that they looked at all of that and did THIS math instead:

Bruce Wayne takes in a young circus boy out of the goodness of his heart, raises him from the age of eight, but never makes him anything other than his ward. Good thing too, probably, given they have some sort of falling out when the Grayson boy is older, and the kid leaves town and good riddance, we hear he’s up in New York partying it up with models and has some alien superhero girlfriend, but nobody’s heard so much as his name mentioned around Wayne in ages so he’s not exactly Gotham news anymore. But no matter, Brucie’s gone and done it again, taken in another young orphan but this time its a local boy he adopted as his son right from the word go! Now that’s a story!

PLUS

Bruce Wayne’s adopted son Jason tragically dies all too young. In the wake of his loss, it appears Brucie’s making an attempt to mend fences with his former ward, or more likely, he’s gone running back to cozy up to Daddy Warbucks in an attempt to milk some more money out of that softie’s heart with a well-rehearsed conciliatory gesture.

PLUS

A couple years later, people start finding out that Bruce Wayne apparently did actually legally adopt Dick now, after all this time, though neither has so much as mentioned it publicly until now, for some reason.

EQUALS

My guess for how the public views it:

Bruce Wayne took in Dick and raised him as his ward but never really felt THAT way about the kid, not like Jason Todd-Wayne who he took one look at and knew ‘this is my kid’....but after losing Jason tragically, and with his family-owned company and board of directors being after him for some time about the importance of an heir in the optics of the dynastic corporate sphere.....Brucie probably decided to try and make the most of the one remaining sorta son he had left, and make a go of reconnecting with the former ward who was CLEARLY never his first choice to adopt as his proper son and heir before, but now apparently is good enough.

*Shrugs* That’s my honest bet for something Dick’s probably heard about his adoption more than a few times: that he was adopted as a consolation prize after Bruce’s ‘real son’ Jason died and Bruce felt driven to try and surround himself with whatever semblance of family he had left.

I mean, what else are you gonna get when you offer the public a paparazzi-enabling, glamorous sneak peek of your life at all other times, and absolute nada for the occasion of finally adopting the kid you’ve raised since age eight with absolutely NOTHING to show for it, not even a family friend who can be quoted as having been there to bear witness?

tl;dr - After all the damn parties and galas Bruce trotted Dick out to whether he wanted to or not, because that sorta thing is just what came with being a Wayne (the Wayne Dick wasn’t), the :LEAST Bruce owed Dick after years of estrangement and doubts directly inspired by him and his unwillingness to even OFFER Dick the option of adoption if he wanted it.....was to invite him to a party celebrating Dick himself and showing the world once and for all that he very much did want Dick in his life and as a part of his family, nothing less.

Dick’s never hated PARTIES, Bruce you giant dumbass. Dick hated going to parties where people talked about how he didn’t belong or how he was nothing but a PR charity stunt for Bruce.

Dick, in point of fact, might have very very MUCH enjoyed an actual public celebration where for the first time in his life, NO ONE could claim he didn’t belong or try and insinuate he was nothing but a charity case to Bruce. An event where the only point was to show tangible proof to all the naysayers: Bruce Wayne is Dick Grayson’s father and Dick is his son, and not a damn thing less.

THAT gala, Dick might have been more than happy to attend.

[scorpiosanssexy]

Hi! Can I please request a Haikyuu matchup, if its not to much to ask. I’m a 5’1 pan female with long hair that fades from red to blonde. I am very curvy/busty and I am very insecure about it. I am very soft-spoken, intelligent, patient, shy, and get flustered easily. I love to play the ukulele and sing! I tend to get lost in books for hours... I have been bullied, which leads me to shutting myself out from others. I’m also an INTJ, Aquarius and Hufflepuff! Thank you so much!

I normally go to bed early, but every so often I will stay up late. I am an early riser, but on certain days I will choose to go back to sleep. I can cool very well, and I enjoy getting up early so I can make breakfast for the other people in my house! On the downside, I get very possessive of the kitchen. Whenever I’m cooking, I don’t let anyone help me. You can watch, but you can’t help or get in my way. I don’t like having people over, but I can interact if needed. I take advantage of the fact that I can take long naps and still sleep at night. I am a workaholic, and I tend to lose track of time easy, so I will forget to eat or drink for as long as days.

-------

Dear User, 

congratulations, we have found you a potential roommate. We have throughly looked through your application and we hope you are happy with your result. Below this post are the details all about them. 

Yours Sincerely 

The Accomodation Team

Name: Sugawara Koushi 

Birthday: 13th June (Gemini) 

MBTI: INFJ 

awww you have this precious bean as your roommate

with a combination of wine aunt vibes too

now suga is a naturally friendly person so he doesn’t mind you soft spoken nature, in fact he thinks it makes you sweet

also your patience is something else he also admires too, he is usually the more easier going of the third year karasuno trio but sometimes he can lose his teather 

for example, he can get slighly annoyed at asahi negative thinking whereas you patientally listen to his woes and ease him gently 

yeah there is a rumour now in the karasuno team that suga roommate isn’t actually a human but an angel 

this started when you gave pointers on noya and tanaka maths paper

noya and tanaka.exe has stopped working

now the whole team looks to you for guidance on their studies because you are both interlligent and patient which makes for a very good teacher

suga has told them (noya and tanaka) to stop harassing you otherwise he is calling daichi for backup 

they stopped after than but congrats you now have two men simping for you (teach me your ways user chan) 

suga loves the fact you can play the ukukele and sing

i believe suga loves to sing as well (have you heard his singing voice like i am simping ) 

sometimes the pair of you will do duets and depending on your range you either take the higher or lower parts 

yes suga does make you cover disney songs, he is a sucker for disney

if you were feeling up for it, i can totally see you and suga like making a youtube channel with your covers and stuff 

like people love your content because it is so wholesome 

i would start the user chan + suga senpai fanclub

now i can see suga like reading in his spare time but not bookworm level you know what i mean 

sometimes when you are reading suga thinks you look so serence and his dorky smile begins to form (like it is toooo cute)

now if the book you are reading is one suga has already read he will tease you by giving false spoilers 

also over dinner you too will discuss the book in great detail and you definetely like assign each other a character to each other (like to kin) 

now suga is also a very patient man, so he wouldn’t press you to much if there was if you were feeling down 

however that doesn’t mean that he wouldn’t give you snuggles 

like he would just hold you and rock you in his lap if that is what you needed 

now this may come as a shock to you all but can 100% see suga hating the mornings 

like he cannot function without his coffee 

so every morning you wake him so gently and always make him a cup of coffee to go with it 

suga is literally like uwu

i am literally like uwu 

suga finds it hilarious when you get pocessive of your kitchen like diachi once tried help and the look of murder you gave him was priceless 

he has photos too 

now because suga is a certified wine aunt i don’t think he does much of the cooking 

he just sits there looking pretty with a bottle of vino

so he straight up vibes with you taking charge

when you get caught up in your work, mum suga is realised 

he will literally turn the wifi off so you cannot do anyway work 

but don’t worry he always brings up your favourite food and maybe a bottle of pink gin too 

overall you have you have a charming, fun loving but a bit too relaxed roommate.

Other Potential Matches: Akaashi Keiji and Iwaizumi Hajime

hiya, thank you so much for your patience, I know that your request has been sitting in my askbox for days. If you are ever feeling upset or lonely feel free to come and chat with me, we can always just vibe with anime. Enjoy the rest of your morning/evening wherever you are in the world. 

Carla 

[xopheliasunflowerx]

So my confession, I didn’t want to hold it back so yeet (long as)

This shit is long, it explains my disorder, some personal symptoms and stories and explains the disorder. You probably won’t read it all, I wouldn’t either but that’s me, I tried not to offend anyone and not everyone does the same thing! Please be respectful if you have a problem PM me

So I have ADHD, and it’s hard to live with. ADHD stands for Attention-Decfict/Hyperactivity Disorder, it’s an attention difficulty with hyperactivity and impulsiveness. ADHD is a ‘neurodevelopmental’ disorder, meaning it’s the brain function. The symptoms can be different in everyone but I’ll name the common ones (I’ll also explain my personal symptoms too)

The Behaviour side: aggression, excitability, fidgeting, hyperactivity, impulsivity, irritability, lack of restraint, repetitive or words/actions.

Cognitive side (memory): absent-mindedness, trouble focusing, forgetfulness, problem paying attention, short attention span.

Mood: anger, anxiety, boredom, excitement and mood swings

It’s also common to have a learning disability with it (which I do) meaning you have to explain things more clearly than already. And depression, meaning you can have depression without having a reason, or you just over think the negatives and think it’s true. As I am diagnosed with ADHD I can easily be depressed just by a simple thing really, for you it may sound dumb but it’s true. I wouldn’t call us ‘attention seekers’ but we sort of are I guess as I want attention but not in a way that we want it. I don’t really know how to explain it but we want attention but we draw attention to ourselves and create a huge mess, well I’m not sure with others but I do.

So these are some of the symptoms explained and some of my personal ones.

You can be distracted easily and absent-minded, which I do. And it’s hard because I have to learn stuff but sometimes it doesn’t make sense and I always ask to be explained to me again and they get frustrated when I don’t get it which is explainable but it makes me feel really upset about it. Like for example I’ll play a game, I had difficulty with Batman: Arkham Knight Riddler race tracks, there was one where you had to glide to click a button but I never understood how. I would get angry and frustrated then finally give up. I did eventually did it and now it’s easy but even the simple things can be difficult to do. I can’t pronounce some words (mainly because something caused that which I won’t explain) and it’s very hard. Math is hard, as it can be for others but I could never do it I would have teachers and students explain to me but I’ll be there like what? I had a tough time with my 3 time tables back in year 5 (fifth grade) and now I’m 18 and I just learnt them (simply because of work) and I’m pretty proud.

I have difficulty in focusing on what needs to be done like writing for an example, I read that people with ADHD can be into something like obsessed then only focus on that (which is me writing for certain people) then we suddenly get bored of it and move on to something else. I get bored very easily that’s why I don’t write as much because I’m bored of writing the same character with some what similar scenarios that’s why I’ve been less writing. It sucks, because I really do wanna write but I can’t be bothered to do or so. Also it can be very hard on focusing on something else rather than the task at hand, we would get distracted by anything, a window, door, pen anything. So I would leave my task unfinished because I have no interest in finishing (a lot of imagines are unfinished because I just can’t be bothered to finish them) and when I do finish they are rushed and unorganised (as having ADHD we are very unorganised and messy my room for an example is a mess).

We would also avoid task that we don’t want to do, like a simple chore or homework. I never did my homework never I never studied either like I never knew how to study and it just bored me, and I would get distracted easily. I would get distracted by the colours of my highlighters and just draw instead. You might be wondering how did you not get a detention? You’re probably not but I’ll tell you anyway, I would say I forgot it or I would never go to detention and I would always hide.

I happen to forget a lot, it’s terrible really I also happen to lose things very easily. So when I mis place something I get frustrated easily because I remember putting something somewhere else. Like example, when painting I happen to put my rubber (eraser) somewhere say it’s next to me for an example then when I’m looking for it I can’t find it and I get annoyed. Then I find it and I go back to what I’m doing. That happens A LOT! I did it last night with lip cream I put it on my bed and I went for a shower then suddenly it’s gone, I can’t remember where I put it. Memory isn’t my friend. It’s hard having a memory of a literal gold-fish because we need to remember stuff especially if it involves something important or family/friends, like I keep forgetting how old my parents are and when my dad’s birthday is which is terrible.

I happen to fidget a lot, it’s annoying for most people but it’s something for me to be distracted by. No fidget spinners are not something I fidget with, they’re not right for me anyway. I usually fidget with my hair (I twirl my fingers with it) a pen or I drum my fingers against something. People mistake that I’m nervous when really I’m not, I even got threaten by my teacher that she’ll cut my hair if I continued twirling my hair (which I actually don’t remember that). But you can tell when someone with ADHD is nervous, reading facial expressions and if they’re shaking like if they’re playing with their fingers watch carefully are they shaking, sweaty, also if it’s sort of faster than usual. I would drum my fingers against my thighs in a fast pace when I’m nervous. Also usual symptoms for nervousness, lip biting, no eye contact, looking around the room, is common too (well as I do it). I was having a very bad anxiety when I saw well... I wouldn’t call him my boyfriend because we’re not dating so uh significant other maybe coming into my friends car as we were picking him up. I was nervous as hell, because well I didn’t shower, didn’t brush my hair or teeth (because I was sleeping over at a friends house unexpectedly) and I usually get nervous around him. I tapped my fingers against my thighs to calm myself, I looked around then stared at the window. He then grabbed my hand and squeezed it to comfort me, I then played with his fingers to distract myself once again.

Now this one really pisses people off, I repeat what I say only because I don’t remember telling people before. I would tell a story to a friend and then they’ll say yeah you already told me that. I get all awkward and embarrassed about it feeling super dumb for repeating it, I only recently found out that’s a symptom for having ADHD and I’m actually surprised because I thought it was just me. But I understand that it’s clearly annoying for others to hear the same thing over and over again. I don’t mean to repeat myself, and I feel so dumb when I do but my memory just likes to leave a lot. Forgetfulness is horrible when you’re in a relationship too, like I told him (significant other) my middle name and I never knew I did until I actually found the messages and I told him again like three weeks after I felt really stupid, but he didn’t say anything and he just stared at me weirdly.

So being ADHD is a mess, we can’t organise for shit. I probably already explained this but there’s a symptom of me having ADHD. I would be ready and organised for writing then suddenly it turns out something way worse than I imagined it to be which is why I take SOOOOO LONG writing. I have some friends with OCD and I find it hilarious just to annoy the shit outta them, they won’t come to my house anymore because of my room. So when I find out someone has OCD I’m a bully to them, but I only move things around imperfectly and then I stop for awhile then I do it again. I only do it for fun not just to be mean, they get back at me in their own ways. Like a guy at work who is 6’3 teases me about my height 5’2 which I don’t really care, because i then pull out the mustard packet and put it into the ketchup packets which annoys him, he gets me back by saying how forgetful I am.

So when talking to me in person is a difficult task, I would see your lips move but I won’t hear anything as I just space out, I try to pay attention but I just can’t. I would ask them to repeat it for me and then I would listen sometimes. This is annoying to me and everyone, someone would ask me to grab something and I would ask them to repeat themselves like three times until I finally understood what they wanted. Happened yesterday someone wanted pancake lids but I heard pancakes so I thought they wanted me to wrap them up or get more until he told me again which I felt so stupid about it and I finally got them. I apologised but they’re already frustrated with me and customers so yeah. It’s hard, it’s not a hearing thing we just zone out. We try to listen we do, it’s not our fault. It’s harder in relationships but I don’t think I’ve been in a longer relationship to experience that, I also don’t tell them my disorder until i’m comfortable or I need to.

