#i might say something totally different

[jankwritten]

a lot of what you said overlaps with several common issues, including adhd. being that adhd is also heritable, consider that as well. however, do try to get a diagnosis. I stress this because, while self diagnosis is understandable especially given the price and coverage in my circumstances, the exponential increase in self-diagnosis has skewed the perception of asd for many, including practitioners. again, this is not to slight anyone, but i know firsthand of this growing issue. it is already bad enough that the dsm lumped aspergers with asd, because much nuance was been lost (this is seen in several contexts). blurring the lines even more has begun to seriously affect those now labeled asd "level 1". But if you can't, then I hope you find resources that help you whether or not they relate to ASD. If it helps you it helps you.

i'm not entirely sure what this is in reference to specifically, but I do already have appointments in place to get testing done, and it's also been heavily hinted to me by my therapist that i have a neurodivergency along the ADHD/ASD lines. Which isn't a shock to me - the reason I've sort of self diagnosed myself with ADHD and ASD is because it's VERY prevalent in both sides of my family, and as my family on either side learns more about their diagnoses, I realize how much of those same problems/characteristics I also have.

I don't think self diagnosis is particularly harmful, UNLESS people are using it to discredit actually diagnosed ASD/ADHD people. And I don't really call myself autistic or even ADHD, because I'm wary of it - I don't have confirmation, so I can't outright claim that I have either of those labels. I don't want to mislead anyone. I highly SUSPECT i have either one or the other or both, but I don't claim to know it for sure.

I again stress - I dont think self diagnosis is harmful unless self diagnosed people are talking over people who have a professional-certified diagnosis. I think that people who have done copious amounts of research (and I mean years worth, more than just a couple quizzes some tik tok videos and reading web MD articles yknow) and put lots and lots of thought into their own mind and body and have come to the conclusion that they are likely neurodivergent in a certain way should be allowed to say they believe they have such a thing. However, I don't agree with people who self diagnose and then confidently claim they HAVE the thing without getting it actually diagnosed. You can do that if you want to, of course, I'm not saying not to, but I do think that's misleading and can potentially be harmful.

(Also - I have next to no right to talk about any of this, since I'm not diagnosed nor am I a doctor. My opinion on this is as a person who strongly suspects they have certain disorders but those suspicions are so far not diagnosed by a professional. For all I know, my anxiety could just be so fucking bad it causes all of the other symptoms, maybe even the rejection sensitive dysphoria. Who knows. Not me.)

[cozylittleartblog]

GRAAAHHH SORRY THIS IS SUDDEN BUT OH MY GOD I FINALLY FOUND YOU. IM THE BENREY THAT RAN UP TO YOUR BOOTH AR AMW THIS YEAR AND MY FRIEND BOUGHT ME LIKE ALMOST ALL YOUR VALVE STUFF, I LITERALLY CRIED WHEN I GOT BACK TO THEIR ROOM CAUSE LIKE DUDE. THAT MEANT EVERYTHING FOR ME, I WAS GENUINELY SO SO SO HAPPY TO SEE THE FANDOM IS STILL ALIVE AND IVE BEEN LOOKING FOR FANS IN THE WILD FOR YEARS. THE EXPERIENCE WAS ENLIGHTENING TO SAY THE LEAST AND IM SO SO JOYOUS ABOUT IT. THANK YOU SO MUCH !1!11! :•3

:D !!!! HI!!! I REMEMBER YOU!!! THANK YOU FOR STOPPING BY, I'M SO HAPPY IT WAS MEMORABLE FOR YOU!!

people who are so enthusiastic about the things i make and the fandoms i rep at my booth are THE #1 coolest part of the experience 🥺 i feel like convention artist alleys these days are mostly filled with the same 4 popular anime/mobile games and it's really hard to find less popular anime, let alone things like video games and webseries. you would not believe how many comments I got that people never see things like Team Fortress 2 or Portal in AAs, let alone stuff like Infinity Train or HLVRAI 😭 the people who recognize them are always SO excited and then I'M excited and we are BOTH excited and nerding out together. it's fantastic!!!

