#i would get rid of my ADHD first. without question

[narrator-navigator-storyteller]

can anyone on this website please acknowledge ADHD as a serious and debilitating disorder, or are we going to forever treat it as a mild disorder that just the people who aren't really mentally ill use as an excuse to invalidate the real mental illness havers.

like you guys regularly invalidate ADHD experiences, and then act like mild/moderate at most experiences are actually severe ADHD and therefore people with severe ADHD are totally represented everywhere. just because severe ADHD doesn't have clear-cut definition like level two/three autism doesn't mean you can act like having any actual struggles with ADHD is having severe ADHD.

stop treating autism as inherently more severe than ADHD, and fucking stop using pwADHD as these drama queens that aren't really mentally ill.

[in-sufficientdata]

Why the Konmari method is pretty useless for people with genuine problems with hoarding and OCD, or OCD tendencies, at least without some caveats and definitions:

Hoarding is defined by a persistent emotional attachment to inanimate objects. Clutterers and hoarders often have an unconscious need to save items, whether for an imagined future ideal use, or just because otherwise they would end up in the landfill.

People with these issues often have difficulty discerning the difference between a truly useful item and something that should be given or thrown away because of their emotional attachment to the item.

They see themselves as the best curator of the items, which may range from useful items like craft supplies, display items, sentimental items, and stuff that is truly just junk.

"Sunk costs" is a term from economics that means that a cost that has already been incurred and cannot be recovered. Although the original term refers to finances, the sunk costs of the time and effort someone has put into an item can influence their decision to keep the item.

Therefore, another factor in this attachment is the sunk costs of money, effort, and time that a person has put into an item. A person may no longer be personally attached to an item, but will keep it because they have always meant to use it or simply because it's not yet ruined.

This is also a reason those with fewer economic advantage tend to be hoarders more than those with a comfortable financial situation. Someone like this realizing they've obtained two of an item will take on the responsibility of curating both instead of getting rid of one.

Because of all these factors, the expression that was translated as "sparks joy" in the English version is too easy for a clutterer to confuse or redefine in their own mind as they work to sort through their items.

In my case, for example, I had a situation where the basement, which was full of our excess saved items, needed to be cleared so the cracked foundation could be repaired. I had to decide what to save in the limited storage space we still had, and what to throw out or donate.

If Konmari had been in vogue at the time (this was in 2004) I'm certain I would have kept far more items than I should have. This language is too easy for a clutterer to massage and redefine in their own mind based on what the item is.

First, clutterers need to be clear-eyed about the fact that they suffer from excess emotional attachment to objects. Flylady's declutter method was in vogue at the time I engaged in this declutter session, and she has a whole checklist of questions to ask oneself about an object:

Do I love this item?

Have I used it in the past year?

Is it really garbage?

Do I have another one that is better?

Should I really keep two?

Does it have sentimental value that causes me to love it?

Or does it give me guilt and make me sad when I see the item?

This may seem needlessly complex to someone who is not a hoarder or clutterer but this addresses many of the reasons that a sufferer would keep an item that they shouldn't.

Another factor is that they are perfectionists. This seems at odds with the idea that they may have a huge mess in their home, but what happens is they often can't deal with their persistent need to have a perfectly clean home that matches their vision.

Because of this they put off starting on the project until it can be done perfectly.

This is why methods like Flylady and Unfuck Your Habitat (which is really just Flylady without the cutesy rhetoric) help these people so much, because people with differences such as ADHD become clutterers because they don't know how to regulate their own time or how to organize.

The emotional attachment to their possessions is, incidentally, why decluttering on behalf of your hoarder friend is a very bad idea. The person will need to work through this process on their own, in order for it to stick.

Getting rid of these items can be intensely emotional and difficult for someone with these tendencies.

Time limits, routines, consistency, and persistence are the best tools for someone who needs to declutter. Don't try to do this all in an afternoon. Not only is it a difficult process, it should become a consistent habit.

For resources and further reading please check out Squalor Survivors (archive.org link).

[painful-pooch]

🍎 -Rate OC crankiness from 1 - 10

🥽 - Has your OC ever gotten in trouble with their military? If so how did that go?

🥞 - Oh no your OC has been captured by the enemy. How well would that go for them?

💌 - Is your OC the conventional type of solider usually seen? Or are they breaking the norms?

For Oscar!

🍎 -Rate OC crankiness from 1 - 10

Oscar looks up from his Nintendo 3DS, turning his head to stare at Lukas poking at his forehead. "Are you annoyed yet, Oscar? Come on... you have to want to like smack me or something! There is no way you are impervious to my tricks," Lukas whines, poking Oscar faster.

Oscar raises an eyebrow and focuses back at the camera, a deadpan expression on his face. "I think you have your answer there." He goes back to playing Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones and smiles when Lukas throws his hands up in frustration.

"This is bulllllllllllshittttttt! Wait, I have a better idea," Lukas chuckles, standing up and calling out, "Oh Bru Bruuuuuu! I found your secret stash of Nutella!"

Oscar sighs and sinks into the couch. "I rarely get cranky unless someone touches my chess boards or videogames without telling me."

🥽 - Has your OC ever gotten in trouble with their military? If so how did that go?

Oscar blushes at the question and he rubs his hands against his jeans to get rid of the clamminess he is feeling. "Well, I did get in trouble one time, but it wasn't because I did anything bad. It was whenever I would have to do an open ranks inspection and there would be someone right in my face and trying to tell me I wasn't properly wearing the uniform. They tried to quiz me on some basic knowledge questions about who the Commander was for my squadron athe time." He picks his eyes up to look at the camera before diverting his attention to the floor.

"They told me that I better keep my eyes on them, but instead, I told them if they were going to chew me out for small issues with my uniform, then they should uhm... look at the toothpaste on their lapel, their scuffed dress shoes, a crooked ribbon rack, and an obviously not ironed shirt. I had to do night shifts for a whole month. It was *awesome* because no one was there to annoy me."

🥞 - Oh no your OC has been captured by the enemy. How well would that go for them?

Oscar can't make it too long when captured just because the enemy would exploit every single weakness he has. He can't handle the constant shouting, the unwarrented touching, the bright lights on him for hours, and the lack of his insomnia medications. He wouldn't have access to the tools he uses to keep himself grounded like a fidget toy or a chess piece. I would give it about two weeks before he just goes purely silent. Oh yeah, that's another thing about Oscar I haven't shown yet; if he is stressed beyond his limits or he is too triggered, he goes fully silent and keeps his eyes shut. He would much rather be in a quiet and dark place than a room with his torturers.

💌 - Is your OC the conventional type of solider usually seen? Or are they breaking the norms?