So about that forgetfulness, we also forget to do stuff daily. I forget to eat because I’d be so distracted in something my hunger just jumps out the window. And recently it’s been happening a lot and it’s been worrying some of my close friends and my significant other. But I do feed myself, sometimes it’s motivation to get up and eat and I don’t cook so that’s another reason I don’t eat much. I sound stubborn but it’s true, I do eventually eat when I remember and I eat then I forget later. I don’t have a eating disorder it’s just remembering to eat as we’re distracted. Also I don’t know if this happens to other people with ADHD but when I’m off medication I usually eat a lot and when I’m on it I rarely eat (but I eat). That happened when I was younger now I either eat or don’t when I’m off medication.

Lack of sleep is a big one, I thought I had insomnia but I found it it’s just my ADHD again, there’s no surprise there. Reason we rarely sleep because of that hyper is still kicked in, for me it gets worse at night as I tend to be more active and hyper at night. The mind keeps going as we’re trying to sleep and random thoughts like to come up so we’re always on the internet searching the most random things. So we’re lucky to have five hours of sleep, the most. I did have sleeping medication but they would usually take awhile to kick in and I just barely took them because there’s no point. They would knock out anyone else as my mum took them but they would just work on me.

We would talk more than usual, yes that’s a thing. We talk a lot, we can also change the subject randomly without a warning. So saying we’re talking about dogs then suddenly we change the subject to how does ovens work. We also interrupt others when speaking but we don’t mean to, I would immediately apologise for the intrusion and then go back to being quiet. We can be quiet at points, which could scare some people but we’re just thinking or being distracted by a squirrel or something. We talk a lot when we’re excited about something, when I’m obsessed with something I want to talk to someone about it but they don’t as I’ve already spoken to them about it a lot. Having an obsession is hard because you want to talk to someone about it but when you do you don’t want to talk about that obsession anymore. Yes we easily change obsessions a lot, like last year I was obsessed with Gotham and Teen Wolf And Riverdale, I lost interest in Riverdale there was too much and the first season was better in my opinion. I then got into Detroit Become Human and I loved it, then I got into Harry Potter. Now I’m currently into Spider-Man and the Avengers because WHY NOT!

So I’m gonna list some smaller symptoms that you probably didn’t know but meh. So there’s no such thing as sugar rush or having a hyper mode when you have coffee or staying up late because of it, it doesn’t exist. Because we’re already hyper and active that sugar and caffeine doesn’t effect us at all, but we would get a rush on something else mine was Red Doritos, I would get hyper when I ate those, I don’t now which is good. I forgot my other one which sucks I’ll probably edit it later and add it on. AH YES MOODSWINGS, we have bad mood swings. We’ll be happy then the next thing we’re upset. I think it’s because we’re always day dreaming and absent-minded we can think of the negative things which I do a lot. I end up going through a break down thinking of how much I hate myself, no one loves me, my friends are using me. Dreams also doesn’t help, I had a dream where my significant other asked out my friend which hurt me so much, I didn’t confront him about it because he’s in a different country and the service there is terrible and I don’t want to annoy him with my problems. When in a relationship I always doubt them because of my negative thinking, like why are they dating me, are they using me, are they cheating on me, what hurts most is that they’re not yours and you’re questioning if you can trust them. I told him I have ADHD, but I don’t think he knows what it means, which I will be asking when I see him again (as texting could make it worse) and I want to explain to him. I don’t like to talk seriously with him as we’re only seeing each other but I feel like we need to talk about it, and yes I avoid it and he can always tell that there’s something wrong so I do explain it but I feel like we’re not dealing with it permanently. It also doesn’t help that we’re distant, because it makes it worse and my questioning more severe. I feel like I’m taking it too much and drawing attention to myself simply because of that consent worrying and we’re not dating but he has his reasons and I have mine. Now I’m going off topic about ADHD, but that’s what our negative thinking can turn into. With that it’s harder to make friends and fit in, I couldn’t have just one friend, because I get annoyed with one person for awhile and I try to distant myself from them without explaining and I feel guilty afterwards, It sounds horrible yes but we get bored and want to hang around with others. I haven’t done it in a long time which I’m proud but we do want to hang out with others or just to be alone, we want a new adventure. We do appreciate our alone times, as we’re always day dreaming and just need that peace to relax. But yes we get bored easily of it.

The good parts of having ADHD, there are some good parts, we’re very creative as we’re always day dreaming we create ideas and so on. I find it weird because my star sign is Pisces and I find it weird that having ADHD, and as Pisces are extremely creative and I am but they also day dream a lot which I do. I don’t know I found it weird that Pisces and ADHD are some what similar but aren’t. We see things differently, we look at a plan wall and wonder what would it look like if we threw colours or sparkles on it. We make the simple things into art, and it’s actually easier to write in detail as we can just imagine it. Writing isn’t an issue when you have an idea it’s actually really fun, it just motivation to finish it. Some people can’t think when they’re listening to music, well I can I can think clearly with the sound blasting through my ears, I imagine a scenario sometimes with the song, just depends on the song and who with.

So living with ADHD can be difficult in daily life, but is also useful. It sucks yes, but I’m glad I have it I wouldn’t change it. I wouldn’t say I’m proud of having it but it does help me, well sometimes I guess. I do find the things where I mis place, I do get over my overthinking, and I do eventually remember things. I wish people would do research before judging an ADHD person, we’re not just hyper as everyone thinks we are there’s more to it. If you notice the little things we do you would actually begin to recognise a pattern and connect a dot that those are our symptoms and beware of those in the future. I probably didn’t add a lot of other symptoms but you can research those, I did because I wanted to know. Having ADHD isn’t just an excuse either, it’s a explanation of why we can’t do certain things, I hope some of you understand that. And yes we can be frustrating a lot but take your time with us, we can be patient and if you tell us that we’re making you frustrated and please explain why, we might get angry or upset but that’s us we can’t help it. We will slowly get there, and if we fall we always pick ourselves back up because that’s they way we are taught. I’m sorry for rambling lol just needed to get this off my chest ya know.

[johndykeon]

(Re: this) HIIIII ANDIE!!! I come bearing ideas. ;)))) Feel free to use them how you seem fit, or not! It’s all good (you can keep this in your inbox if you decide to write any of them, no need to reply me :P), BUT I didn’t really base them off of the prompts from Maylor Week though and I wasn’t kidding when I said I’m craving for Dom!Roger so XDDD You already know what you’re getting here lol A WHOLE LOT OF DOM!ROGER AND HIS SUB!BRIAN but you’re also free to put your spin on them, write them however you feel inspired! (& dear lord this turns out SO MUCH LONGER than I expected, they got way out of hand! I’M TERRIBLY SORRY ANDIE ABOUT THE LONG MESSY POST BELOW)

1. It’s obvious that Roger’s a good Dom and a great lay, and Brian’s pining. Kinda hard not to notice the satisfied dreamy looks on Roger’s bed partners after their nights together and nope Brian is definitely not sulking(?) or being jealous(?). He does however fantasize about what’s it gonna be like being taken care of by Roger, and once he starts thinking about it he can’t seem to stop. He knows he’s acting weird blushing randomly throughout the day and avoid looking at Roger in the face and oh boy he can practically feel Roger gearing up for an opportunity to confront him about everything but how can he tell him? Roger’s way out of his league. He’s spared from the confession part though when the day he forgot to lock his bedroom door is the day he woke up from his sex dream (featuring Dom!Roger ofc) and almost had a heart attack seeing Roger by his bedside smirking at him with heavy amusement and arousal in his eyes. (Roger was trying to corner Brian so they could talk at once when he wakes up; When he heard Brian moaning his name he immediately let himself in thinking he’s unwell and needs help. This turns out to be so much more enjoyable than he expected; He loves Brian and since the feeling’s mutual now he doesn’t have to hold back anymore) (spoilers alert haha Roger ends up making passionate love to Brian for their first time with a hint of dominance on his part, not all out D/s cuz Brian’s new to this, they’ll have to have a long talk about rules and boundaries before doing anything)

2. Established relationship, Roger’s been away on a business trip (or something like that) and Brian is missing him terribly. He knows when Roger’s been away far too long for his liking when the god damn tabloid’s blurry photos of Roger smiling and being surrounded by beautiful women and men are getting to him and his insecurity’s now acting up. Brian feels lonely, insecure and on top of that guilty for letting the tabloid affecting him like this because it totally shouldn’t, it’s just a fucking tabloid that always says untrue things. Eventually he decides to try something new to distract himself by buying a whole full set of sexy lingerie to wear in bed when Roger comes home; They’ve not done this before, the part in him that eagerly wants to be a good boy for Roger shyly hopes that he will like it. Upon returning Roger is indeed very excited to see Brian in those, he looks absolutely ravishing and wastes no time taking him to bed. But Roger being very in tune with Brian’s needs senses something’s off not long after and gently but firmly asks Brian to tell him what’s wrong. He’s gotten very good at using his Dom voice on Brian and soon Brian’s having a mini breakdown in his arms. Of course Roger comforts and reassures him and explained what was really going on in those photos, definitely not like what the tabloid’s being saying. Roger ends up making long drawn out gentle love to Brian while showering him with praises about how beautiful he looks in the lingerie and how much he loves him (basically fucking those negative thoughts and emotions out of Brian lol). The next morning when Brian wakes up all sated and basking in afterglow Roger brings him breakfast in bed and insist on feeding him, not allowing Brian to raise even one finger haha and after that they cuddle in bed for the rest of the morning.

3. Mafia!AU, when Brian was a kid in an orphanage he and Roger were best friends, they look out for each other and swear to stay together but ofc real life doesn’t work like that, Roger was adopted first while his own adoption followed not long after. Brian ends up growing up in a Mafia family; Luckily his adoptive father, the current leader of the Family was actually quite kind to him, Brian is very good at math and is extremely bright so he’s spared from all the ugly part of things and was tasked with doing all the finance stuffs for his Mafia Family. Brian doesn’t like violence even though he’s sheltered away from those and more often than not thought about leaving, but it’s not easy especially when certain members in the family always have their eyes on him and love to remind him about how he owes them for adopting him. He also tries looking for Roger discreetly whenever he can but so far all leads came up empty. Days go by while he doesn’t have a perfect life at least he’s not mistreated other than sometimes being ignored or isolated (exactly what he wants tbh); He knows some of the family members especially the actual sons of his adoptive father are quite wary of him, afraid that he’s gonna want power as well (he absolutely doesn’t thank you very much) but all this is interrupted when 1) his adoptive father suddenly has a heart attack and passed away, tension in the family rises immediately, seems like everyone’s scheming for that leader role but before any of them can come out on top, 2) they’re under attack from another Mafia that’s quickly rising to the top, and Brian’s family lost miserably; They took quite a heavy hit and now the ranks are shifting rapidly AND that’s not the end of their continuous bad luck. 4) The rival Mafia what won against them is demanding compensation, weirdly usually this is the time when the winner demands a hell lot but this time the demands seems to be more symbolic than the usual route of ripping the losing side off, which is good for them because now they really don’t have much to offer, BUT the strangest thing is, the one demand that the Mafia’s not budging on, is BRIAN. They are demanding Brian to leave and stay with them instead and they’re not accepting any rejection on this one, also are ridiculously tight lipped on why. Brian himself was not present at (or invited to) any of these “negotiations”, he’s being relayed to the news by one of his family members and dread and terror immediately filled his lungs. His future looks so bleak now he knows that he’s gonna be the chew toy, as the show of power demonstrating Brian’s family’s defeat and showing off the victory of the other Mafia. He can’t say no or run away unless he wants to be hunted for the rest of his life, and that’s assuming he’s able to escape before his own family decide to “escort” him over. He wants to at least do so with some dignity so he quietly packed up his belongings (not that there’s much he wants to keep anyway) and got in the car they sent. Upon arrival he’s shaking all over almost swallowed whole by dread and nervousness, immediately he’s escorted to what he’s being told that’s his room by someone. For a moment he’s completely distracted by how luxurious and huge it is, and the view from his window is breathtaking; He took a few minutes to explore everything when suddenly the door opens and ROGER (even though they’ve not seen each other for so many years he instinctively knows that it’s him) walks in with a relieved smile on his face and immediately pulls him into a tight hug. (Fun story so back then Roger was adopted by a Mafia family as well. With some luck and a lot of hard work and brawn he steadily rises to power and is now the leader; He knows that Brian has been looking for him all these years but didn’t want to jeopardize him by putting him in danger before his position of power is secured; He never forgot about Brian too and when he started battling for dominance within his family, he found where Brian is and thus is even more determined to fix their separation, starting by acquiring enough power to protect both of them) (spoilers alert their already simmering feelings for one another totally developed and they most definitely fell in love very soon. Roger shelters and protects Brian and never coerce or force him and is very supportive of him, Brian’s future definitely isn’t bleak anymore)

Oh my god this got so fucking long I’M SO SORRY!!!!!!

—

ok so i wasn’t actually gonna publish this bc i did decide to use one of these prompts for maylor week (unfortunately not the mob!au but hopefully that’ll be coming eventually 🤪) so i’ve just been working from this!!!! but i keep worrying that i’m gonna accidentally delete it or something lmao so i’m publishing it to make sure i can keep track of it!!!!

also can i just say,,,, BRUH these are literally all so good????? i adore them all thank you so so much for sending them in!!!! tbh it made me rlly happy and rlly soft that u cared enough to think this stuff up and send it in skdjdkd and it also gave me TONS of inspo so really, thank you!!!!!!!

[annakie]

It’s gonna be the future soon...

So, I think that it’s close enough to definite now that I can say something solid about it.

Very close to 10 months after my old, awesome company was acquired by this... other... company... that we had an extremely not-awesome experience with... unless something goes terribly wrong with my pre-employment checks,  on June 11th I’ll be starting a new job, at a new company, doing exactly what I want to do with people who I don’t know but I seem to like so far, in a location really close to home.

I didn’t talk about much of this outside of private channels because it’s always a bad idea to be negative about your employer when they’re your employer, but... I’m feeling such catharsis, and like the cold hand that’s been gripping my head and heart for so long is finally letting go.

Anyway, here’s a lot of words, and a few pictures.

Last year, on the five-year anniversary of working for the company I worked for, we’ll call it company A, I wrote this long blog post about how much I loved my job.

I really did.  I was so happy.  Most people who worked there were really happy.  The IT/Dev group were mostly very close with each other.  My team, the IT team specifically extended out with two others, we were honestly like brothers and sisters.

On August 15th, we were acquired by Company B.