the hlvrai fandom is definitely still going strong! i still see a lot of fanart and community posts and my sales on my few hlvrai things on my etsy have Not slowed down lmao. i'm sure if covid didn't happen there would have been so many benry cosplayers in 2020. we were ROBBED </3 i've seen You and one benry cosplayer at ACEN last year and that was IT </3 </3 </3

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

wanna ask how you feel about the eridan bpd headcanon/theory(?? not sure what to call it!) you're so good at your character analysis and i'd love to see your outlook on it

Since I don't have a degree or any formal training in psychology, I feel deeply uncomfortable diagnosing characters. I've made an autism joke before but only because I'm on the spectrum. He's definitely traumatized and anxious, but I mean those as descriptors of his behavior rather than capital-D Diagnoses. I try to focus on those when I can - the cause and effect of cognition, self-image, and behavior - and those factors may very well match up with DSM criteria, but I try not to touch an actual diagnosis with a ten foot pole unless the author has explicitly stated that X character has Y condition.

[deathshallbenomore]

the magic mountain meets greek tragedy meets bluebeard & other folktales meets the secret history meets grand budapest hotel meets radetzky march & emperor’s tomb meets the haunting of hill house meets black mirror meets midsommar meets the yellow wallpaper meets primeval and other times -> olga tokarczuk’s the empusium

[theladyinwhite13]

guys i like really really love brat does everyone know this about me yet?

[seventhdoctor]

Graduation photos, episodes 161 and 167

[mantisgodsdomain]

We ought to write more Pokemon fic some time. We want to recreate the Pokemon Manners/Human Manners cheat sheet that we made a few years ago we think that this site would like the Sliding Scale Of Politeness When Greeting A New Pokemon You've Never Met Before.

[sysig]

He’s my little meow meow, my darling, my bbygirl (Patreon)

[thirsty-4-ghouls]

“You haven’t done that one quest? In all your time playing?” <- a friend or internet stranger

“That quest makes me feel bad” <- person who’s character has probably committed atrocities in one way or another (me)

[toastedsmoreo]

I gotta be less terminally online bc every time I think about jjk’s ending I get annoyed

[embyrinitalics]

I finally managed to get the time to sit down and read An Inconvenience and I have So Many Thoughts

Even though I knew it was coming, seeing Link speaking coherent Hylian was so satisfying and fun. Especially Zelda's reaction. And the way that you showed that he wasn't a perfect master at the language (as he shouldn't be considering it's only been 6 months) by dropping verbs is *french kiss*

ALSO your description of Zonai as a "strange thrumming language that reminds her of the wide, rolling stride of a water buffalo, or the pulse of a sea of stars over a swaying hammock" had me melting in my seat it's so so GOOD

AND THEN the Zonai word translations??? "arensa tsu’im" for "the goddess sings"????? It's stuff like this that makes me wish I knew a second language so badly. And Link's view on how everything is beautiful? He's so optimistic and lovely I love him

If we ever get a traditional Zonai wedding I will tear up with joy

Anyways sorry for the long post/ask/whatever, I just wanted to share my impressions with you because this chapter gave me Lots of the Good Feelings and want to let you know you have once again made me fall in love with this dynamic

AHHHHHHHHH thank you so much for this incredibly sweet and delectable BOOK of a comment, when I tell you it MADE MY DAY. It did. I can't stop smiling about it! 😆

And. Ok. Legit. I have a whole wedding in my head and I just about threw it out cuz I was like "This is so self indulgent and boring of me. Who wants to sit through an entire wedding. No one. Trash. TRASH!" But then you just WALTZ IN with "If we ever get a traditional Zonai wedding..." and I'm just 😱😱😱

So yeah that's happening 😎😆✨

Thank you again SO MUCH for this amazing note in my inbox, which I will reread forever and ever and cherish like a child 😌💖

[starvingtongue]

can you speak about dona's relationship with yevon? how devout would you say she was? how hard was it for her to let go?