Oscar wasn't like the soldiers people see in the media. I based Oscar off the people I have met in the Intelligence community and how much they differed from those who were in the Infantry or in a more Special Operations type environment. He is very quiet, shy, engrossed in his work and hyperfixations, and he isn't built for combat at all. He cried when he fired a pistol/rifle for the first time when he joined the Air Force and he broke down when Bruno tried to show him how to use weapons that were too loud.

Believe it or not, there are a lot of people in the military with undiagnosed Autism/ADHD/OCD/PTSD/ETC and Oscar is one of the characters I wanted to use to portray those attributes. They break the norms in the fact that they didn't stay in the military past one enlistment, as most media suggests that foks stay in for twenty years. Oscar is allowed to feel weak, vulnerable, and meek even after being in the military; having been a prior service military member doesn't mean someone is always brave, courageous, strong, or blood-thirsty. Oscar is one of the few characters I have that really remind me that the military is filed with all sorts of people and that's what makes military whump so fun for me.

[nerdnag]

Sure, let's go! 🥑🍬🔪🦷🐝🧩?

Yayy!! And sorry this took so long! My adhd refused to let me answer it yesterday 😬

🥑 ⇢ you accidentally killed somebody, which mutual(s) do you text for help?

@wild-moss-art without question. They always offer good advice and also they would probably most definitely know how to get rid of a body

🍬 ⇢ post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character

Waah 🙈 I normally avoid this kind of question like the plague because it makes me so uncomfortable to expose myself to Potential Discourse, but I'll give it a shot!!

Since we're both in the AA fandom... I don't know how much of an unpopular opinion this is since I have seen others mention it, but. I much prefer AA4 Phoenix to his other versions, and I'm sort of disappointed he seemed to revert back to the old Phoenix in AA5. I think AA4 Phoenix is freaking awesome. My kinda guy. (I did read a sort of fan essay recently though about how Phoenix was actually always AA4 Phoenix in some manner, and always will be, and that a lot of the difference in AA4 comes from the fact that you are barely inside his brain/POV at all, which makes him look more mysterious and random and incredibly freaking cool when we all know deep down how he's mostly just very lucky, lol. And that did convince me somewhat that it wasn't just a one-off thing, but still. I think his secretive, will-do-whatever-is-necessary, smug-ass attitude was incredibly interesting to engage with and it's sadly absent in the other games.)

🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

I'm running out of things to say to this question. XD Uhhh. Oh! I went deep into Brazilian favelas in 2016!

🦷 ⇢ share some personal wisdom or a life hack you swear on

Alright, here's some personal wisdom courtesy of Sara von Nerdnag-Nuvelle!

I try to think of being wrong as something positive. So although I was very defensive when I was younger and still sometimes struggle not to be, I've managed to reprogram myself so that I usually instinctively respond by admitting to being wrong whenever I see a chance to do so. (I still struggle to do it in emotional situations though, it's easier when it's something more factual.)

And if it feels difficult to admit to being wrong, here are some reasons why being wrong is great, actually!

You get to learn new things and improve as a person.

Other people will view you as humble and tend to like you more.

Also related to the previous point: In the cases that you do not admit to being wrong, people will tend to take you more seriously since they know you're not just being obtusely defensive.

Each time you admit to being wrong and therefore learn something new, you get a cool new sword that you can then defeat other people with!! (Metaphorically speaking)

🐝 ⇢ tag your biggest supporter(s) and say one nice thing about them

I've already tagged Nic and Eifie, who are the two biggest supporters for my writing, so I'll answer from the perspective of my art instead! And in that case, I'd say @wild-moss-art is likely my biggest supporter!! They found me on tumblr because they liked my Constance art, and I was so intimidated at first because oh my god artworld beyoncé. Their art - especially the Constance art - is so good!! And not only that, they turned out to be incredibly cool and helpful and thoughtful. They leave such nice comments on my art, and have helped me several times to fix anatomy or other stuff I wasn't getting right. Also they're really nice to talk to. 💕

🧩 ⇢ what will make you click away from a fanfiction immediately?

Ooooh, hm. There are probably a few things, but if I'm choosing just one, I guess it would be that I see immediate signs of it being a little too badly/awkwardly written for me to be able to get through it. And... I'm not entirely sure what these signs are, but I know they are very instinctual and I can usually catch them within a few paragraphs at most.

[tittyinfinity]

Thank you so much! So I also deal with high levels of pain due to a few health issues myself. I've been really nervous about asking for pain medication because of someone who has an issue with it in my family. I've been told that I could *end up like her.*

I guess my question is.... what to the pills feel like? Is there some kind of "high" that makes them addictive? And if so, how do you avoid the urge to take more? I'm sorry if that comes off as insensitive, I just want to know as much as I can before mentioning this to my doctor & family.

It's not insensitive at all! I think those are questions more people should ask, actually!

So I haven't felt the "high" from them since I first started being prescribed them as a teenager. My tolerance has gone up too much for that (which makes it very annoying when people accuse me of taking them for the "high"). It's different for everyone, but for me, it was a warm, fuzzy feeling that makes you happy and love things a lot more. It also made me very very horny 😬

For some people, I've heard that it can make you really tired and loopy. Though I've never personally seen anyone "fucked up" on pain meds.

The reason I was able to keep myself from being addicted to "the high" is because I can't take that many without throwing up lol. That's literally it. I've tried to take more for a "better high" and it just makes you miserable. Gives you a headache and makes you vomit. And it makes you VERY pissy. Even whenever I switched over to oxycodone that didn't have the acetaminophen in it, taking more than a couple would make me miserable.

As far as how it affects me now, it gets rid of the pain and makes my body feel more relaxed instead of tensed up as hell. The only other affects it gives me other than pain relief is focus & energy. It helps with my ADHD in general. I can get past my executive dysfunction more easily, organize my thoughts, and remember to do things I had been putting off. It did used to be part of the "high" back in the day – I focused so hard I shot up to a 4.5 GPA that year. But it doesn't affect me as hard anymore. Just general focus, now.

My body seems to react differently to all drugs, though. So my experience won't be the same as everyone else's.

I'm actually not entirely sure how people end up abusing the pills. I can see WHY, but I don't know how you'd be able to do it without making yourself sick. Again, drugs affect me differently, so I assume it's something I don't feel enough to understand. I know what cravings feel like when it comes to addiction – I used to be an alcoholic and the cravings were STRONG. I also have a nicotine addiction. But I don't get that same craving feeling for my meds, like I need to take them or I'm going to lose my shit. Even whenever I used to feel that "high" from them, I wasn't an anxious mess dying from pill cravings like I was with alcohol. When my meds run out, I'm just like, ah damn, that sucks. I'm not out searching for a pill dealer or anything.

Not gonna lie, I don't really trust when someone says someone else has a "problem" with taking too much pain medication because I've been told I have "a problem" for not being able to push through my level 6-10 pain on a daily basis. I'm told I have a "problem" because I can't make a 2 week prescription last a month. If you don't mind me asking, what does your family constitute as a "problem" for your family member that's taking the medication?