I knew it was coming for like a month ahead of time, and throughout July and early August every day I made myself appreciate all the little things about working there, because things were going to change some.  But you know, we’d probably just lose the top bosses and maybe they’d cut like, Marketing, which would be sad, but understandable.  And maybe a few other people would leave and things would be different, but still, it couldn’t be that bad.

But it was.  It started when... for most of the employees, our stock was worthless.  A few people got a few hundred dollars but... some of us had been given stock in leiu of bonuses and raises.  So our outgoing board screwed us.  That cut, deep.  It wasn’t the new company’s fault, but we started out disgruntled.

And the new company... I think that the people in charge didn’t really want to acquire us, but were told to by the financial backing partners.  It was bad from the start.  From an absolutely ridiculous NDA/Non-Compete which many lawyers we consulted said we shouldn’t sign which made 5 important people just walk out instead of signing, and the fact that my boss was almost walked out on orders of the CEO for speaking his mind when in a meeting Company B set up to answer questions.  Our old and new CTOs just barely averted that from happening.

Picture break!  This is the old office, the view from my desk. I mean... Carlos wasn’t ALWAYS dressed that way,  just when there was a World Cup or Euro Cup happening.  But every one of those desks and a bunch you can’t see were filled with people I loved working with.

But within a month, communication and trust between the two companies was already shattered.  They made much deeper cuts from the staff than we thought would happen.  We lost one of our 3 locations, everyone but the 2 devs there were laid off.  The entire marketing team, almost all of the sales team, all of accounting.  And it wasn’t too long before my boss found something else because his days were numbered anyway.  And our CTO was pushed out a month later.  Expected, but it stung.

And in all this time, they kept telling us that we were wanted.  The IT/dev teams.  And we kept dropping like flies.  People just saying “Fuck this shit, I’m out.”  Finding something better, higher paying, less painful, and quickly.  For most of the last 4 and a half months of last year, I was turning accounts down.  

We were getting punched in the stomach by something from the new company every few days, it felt like.  There was no morale.  There was only us, huddling together for warmth as people were torn away or dropped out, one by one.  I organized probably close to 20 goodbye lunches, and several more “Hey who wants to go to lunch?  We’re going to ____, whoever can go, meet there at 11:30″ to keep in touch lunches.

The last one we had was May 11th, to celebrate my birthday and one of our remote guys being in town.

I take a picture at almost every group lunch we have.  I have so many pictures of various groups of us sitting at a table, smiling, all just happy to be hanging out together again for an hour.

This was the “new” Dev manager and Carlos’ goodbye lunch.

I can’t get into specifics of all the ways things happened that hurt.  There are so many things that happened that just left our jaws hanging open.  So many things we questioned.  This post would be ten times the length were I to really get into it.

They hired a new Development manager, promised him support and the ability to run what remained of the IT department his way, and then in actuality though, gave him no power and no money and no ability to change anything.  He was a scapegoat.  He started out rah-rah we can fix this in late October or early November-ish?  By Christmas, even his spirit was broken. 

We were told during the acquisition we would get to participate in the company’s bonus program.  Neat!  Prorated, of course, I mean, that makes sense.  Cool.  Well, December we get our bonus checks and um... it’s half of what they should be.  We did the math, a lot.  Several times.  Someone, somewhere made the decision that we only deserved half of our prorated bonuses.  That’s just the way it was.

There’s so much more.  But let’s move on.

We’d been told when all this started that they wanted to move our office and turn our development-focused office into more of a sales-focused office.  The move is its own story of hilarity, but those of us left got the honor of cleaning out the office and packing it all away.  We did, at least, get to take a lot of stuff home.  I am, right now, sitting at my desk from work, and my chair from work, in the middle of my living room.  What used to be my office is now in process of being turned into the living room.  I took home my favorite painting, a TV console, and lots of just misc stuff we wouldn’t need at the new place.  So that’s nice.  

Yeah so that’s basically my living room now.  The cats like it!  They got new beds AND a big cat tree out of the bargain!  Pemily only uses a bottom “house” level, Fry likes the bed on top and the bigger level right under it.  They use the beds a lot more, though.

There have been so many days where I would just get in the car at the end of the day and cry out of frustration and anger and sadness over what we lost.  The promises broken, the things that we were told wouldn’t happen and did, the things we were told would happen and didn’t.  The loss of so many people I cared so much about from my daily life.

And I should say, some of the people at the new company are great.  My new immediate boss, I really do like him, and I have always tried to be as honest with him as I could.  The last several months, I’ve been completely honest with him, for both his sake and mine.  He, more than anyone on their side, has gotten the brunt of taking several bad decisions by the higher ups on his chin.  The rest of the other IT team, they are very nice people and I enjoy working with them.  Even their CTO, well, there are some mixed feelings about him, but as a person, I like him a lot.  We’ve even hung out when he’s been in town.

So yeah... by the beginning of 2018, the IT/Dev team was down to like six people, out of over 20 when we started.

The day of The Move, January 27th, everyone on the team who was left got pulled into a meeting at the new place, while the movers were still moving our things in.

We were told that we were all losing our jobs in six months.  We’d get a (TBH, laughable, 12%) severance if we stayed the entire time.  Or, we could move to Kansas City, Kansas.  Hmm... from the #1 job market in the US to Kansas City.  Lol.  No.

Immediately, I mean like WHILE THAT MEETING WAS STILL HAPPENING, my last two team members from IT accepted other job offers they’d been mulling over.  My last other friend who I’d gotten a job there not long after I started, went from “Nah, I’m gonna stick it out.” to “I’m out.”

Eric was gone a week after the announcement, Carlos and the new Dev manager were gone the next week.   My dev friend and I were the last two left. It only took him about a month to be gone.

They’d designed an area in the new office for development and IT before they made the decision to move us.  I literally sit in this area of 10 cubes utterly alone.  Soon, the only people left from my office were 2 guys from sales and one project manager which... his story is a whole other doozy I’m not getting into.  Anyway, four of us left, out of the 30 that were there in August. And eight of the twelve from Memphis still have their jobs.  Twelve people left.  Out of fifty.

So yeah, this is my view.  Nobody sits in any cube you can see besides mine.  My back is to a wall.  One of the remaining guys DOES sit in that office on the right, and recently another of them moved into the office next to that one, which you can’t see in the picture, though.  That helps stave off the lonely a lot.

The same day we were starting work in the new office, the Monday after the day we were told about losing our jobs (Friday) a whole other set of people started work there, too.  Eight call-center salespeople and their manager.  

It was very apparent that first week that... whatever used to be my company was utterly gone.

I wasn’t totally alone.  The 3 guys left and I banded together.  They were already close with each other, and I did consider myself friends with them already but we hadn’t been like, close.  But they took me in, and made me a part of their clique.  That helped.  

And the new people... aren’t bad, honestly.  The manager is great, I really like him, and most of the sales people are nice, even though I don’t really talk to them much.  They have calls to make, and I don’t go to their meetings so... I’m  just... there. It’s still a weird feeling.  I mean, I IT Support them as is my job, but yeah.  There’s still a divide there.  The new office space is OK.  The building is pretty classy, we’re on the 7th floor right off of a freeway, it’s a great view.  Lots of nice amenities. It’s also a 45 minute drive from home.  The drive would be a little better if I wanted to pay $5 a day in tolls, lol.  No.

And mostly, I’ve been horribly bored.  I mean, sure, I’ve made it to like episode 42 of Critical Role.  I do all my work.  I help the people in the office who need help.  I set up cubicles with the computers and peripherals the Kansas office sends me for the new hires.  I find more work to do.  I’ve been documenting all the things I do in anticipation of when I’m no longer going to be there, and I don’t wanna leave my new team hanging when that happens -- none of this is their fault.  I’ve been wiping all our laptops we don’t use anymore and sending them to Kansas so they can use them.  I’ve been sorting boxes and throwing more stuff out.  It just... it wasn’t what I wanted to be doing anymore.  It wasn’t interesting or challenging.

So why was I even still there?  I had reasons. 

There was... an opportunity... I was told I was going to get.  It was solid, a lock.  And in fact at one point there was ANOTHER opportunity I was supposedly a lock for.  For quite awhile, I was waiting for one of these to pan out because either would have been awesome.  I just needed to hang on a few more weeks.

When suddenly it was April and neither had panned out, I realized that it was really fucking time that I stop waiting and being sad about what was gone, and to start actually taking charge of the next few months.  I had til July 27th to make something happen for myself. I’d been assured that unless I did something really terrible at work, my current job was safe until that date. (I very much appreciated that and suspect my direct boss and (possibly the CTO too) has stuck his neck out for me a time or two to make sure this happened.)  That took some pressure off. And I still had hope that the opportunity was going to pan out, but I could work harder to make things work out.

I first had to sit down and really decide what I wanted to focus on.  Before the acquisition, I had two halves to my job.  IT Support for the entire 50+ person company, and project managing our yearly SOC2 Audit.  I knew I could pretty easily get another straight up IT Support job.  But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I’d been doing IT Support for like, 18 years now, along with another half to both of the jobs I’d had in that time (Telephony in my previous job, and auditing in this one.)  I started to wonder if I could make a real go at getting a job 100% in auditing.

I started poking around at job listings for that and kept seeing the acronym “CISA” as a requirement for everything I was interested in.  So I googled it -- Certified Information Systems Auditor.  Intrigued, I spent a day learning about what that was.  I took a “practice test” I found online and thought “Oh, hm, I don’t know most of these answers but I do understand the questions.  I... I think I could do this.”  So I joined a professional organization for the first time, dropped a load of money on that, plus study materials, and set aside another $600 for when it’s time to take the exam

A great deal of my free time since early/mid April has been taken up by studying.  I’m hoping to take the test in late June.

I also modified my resume at this point to add that I was preparing for the test.  Couldn’t hurt.

In the last six weeks or so, I’ve probably applied to 20 or 30 IT Auditor type jobs, and some just more in general IT Security.  I’ve talked to about a dozen recruiters.  I’ve heard a lot of people say my resume is great and they could definitely find me a job.  None of them tried.  I didn’t even hear back from most of them, ever.  I’ve talked to a lot of internal recruiters, some of whom made me big promises then ghosted me, some of whom were excited to place me and then whoops it turned out the hiring manager promoted from within and all interviews were canceled... or something.

It was frustrating, but people kept telling me, this is also normal.  TBH, I hadn’t had to job hunt literally since the year 2000.  I’d read up a lot about what I needed to do, how to act and talk and what to say and how to answer the hard questions and I felt like I did well whenever I was given a shot.  It’s just that Something always happened.  I started to joke with my guys left at work that I wondered what this week’s Big Disappointment would be.  I was also joking that if I wanted to feel let down this consistently, I’d go back to dating.

Two Sundays ago I was doing a pass at job boards, and went to one I hadn’t been using before, but probably should have.  And there I saw it.

A job doing exactly the auditing things I wanted to do, but more stuff, that I also wanted to do, and I had almost every line of their “Must haves” already on my resume.  It was one of like, three jobs I applied to that night.

Tuesday I got an email for a phone screening.  I didn’t let myself get excited, but I researched the company as much as I could, and liked what I saw.  I also noticed, holy crap, they’re a 15 minute drive, all on surface roads and no freeways, from my house.  That. Would. Be. Awesome.

The internal recruiter was really responsive, and nice, and seemed interested, all things I’d come to not really expect.  We set up a phone screening for Wednesday, and on Thursday she said that the hiring manager wanted to skip a phone conversation and jump right to in-person interview on Monday.

Um, wow.

So I finally got a chance to wear that $200 interview outfit I’d bought, and put on the $100 makeup, and Monday, I drove the fifteen minutes oh my God this is awesome to the new place.  Holy crap there’s a Starbucks RIGHT OUT FRONT IN THE SAME PARKING LOT YOU CAN WALK THERE.  I took the elevator to the top floor wow this view is beautiful I can almost see my house from here! and met my possible new manager.  I kind of got the vibe early that he was already heavily favoring me, and our conversation was basically like “I need someone who can do ____” “Oh, yeah, I was already doing that, so I can definitely do that.”  And some of it was “Hm, I don’t have any experience in that area.” and he was like “Eh, but you have experience in this related thing, you can definitely pick it up.”    And it was a lot more like a conversation than an interview.  Always a good sign.

I’d actually put under like “Other interests” my masseffectsaves.com site and being admin and a major contributor to the TAH wiki, as a “see, I have other interests, I’m an interesting person” and he even asked about both of those things. I think being able to explain these semi-complex ideas helped a lot.  (Why do you need a saves site?  WHAT THE HECK IS Thrilling Adventure Hour?  And I explained that the wiki shows I am able to write well, and have a good head for categorizing information.)  

I felt things were going very well when he asked me to stay, and went and got the team, the people who would be my equals.  They came and asked me questions, I asked them a few, and they thanked me and left.

And then he brought in the CIO, his boss.  Later edit: this was not his boss, but someone very important at the company and I have since learned he told my boss he should absolutely hire me and I was perfect for the job and thought I’d do great.  And since it’s 2 months later I’m making this edit, he’s already told my boss he thinks I’m great. :)  And we had a good conversation.

Then I got the office tour.  That was when I felt really good about it.  And I had decided pretty early on in the interview that yeah, I really wanted this job.

The only downside is a smaller bump in my salary than I was hoping for.  But it’s still a bump. And literally, everything else is fantastic.

I left the interview at 11:30. 

I got a phone call from the internal recruiter (I made sure to tell both her and her boss how great she is) with a verbal offer at 3:30.  I verbally accepted.

(Side note, I also got another request for a phone screening interview with another company I’d applied to that same night while I was in the interview.  I did set up the phone screening just in case, but canceled it this morning after signing my offer letter.)

I signed all my paperwork today, submitted for the background and credit checks (because of the industry of the company, the credit check is like, mandatory.  And my credit is great so, no worries.)

My current boss knew I had an interview Monday.  I didn’t go to work Monday or yesterday, but I talked to him and let him know.   If everything goes well, I’ll be turning in my notice on Tuesday (Monday is a holiday), and the 8th will be my last day.

A week shy of 10 months since all this started.

To the people I’m close to who read this, I’m sorry I’ve been withdrawn for so long,  It’s just how I needed to cope, thank you for sticking with me.  IDK if anyone noticed, but I didn’t post on tumblr and let my queue run out for like three months at the end of the year.  I’ve still not been here a lot, but... enough to keep a queue going and make a few actual posts here and there.  It was really bad for a long time.  I didn’t want to engage with almost anyone about almost anything.  I didn’t feel like I had much positive to say.  And I couldn’t really talk about this publicly.

And now, today, it feels so good.  I just want to scream about how great it feels to be getting out.  Moving on! And to be fair, the last four months haven’t been terrible.  They’ve been fine.  Just fine.  They actually offered to let me keep my job, to be even more fair, back in April, at about the time I’d decided to start studying for my CISA.  Also about that time I was going through my first “Oh you’re gonna get this job!” excitement, pre-disappointment, besides the two that I’d been waiting on. 