Ooo okay, y'know what, I've actually been wanting to touch on this for a while. Ever since I finished watching/listening to State of the Arc's podcast of Final Fantasy X, specifically when they mentioned on how open Dona's outfit is as a summoner compared to the others (I forget what part it is, I'm sorry, but the whole podcast is worth listening to), I've been trying to formulate how best to describe her relationship with Yevon.

Because all the other Summoners we see in X wear very traditional kimono-esque outfits, that cover pretty much their entire body. From Yuna to Isaaru to Belgemine to Ginnem to Zuke to Braska, even if they're not all kimono-esque, they're still very modest compared to Dona's. Heck, even the Warrior Monks were some semblance of Kimono or modest dress. I guess it signifies their devoution to Yevon and their willingness to committ themselves to the faith, and subsequently the pilgrimage, much in the same way a lot of followers of real world religions dress modestly. Nearly all of the clergy, the priests, and the priestesses we see in ffx and ffx-2 are dressed very modestly, like from ankle to knee, some from the chin downwards, with their hair covered. I'm not sure if there might've been a teaching or some sort of scripture in Yevon that asks this of their most devout, and I don't really want to speculate on it too much, but it wouldn't surprise me.

That being said, the only summoners (as far as I know) that don't dress this modestly are Yunalesca and Dona (edited to add Seymour into the mix here as well. His one isn't as loose as Dona's or Yunalesca's, but still fairly open in comparison). Yunalesca performed the final summoning and all that before Yevon was even a thing, so I can understand why she might not have the whole kimono-esque, modesty thing going on, but Dona? Dona was raised on an island with a temple, studied at the temple to become a summoner, presumably followed the teachings and the scriptures (to an extent) up until the end of X, attended classes at the temples, and all that jazz. So what's up?

This isn't to say she isn't devout in some respects, but the Dona we see at the start of X is a lot less devout than a few years prior. However, living on an island such as Kilika, a place that the main village is built on shallow water, has a tendancy to get destroyed or damaged by Sin quite frequently. Dona, as someone who has lived on said island her entire life, has witnessed a lot of death and destruction. Despite her constantly praying at the temple, all of the classes, nearly everyone around her doing the same, Dona had a crisis of faith. Where some people might seek more comfort in their religious practice after so much death and destruction, Dona went the opposite way. All this death, all this destruction, all this pain and suffering and the threat of losing her home over and over again, culminating in the teachings, the scriptures, Yevon itself as a belief system, bringing her less and less comfort as the years went on.

She still trained as a summoner, she still wanted Sin gone, she hated seeing people suffer, losing their loved ones, losing their homes, losing everything, regardless of if they were from Kilika or not. That's why she continued her training, regardless of if her faith was placed in the religon or not. Her decision was for the people, not because of Yevon itself told her too.

All this isn't to say that she isn't devout, to an extent, to the teachings of Yevon. In her own way, she very much is, she helps with sendings, she follows the teachings, but a lot of it is very surface level. She isn't terribly swayed by the teachings, or doesn't take what the priests say to heart too much, she doesn't seem to care that chucking Tidus into the Cloister of Trails in Kilika could land her in as much trouble with Yevon as much as it would Yuna and Co. She has an underlying disinterest, maybe bordering on a lack of conviction, in the teachings by this point. She follows the teachings only because that's what's expected of her as a summoner. She shows herself praying at the temples, liasing with the priests, performing sendings where appropriate, because that's what summoners are expected to do. If anything, she does the bare minimum, that's as far as her faith goes.

She never says outright this however, Dona's not an idiot. She's heard of Braska before he went and killed Sin to become a martyr. She knows her path could easily follow Braska's if she came out and said that, as a summoner, she doesn't truly believe in the teachings much anymore, that that aspect of her being a summoner is mostly performative. She knows that if she came out and said these things and didn't defeat Sin like Braska did, she'd be shunned by the church. Dona's not an idiot, she knows when to keep her mouth shut.