[footsteps-on-the-dance-floor]

Being autistic, the situation is very black and white and very clear. Person-first language just doesn't make sense. I don't "have autism", I simply "am autistic". Autism is woven into every aspect of my self, my personality and my development. If I believed in the soul then it would be clear to me that even my soul is autistic. There is no "other me" underneath the autism. A version of me "without autism" would be an unrecognisably different person. Not me. It goes beyond even just "If there was a cure for autism, I wouldn't take it". To even ask the question about a "cure" is to fundamentally misunderstand my whole situation. Saying this isn't even an expression of self-love, just self-preservation. To remove my autism is to kill me. Even for people who don't think that way, it is very well understood in the community that any study which asks "what causes autism?" implies the very sinister follow up question "how can we prevent autistic people from being born?". We understand this is eugenics and we push back against it at every stage. I don't understand ADHD to anything like the depth I understand autism, but I've recently had several ADHD friends go through the process of trying medication for it. Several of them were disappointed by the results, to varying degrees, and in different ways. What matters is not really how disappointed or pleased they were, what really struck me was the way that they talked about ADHD. They say things like "I have ADHD" and "I hate my brain" and openly discuss things like dopamine and norepinephrine imbalances. Person-first language. Separation of body and mind. Support for studies into the cause and even prevention of ADHD. All of this is so counter to everything I've experienced from autistic people. All of them talked about ADHD as this thing separate from themselves. Something appended onto them, or even an enemy or imposter living within them. If they could only get rid of the ADHD, then their real self would be underneath! The real self who can be functional and happy and normal. To me, this is a blatently untrue and extremely self-destructive way to talk about ones own neurodivergency. I understand why stroke survivors, sufferers of ptsd and even sufferers of depression talk about their conditions this way, but if ADHD, like autism, is something you are born with, then how can you consider it to be something separate from yourself? The other thing that all these people had in common was an extreme sense of hopelessness and self-hatred, and I think that this is the natural outcome of such an attitude. Hopelessness that their lives could ever improve. They all had no belief that they could ever learn to overcome the obstacles which come with having ADHD, unless they can overcome ADHD itself. They had this all-or-nothing attitude. Self-hatred from separating a part of themself and hating it. "I hate my ADHD", "ADHD is bad", "ADHD makes it difficult for me to function and having difficulty functioning is bad". When undiagnosed (with ADHD, autism, whatever), so many of us become self-deprecating. We wonder why life seems so much easier for others, why we struggle so much where others don't. Too often we come to the conclusion that we are just incompetent or stupid, and we come to hate ourselves for it. The ADHD people I was speaking to didn't seem to realise that they had never left these patterns behind. That they were still self-depecating just as much as ever, only now they had named the part of themself which they hate. It was no longer "I hate myself" it was "I hate my ADHD", it was no longer "I'm terrible for struggling with every day tasks" it was "My ADHD is terrible, it makes me struggle witth every day tasks." They could not identify why this way of talking about themself made them feel just as miserable as it ever did. Their view of ADHD as a separate entity, and not as a part of themself, meant that they could not recognise their own self-deprection, even as they beat themselves up every day over every small failed thing.

None of this is to say that I am against ADHD medication, but I think that it would make people with ADHD a lot happier if they recognised that what such medication does is change you. It is not removing a seperate antagonistic entity and leaving behind the real you, it is modifying yourself. Modifying yourself is great and cool and I totally support it, but recognise it for what it is, and stop hating yourself.

Autistic people as a community have really fought well against person-first language and the implications it brings and I feel really sorry for people with ADHD who as a community don't seem to have followed the same road at all

[mettywiththenotes]

Thoughts on Bones and the bad decision making

The thing is about how MVA is being handled is that, generally, other animes that cut stuff out or have not as good animation as other seasons (which idk its literally only been one episode so we’ll see what else comes out of it, but I’m just stating the animation thing as one of the problems too) seems to be due to the time limit of an episode + how many episodes you have to fit in the season and evenly space it out + animation budget

Thats what I reason anyway. When I watch an anime and then read the manga, I notice stuff that didn’t get put into the anime, but I usually reason that “oh maybe it was the time limit of an episode and how many episodes they have left to put it in. If they couldn’t add that in but put this in instead, it’s probably due to what they think is more necessary to fit into the season before it ends. I can kinda understand that, and if its the case, I’m not really gonna hold it against them”

Same with animation, because adaptations usually try and space out the animation quality between Oh My God This Looks Ugly during a minor scene to Oh My God This Looks Incredible during an important scene. Again, I can understand that with budgets and the limit of available staff to animate. If you’re gonna hold back on some pieces of animation, I can definitely see the reason for sparing the Good Animation for the really important and impactful parts

But that doesn’t seem to be the case here

Bones cut out stuff that was actually quite important to understand the character. The League finding that racist cult and killing them was part of showing that they are decent enough to not be totally evil, and plus it tied in with Spinner’s arc of discrimination and that “empty feeling inside” which was actually caused by the people who lived in his town. Getting rid of his narrating too totally gets rid of that introduction to his arc, because when you first read that part in the manga, you think “why spinner? why spinner of all people? what distinguishes him from the rest?” and that question you ask yourself gets answered by his following development with Shiggy

Sure, Bones added in his narration in the forest, but the point of the initial narration is to make it feel personal. Spinner narrating in the forest is more like observational narration, rather than something personal. With 220, it felt like “Oh are we getting to Spinner’s arc? Are we getting his development or smthg? That sounds interesting, since he’s a background character. I wonder what will happen” but with the narration in the forest, it kind of gives off the feeling of “Why is Spinner narrating? Why did it switch to him? He’s just watching them, but is this important? I don’t understand”

There’s a difference between personal narration and observational narration. For example, lets compare a vlog and a documentary. A vlog is something personal, and when you watch it, you’re getting a glimpse into the persons life. That’s what I’d say Manga Spinner’s narration is equivalent to, because it literally starts off like “Whats up guys, I’m Spinner from the League Of Villains! We’re not in the best of conditions, as you can see, and we’re trying to work our way back to the top! Stay tuned!”