 Oh yeah, of those two I’d waited on... one of them ghosted, and the other one, the one I’d really been waiting on, offically fell through like two weeks after I turned down the offer to stay on at the current company. I did have one weekend of “OH SHIT WHAT DID YOU DO NO ONE IS EVER GOING TO HIRE YOU WHY DID YOU TELL THEM YOU WERE GONNA LEAVE MAYBE YOU CAN BEG TO KEEP YOUR JOB” thoughts, a pretty bad panic attack, a bunch of scared crying, and utter despair in there.  Then Sunday afternoon I picked myself back up, and went back to studying, and told myself over and over there was going to be something awesome out there for me.  Plus, I had savings enough plus the “retention bonus” money to live on for a few months, if worse came to worse and I hadn’t found something on July 27th.  

And to be honest, I really didn’t think I’d find a job in It Security/Auditing until after I passed the exam.  I was applying to things, though, just in case, maybe I will.

I’m so, very glad to be wrong.  I’m still going to pass my exam, and there’s at least one other certification I’m going for afterwards.

Which is just another weird thing.

My whole life I’ve been like, drifting when it came to college and work.  TBH I never finished college.  I got into IT almost by accident, because someone believed in me and pulled me onto his team.  That person went from being my boss for a few years, long ago to now one of my closest friends  I stayed in IT + Telephony then IT + Auditing because... I could.  I always had a solid job that I was happy in (except near the end of the first job, the last 2 or 3 years were... hooo boy.  Anyway.)  I never felt a particular passion or calling to it.  I liked it, I was good enough at it.  It was a good paycheck and I got to work with awesome people.

But, as much as I would sometimes grouse about the audit, secretly kinda loved it.  It was a LOT of work, and nerve-wracking, but I was good at managing it.  I knew I could be better at it and do more if I didn’t have that whole other half of my job of IT Support to do.  But realizing last month I could actually get a certification and there were other certs I could do that would also make work better and actually holy shit I have a career PATH.  What sorcery is this?  It’s weird.  I just really, really, really wish I would have started looking at it... oh... five years ago.

I also took this other step about a month ago.  There were several jobs I didn’t apply to because I never finished college and they stressed a degree was mandatory.  That made me sad, and nervous.  

I knew I had a TON of college credits, probably close to 120, but nothing that would coalesce into like, a degree.  Also as the years went by it was like... well.  There’s no way I could start all over with college.

On a whim, though, I googled “What to do when you have a lot of college credits and no degree”.  And it turns out, there’s a couple of real, actual accredited non-profit colleges that have programs exactly for people like me.   They accept transfer credits liberally and will tell you what you need to get a real actual diploma.   I said what the fuck, and applied and got my transcripts from the three colleges I had significant credits at sent over there.

They finished the evaluation and got back to me today. I need twelve hours to get a bachelors of Liberal Arts.  TWELVE. Five classes. (one is a 1 hour credit, one is a 2 hour credit, the rest are three.  And I can CLEP out of two of the classes, if I want to.)  I was also accepted into the program.  I’m kicking myself for not doing THIS years ago.

So... the rest of this year will be dedicated to CISA and at least one more certification.  Starting in the spring semester, I’m going back to school.  Online, night classes type school, but I’m going to do it.  I’m gonna get a fucking diploma, even if it’s a liberal arts diploma, at 43 years old.  (Hell, I’ll be 44 by then.)

And what’s crazy is... this is like the silver lining to a dark, dark cloud. No, it’s more than that.  It’s... coming out of the dark.  It almost feels like a rebirth.  It took five and a half months of a torturous slow death of the job and place that I loved.  Then two months of emptiness.  Then two months of terror and pushing myself and frustration and disappointment.

And now... I’m here.

I’m starting a new job that I think I’m going to be great at, and think I can be very happy at the place.

I’m getting real professional certifications. 

I’m going to graduate college, finally. 

Sometimes it really does take a lot of pain in order to grow.  It takes the death of a thing that you hold dear to push you out of the nest and force you to make changes, to work hard, to be better.

I’m still sad that it took all of that to get to where I am, but I’m so glad, today, to be here.  I feel like I can breathe again.  I feel like the future is good.

Sorry this post is so long, by the way.  I feel like.. for a really long time I couldn’t talk much about it.  There were only a few people / private places I really talked about it because I was afraid of consequences should the wrong people see -- I still needed this job.  I needed to figure out what I was doing.  So now, this is me able to talk about it.  Thanks for reading.  It’s been a journey, and this chapter is closing.  I really, really can’t wait to get to the new one.

[kxlance]

here are my thoughts on the bullshit under the cut cuz it's gonna get long probs i assure you it’s a reassuring post:

ok so the interview itself wasn't bad to me honestly. jeremy did not deny the bi!lance hint, which was the most important thing to know. the fact that he said "that much i can say" implies that there's something left to know that he can't say because nda.

i'm gonna list a positive thing and a negative thing here: the negative one is that on one hand, it pisses me off that lgbt characters are treated as such a big spoilery deal when it should just....feel so natural to have them in a show. also thinking back that dreamworks tagged certain videos as klance just for views...well it's kind of a coward move if they don't at least end the show with lgbt rep. on the other, i really don't see the point with going all "no comment" about it if it weren't to happen?? that would be very assholey, and i know that the writers are not to be trusted, but the mere fact that they lie so much over things than then ended up being canon (e.g: galra keith, paladin allura, pidge being a girl etc) can't help but make me think they are pretty much hiding the endgame couple on purpose. you could argue they could be hinting at allurance which i'm not excluding bc some of the things could be honestly interpreted that way and also they never mention them ever as a couple except i remember like kimberly saying that allura isn't interested in lance (but she could be lying obviously) and jeremy here stating that lance has still a crush on her which is pretty evident and there's nothing new. (we also learned, according to him, that lance basically can dish it out but he can't take it which frankly...i can see pretty well as canon)

on that spectrum, pls note that this happening (or lance ending up with a girl for the matter) doesn't absolutely excludes bi!lance like at all. he can still be confirmed as bi and end up with a girl and that itself would still be very important! one thing doesn't exclude the other honestly so i say very confidently that lance being bi will be confirmed. like 100% convinced that it will. (do not forget lauren's drawing where lance is holding the lgbt sign, there's a specific reason he's the one holding that)

also does anybody think that....this stress over lance liking ladies and stuff is kinda....suspicious?? like jeremy himself was used to say "lol he flirts with anybody on two legs ahha" and now today all of a sudden he's putting a lot of stress on the ""woman"" part. which kind of threw me off? i might be reaching obviously, but mmm you know? and all of this comes after joaquim said "what he's looking for is getting to a place that might be different than when he started in the series" and “what he wants might not be what he needs” and if math isn't an opinion, he started the series always wanting allura so if what he wants is now changing..........................

it is also true that lauren used female pronouns in that interview and while that could be an indicator that lance will end up with a girl, it's also not set in stone bc.... they used to hide pidge's pronouns the same way and if lauren had said "him" you know that keith would have suddenly come to mind bc??? he's legit the only person lance has been paired up so much with. they've been sort of a duo ever since the beginning. and they've had most of the couple tropes out of all the possible pairings??? in the show??? allow me to list some. I'm too lazy to back this up with pics but like you know the scenes i'm talking about (and i also say this because when i ship something i ALWAYS look at canon interactions. and they have a lot):

the bonding moment (or the we are a good team scene if you will), which is not only visually very romantic (the purple lightning aka their two primary colors mixed together) but its sort of the turning point of their relationship and it's something that's very much used with couples especially with couples with their dynamic because oh lord!!!!!! do you know how many heterosexual couples exist with a dynamic like theirs? broody boy meets friendly girl and they're total opposites but ops they fall in love?? bitch literally every goddamn YA novel is like this. anyways, you know that scene would be considered romantic if it was between a boy and a girl, and indeed, allurance sort of paralleled that scene in s4 so if you consider that as romantic but not this one....well....buddy,,,,,,,they're basically in the same lions keith and lance were aka the fire and ice dynamic and if you can see that as romantic with a/l you should be able to see it the same way with....k/l but i digress).

as i was saying, the bonding moment is the turning point of keith and lance's relationship. after that we get:

1) an episode where keith is super anxious to have lance out of a pod and gets jealous when he sees lance flirting with allura, reminds him of their "bonding moment" and gets offended that lance doesnt remember (and an entire discussion could be open as to why he was so offended and the vlog kinda sets that up), overall the flirty banter that we're used to (not to mention this is the famous infamous bi flag planet)

2) a solo mission where they're shown to be working extremely well with each other (like classic battle couple duo scenes)

onto other tropes:

the subtle jealousy that can be interpreted both ways

THE ELEVATOR SCENE which is such a common trope for main couples!! they usually get stuck and have a moment of clarification or something like that. keith and lance's was a lot more comedic but it did lead them to collaborate in battle 2 seconds after so.... it did have an impact like those scenes usually do. (also that scene wasn’t necessary for the plot at all and yet...)

Lance making that fond face while talking about Keith that, may I remember you, was animated purposely to be that way. and overall there's a lot of subtle things like lance being constantly worried over keith in season 2 even though they didn't have much dynamic development??

the hey man scene? the fact that everybody was looking at lance EXPECTING HIM TO DO SOMETHING. and he could have easily looked back at them like "why me???" BUT NOPE, he was ready to go to comfort him!!!!!!!!

i get so worked up over the fact that so many of their scenes can be paralleled with other scenes as the story goes bc LETS BE FUCKING REAL FOR A GODDAM SECOND: they're the only pairing who started a way and are ending up in another. because they've had the most coherent development as a pairing in the seasons and we're fucking halfway through the show and when you also remember that it's pretty clear that lance wants to falls in love and that it's a ""slow burn""" kind of deal,,,,how in the fuck,,,,can it be other than klance??? literally nO OTHER PAIRING had a development since the goddamn start i’m not even saying this with my biased ass i’m saying this objectively speaking!!!!

all of season 3 could be a huge romantic trope honestly but like 2 scenes in particular strike as very romantic:

the leave the math to pidge scene obviously (the way it is framed is very tropey lmfao) and the way we see keith through lance's eyes.......pretty gay if you ask me

and the i got you buddy scene which someone made notice that AN EXACT SAME SCENE happens in the wonder woman movie but with a boy/girl pairing ofc. BUT IT'S THE SAME FUCKING SCENE THAT'S LIKE ROMANTIC TROPE 101 I AINT PLAYING

add on the fact that keith might have left team voltron to make sure lance had a place and boom. pretty romantic to me.

even if jeremy sees them as brothers....which is like...super fucking odd to me bc....he never mentioned this before almost like he's backtracking lololol, his opinion isn't...you know...canon. (and like lbr they never acted like brothers in the show??? and the creators never addressed them as such unlike...you know what) i like jeremy jokes and meme as much as the next guy but i'm a realist and i know that he doesn't really ship klance or anything he just knows how to spoiler the good stuff lolz but also he didn't say anything wrong like it's just how he sees it but the creators never said so (lauren montgomery called lance keith's stability don't forget that) and overall there are wayyyy too many hints to not believe that's its gonna be canon. like......it even makes sense with the overall story better than any other pairing?? because it's pretty plausible that lance had a crush on keith at the garrison that tried to mask with the rivalry. the way he acts and the way he tries to always get his attention furtherly proves that. it's a common thing to do when you have a crush lmao.

LIKE THOSE TWO ARE ALWAYS PAIRED UP EVEN IN THE FUCKING SEASON 2 POSTER?? LIKE THEY COULD HAVE GONE WITH KEITH IN THE MARMORA OUTFIT SINCE IT WAS A BIG PART OF THE SEASON BUT NO??? THEY PUT HIM IN THE SWIM TRUNKS WITH LANCE FOR THOSE 2 MINUTES OF SCENE THEY HAD TOGETHER?????

ok that's it keep on hoping and remember that klance not happening doesn't mean that also bi lance won't because those two things aren’t mutually exclusive ok? but also don't lose hope on klance itself especially if it's something that makes you happy because fandom is meant to be a distraction and klance is an healthy lgbt ship that deserves all the attention it gets and it’s groundbreaking from so many aspects and it being canon would be amazing. bye

ALSO PLEASE STOP COMMENTING SHIT ON JEREMY’S PERSONAL PICS ON INSTAGRAM HE DIDN’T DO ANYTHING WRONG THIS IS EMBARASSING

bonus

[thehalfworld]

Fanfic MST: Forbiden Fruit: The Tempation of Edward Cullen, a Twilight fanfic [part 3]

I have to warn you all that this chapter has a rape scene in it. It’s completely ridiculous, and I really don’t know if that makes it better or worse. Proceed with caution.

Recap: Edward gave into tempation and tried putting the moves on Tiaa. She went along with it at first, but then pushed him away because they were in public and Edward already has a girlfriend. Edward seems to think Tiaa is a vampire, even though she doesn’t appear to be and his thinking she is doesn’t really make sense. 

Chapter 1 Previous chapter

AN - hi guys hope u like this one im quite proud of it! 

That’s a bit worrying.

thanx for the suport from my frends love u girls!glad u like it! oh an VINCENT ur so dumb of course tiaa didnt go to math in only her bra shes not a total ditz! 

Hey, you never said she put her shirt back on! Actually, you also described Edward ripping it off her, and we know it’s made out of fishnet, so… I kinda doubt she still has a shirt left to put back on.

one more time...DONT READ IF U DNT LIKE IT!

I can’t imagine not liking this story. I’m being serious. It’s a masterwork. It’s right up there with “My Immortal” in my eyes.

NO frickin flames what is the POINT of flamin ppl there is NO POINT so f off!

I think the point is to annoy the author. Which appears to be working.

Capter 3 – uncle larry

Wow! Really looking forward to the capter!

I sa t alone watching tv at dave and maries house. I couldnt stop thinking about my encounter with Ewdard Cullen earlier that day. He was so beuatifull and sexoy with such amazing hair and eyes I could hardly believe he had notice someone like me! 

Just me or is she a tad fixated on his hair?

Also… Tiaa isn’t the sort of girl who blends in, and she knows it. She’s aware that she’s pretty and she’s used to getting attention — both positive and negative — because of her looks. She’s also loud (she yelled at Edward when he bumped into her), and she dresses in a manner that… well, let’s just say most small-town high school students don’t dress like Tiaa. This girl isn’t ordinary and she’s well aware of it. Why the false modesty?

But I was angry at how he had made me feel, how I'd burnt like crimson hot flame wean he touched me and how he'd not listened to me when id' told him to fring off, and how he dared to touch me at all when he had a GF anyways, even if she was a mean girl with an ugly heart and not that hawt. 