And that's why her robes/kimono-esque/summoner clothing is so open compared to the other summoners we see. Because she feels a lot less tied to the religion than the other summoners. And so, I suppose, when she sees Yevon crumble, it wasn't terribly hard for her to outwardly let go. By the time Yevon crumbles, her attachment to it as a system is like sand falling through her fingers. She wasn't entirely surprised in learning that Yevon was so corrupt, but considering how performative her faith was and looking back on all the evidence, it all made sense.

All the same, it took her a few months to truly accept it, to truly process it all, as I'm sure it would for anybody else, regardless of if they were overly religious or not. The fact that she no longer had any ties to the Fayth and the Aeons didn't help matters, and possibly muddied the waters futher. Yet, despite her feelings by the start of X, Yevon and it's teachings had provided her with some level of comfort growing up. The temples and their incense, the praying at the statues, the praying to the Fayth, the calming voices of the priests and priestesses in times of strife, it all provided her with some comfort when times were hard, when Sin had swept through the village and destroyed parts, when she lost friends and family in Sin's wake.

Yevon's destruction did shake her, but it was the loss of that level of comfort that struck her more. She was able to shake off Yevon, the corrupt parts of it, the prospect of damnation if she didn't follow every little teaching to a fault, silencing any and all that disagreed with Yevon with brute force, the hypocrisy, without too much of a second though. If her faith was a lot stronger, she might've had a harder job of it, but she didn't. We see in X-2, she is very happy to barge her way through the priests and tell them to shut the fuck up, I think by that point, she's truly shaken off Yevon as a while. There wasn't much to shake off, but any devoution she had left is gone by X-2.

[hella1975]

been coming to terms with the fact that as someone 20 and lacking the grades or interest for post secs that let you dorm im never really going to have that sort of experience. which is a bit sucky yah i think that getting the in-between stage before actually moving out is likely mad useful not to mention uhh more levels of freedom and the bonus fun that is having to make friends with random people because now u live with them (that was always my favorite part of summer camp as a kid) ACTUAL POINT BEING: since i'll never get that... boy oh boy am i living vicariously through you. very much enjoy every chunk of "hella goes to uni" ur basically my newspaper so cheers !!♡♡♡

HELP YOU'RE WELCOME <3 EVERYONE ON BOARD THE TRAINWRECK <3

[meringuejellyfish]

people who believe that modern precure is “falling off” are kind of insane i think

[friedwings]

i was intrigued by the book because it said werewolf somewhere. reading the sample now and y'all should do the same. you get a whole 4 chapters to read for free. will probably continue when I finish cuz there is. a lot going on I'm trying to wrap my head around

lord of a land that hungers

thinking about @sanctus-ingenium 's said the black horse. again. read said the black horse with me

[pyrrhiccomedy]

so judging by how astonished people are by it every time we explain it to anybody, it seems like my wife and I might really be onto something here

during the pandemic, we invented something we call "astronaut time."

when it's astronaut time, it's like we are two astronauts wearing the big helmets, moving around the station on totally separate tasks. one of us is outside the space station and one of us is inside the space station. our radios do not work and we have no way of communicating with each other. we might see each other through the lil porthole windows, but we ignore each other because we both have different things to do.

"astronaut time" is how we get total privacy when we live in the same apartment. I will pretend you don't exist. You will pretend I don't exist. we have a nonverbal, zero-contact signal for when astronaut time is over (usually "I'll draw a smiley-face on the whiteboard in the kitchen when I'm done"). No talking, stay out of each other's line of sight, we are actively avoiding each other, unless you are currently experiencing a medical emergency goodbye.

it has been. a godsend. imagine living with your partner and being able to close every single tab in your brain related to social interaction. no fear of being interrupted by a "hey, quick question--" or "sorry to bother you, but do you know where the scissors are?" or "did you want something to eat, too?" Once or twice a month, we look at each other lovingly, hold hands, and say "baby I think I need some astronaut time tonight," and the other person goes "okay cool. bye! have a nice night!" and nobody's feelings are hurt and we both go and have a lovely evening completely by ourselves.

like idk it's a small thing but it's made our lives so much nicer, so if you and your partner/roommate are both people who sometimes need total privacy in order to recharge, maybe try it