Anime Spinner’s narration is probably equal to a documentary, stating what has happened and whats going on now. And describing what Tomura’s face looks like. In fact, the description of the face is probably the only personal thing the anime put in from Spinners POV so far. I guess they were trying to keep that bit in to add that “personal” feeling we didn’t get from the initial narration, and since its such a small moment, it would quite easily fit into a few seconds of the episode without running over the episode limit but. there’s a big difference between “Whats up guys, I’m Spinner from the League Of Villains and we’re homeless, but we’re trying to get better!” and “His face looked like an eager child”

With the League in the shed scene, there was an awful lot there to be concerned about being cut. First we have Toga and Twice’s interactions, wholesome and sweet, which was supposed to cement their friendship which would make it all the more heartbreaking when Twice breaks down over Toga being in danger. For anime onlys, they could go off the past scenes from past seasons but idk that bit with them in the shed was supposed to be a recent reminder, to refresh your memory and such

Then we have Compress and Shiggy, because that mention of the sushi was supposed to be something Shiggy would remember and look back on, showing how connected he is with the League. With Spinner and Shiggy, that was meant to show the unrest and tension in Spinner and his ideals, and when he grabs Shiggy to yell at him, thats supposed to show you how much this matters to Spinner and how that moment tells the reader “Oh this arc is about Spinner and Shiggy”. The arc is about the League as a whole, but it’s meant to tell you as the reader that “This main villain and one of his background lackeys are going to have conflict”, and thats interesting!

Dabi’s entrance and what he said about recruitment was meant to be a build up to his conflict with Hawks. It was also meant to show how Dabi, despite seeming pretty aloof, still chooses to come back to the League and be a part of things. That despite Dabi trying to separate himself from them, he still finds a place to belong. Him bantering with the other members also showed how familiar he is with them, again, to show that this is a place he belongs

The Big Thing with Horikoshi is build up. The man slow burns to hell and back, and while it’s frustrating, it’s good. The Dabi Reveal’s burst of excitement in the fandom was because of that build up. It shows that Hori is willing to show little bits of development to really make the pay-off of waiting and reading worth it when something impactful happens.

Now, I can see why that would be a bit of an issue for the anime, because again, time limit of an episode and how many episodes/seasons you have to fit the storyline in and evenly space it out. Fitting it all in while still creating that feeling of tension must be hard, and I can see why it would be too.

But this isn’t about fitting in. This isn’t down to time limit or episode space. The simple fact is that Bones already screwed too much with it before MVA even started. They messed around with storyline, with the cuts, with dragging out scenes that really don’t even mean much - except for that scene with Enji thinking about his family, cuz that had meaning, but it was just way too dragged out. With dragging out scenes, both with and without meaning, I can see that as the studio trying to make fit the length of the episode but it just doesn’t work

And then there’s the Beach Episode for the girls, which wasn’t necessary at all. And I could also see that as them dragging out the season in order to potentially make S6 the League’s arc. But that didn’t happen

Instead, they rushed it, tried to fit it all in, while trying to keep in that Popular Characters Are Here So Please Watch element. Which AGAIN doesn’t work as good story telling because if you’re going to stretch it out for the Popular Characters, you need to evenly space out what scenes are used where and still be able to tell a coherent story. Which isn’t the case here because they prioritized Popular Characters Are Here So Please Watch instead of the actual plot

So I don’t think it’s about time limit of an episode + how many episodes you have to fit in the season and evenly space it out, not in this case. It genuinely is just bad decision making

Animation is kind of an exception because of that whole priority of saving the budget for Oh My God This Is Incredible scenes as opposed to minor scenes. We’ve only watched the first episodes so far and there is that whole concern with the characters height and Spinner’s face, but we’ve yet to see the rest of the arc, so I’m personally gonna hold out until its over to really judge the animation. With the heights and Spinner’s face though, I can see that it probably (probably) wasn’t the case of “We hate these characters fuck you”, it’s likely more about “We have to get this out and done on time so idk just quickly draw and get it over and done with”, you know?

Anyway lol I don’t think I’m saying anything that hasn’t already been said by the fandom, but I still felt compelled to talk about it. It’s such a shame, because anime onlys don’t get the full experience of what happens.

MORE THAN THAT, it’s all very well and good saying “Anime onlys please read the manga”, but for a lot of anime watchers, the only way they CAN follow the story is through watching it. I think I remember reading about how its hard for people with ADHD to focus enough to read the manga (I know thats the case for one of my irl adhd friends at least) and then there’s also the fact that they may lead busy lives. But it’s because of this rearranging of the arcs that I know it has to be frustrating for anime onlys too because they don’t get the full experience and they hear from manga readers that they aren’t getting the full story either! I’ve read some posts about how manga fans were excited to connect with their anime-only friends without spoiling anything, and the anime onlys just ending up confused and unimpressed. I feel for them and I know it has to be frustrating from both ends

Thats kind of why “being creative and messing with the storyline” doesn’t work in anime adaptations. Adding stuff in and having anime only episodes is nice for creativity and stuff but you have to be able to still have time for the rest of the story in order for it to work, otherwise you just end up confusing everybody, and again, those who can’t follow the story through manga miss out on the fun

I’m not an animator, nor am I entirely sure how production and such works, this is only based on the aspects that seem more logical with animes and why they do the things they do. So if anybody who actually is an animator or knows more about this than I do wants to come forward and tell me whether this is right or not, I’d be happy to be corrected with constructive criticism

Same with the ADHD stuff. I don’t know everything about it and there’s likely exceptions to the focus thing, but please don’t hesitate to also correct me on that

If you’ve made it this far, then thank you for reading my thoughts on Bones and how they’ve dealt with everything. Once again I’m sure I’m not saying anything that hasn’t already been said but still. I’m just putting my thoughts down

[collecting-stories]

Here with You - JJ Maybank

Request: hi!! you know how much i love your stories and i was just wondering if i could request a jj x reader one where the reader has a hard time hanging out in big crowds (aha like myself) but she always makes an effort to do it for her friends but one time jj asks her to go to a party but she can’t do it this time and instead he surprises her by showing up at her house and the  just like fluff with jj ahah!! 

A/N: Part of this is based on the sheer excitement I had when JJ mentioned CHUD because honest to god that movie is one of my faves lol. I watch all that shit. JJ and I would be best friends (he’s too far out of my league for us to be anything else😂😂😂)

Outer Banks Masterlist

♡ ♡ ♡ ♡

JJ was unsurprisingly charismatic. He could talk anybody into a good time. An easy smile and the eternal laid-back beach vibes that he gave off could make anyone in the world feel at ease. Unlike John B, who always had to command attention, people seemed to flock to JJ without any need to persuade them. He didn’t have to be interesting or funny or smart he just had to be there and everyone was crowding around to talk to him. 

In stark contrast, you loathed a crowd. Parties were your deepest source of anxiety and the thought of having to hold more than one person’s attention at a time made you calm up. But you had figured out somewhere in freshman year that you were as unoriginal as everyone else on the island because you craved JJ’s attention as much as anyone else in or outside of his friend group. You endured crowds of people just to get two seconds alone with him on the weekend. Just so he could smile at you for a fraction of a moment while he listened to someone tell a funny story. 