Not only has she not met Bella yet, she hasn’t heard anyone talk about Bella either, so I don’t know how she came to the “she’s a mean girl with an ugly heart” conclusion.

But nomatter how much I try to hate him, I simply couldn't. Suddenly the phone range

"hello "

"hey, is that altantiana?"

"yah who is this?" I aksed.

"its Mike nooton from your class! 

She hasn’t met Mike yet either, unless that happened in the deleted scenes or something. I guess, if he called her house phone, that he could have got Dave and Marie’s number out of the school directory… but this seems a little weird if they’ve literally never met.

I was wondering if your wanted to go to La Plush with me too morrow night maybe? 

To clarify, he is talking about a beach. He means La Push. Stuffed animals are probably not involved.

Theres a party on the beech with whole crowd of us going and I thought you seemed relay nice so I thought maybe youd want to me my date please? -

I can maybe buy that a high school boy is desperate enough to ask a random pretty girl to a party with him in the hopes that maybe it’ll kindle some sort of romance, but this is a really bad way to go about it. Asking out a girl you’ve never met is… not the best plan. Why not just frame it as inviting her along because she’s a new student and it would be a good opportunity for her to hang out and make friends? You don’t have to be explicit about your crush before you’ve even had a conversation with her.

Also I think Mike is already dating Bella’s friend Jessica, but fuck her, I guess.

"arent you the guy who hangs out with all the pathetic chearleaders and stuff?" I asked

"you mean bella and jessica's gang? 

I’m gonna wait a bit to talk about how weird it is that Bella is hanging with a “gang” of cheerleaders, but like… why does Tiaa know Mike hangs out with them? Again, this is their first conversation, and (as far as we know) the first time she’s even heard of him.

Sometimes I guess but theyr'e way shallow and not as hot as you. 

He’s maybe undermining his own point there.

And they can be mean sometimes.-"

So… like anyone, then?

"then why do hang out white them then you shallow CREEP!and why are you askin me out when you harely no me mike! Cos u think im' hot? Why cant you see your just as shallow if you want to date someone just cost of what they look like - I'm not THAT pretty anyways! 

Oh, Tiaa, you and I were on the same page until you pulled the fake modesty card. Besides, isn’t this a bit of an overreaction? He asked you to hang out with him at the beach, it’s not like he’s proposing marriage or anything.

And even if i was, I'm SO screwed up in the bran you cant even imagine! u would no want to date me if you new how screwed up I was!"

What exactly does she mean by “screwed up in the brain bran”? Like, are we talking legitimate mental illness, or is this just teenage angsting? And, in either case, what exactly is her problem that makes her undateable? This is about the vaguest possible rejection, and I don’t know if she’s implying something is actually wrong with her or that she’s just Not Like Other Girls.

"I would, tia, beleive me I would! Your so beautiful you cant even imagine. Your so pretty people lose there minds when your around and forget there names and forget to brethe! 

That’s your only reason? She’s pretty? Weren’t you saying something about cheerleaders being shallow a minute or two ago?

How can't you have noticed that? 

Decent point, actually. If your character is dropping jaws and turning heads with her beauty, either she’s aware she’s beautiful or there’s a reason she doesn’t realize. Like… maybe Tiaa thinks the people staring at her are doing so because of how she dresses, not because they think she’s pretty. Tiaa has actually seemed pretty aware of her effect on others throughout, though, so unless she’s just playing modest around Mike for some reason this scene doesn’t make any sense.

And I don't CARE how screwed up you are! It only maked you more interesting! 

He’s not even gonna ask for clarification on that?

Your cool and different and you are honest about stuff! you are right to be angry with me. I'm sorry for benign shallow and dumb just give me a chance to show you how much I care, please? "

The argument he’s making would probably be way more convincing if this wasn’t, you know, their first conversation ever.

"well...ok maybe ill go along if I dont have anything else to do" i said, not believing a word he said about how pretty i was.

Oh, come on.

"thank you altantiana thank you so much!" he sounded so happy I couldnt help but smile as I put the phone down but my smile faded as I return to my thoughts. Mike Nooton was kinda cute and seemed like an ok guy but he was nothing next to Ewdard Cullen. 

Yeah, I guess when compared to the weird dude who tried to fuck you in a locker room and threw a shirt at your head Mike really isn’t worth a second thought.

Even though I was anger with edward than I have ever been with anyone in my life and part of me wanted to chop his head off with a sore, a part of my soul would all ways remain in that coridoor where we had kissed so hard and passionably. 

My mistake, they were in a hallway, not a locker room. Not sure if that’s better or worse, but, depending on how busy that hallway normally is, it’s probably worse.

I creamed myself. 

Didn’t need to know that.

My heart had soared that day like never before, and i new that no one else would ever make me feel like that again, then I thought how he was a cheater and a bastard and my face burnt with shame. I couldn't beleive I had behaved like such a hore. 

I mean… she didn’t, really. She went along with his advances up to a point, and it doesn’t really show good judgement on her part, but he was the one acting like a “hore” in this situation. Putting the moves on a random girl in a public space when you’ve already got a girlfriend? Keep it classy, dude.

I was scared of the affect he had on me.

Effect. “Affect” is a verb. Nice sentence otherwise.

(Okay, if you’re a grammar pedant, “affect” isn’t always a verb… it can also be a noun, when we’re talking in a psychology context, which Tiaa isn’t.)

"bye tiaa! We'll be back on Thursday ok?" mari put her head rind the door suddenly

"Ok then, have fun" I wispered clammily..dave and marie where visiting relatives for a few day.

Convenient. Two less characters for the author to have to deal with.

Wait, no, oh my god, I just remembered what happens in this chapter.

"you look so pretty" she says, smiling -your the prettiest gril i've ever seen!”

I… okay, that’s some natural dialogue.

"omg whatever" I reply. I hated it wen people say that. 

Come on, girl, it’s just a compliment! Not like she’s hitting on you! At least I hope not.

I pulled my blond hair over my face. I was wearin a short hot pink dress cut low with black lace frills at the bottom and black lace stocking.

I kind of like that Tiaa is a goth girl who likes bright pink. There are plenty of real-life goth girls like that, but you pretty much never see them in fanfiction.

"daves brother larry will be looking after you wile where gone you'll be ok when where gone wont you tiaa? I hate to leaven you alone like this!"

You know “leaven” is what you do to bread to make it rise, right?

"i don't need a freakin babysiter u no!" i was so embarasing, I could look after myself!

Freudian slip? I mean, she is pretty embarrassing.

Marie smiles and leaves the house.

Marie doesn’t give a fuck, it seems.

"greeting a;latnaniana my names uncle larry" said uncle larry, he came in threw the door he was fat and bald with tiny black eyes and a red face

You know he’s a bad guy because he’s ugly. That’s how it works!

"Hey - i said

"your the orphan arent you" he says "is it true you kiled your mother when she gave birth to you?”

Nice to meet you too, Uncle Larry.

"Wat!" I cry, my eyes filling with tears

"your an evil bich arent u? Go outsite and wash my car" he shouts angerly

I’ve just thought of a fun game. There are five more chapters left. Let’s all place bets on which chapter Uncle Larry will get horribly murdered in.

I stood up and left to wash his car. I got soap and a bucket, afraid of what he would do if I refuzed. I went outside and started to wash hush car it was a red porche. He came outside and wached me and I new he was waching me! 

I know the implication is he’s watching her in a pervy way, but if I was making someone wash my car and I didn’t particularly like them I’d keep an eye on them too.

After a minite he came over and hit me hard across the face

"wft!" i shouted

What Fuck The?

He poored the bucket of water all over me and hit me again,. I was wet and crying and he started to rip my dress and bra of me and rip my clothes. He touched my naked breats and I try to push him off me I screamed at him to stop but he did'nt. He bent me over the bonet of his car and spanked me on the ass for half an hour then he pulled my panties down and started to rape me!

I really don’t want to be laughing at a rape scene, because rape is one of those things that’s just inherently unfunny, but… this is testing me. I mean, an entire half hour of spanking? The dramatic announcement that he began raping her after he forcibly stripped her naked and spanked her for thirty minutes, as if this is a surprise? The fact that all of this is happening in plain view of any neighbors Dave and Marie might have? Good lord. I truly do not know how to react.

I also have to wonder why Tiaa makes little attempt to fight back here. It’s pretty reasonable to freeze up when you’re violently attacked, but Tiaa has proven that she’s both capable and willing to fight off anyone she perceives as a threat (kung fu babie!) previously in the story. Is Uncle Larry too physically powerful for her to win against? We don’t really know how big he is compared to her, and Tiaa has been described as strong and fast previously. Both of them are unarmed, and, if there are neighbors, the noise should alert someone to what’s going on (Tiaa has been shouting/screaming throughout). Why is he getting away with all this? Oh, right, plot reasons.

"stop raping me!" I cry but he didnt stop! 

Shocker.

The pain was terrible even tough his manhood was small. 

Didn’t need to know about his dick, thanks!

I cryed and cryed but he didnt stop for hours and when he finally stopped he left me on the floor and spat in my face and left me there. 

Wait… hours? This guy has impressive stamina.

I pulled on my clothes and cryed madly and ran off into the seething darkness of the midnight street. I ran and ran un till I came to some woods and then I fell down in the woods and cryed.

“Seething darkness of the midnight street” is a pretty good phrase, actually. I mean, super cheesy and doesn’t really mean anything, but if this was lyrics some alt-rock band wrote I’d accept it.

Suddenly a blast of white light exploded in head and my mark on my hand burned like a flame. I closed my eyes and saw the face of a tall white man looking over me with no expression, his eyes were burning red and his face glimmered cold and bright as the moon,. 

It was… VLODEMONT AND DA DETH DEALERS!

I fell back from the brightness of his body, his hair was dark as night,.

It was… VOLSEMORT IN A WIG AND DA DEATH DEELRS!

"atlantiana?" he whisperd in a voice softer than clouds -my daughter?-

Well, we all saw that one coming a mile off.

"omg" I whisperd as my mind went blank and the world went dark.

I hope she whispered the acronym instead of saying “oh my god.” Her dad will be totally confused! Old people don’t know how acronyms work!

Next chapter

[elizabethrobertajones]

Why do you think Dean never prayed to Cas when he was in lockup? I mean, I get that he couldn't possibly tell Cas where he was held, but he still could have prayed, I mean Cas was worried sick.

Since it’s late on Thursday night already a week after this aired, I feel like I’ve seen every possible version of this discussion on my dash. My very boring answer which I gave after reblogging some character-based stuff was just that this is where they wanted Cas (worried sick) and so Dean didn’t, and it’s up to us to interpret why but to me the episode was MORE about Cas and Mary and in general what happens in the Winchester’s absence, and so it was definitely working backwards from there. Sam and Dean got a little action sequence at the end and literally in the last 5 minutes any emotional stuff, because with a delayed reveal on the deal they were not really emotional POV characters UNTIL the bridge, therefore the episode was not ABOUT them so much as what else happens in their orbit when they’re not around. Even the guys holding them down there got way more personality and interesting character writing than the Winchesters did in prison…

And this is NOT a criticism, because I am assuming you don’t write an episode where your 2 main characters aren’t “really” characters in it until the last 5 minutes unless you’re doing it deliberately and want to explore something else. Which in this case included Cas being miserable about Dean being gone, which therefore meant Dean could not be in contact with him giving him any hope or something to swing at, because that wouldn’t get Cas to where he needed to be. And would have not removed Dean (or Sam if he prayed) from the story properly either, to maximise on a Winchester-free Supernatural episode. Or as far as you can go to pull that off within the constraints of needing to have their faces in the episode on and off throughout. Same formula as 6x04 or 6x20: keep them around but they only really get involved in one emotional moment at the end aside from general standing around having a face in between :P

I also think that it’s not plotholes or deliberate laziness or stupidity to leave gaps like this all the time if they can be explained, although I feel like fandom as the part of the audience that spends a lot of time thinking about the show and gets really complicated about their questions and expectations, can end up feeling like we’ve been short-changed or the show isn’t thinking hard enough about something we crowd-sourced an answer for weeks ago… We often move immediately to much heavier or deeper territory and come with pre-loaded expectations that make everything seem to fall short… 

(Can you tell I have read a lot of negativity this week about an episode I thought was great fun and actually proclaimed 3/4th of the way through that I was pissed off with Dabb for not giving me any plotholes to bitch about for once? :P People were @ ing me expecting me to have issues with the car continuity but I hadn’t noticed any and when I re-watched I realised that Mary saying “I drive fast” before the driving had explained everything I needed to know to completely keep my immersion in the story so it hadn’t even occurred to me to question it because I thought the story had pandered to my need to know these silly details? No one gave any numbers and who knows what the maths is on driving from the Bunker to Colorado via Mary and stopping to chat to the BMoL that would give us a total drive time for Cas but that one sentence just *magic wand ding* made it all go away :P To me this was Dabb’s most solid episode ever in terms of writing, except perhaps 8x08 which I think lands a perfect score on all fronts when normally sloppiness like that lets him down (loses points for Billie though…))

Anyway, sorry, slightly ranty because it’s late and I’m tired and in pain and this really has not been bothering me at all, which makes my response to the fact people ARE disgruntled unfortunately disproportionate, because basic maths about gruntlement proportions. :P 

The very obvious practicalities that you mentioned give a basic emotional surface text version that I think honestly does adequately cover it about as obviously as “they showed Dean shaving to explain why his hair was the same length when he came out as when he went in” - that is, if you take away any character dynamics and look at it like, Dean could tell Cas where they are if he knew where they were, but when he phones Cas he says he has no idea where they are ergo he’s had no reason to contact him, then you have what passes for a very very boring answer that might not satisfy US but tbh I suspect for anyone NOT overly invested in this relationship would be the sort of answer they get to if they wondered and be satisfied with it.

 I feel like I’ve read a lot (or in my head it has stretched out in fever dream ways to feel like a lot) of rambling over the last week about all the praying and why Dean wouldn’t, and the history of their prayers, their entire relationship since like, season 4, and so on and so on to try and make a coherent story arc to explain why Dean has stopped praying to Cas and I think they’re all great even if I’m now pretty hazy on them (see above: fever dream). I think my favourite slant of the argument (but not the only or main interpretation, just one I like that I’m picking on here :P) is just Dean’s self-worth, that he wouldn’t feel like he deserves to pray any more (and this is tracked back to when he last prayed and pointing at the Mark of Cain arc in the middle). Cas’s trauma in 11x06 was clearly linked to damage going back to Dean beating him up in 10x22, and once the Mark of Cain stuff was all thankfully over, Dean also felt like complete shit about it. Cas is still suffering from an ongoing arc of the same trauma from the start of season 11; why not assume Dean is following after him still feeling like shit about that? It severs their connection they had back in, like, season 8 when things were last somewhat resembling factory settings for them, at least on the surface. The window between Cas getting grace back and Dean getting the Mark is like, 2 episodes if you push it, and we have one “I came as soon as you called” of ambiguous suggestion if Dean phoned or prayed, and after that there are literally no more opportunities.