That smile was enough for you to push yourself to the absolute limit of until the idea of spending time with anyone had you physically paralysed in anxiety. When JJ texted you about a party all you wanted to do was go and pretend to have fun and stand around next to him all night while he entertained groups of pogues and tourons that thought he was incredible. Instead you texted back that you weren’t up for a party, because you weren’t even up for getting out of bed, let alone partying. 

-next time- you promised. 

-k- he texted back. 

With that somewhat settled you resumed watching reruns of Chopped while you laid in bed with the covers almost completely obscuring you from view. You imagined everyone down at the boneyard, the mildest fear of missing out settling in as you thought about what a good time they were all probably having. But then you thought of the crowds of people you would have to navigate your way through and you were rolling over to face the wall and pulling the comforter over your head. 

You must of dozed off because when you woke up there was a weight on your bed. You thought maybe it was your dog but he usually spread out. Shifting around to lay on your back and pulling the covers away from your face. 

“What...JJ?” You questioned, still a little groggy from sleep. 

There he was, sitting cross-legged on the side of your bed watching Chopped. He’d pulled the desk chair over and there was a bag from Dunkin’ along with two iced coffees and a box of munchkins. 

“Rise and shine, sleepyhead.” He Held his phone up so you could see the screen and you realized he was on your amazon account, “I added zoombies to our watchlist, plus zoombies two and the classic birdemic. Figured we could have a movie night, didn’t think you’d be sleeping on me.” 

You sat up in bed, instinctively reaching for a coffee, “what about the party?”

“Skipped it.” He replied, seemingly unbothered by the idea of missing a night at the boneyard. You couldn’t help feeling a little guilty when he said it, you hadn’t cancelled on him just so he would feel obligated to come over and spend time with you, you didn’t want to be the type of person who guilted people into choosing between them and their friends.  

“But you love parties.”  

JJ had been a fixture at parties since he was old enough to pass at them. He went to his first in 8th grade without getting thrown off the beach and he claimed it was the best time he ever had. Since then you didn’t know if he had missed an opportunity to party.  

“So? I love hanging out with you too. Besides, this is more fun.” He shrugged. He clicked off chopped, scrolling through the apps on your tv to find amazon and turn it on. “What do you wanna watch first?” 

“Zoombies.” You pulled the chair closer so you could reach the bag of hash browns and breakfast sandwiches, passing one to JJ as you did. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather be with everyone else at the party?”

“Why?” He asked, faking suspicion as he leaned in close to you, “are you trying to get rid of me?”

“No, I just don’t want you to pass up something that makes you happy just to sit here with me and watch movies.”  

JJ’s ADHD made it almost impossible for him to sit through an entire movie. You couldn’t take him to the movie theatre, he was up in the first five minutes. And any movie that required actual attention was lost on him but dumb shit like sharknado and CHUD were perfect because he didn’t have to just sit still and watch. You made fun of the movie and goofed off with each other while you watched.  

“I’m just as happy being here, hanging out with you.” He knew that going to parties wasn’t the only thing you did just to make him happy and he couldn’t help wanting to do something for you, even if it was as small as sitting around all night. “We don’t have to go to every party if you don’t want to,” JJ mentioned and it didn’t pass your attention that he said ‘we’ as if you were a unit that always did everything together. 

“I know but you like going to the boneyard.” 

“Sure, but you don’t.” 

“Yeah but you shouldn’t miss out just cause I’m staying home.” You reasoned. You didn’t want him to feel like you were keeping him away from anything important. 

“I’m not missing out.” JJ insisted. “If I went, and you were here, then I’d be missing out. I’d much rather hang out with you than hang out with everyone else.”

“Okay.” You nodded. “Hey, who’s the other coffee for?” 

“You. I’m feeding your unholy caffeine addiction.” 

“It’s Not an addiction.”

“How many cups have you had today?” He asked, already knowing the answer. 

“Three?” 

JJ laughed wrapping his arm around your shoulder to pull you in for a hug and then kissing the side of your head. 

-

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[alittlesimp]

kierkegaard and bsd fyodor

!! there may be manga spoilers ahead (i have NOT proofread) !!

small warning beforehand – i am in no way a professional philosopher or even good at writing essays. i took two years of philosophy in high school and kind of ran with it haha. i just thought this would be a fun analysis for me to make because fyodor is portrayed as a religious character – yet he murders, like, a lot. he immediately reminded me of kierkegaard, my favourite religious weirdo (lovingly). i grew up catholic so i do have a bit of knowledge on christianity and all, but i havent been to church in like 5 years so the parts about the bible and all might be a bit rusty, but i will obviously check to get the biggest stories etc right. english also isn’t my first language, so there might be a few mistakes here and there.

i do honestly believe there is more value in analyzing his behaviour with the irl fyodor’s books but 1) i am not as familiar with those as i am with kierkegaard and 2) that has been done before!! here and here. please do check these out, they’re incredibly well done. also, this is just a really vague comparison that i have been thinking about for days now so she’s gonna be a bit messy (no capital letters and not proofread, sorry i wrote this in a adhd-fueled Rage) and Maybe even complete bullshit, who knows! okkkk whooo lets get into this!!

Intro

first off, there’s not going to be a real justification for his actions. i’m just trying to explain his actions, i would never justify genocide (:

so i’ve seen a lot of people state that fyodor sees himself as god, and while i do think there is some truth in that, i don’t think that fyodor thinks he is god humanified, more that he sees himself as god’s righthand man? i’m not going to go very deep into this because i’m honestly not too sure what i think about this exactly, i might delve into this in the future after familiarizing myself a bit more with the irl author!

i also don’t think fyodor is a psychopath who doesn’t understand the severity of his actions. i really do think he completely understands he’s literally murdering people left and right, but that it’s a necessary evil to rid the world of ability users (he also mentions ‘the freedom of death’ shit a couple of times which is not really relevant here but… scary). this might be a bit confusing to most, why do something if you know it’s a shitty thing to do? to fully understand his standpoint, we’ll have to first discuss the philosophy of kierkegaard.

Kierkegaard

s��ren kierkegaard was a danish philosopher who is often seen as the guy who kickstarted the whole existentialism thing. although i definitely don’t agree with him, he is one of my favorite philosophers because his theories are just so fucking weird but like, still well-constructed.

kierkegaard’s main idea that we touched on in philosophy class was that other people’s judgement does not matter if god has given you a task. no matter how immoral it is by society’s standards, be it murder, extortion, fraud or sundry other crimes, if god himself has ordered you to do it, there is no need to justify this by anyone else’s moral or ethical standards. now, the actual theory’s a little more nuanced than this, but you do see where i’m going with this, right?

a quick example: the story of abraham. abraham was ordered by god to kill his son to prove his faith, which is considered a massive yikes like, everywhere in the world. however, abraham brought his son up to where he was going to sacrifice him and at the last moment, an angel told him that god was satisfied and that he didn’t have to actually do it. god created horrible youtube pranks y’all!

in his book fear and trembling, kierkegaard describes the anguish/anxiety (translations differ, but honestly i think i’d feel EVERYTHING if god told me to kill my hypothetical child) that abraham must have felt and why he ‘thinks’ (kierkegaard wrote this under a penname, and because he’s a bit of a funny guy it’s often unclear what he really believes) abraham isn’t just a triggerhappy guy, but just a devout christian. abraham must have believed that god would never let him do something as abhorrent as killing your son, and trusted that god would have had him do the right thing. kierkegaard states that, in faith, your individual relationship with god is more important than the church and even society’s general ethical and moral ideas.

ofcourse, this perfectly aligns with religious extremism and terrorism – which is exactly why people usually take kierkegaard’s words with a good handful of salt. but in our case, with our favourite smelly rat man, it might help us explain his mindset a bit better.

Fyodor

now, how does this link back to fyodor?

fyodor takes up abraham’s place in this story. he knows that what he’s doing is in no way explainable by moral or ethical reasons, but because he believes that it is god’s wish, he will have to do the dirty work. think about it: abraham would have really murdered his son if god hadn’t stopped him, so maybe fyodor’s killing really would be necessary to please god. in abraham’s case, it was to test his obedience and faith, so it’s not 100% the same as directly being given the task to create a new perfect world without ability users or whatever. but just like abraham thought that god would have him do the right thing, fyodor trusts completely that god is guiding him in his actions and that therefor, he is doing the right thing.

he knows it won’t make sense to others, he knows he can’t justify it by society’s standards, but he feels like he’s justified in doing it anyway because god gave him permission somehow. he most likely also thinks all his crimes are for the greater good, or that the sin of the general ability using population heavily outweighs his own.

in the end, i think him believing he has to do this will link back to his backstory somehow (which i’m INCREDIBLY curious about). i could probably write some more about this but I need to get this out of my system so that’s it. i might redo this in the future but who knows! maybe after i familiarize myself with the irl fyodor a bit more <3.

if you have any comments, spot any mistakes or have a question: don’t be shy, drop an ask so i can give you an in-depth answer (if i’m feeling it, it might take a while, i’m a bit tired n all) don't bully me i will cry <3 (: love u!

[buried-in-autumn-leaves]

A Sister’s Promise (The Dress)

Rating: General Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Fandom: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)

Relationships: B.O.Y.D./Huey Duck (Disney: DuckTales), Lena (Disney: DuckTales)/Webby Vanderquack

Characters: B.O.Y.D. (Disney: DuckTales), Huey Duck (Disney), Dewey Duck (Disney), Lena (Disney: DuckTales), Webby Vanderquack, Louie Duck (mentioned)

Word Count: 3027

Also Available On AO3 !!!

Movie nights are common for the kids. With such exciting lives outside and inside the mansion, there was something calming about nights like these. Where they would all sneak into Webby's room after the adults had gone to bed. Windows would be left open for Boyd, Lena, and the others to get in from outside without risking the front door.

This night was not unlike the others, but it was considerably smaller, only Webby and Huey currently present. They were waiting on Lena, who was expected to arrive soon. The absent of the other triplets was requested by Huey actually, and though odd, Webby didn't question it. She was sure there was a reason, and she'd learned not to question things between the three of them. As she finished bringing in the pile of blankets from the hall closet (They weren't meant to go in there, but what the others didn't know wouldn't hurt them.) Huey had settled on the floor across from the TV, "Hey Webs, throw me a snack?"

She reached into the basket next to her, where the group had kept all the snacks they've managed to sneak out of the kitchen. As she tossed a candy bar towards Huey, a tap could be heard on the window behind her. Huey jumped out of his seat.

"What was that?"

"Oh, I forgot to open the window. Probably just Lena, don't worry." She made a point made a point of reassuring them often, knowing how bad his anxiety could get. She ran over and threw open the window. Just as she said, as it opened a shadow could be seen moving on the wall, into the rooms, and then down onto the floor. After a second, the shadow faded, letting Lena's physical form take shape.

They smiled at Webby, "Hey, sorry, still not good at the whole 'going through windows' thing. The others not here yet?"

"It's actually just us this time, but I might invite BOYD over after Tangled. We're watching Big Hero Six, and it's his favourite-" She froze, and looked back over at Huey, her tone teasing. "Oh, would that be okay Huey?"

"Well not if you're gonna talk like that." He responded, rolling his eyes. Their crush on the android friend wasn't exactly a secret to anyone, but Boyd was kind of oblivious when it came to stuff like that, so thankfully he hadn't figured it out yet.

She noticed a backpack that had been hidden behind Huey before he had sat down. "Oh, are you sleeping in here? You can, of course. I'm just not sure how we'd keep that one from Dewey and Louie since you share a room and everything."

"Oh, no I wasn't planning on it, I just brought something I wanted to show you." He seemed a bit nervous, but mostly excited? "Just wait here for a second, I'll be right back!"

Without giving Webby or Lena a chance to answer, they ran out of Webby's room and she heard them enter the bathroom next door. Lena laughed, grabbing a random bag out of the basket of snacks and sitting down next to Webby. "Jeez, you guys are weird."

Webby awkwardly half-laughed back. "Yeah…" It wasn't anything Lena did, of course. She was just curious about what Huey could possibly be hiding.

A few minutes had passed. Webby and Lena were watching an Ottoman Empire rerun as they waited for Huey to come back. As the hosts once again started arguing, the two turned around, hearing a slightly static sound. Lena ran over to the source first. She pulled something out from under Webby's bed. "It's your walkie-talkie."

"Webby, please pick up, I need your help with something." Huey's voice could be heard clearly through the talkie, and Webby, confused, ran over to answer.

"Huey? Why do you even have your talkie on you? What's going on?"

"Junior Woodchuck Rule #1: 'Always expect the unexpected.' But that doesn't matter. Dewey's out in the hall. I need you to get rid of him for me."

"Get rid of him? Why? You're starting to worry me…"

"It's nothing bad, I promise. Just do this for me, please?" He seemed sure, and he didn't seem too upset, so choosing to once again not press the issue, (at least for now) Webby sighed and handed the device to Lena.

"I'll be right back, this shouldn't take more than a minute."

"It's not a problem, Pink. But I am not gonna pause this episode." Lena laughed, sitting back down near the TV. Smiling slightly, Webby nodded and left the room, shutting the door behind her.

Just as Huey had said, Dewey was walking around in the hall. He was carrying a tape measure and a clipboard. Webby watched as he seemed to write something down and hold the tape measure against a portion of the wall.

"Um… Dewey?" He turned around quickly, going to hide the objects behind his back. What he didn't expect was for the tape measure to snap shut and hit him in the side of the head. Exclaiming in pain, he shook his head and smiled awkwardly.

"Hey Webby, how are you?" He said, clearly not wanting to explain.