I am feeling like with at least Cas’s side of stuff clearly back on the table now hopefully to be addressed, that at least by the end of the season Dean and Cas might work some stuff out so perhaps in the long run he’ll start again or the way they relate to each other and how Dean used to treat Cas with Faith as in literal religious faith, and now what it is instead, will get discussed… or not. But something will presumably happen pushing this in one direction or another, and I’m still thinking worse before better >.>

Honestly at the moment I’m starting to feel like if it seems weird that Dean isn’t praying to Cas, maybe it’s something we ought to be noticing and not something the show is just forgetting to do out of neglect. Though we don’t have any proof they’re not idiots, it seems really easy these days for chunks of fandom to immediately decide that they are, and that they’re writing Cas badly by making him weak and unable to deal with vampires instead of exploring why they’d show Cas doing that. Or people asking other questions like it in an accusing way instead of a curious way, because accusing doesn’t get us anywhere and doesn’t really seem to be looking for an answer… I’m working on the assumption that the show can fuck up (… Billie… or like, Lucifer’s baby. Or Buckleming still writing in general :P) but not that they’re in a constant state of fucking up, and that not everything that happens IS a fuck up…

I am still enjoying watching a lot of episodes that other people really hate so idk :P I recognise that a lot of people are too disappointed or hurt or attached to a character to do this, but back at the end of season 10 I took a huge step back and decided that I still loved the most part of this show, and went and rewatched it to find the stuff I did love, and I’ve felt annoyingly well-balanced about it ever since.

It also helps I don’t watch live, and every time something kinda weird happens I pause the show and think for as long as I need about what just happened before I continue watching instead of leaping to conclusions or to get my ducks in a row before dealing with scenes. And I have the luxury of rewinding to check dialogue, and not watching a shitty stream so I get the whole episode first time, so things that get blown out of proportion in the immediate aftermath of the episode are like 99% wanky things I don’t get involved with :P 

… And yeah I know none of this is answering your question but it is explaining why I’m answering your question like this >.> Sorry. I’m wildly over-emotionally invested in everything but for anything that isn’t a fairly objective reason to be wanky (like… Billie :P) I’d rather give the show a big old benefit of the doubt about killing reapers or Dean not praying… or even Dabb’s freakin’ car continuity :P Your tone sounded complain-y about this to me (or at least like it was bothering you) so rather than just answer with one of multiple random interpretations that explain it from a character POV that would only either smooth over 1 plothole or leave you unconvinced and still grumpy if you didn’t really like the character interpretation (and answering on that level unless you hit on a real nugget of a thought generally does not really seem that convincing on a bigger scale to make it OKAY that people were upset about this), I thought I’d get a bit meta and explain why I am not grumpy >.> Possibly still not convince anyone but the simple answer just seems so pointless when people are upset about bigger problems.

[throwingideasatthewall]

Clone wars     Lightsaber Lost

           (Season 2 Episode 11)

Oh, so it’s gonna be a   minor episode?

Neat

That’s        Cool

 Alright;       Quote:       (Haven’t     covered          one      of these          fully in a while)

   “Easy isn’t always simple,”

      True;

      Take a look         at the way         Un-accountables           Screw over             the world                And                 you                need                a              flow            chart              to            follow                .                But               it               always               comes              down                   to             screwing                  over             ��    the                    world                    for                     our                self-              destructive tendencies)

               Evil                 for                     fun-               -zies!

                Any-                 way;                     So                      we                   jump                     right                   in..                      ]

                No!

               (Never                    mi                     -nd...                      it’s                    just                      the                  recap..)

                  This        doesn’t have to be a train wreck...

                  Hey                 is that Ventress?

                  [no it’s not                      I’m a bad                       noodle-]

                   [A very hopeful                        bad noodle]

               Er-   

              Is anyone going to weigh about that pink smoke about to encompass everything?          

               Just Me?

Okay?

  Also white one does have any battles episode title for the     episode where he actually lost his lightsaber?

Seriously we’ve gone from switching plot and characterization to     switching title names.

  “Arms       Dealer,”

    Okay,

   It’s not as bad     as dragging the child soldier to war

     More         Approp.  

     Kinda

Also please no more mercenaries

     please no more mercenaries

    My head still coming down from the last        nonsensical filler arc     We        Had

   With       Honda?        Was          It?

     The excessives are damn strong

And this narrative doesn’t know how to use it   accountably

  “Black       market,”

  The worst crime that can be comm-

  HAHAHA

[But to be fair this is the kind of power I’d expect the Jedi Council to give Anakin as Boomer     Bait]

  Enemies-

The national healthcare of     this fecking-

Either that or   pollution

    Could         be         both

   [Sign       that   something        is wrong]

    Of

    No         Help..

    Great damn     peacekeepers

   “Ironically”

      Also, that’s kind of the reaction I was hoping from     Ahsoka

       Kinda awkward

      And forced-

    Needs less emo

Did they drag children into   this?

[I mean      even more than    this]

 Arms      Dealer-

  That’s kind of the    reaction,        Eyes        Down,        Scan       -ning           Emot           Ion          Less           Ly             ...

      Whose           he selling them          to?

      Never mind

         [There’s that              tonal rift]

         Also who do you                think??

         It’s either the      Sep          ar        Tists

     Or that other guy we        don’t talk about

       Joint

 Not going to skulk out the place or check for any other      entrances or exits

   Also yet     leave the child Padawan      alone

   With people who will very likely be     okay with killing her

        👍

Good job

   Like if you’re going to be a.      authority       assumer    at least be a less deadly one,

 Like...

 Nope,

 Master       Windu!

  There’s was an example

 Be more     like him

 Or not

[Assuming authority     is bad]

  That’s almost the       look  !

blank faced                “yes, order,”

  Never mind

  Very     never mind!

 What does she do   to screw it up?

  Alright,      Whelp

  She’s      Possibly        Dead-

   Also are you tell me Hondo literally picked,        A bodyguard        Outside a random club         For his       party?       Weak

    (I’m talking about the           gangster in case I get his name wrong)

    The robot detective one)

    Any way...

   (Also yes she has the biggest        Indicator of          Jedi..

   (A braid)

   On the back      of her head...

    [Look I don’t care how much respect people have for the   police (over here) she would be gone by now,]

    [I’m not getting into further       details]

    Whelp,

Dude he wasn’t even     threatening you

 Also,       Oh yeah they give        the child          a gun            -   

     Like        that’s         an         adult            -             A    child    touching             a         gun           isn’t      threatening

        Their reactions are too slow due to having no energy     or initiative..

      [But this is Ahsoka        the abomination isn’t it?]

       I can’t think of one episode..

       They got the          tone right

         And didn’t put for a whole as      much more mature for her age.            *Too

        Which is           kinda of          disgusting

         And           narratively            screwy,

       Also         why           did        I just hear a      lightsaber         go off?

    [What did           she do?]

      Her master

Really?

      Aight

      ...

     Whelp

     Seriously if your adult in just assert your     ground

  [And preferably don’t make an        entertainment sector so..      Screwy,]

    My lightsaber

    Time for some    Looney Tunes       esk charades

    (Don’t put that much            focus            on it)

         Also, he just stole a cop in training’s       gun

       Also THIS IS THE ISSUE with going into slums                without any disguise

           Hey,

  You were just following him!

     Master going         to kill me..

       No..

  [Child would              Be               In             Tears            [Neg              ative               aff                   ila               tion                  +              “Com                Fort-]            [Poss-ibly]

      What       triggers          it

     Not exact     science

      But definitely              not that reaction.

         Nor.

       [my mind’s already         going blank with anger,]

       This is not how a          child would react

And I know it’s going to end up with Anakin giving the moral;             That’s it not her fault

  Or that am object isn’t worth risking her life

   Or honesty     

        But; again,

       Screaming at a baby is              all I get

         The message is            un-applicable             And             Use-      Less-

       So is the episode...

       [And it gives me that           disgusting              feeling...

Like there’s    anything to be   learned from this

  Children          Can’t           Lie         (Un-less        instructed          to)

     Please           Stop

       .

 Pro-

     Anyway we’re already pretty far into the episode          and my brain is going numb-

     So       Expect-

     A lot         Of       “Uh-huh”     s

     The      holocron    episode,        At least had the decency      to keep her in the background

   And even that felt mildly    disgusting- when it came to         that scene.

     [Damn it]

   Anyway the general gist of it;

    ‘A child has lost some thing and has to reclaim it before their abusive over involved parent to find out,’ (well it has been done slightly better not good, with slightly more realistic children, who didn’t have personalities) was dead upon arrival [Stale]

   How to make it better?

   Have it be    Obi-Wan and Anakin

    Obi-Wan already shown to be a bit of a control freak and overly scrutinizing of Anakin‘s actions

     Causing          Anakin to have such an over emotional reaction         [obi-Wan still around]

  Or      (And the story can still work with Ahsoka]

  Have Anakin show those tendencies;

   Possibly replicating Obi-Wan‘s behavior

    Or

     just being a dick

     And at some point has given us so got a ‘never lose your light saber’ order paired (possibly) with a, ‘find the thing that you lost,’

       Leading to Ahsoka emotionlessly          searching for the light saber

       The tension coming from the audience’s knowledge of what           can happen to her

     [not the character    

    That’s cheating]

      [oh and now plot stuff is happening]

       [Tumblr refresh recap             ending            [Damn it-                  Here-]

       [Additional            details            missing]

          Any way...

         [Light saber-]

       Uhm,  

       That’s             nice

           So anyway

That   doesn’t    mean     she    can’t     cry

   That        does     happen

    But it        has to be done        correctly

 And        Precise           ly

       [Oh stuff,            The door got kicked down]

    The Face must remain       taunt

     Emotion-less

     Still-

    The         Tears     Come          Only           From           The            Eyes          [Literally]           [  Not    metaphorically]                    No         emotion              -

      Ahsoka isn’t a person yet she’s a    combination of orders,

      22:38  minutes               Left

        In            8:07               (I’m            not          doing            the           math)

         [It’s too             long]

         [His eyes             are           weird]

    Dude is 100% lying

    He literally    just pulled out name out of       thin air

   You can     literally see the look on     dude’s face..

    Is

   Dude

   ‘His body language’ said liar

   I’m not sure       you can read that...

   But it sounded like lies..

   Any way...

   Also who said he was a      killer?

  And ‘exactly’

           STRIKE

     No I know I didn’t record my exact thoughts on           why this deserved a strike

         It is so aggressively authority

  And basically         shouts;

         Respect your Elders                                                at every possible moment

   To which I respond                No!

    Not to mention the gull.

   You know how I feel about playing happy music over terrible morals, the inclusion of child soldiers, and of         generational overstep              particularly

                It is no surprise this                  episode earned a strike

            [Also it tries to paint profiling                          And police brutality                    As a good thing,

Ack!

[brentrogers]

Podcast: Is Creativity Enhanced By Mental Illness?

 

Are people with mental illness more creative? Jackie believes there may be a link between the two, while Gabe thinks it’s just a bunch of hoopla. Get ready — they’ve both done their research and are ready to back their claims. Tune in to hear a lively (and friendly) debate on whether the science is valid, the difference between inspiration and creativity, as well as their own opinions and experiences on mental illness and creativity.

What’s your take? Join us on this Not Crazy podcast to see whose side you’re on, or if you’re somewhere in the middle.

(Transcript Available Below)

SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW

About The Not Crazy Podcast Hosts

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations, available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from Gabe Howard. To learn more, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

        Jackie Zimmerman has been in the patient advocacy game for over a decade and has established herself as an authority on chronic illness, patient-centric healthcare, and patient community building. She lives with multiple sclerosis, ulcerative colitis, and depression.

You can find her online at JackieZimmerman.co, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

    Computer Generated Transcript for “Mental Illness-Creativity” Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Announcer: You’re listening to Not Crazy, a Psych Central podcast. And here are your hosts, Jackie Zimmerman and Gabe Howard.

Gabe: Hey, everyone, welcome to the Not Crazy podcast. Jackie, how are you?

Jackie: Oh, I’m doing awesome. How are you, Gabe?

Gabe: I am fantastic. Today we are going to. I don’t know if we want to use debate, argue, discuss creativity and genius when it comes to mental illness.

Jackie: This is a topic that I candidly have not thought a ton about. But when I started researching it, I found some really interesting stuff and I don’t know if it actually supports the concept that creativity and mental illness go hand-in-hand or if it just sort of says like. Not really, but congrats on being creative.

Gabe: I live in the bipolar space, so I have I have severe and persistent mental illness. And, you know, I’m not playing the suffering Olympics with you, but you just have depression. You know, like I’m considered mental illness. You’re considered mental health. I don’t know who comes up with these categories, but in the severe and persistent mental illness space, this idea that, hey, yeah, you’re really, really sick you have a 15 percent suicide rate. You’ve sat in the corner and prayed for your death. But, hey, you’re probably a creative genius. Really gets discussed a lot.

Jackie: It does, and in what I read, to your point of like, I’m kind of like just depressed and anxious and you’re super bipolar. What I’ve read is that in terms of the conversation of creativity and mental illness, slash mental health, people who are living with bipolar seem to be on the top of this conversation. You are the top of the list where if we’re looking for a correlation between mental illness and creativity, it appears that those who are living with bipolar really win because they’re the super creative ones.

Gabe: This is where I wish our show was kind of like a morning zoo show and we had sound effects so that I could just slam a button that was like AAAYNNGHH. The best thing I can say is it’s just bullshit. It’s bullshit in every imaginable way. But I can never convince people of this. And one of the reasons that I can’t convince people of this is full disclosure. There’s a ton of studies that say that I’m wrong. There just are. There are a ton of studies that say that I’m wrong. People are like, Gabe, you love science. So why won’t you admit that you’re wrong?

Jackie: I don’t know that you’re wrong because, I didn’t read the studies, I read the abstract of the studies. Let’s be real here. Who’s got time to read studies? But the studies that I’m reading, aka abstracts that I’m reading are saying not so much that having a mental illness makes you more creative. I don’t think that that’s what they’re saying. And I don’t necessarily agree with that either. What the studies are saying is that the people who live with bipolar and schizophrenia and depression and anxiety seem to be drawn to creative careers more frequently. So there’s this one from 2013. It was published by the Journal of Psychiatric Research. And it said that people who make their living either through scientific or creative occupations were more likely to have bipolar or a relative with the condition. When I see that, I don’t see them going, hey, oh, you’re bipolar. Check once you get that diagnosis, now you’re super fucking creative. No, they’re just saying, like you probably have a draw to writing or art or something of the like. And more people living with mental illness tend to go that route.

Gabe: One, I have no idea. But here is why I have no idea this is all based on self-reporting. So it is really just obnoxious. It is absolutely, unequivocally obnoxious to think that defense attorneys can’t have bipolar disorder.

Jackie: No, I don’t think that’s what these are saying though, they’re not saying people who live with mental illness cannot do anything other than be wildly creative.

Gabe: I agree that they’re not saying that, but what they are saying is that people with bipolar disorder are drawn to creative fields. But the way that they know that is they interviewed all the people in creative fields and they said, Hey, do you have bipolar disorder? And in the creative fields, in the liberal fields, people felt more empowered to say yes. Then they went over to things like doctor, lawyer, or fighter jet pilot. And they asked all of them if they had bipolar disorder. And all of them said no because they can’t self-disclose. These are more conservative fields where people will not tolerate their mental illness. They could lose their jobs, their careers, their income, their money, their health insurance. So, frankly, they all lied. They just all straight up lied.

Jackie: Ok, well, what about this, another study and I don’t know the year of it because I didn’t write it down, so feel free to Google this shit. Was it a screened 700,000 Swedish teenagers for intelligence and they found it that those who were exceptionally creative were also four times more likely to have bipolar. And so my question for you with this study is this isn’t self-reported necessarily. And they were screening for intelligence, which to me I’m going to assume probably incorrectly that it’s some kind of like assessment test, especially if they’re teenagers. Right? Maybe like math, science. The whole jazz doesn’t say

Gabe: Math, science, history

Jackie: What kind of test it was.

Gabe: Started the big bang.

Jackie: I have no idea what that was.

Gabe: Aww, anyway, continue.

Jackie: Did you just show your age?

Gabe: No, that show just went off the air, literally.

Jackie: Well, what’s it?

Gabe: It was The Big Bang Theory.

Jackie: Oh, that show sucks, anyway.

Gabe: That

Jackie: So.

Gabe: That is horrible, but I’d like to point out that was also not an accurate representation of physicists. But people think that it is just like they think that a lot of these studies are accurate representations of what it’s like to live with bipolar disorder. I’m not trying to shit on your study. I’m really not. And I’m not trying to I’m not trying to shit on people who are creative, but to give the credit to your creativity to something awful. Why? Bipolar disorder is just shitty. Mental illness is just shitty. There’s not like this back end thing. You’re creative because you’re creative. You’re awesome because you’re awesome. Could you imagine if somebody said this: people with cancer are much more likely to be excellent engineers. What? What? Why? That doesn’t make any sense. That is nonsense. People with cancer are much more likely to have cancer.

Jackie: Well, I can see how if you’re attributing the creativity to the mental illness, that sucks, right? That doesn’t feel good. However, I don’t think that anybody is saying their creativity is exclusively because of their mental illness. Maybe it’s increased. Maybe it’s more vivid or more vibrant or, you know, you can tap into it better. I have a fine arts degree. I am not creative at all, like at all.

Gabe: You’re literally a graphic artist, right

Jackie: I am, but

Gabe: I mean, that, that’s awesome. That’s you’re an uncreative graphic artist.

Jackie: Well, what I’ve always said is I I’m really good at practical design, layouts, typography. I’m really good at seeing something for needing it to make sense and to relay information. In my classes, they were like, make whatever you want. Make it super fun. I really struggled. I would not a creative person. I struggle to tap into my creativity. If there was a way to turn that button on, I would gladly do it.

Gabe: What you were talking about was inspiration, not creativity. Yeah, I think creativity exists in a completely separate part of the brain now going through bipolar disorder, going through schizophrenia, going through major depression or I don’t know, going through any tragedy, just a trauma or an earthquake or the death of a loved one, that can inspire you. There are people who have written incredible books based on something very traumatic that happened to them and that did inspire the book. But their creativity existed beforehand and then they got inspiration from the negative event. So do people with bipolar disorder have a greater source of information? Can they write about things that are more interesting to the general public? I agree completely. But did bipolar disorder create their creativity? No, they were just creative. If they did not have bipolar disorder or any other mental illness, they would be just as creative. They just wouldn’t have that thing to inspire them.

Jackie: I don’t know if I agree with your assumption that people who are creative just have it and then they get inspired to use it. I’m inspired all the time. I don’t have the follow-through in terms of the creativity. And I’m a writer. I write things. People pay me to write things. I don’t think that that’s creativity. I think they go write about this. So I don’t know that I necessarily agree that like everybody or even just creatives in general are just waiting for that thing to turn them on to write about. But I don’t know. Again, I don’t live with these conditions. But my assumption, again, based on science, based on what we know, the amount of ideas that flood your mind or maybe like having delusions like those things could cause creativity. Right.

Gabe: I think they could inspire you to write about the things that you experienced when you were delusional. Your base premise and creativity, I think that’s yours. And one of the things that you said that was very interesting there is that you are a writer and you are creative, but you don’t sit down to write. You haven’t gotten it done. That has nothing to do with inspiration or creativity. That has to do with organization and time management. And I think in general, people with severe and persistent mental illness are very disorganized. And you’ve described before your anxiety, your anxiety is so high that rather than write something or create something or do the dishes, you’re in a corner trying to eliminate your anxiety. So I do understand that we’re kind of in a semantic argument. But here’s the problem that I have, Jackie, like, very sincerely. I just don’t like it when people are good at something. In fact, people are great at something. People are amazing and awesome and they just don’t take the credit for it.

Jackie: Are they not taking the credit? Or is it the people having these conversations are not allowing them to take the credit?

Gabe: I don’t really care who’s doing it. If you are an amazing writer. That’s because you are an amazing writer. It’s not because bipolar, schizophrenia, major depression, anxiety helped you become an amazing writer. I just think that’s bullshit. These illnesses are literally trying to kill us. I just have a problem with something that is trying to kill me and cost me marriages and friendships and connections, also shows up at the awards ceremony because I did something creative. It’s a bit like having a parent who beats you that then takes credit for your college degree. It’s like you beat him. You’re an abusive parent. Go away. He got a college degree in spite of you, not because of you.

Jackie: I agree with you if they’re saying the only reason why you’re good at art is because you’re bipolar, that sucks. It took all these things away from you. You’ve had to fight all the stuff, blah, blah, blah. But everything you just said. But what if you’re also a phenomenal painter and you say the silver lining to being bipolar and having all this shitty stuff is that it’s enabled me to be an amazing painter.

Gabe: First off, how people choose to live their own lives and manage their own experiences. That really is up to them. I do believe very strongly that people have their own right to tell their own story in the way that makes the most sense to them. That said, I think they’re wrong. I think they’re wrong on it, like in an opinion level, in the same way that I think that you’re wrong for liking pineapple on pizza.

Jackie: I do not like pineapple on pizza. For the record.

Gabe: But if you did, I would not tell you that you were wrong. Because

Jackie: Oh, you are wrong. I’m sorry. You’re wrong. If you like pineapple on pizza, you’re wrong.

Gabe: You understand what I’m saying, right? Like, I’m not trying to make it illegal to put pineapple on pizza. Unlike my co-host, Jackie apparently has very strong feelings about pineapple on pizza, which I do share. I’m just trying to make a point. But I think about like things that have inspired me. One of the best episodes of a podcast I ever did had to do with my father in law’s death and grief and how this rippled through me and my family. It was a powerful episode. It was a popular episode. I still to this day get a lot of pats on the back for being willing to so openly talk about death. This does not make death good. It just doesn’t. A bad thing inspired me. It is true. But I’m not going to give my father in law’s death credits for all of that success that came from me and how I chose to process it. It doesn’t retroactively make that death a good thing. We should all not go around killing our loved ones so that we can be inspired to do the grief podcast or write the grief blog or give the grief eulogy. I just I think this may be something positive that comes out of a negative. But make no mistake, you made the positive.

Jackie: Ok. But I’m not even so sure this is an argument of semantics anymore. I think this is an argument of perspective and I’m going to use a controversial example, which is religion. Oh, here we go. The reasoning is, so when you’re very, very sick, if you are somebody who believes in God or a higher being or whatever it’s called, I am not that person, obviously, because I don’t know what it’s called. But let’s say you’re a believer in God and you say it’s OK. Right? This is all in God’s hands. I’m gonna pray, he’s going to handle it. I’m gonna be all right. This is his plan. And I am going to live my life how he wants me to, because that’s how this goes. And you’re me who does not have that same faith and looks at the situation you’re in. We’re obviously talking about something bad happening. And I almost wish I had that faith, because then I would have the reassurance. It’s gonna get better. I would have the reassurance that somebody is looking out for me. I have often said I thought it would be easier to be a person of faith when I was really sick because then I could kind of like wash my hands of it and be like, it’s cool. Somebody else is driving this train. To me, that’s perspective.

Gabe: We’ll be back in a minute after these messages.

Jackie: And we’re back talking about creativity in mental illness.

Gabe: I am often offered supplements and coaching programs and CBD oil all to treat my bipolar disorder. Now I know many people who have well, frankly, fallen for this scam. They have ignored their psychiatrist advice. They no longer go to therapy. They are no longer taking any formal or researched or scientifically proven medications. And instead they treat their bipolar disorder 100 percent through this coaching program or website or whatever. And they are so happy. They are just so happy. I mean, they’re like, oh, my God, I got off the medicine. I’m doing an all natural cleanse. And for a while they’re living great. But I worry so desperately about them because. Yeah, for a while they’re doing great. I’m not denying that they’re not doing great. They may do great for three months, six months, a year, a year and a half. But in the case of bipolar disorder, it’s cyclical. It’s cyclical. Sometimes you will be manic. Sometimes you will be depressed. Sometimes you will be somewhere else on the spectrum. And maybe for that year, they’re right in the middle and everything’s fine. But because they’re not controlling the symptoms, they will hit up mania or fall down to depression. It’s just a matter of time. It’s just a waiting game. But for that year, their perspective and their reality is that they’re doing fantastic and they’re doing better than everybody else that’s relying on big pharma or these unnatural poisons you put in your body. I understand that they’re happy now, but I want them to be happy forever. I want to be happy forever. So I don’t know. You’re right. It is controversial. I don’t want to fall down a rabbit hole of defending or bashing religion. But just because something gives you comfort doesn’t mean that it’s right.

Jackie: No, but again, like I think your example of taking medication is a little bit different here, because I think anybody who is sick in any way, shape or form all of us. I think it’s human nature to want to find meaning in it, you know. And I think that the meaning could be because of your religion. It could be because of your art. It could be because of the career you have. You want to correlate a meaning to it because otherwise it’s just shit for the sake of shit. Otherwise, everything just sucks for no reason. And most of us cannot handle that mentally, we can’t process that, of why this shit is happening for no other reason. And maybe people do say I am super creative and it’s because of my bipolar disorder. I can’t tell that person that they’re wrong if they’re seeing the meaning in that, and that’s how they get through their day and their life and they continue to be happy and healthy and productive people. How can you tell them their wrong?

Gabe: I think that truth matters. And I think that facts matter.

Jackie: It is their truth and the facts support it.

Gabe: I disagree with the findings because of the self-reporting nature, which I understand is such a slippery slope, because there’s people out there that say, Gabe, how do you know you have bipolar disorder? Because there is no definitive test. It’s all self-reporting. And so I hear what you’re saying. And you’re right. You’re right. I know people who are just incredibly happy and they firmly believe that the earth is flat. But I just I feel so bad for them. I do. The earth is not flat. It is not flat. It’s not flat. It’s not flat. It’s not flat.

Jackie: But we know that because of the facts that support that.

Gabe: But I think these facts are suspect. You’re right. I can’t say that they’re wrong, but I do think that they’re suspect. My fear is, is that somebody who’s newly diagnosed with bipolar disorder or depression or just any sort of serious mental illness will think that they need to find a creative endeavor, because that’s where they’re most likely to excel statistically. But I know all kinds of people with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and major depression who are engineers and lawyers and doctors and they don’t have a creative bone in their body. And I also worry about pigeonholing. And what I mean by that is I do not consider myself to be creative at all. I have not a creative bone in my body. Jackie, you can back this up. I tried to design a logo for something and you were like these colors. Remember what you said to me?

Jackie: No.

Gabe: I just, it was very harsh, but it was ugly. What I created was ugly. And I say to people, look, I have bipolar disorder and I’m not creative at all. And they say, yes, you are. You have a podcast. Well, well, OK. Yes, you are. You’re funny. OK, well, but isn’t everybody funny sometimes?

Jackie: No.

Gabe: Isn’t everybody creative in some way?

Jackie: No.

Gabe: I mean, I think we’re just always looking for that link. So no matter what, we find a way to make somebody with mental illness into a person who is also creative.

Jackie: I disagree because in the research and also in the world generally, the term creative is somebody who is a writer. They are a painter. They are a fine artist. They do some kind of categorically artistic thing. It’s not so much like how do you approach your day? Is it creatively? We’re talking literally about the fine arts. And that’s as a career choice. I still maintain that the data just says people with mental illness tend to lean more towards that way. At no point does it say if you’re bipolar, you should be creative, and if you’re not, you’re doing it wrong. And I don’t think that it implies that everybody should be creative, whether you have a mental illness or not. It’s simply stating a lot of people tend to go that route. It’s not saying you can’t do anything else or you won’t be good at anything else.

Gabe: That’s the message that I just want to make sure gets out there. I know what the data says and I do appreciate data. There’s just a part of me that just worries so much. And this is my question to you, Jackie. Now, honestly, how do you feel about somebody who gives the credit for their creativity or their intelligence or their genius to an illness that is trying to kill them and that has caused them suffering? How do you feel about somebody giving a positive quality to such a negative thing?

Jackie: I would say that scientifically we know that the placebo effect is real. And if that person in this instance is using something like their illness as their placebo, as the catalyst as the result, it’s real for them. And if they feel more creative because of their mental illness, then that’s why they are more creative. It’s all how what you believe in the human mind is annoyingly powerful. And again, in this situation, if the placebo is their illness. Right? And they are like, I’m so creative. Before I was diagnosed, I was not creative at all. And now I’m a genius painter, then that’s true for them.

Gabe: Jackie, I completely agree that perception becomes reality. And if your reality is positive and good, then who the hell am I to mess with it? I do sincerely believe that. I just want everybody living with a mental health issue, serious and persistent mental illness to live their best life. And however you arrange that in your mind. I couldn’t be more behind.

Jackie: Yeah, I think that we can both get on the same page for that one.