"I don't-" She started, then sighed, deciding the conversation probably wasn't worth it. "Just put this off for the night and I won’t tell anyone what just happened. I'm trying to sleep."

"Fine, deal. Oh, have you seen Huey? He didn't actually tell us where he was going." He picked up the dropped items from the floor.

Panicking, Webby stuttered, trying to think of something that's not suspicious. "He's uh… With Boyd!"

Not a good idea, apparently. Dewey looked surprised, before questioning. "Boyd? Like the Gearloose robo-kid Boyd? OH! Did he finally ask him out?! Louie so owes me $10-"

"What?! No, I- Wait you guys were betting?" She scoffed. She'd definitely be bringing that up later. How dare they not tell her? She could've won so easily! "Anyways, it doesn't matter. Just please let me go to bed."

Previous plans completely forgotten, Dewey nodded and ran back towards his room, yelling at Louie about the money. Once she was sure he wasn't coming back, Webby walked over to the wall where he had just been standing and picked up the clipboard that now lay forgotten on the ground.

"Indoor waterslide? Well, at least he got the measurements right…" Placing the board back down on the ground, she skipped over to bathroom door, grateful that the triplets were so easily distracted. She knocked once on the door, speaking quietly.

"He's gone, you owe me." She wasn't completely serious, of course, but Huey was definitely texting Boyd later that night. It was about time something happened between them, anyways.

"Thanks Webs. I'll be back in just a minute, don't wait for me."

Back in the room, she sat down next to Lena, who was just as curious as she was about Huey's plans. After pausing the show on the TV, they spoke up.

"What do you think he's hiding? I mean not wanting the adults to see I get, but their brothers? I mean I just don't get it."

"I know. This has only happened like once before, and that was when…" She trailed off, then gasped, smiling. "New clothes."

"What?"

"They got new clothes! Oh maybe it's a skirt, we were looking at some the other day-"

She was cut off by a knock at the door, and stopped talking immediately. "Who is it?"

"It's Huey, I just wanted to be able to see your first reaction to this-" Webby interrupted him once again.

"Is it a new outfit?" She asked, excitedly. She heard a sigh from the other side of the door.

"Jeez Webs, you ruin all my surprises."

Then the door opened, and there was Huey, pink and red butterfly clips in his hair, wearing a dress.

It was red, and pretty simple in design, reaching down to where Webby's skirts normally landed when they wore them. After a few seconds of shock, Webby finally seemed to realise what was happening, and squealed. She ran over, almost choking Huey in a tight hug. As he looked behind her, he saw Lena smiling, hands flapping as she ran over to look at the clips.

"These are so cute! Did you make them?"

"Yeah I just-"

"How did you even get this?! Donald and the others always go shopping with you. Oh let me go get my camera!"

"Well I had to-"

"What style would this be considered? I think you'd look really good in a sort of pastel emo vibe, you know? Maybe we could-"

At this point Huey had stopped processing what was being said. The shouting combined with the flash of Webby's camera was so much and it hurt. He pushed his way through Webby and Lena and shakily walked over to the corner of the room the light didn't quite reach. He immediately sat down against the wall and pulled their knees up to his chest, hiding their head and rocking slowly. That was when the others seemed to realise the issue. Webby was the first to act.

"Oh my god I'm so sorry-" She spoke quietly, frowning when Huey had tried to sign that he was okay. "Lena, there's a pair of headphones on my bed. Go grab them for me please?" Lena nodded and quickly went to retrieve them.

So, sensory overload.

It wasn't uncommon for Huey to have these episodes. His ADHD commonly contrasted with his sister's, hers being more hyperactive while his was more inattentive. There was nothing inherently bad about that of course, sometimes it was even a positive part of their dynamic. However it also caused Webby to commonly forget about how bad Huey's sensory issues could get, and so her hyperactivity has caused Huey to go through these episodes a few times before. Still, she never felt and less awful every time it happened.

But this wasn't about her, so she cleared her throat and blinked back the tears as Lena came back and handed her the headphones. She walked over to where Huey was still in that same position on the floor and put the headphones on the floor next to them. She then ran over to a box on her nightstand. Her creative nature had helped her make a variety of stim toys for the others based off how she'd seen them act. Louie had a noise based fidget cube, Dewey a necklace with different chew-safe pieces on it in different textures, etc.

She pulled out Huey's, which was her personal favourite she'd made. One of Huey's main soothers is soft textures like plushies, so that's what she focused on. The plush cube had different fabrics on each side, ranging from longer fur-like fabric to fleece to silk. She made sure there were slight separations between fabrics so Huey had full control on which texture he was touching. This feeling of control tended to help them calm down.

When she walked back over to where Huey was, they were wearing the headphones, and his head was up, but the rocking was still going on. She walked over and handed him the cube, being careful not to touch him directly until he said they were okay with contact.

As this was going on, Lena had gone over to the doorway to dim the lights. The feature was installed by Webby (only starting two fires in the process) after Huey's first overload. And sure, it would've probably been easier to ask one of the adults to help her, but where's the fun in that?

Webby and Lena waited in an awkward silence, letting Huey calm down fully. It seemed the overload left them nonverbal, at least for the moment. Fortunately, since these episodes were common enough, being nonverbal wouldn't completely cut off their ability to communicate. The two had learned basic sign language a few months prior. It wasn't difficult, considering how many languages Webby already knew and how quickly Huey could memorize things like that.

"How're you feeling?" She signed slowly, giving Huey a second to process. After a moment, he raised his hands, only slightly shaking now, to answer.

"Fine, just voice troubles again."

"Are you sure? Do you need anything?" As the conversation went on, Webby said both her own and Huey's parts out loud so Lena would know what's going on. She had attempted to learn the language along with Huey, but turns out it's a little harder to focus on such small details when you can just magic yourself a solution to pretty much any problem.

"Yeah, I'm sure." He responded. "But I don't think I can answer those questions you asked earlier right now. Maybe we could just start the movie first?"

Webby smiled, handing the remote over to Lena, who went to look for the movie. "Yeah, of course. Just let me know if you need anything, okay?"

Huey smiled back and nodded, moving out of the corner and back to where Lena and Webby had set up for the movie. Leaning back against the end of Webby's bed, Huey smiled at their sister, turning his attention to the movie, that had just started.

-

By the time Mother Gothel had started warning Rapunzel about the dangers outside the tower, Huey had completely recovered. He cleared his throat, gaining the other's attention.

"I'm okay now. Uhm, to answer the questions, yes I made the clips. They're a pretty simple design, so I just stole some basic welding equipment from Gyro's lab while Boyd distracted him for me. And I didn't buy the dress, I made it. Sewing is one of the first badges I got, so it wasn't too difficult."

"That's really impressive, you know," Lena insisted. "You always say stuff like that. 'It's not that much, it's not a big deal.' Give yourself some credit."