Gabe: Amen. Listen up, everybody, creatives, non creatives, agree with Jackie, agree with Gabe. No matter what, we all need to be on the same page when it comes to subscribing to our podcast. Please leave us as many stars as you feel comfortable with and use your words and write us a review. Share us on social media. Email us to a friend. Tell everybody about us. And here’s a little trick. If you email show@PsychCentral.com, we will send you Not Crazy stickers if you PayPal us a dollar. It’s the best deal going. That’s Not Crazy stickers for a dollar at show@PsychCentral.com. Email us for instructions. Please stay tuned after the credits for an outtake because it turns out Gabe and Jackie have more to say.

Jackie: We will see you next Monday.

Podcast: Is Creativity Enhanced By Mental Illness? syndicated from

[waynonna]

I'm not sure but I think I might have BPD, until I can talk to my doctor about it do you have any advice on how I might have a clearer understanding whether or not I do have it, like smaller symptoms, tells, etc. Thank you

hey anon! this is quite a lot, but i hope it helps

ok so, i know some people say “oh, just google” but tbh i dont trust google for this because

1. most stuff you’ll find are related to “how to deal with a borderline relative/partner/friend” and not enough about how to make the people with bpd feel better and

2. most articles and stuff talk about the major symptoms, but not everybody experiences the same thing, and some people have a milder disorder than others. as for the smaller symptoms, it’s harder to find stuff on

tbh when i started looking up bpd (in august last year) before talking about it with my doctor, i was really frustrated, cuz not only did those make me feel bad and abusive, but they didn’t give me information.

what helped me a lot was really trying to pay attention to my emotions, my mood changes. because a lot of doctors get bpd mixed up with bipolar disorder, it’s good for us to evaluate this too. one thing that i was told that’s different between both is that in bipolar disorder the mood changes can last for days, while in bpd they’re usually (but not always) in small intervals. sometimes it even lasts for a few minutes. 

one thing that might really help not only with anger/sadness/etc relief, but also with understanding those symptoms is writing a journal. doesn’t even need to be anything extensive, just something small about what youre feeling will help. and then when you gather all of that, you can analyse it.

now, as i said bpd is often different for different people. what i’m mentioning is mostly my own experience and what signs helped me realize i have bpd and talk to my doctor about it:

- an intense fear of being abandoned. i have a really big history of going into really deep depression after a breakup, being it romantic or not. any thought of being alone completely breaks me. which brings me to the jealousy. in my case, it isnt really a vengeful kind of jealousy, but more sad and angry, because that person who i idolize “is leaving me” or at least that’s what it looks like to me. that reminds me of when i was 16, and idolized my math teacher. she was helping me through my depression and ocd, and was amazing. then every single time i would see her talking to another student i would get really upset, have panic attacks, cry, and just want to interfere and stop it. i didnt know why, but somehow i had to be the only one she liked. once a friend of mine was talking to her about me and i had a major episode, because i Had to know if she was talking shit about me i just Had To.

- i tend to abandon everyone else, unconsciously, whenever i idolize someone. usually everything i do or want to do is related to that person. but then out of nowhere they make me hate them for a day or so, and then i love them again.

- impulsive behavior is a really big sign too. in my case, it was never anything like spending too much money, eating too much, having lots of sex, etc. mine were always unnoticed by me, actually, until i started thinking about it. since i was a kid, i always started a sport, dance, any class, and would drop after a month or so. ive tried literally everything the school had to offer, and every time it would get less exciting or id get sad, id drop it. when i was 10, i was attending an english language course, and we had an exam after just a week of classes. within a minute of the start of the exam, i started crying and asking to leave. the coordinator came and talked to me, telling me it would be ok to do it, but i didnt care. so i cried so much they had to call my mom. and i dropped it. now, in 2015, i started an architecture program at uni. it was fine at first, but then i had a major breakdown due to a person, and i decided to drop everything. so no more architecture. then i tried engineering. 1 month, something happened, i had a suicide attempt, ended up at the hospital, dropped the program. so pay attention to these behaviors, even if they seem normal to you. mine seemed like it because i justified it saying that i was just looking for “my calling”, but nothing would ever be that calling, because i wouldnt let it.

- overwhelming emotions, everything being exaggerated. always black or white, never gray. it you love it, you idolize it. if you dislike it, you hate it with everything in you. not only with people and things, but also ideas. and you cant understand neutrality. when someone is neutral with you, even if not being negative, it is like an insult anyway, and you lose it. and these are emotions that are terribly hard to control. you want to control them, but you cant. you try, but it’s never enough. and no one understands why youre freaking out over something as simple as dropping your ice cream, or getting your hair wet. small things like these have an enormous effect on people with bpd. and people always say “youre overreacting!” but honestly, not really. we feel that way. it may not be a big deal to them, but to us it feels like a stake to the heart.

- but also feelings of numbness. it took me a long time to realize i have this, because i honestly thought it was normal, everybody had it. and for a while related it to being sad (maybe theres 2 types of sad, feeling too more and not at all?). i usually describe it as feeling like im in a movie, like i know people and things are there and i can see and touch them, but i cant feel them. like im putting my hands in ice cold water, and i know its cold but i cant feel the cold. like i know the world exists but does it really? most of the time, when im not dissociating, i dont even remember what it feels like, because it feels like nothing.

- trouble expressing feelings and thoughts. idk if many people have this, but i have it quite often. somehow i cant put to words what is really going on with me and even when i do, people dont usually understand it.

- indecisiveness. seriously, i cant even decide what underwear to wear. i say i cant, because it’s not like i don’t want to, it just takes the whole of me to make a decision. whether it is a big one (lately ive been struggling with deciding where to go for my exchange program) or a small one (what to eat for dinner), it’s always a huge fight in my head, and most times it expresses itself in terrible ways. every time im faced with a choice, i end up crying, panicking, and most times decide to give up and not choose anything at all. sometimes i cant even choose to give up, i just lay there crying and screaming and hating everything. it’s a nightmare.

- a lot of anger when things dont go as expected, or when feeling abandoned, as well as extreme fear, and not being able to trust easily. but a lot of times being very kind too.

im trying to think of something else but dont really remember rn. these are the most important symptoms for me though, and what made me realize i have it. but really, if possible, write a journal, write things you feel, bad or good, anything can be useful.

you can also learn more about it and/or find some good helpful stuff here, here, here, here, here, here and here

[it-smyfault]

Get to know me.

1. What is your full name? Millie Grace Clements.

2. What is your nickname? Mill.

3. What is your zodiac sign? Taurus. 

4. What is your favorite book series? Don’t have one.

5. Do you believe in aliens or ghosts? Due to the fact that their are trillions of undiscovered planets, that will likely remain undiscovered, there is bound to be at least one planet that sustains some kind of life. Ghosts however, I used to believe in as a kid as a result to the stories my mother would tell me, but now not so much. 

6. Who is your favorite author? I don’t have one.

7. What is your favorite radio station? 101.9, 101.1, 100.3, 105.1 and 107.5 as of Victoria, Australia.

8. What is your favorite flavor of anything? I don’t understand this question.

9. What word would you use often to describe something great or wonderful? Amazing, beautiful, gorgeous, lovely, Lauren.

10. What is your current favorite song? I don’t have one.

11. What is your favorite word? Flabbergasted.

12. What was the last song you listened to? I don’t remember.

13. What TV show would you recommend for everybody to watch? Gilmore girls.

14. What is your favorite movie to watch when you’re feeling down? Gilmore girls.

15. Do you play video games? Used to, but don’t time time to anymore.

16. What is your biggest fear? Losing those that are close to me.

17. What is your best quality, in your opinion? Umm, ability to do self-analysis?

18. What is your worst quality, in your opinion? Just about everything else :’)

19. Do you like cats or dogs better? Dogs.

20. What is your favorite season? Spring.

21. Are you in a relationship? Happily so.

22. What is something you miss from your childhood? My best friend and my dog.

23. Who is your best friend? Lauren.

24. What is your eye color? Green.

25. What is your hair color? Blonde.

26. Who is someone you love? Lauren.

27. Who is someone you trust? I trust my mother the most.

28. Who is someone you think about often? Lauren, of course!

29. Are you currently excited about/for something? Seeing Lauren in about 12 hours time.

30. What is your biggest obsession? Lauren and my animals.

31. What was your favorite TV show as a child? Pooh Bear.

32. Who of the opposite gender can you tell anything to, if anyone? None.

33. Are you superstitious? Nah.

34. Do you have any unusual phobias? Escalators.

35. Do you prefer to be in front of the camera or behind it? Behind it.

36. What is your favorite hobby? Horse riding.

37. What was the last book you read? You Before Me.

38. What was the last movie you watched? Pretty Little Liars

39. What musical instruments do you play, if any? Used to play guitar, have a beautiful 1962 hot rod, fender stratocaster but it doesn’t get any love anymore as I lost interest during my depression and now it collects dust. Which now that I think of it, I may have to sell if my money problems get worse..

40. What is your favorite animal? I love horses and dogs equally.

41. What are your top 5 favorite Tumblr blogs that you follow? shitindiekid is my main.

42. What superpower do you wish you had? Ability to control the feelings of others.

43. When and where do you feel most at peace? Wrapped in Lauren’s little arms.

44. What makes you smile? Lauren’s laugh, ‘he he he *snort*’, adorable.

45. What sports do you play, if any? Dressage, but not competitively. 

46. What is your favorite drink? Raspberry lemonaid.

47. When was the last time you wrote a hand-written letter or note to somebody? A long time ago..

48. Are you afraid of heights? No.

49. What is your biggest pet peeve? Snobby people.

50. Have you ever been to a concert? Yeah a handful.

51. Are you vegan/vegetarian? I wish, but nah

52. When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up? Even as a little kid I had no idea, but I knew I wanted to work with animals.

53. What fictional world would you like to live in? A happy one with Lauren and my animals

54. What is something you worry about? Money, Lauren

55. Are you scared of the dark? No

56. Do you like to sing? Not really, it makes me yawn (literally) and my eyes always water up for no reason. It’s irritating so I don’t sing often.

57. Have you ever skipped school? A few times, but rarely did I ever.

58. What is your favorite place on the planet? In Lauren’s arms, as said before.

59. Where would you like to live? On at least 10 acres but in a nice big, pretty house somewhat near the city.

60. Do you have any pets? Yes, a dog named Ruby and a horse named Jack.

61. Are you more of an early bird or a night owl? Neither

62. Do you like sunrises or sunsets better? Sunsets, not as tired then.

63. Do you know how to drive? Yeah.

64. Do you prefer earbuds or headphones? Depends on the situation. 

65. Have you ever had braces? Nah, dentist wouldn’t let me have them.

66. What is your favorite genre of music? Changes with my mood.

67. Who is your hero? My mum.

68. Do you read comic books? Nah.

69. What makes you the most angry? Betrayal.

70. Do you prefer to read on an electronic device or with a real book? Depends on the lighting in the outside world. 

71. What is your favorite subject in school? Psychology and English.

72. Do you have any siblings? A half brother, two step sisters, and one adopted sister.

73. What was the last thing you bought? Medication for my dog.

74. How tall are you? 5 “7

75. Can you cook? Sorta.

76. What are three things that you love? Ruby, Jack and Lauren.

77. What are three things that you hate? Losing money, disrespect, lack of loyalty. 

78. Do you have more female friends or more male friends? More female friends.

79. What is your sexual orientation? laurensexual

80. Where do you currently live? Between my mum’s, dad’s and girlfriend’s house. It’s getting a little stressful, but I deal.

81. Who was the last person you texted? Lauren.

82. When was the last time you cried? Like 5 minutes ago :’) I cry a lot

83. Who is your favorite YouTuber? I dunno

84. Do you like to take selfies? Hate it 

85. What is your favorite app? Calculator, always there for me when I need to work out simple maths that I should already know so people don’t think I’m stupid.

86. What is your relationship with your parent(s) like? Good

87. What is your favorite foreign accent? New Zealand maybe I dunno

88. What is a place that you’ve never been to, but you want to visit? Don’t know, I’m not much of a travel bug so don’t think about that stuff much.

89. What is your favorite number? 7

90. Can you juggle? Used to, not sure if I still can.

91. Are you religious? I’m atheist 

92. Do you find outer space of the deep ocean to be more interesting? Probably ocean, it’s so wild how we live on the same planet as thousands of deep sea critters that we are yet to discover.. who knows, maybe mermaids are real? 

93. Do you consider yourself to be a daredevil? No, but it really upsets me that people call me ‘conservative’, because I’m not traditional or a believer in traditional values as such and I feel people use that word for me in a degrading way without really knowing the actual meaning. I am not entirely inflexible, and lacking in rebellion but I don’t like to make decisions that will affect me negatively in the long term. I am willing to do ‘scary’ things, I just don’t have the desire to do so and therefore will not waste energy doing these things. 

94. Are you allergic to anything? Local anesthetic gives me pretty bruising but that’s all I think. 

95. Can you curl your tongue? Yeah.

96. Can you wiggle your ears? Yeah.

97. How often do you admit that you were wrong about something? Rarely, I don’t usually say stuff without fully believing in my own words.

98. Do you prefer the forest or the beach? Forest.

99. What is your favorite piece of advice that anyone has ever given you? Don’t give up on something you once loved just because you’re going through a tough time, you’ll regret it later. 

100. Are you a good liar? I can be, usually not so much though.

101. What is your Hogwarts House? I have no idea what this means.

102. Do you talk to yourself? Yeah, I always talk to myself in the car or when out doing paddock maintenance. Or rather I talk to people in my mind, such as Lauren or mum or mark or josh, and I say what I really wish I was able to say to them in response to certain situations. 

103. Are you an introvert or an extrovert? Introvert.

104. Do you keep a journal/diary? Yes.

105. Do you believe in second chances? Depends.

106. If you found a wallet full of money on the ground, what would you do? Send it to the address provided on the I.D.

107. Do you believe that people are capable of change? Over long periods of time, yes. 

108. Are you ticklish? Yes.

109. Have you ever been on a plane? Plenty of times. 

110. Do you have any piercings? None.

111. What fictional character do you wish was real? I dunno.

112. Do you have any tattoos? Nah

113. What is the best decision that you’ve made in your life so far? Saying yes to being Lauren’s girlfriend.  

114. Do you believe in karma? I wish.

115. Do you wear glasses or contacts? I’m supposed to. 

116. Do you want children? Not really

117. Who is the smartest person you know? My mother

118. What is your most embarrassing memory? I don’t wish to say

119. Have you ever pulled an all-nighter? Yeah, as a kid

120. What color are most of you clothes? Black

121. Do you like adventures? I can do

122. Have you ever been on TV? I don’t think so, I’ve been in the newspaper a few times tho 

123. How old are you? 18

124. What is your favorite quote? “never take life too seriously, because everyone ends up dead anyway.”

125. Do you prefer sweet or savory foods? sweet.