Huey gave a small smile and nodded. "Noted… Thanks, Lena."

"Don't sweat it, nerd."

"She's right. And sorry, again. I keep forgetting and I really didn’t mean to-" Webby rambled before Huey cut her off.

"It's fine Webby, really. I know you didn’t mean to, you wouldn't do that." He said, mirroring the times she would always reassure them after an overload or any sort of episode.

Webby smiled at that, and then turned back towards the screen. However, the silent watching of the movie didn't last long, because it seemed Webby had one more question.

"Hey, Huey?"

"Hm?"

"Why do you hide this stuff from your brothers?" She asked quietly, frowning when Huey tensed up at the question. "You don't have to answer, I was just curious-"

"No… It's fine. Just caught me off guard I guess." He trailed off, absentmindedly staring at the TV. "I don't know, really. I think it's just because I want them to take me seriously?" He ended the statement more like a question.

"What do you mean?" Lena butted into the conversation, pausing the movie.

Huey shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe it's a stupid fear." This got Webby to smack their arm lightly.

"It's not stupid. You have bad anxiety, and you overthink stuff. Think about Louie. When he came out, did you start treating him like a child? I mean, any more then you already do?" She laughed. Louie was always treated like the youngest sibling by a huge margin, despite only being a few minutes younger.

He shook his head. "No..."

Smiling now, Webby spoke up again, teasing. "Well? What did you do?"

Huey sighed, laughing slightly. "I altered his dress into a suit design."

"Exactly!" She exclaimed, beaming. "And Dewey helped! In his own way... But everything went fine. And it'll go fine with you too, I promise."

They didn't answer, simply smiling and nodding slightly. "You can start the movie again, Lena."

As the characters danced across the screen, Huey looked down at their dress, smoothing out the wrinkles in the fabric.

Maybe Webby was right. Maybe it would be okay. I mean they were family, right? He decided he should talk to Della first. That would be easiest. Plus she may be able to help talk to their brothers. She was their mom, right? If she told them, then nothing could really go wrong, at least for the moment.

He thought about how he would tell her, going through individual lines of dialogue and things she could ask or say. This internal monologue was interrupted by someone snapping in front of his face.

"Huey? You there?" Webby asked, smiling.

"Huh? Yeah, sorry. Just thinking. What's up?"

"You have your phone on you, right?"

They nodded, pulling the phone out of the bag that had held the dress. "Need me to call Vi or something?" His phone was quickly snatched out of his hand, and he looked at Webby, confused.

"Nope! It's just this movie's almost over so Boyd is gonna be here in a few minutes-" She paused, looking over at Lena, "Ah, speaking of which, could you please open the window, Lena?" When they walked over to open it, Webby turned back towards Huey. "But anyways, since he's gonna be here, I'm taking this so you'll actually have to talk to him. And if you really don't want to tell him that's fine. Obviously I won't force you. But I really think he likes you."

Shaking his head, Huey laughed. "I mean, nothing else could go wrong tonight…"

"Yeah! And if anything goes wrong I can just delete the memory from his software!" She said, beaming.

"No!" Huey yelled, looking at the door and waiting a moment before talking quieter. "We've talked about this. No editing Boyd's memories!"

"Yeah yeah, I know. So what do you say?" She asked, excitedly.

She watched as Huey looked down at his dress again, and looked up, grinning.

"I'll tell him. As long as you don't try to mess with anything, and you can't be in the same room when I do it. I'll drag him out to the garden or something. Deal?" He held his hand out towards her, and she shook it immediately.

"Deal!"

[heloflor]

Me : “I don’t think I should write characters that are explicitly neurodivergent because I don’t know that much about neurodiversity and I never take the time to know more. If I were to make a character who happens to have neurodivergent traits and call them neurodivergent, I might get it wrong and I don’t want to give a fic with bad or stereotypical representation in it, it’s unfair for those who can and wish to identify with the character. So if I write about a character that the fandom sees as neurodivergent, I will simply try to write them close to their canon personality; and if they happen to have traits that people can identify, I’ll just let other people do their own headacanons around it without touching on the topic myself.”

Also me :  “So :

- Vinnie Dakota absolutely adores animals. In the future, all animals are extinct, so in order to see animals, you either get a robot pet or you pay to have some time in a “place simulation” room and order it to simulate a field with holographic animals. Dakota learned about animals through books and often went to the simulation place or bough some stickers and other stuff from the rare places that still sold animal merch. He never got a robotic pet or never kept it for long because it’s too dull compared to a real animal, or should I say his thoughts of real animals.

- During his first mission, Dakota was ecstatic to see animals for the first time and, after the mission, spent a few hours looking at and petting the ones he could. In his house in the future, he has a room in which he displays animal-related stuff he got from his missions through time, like art or figurines or ornaments or even plushies etc. He might also sometimes take pictures of animals and put them with the souvenir he got from the same mission. He takes extra care of the stuff he has in this room and organizes it a certain way. He has the money to have a place with several rooms : as we see in “Picture Day”, once they got fired, Cavendish and Dakota had the money to go to Hawaii for an entire week and without knowing when and how they will get a new job, since Bob Block met them as they were about to leave for their vacation. Also Cavendish mentioned studying for 20 cycles, so this job doesn’t seem like a given. So being a time traveler seems to pay well.

- When he and Cavendish started dating (I headcanon them as starting to date 2 years after meeting a marrying 3 years later, so 5 years after meeting), everytime they went through a century they never or barely visited, Dakota would get a random souvenir, not always animal-related, along with a picture of either him, Cavendish or both of them. He puts these souvenirs and pictures in a different part of the room. The picture we see in their car in “Fungus Among Us” is from a mission in a place they visited before, but Dakota found the situation too funny to not take a picture.

- Every celebration (holidays, birthdays, dates important to them), Cavendish and Dakota would give each other gifts. Dakota always tries to find something related to Professor Time while Cavendish forces himself to break a few rules and go back in time without being ordered to so he can find something animal-related to Dakota. Dakota is always genuinely happy about these gifts, though he learned not to tease Cavendish about the whole “breaking the rules” situation. Those gifts are either stuff like fossils or skulls/bones or they’re stuff related to the culture of the time-period like watching tournaments in ancient Rome.

- When the two get married and buy a place together, Dakota makes sure it has a room large enough to put his growing collection. As time went by, it started to be less about animals and more about what they find during their missions, though the animal part is still very much there. Dakota refers to the room as “The memory room” while Cavendish calls it “Vinnie’s room”. Cavendish doesn’t spend that much time in it, though he absolutely loves the feeling of reminiscence the collection gives him. If he has guests at home, he tries to keep them away from the room. He knows how important it is for Dakota and doesn’t want it to be disrupted. Cavendish tried to get into Dakota’s passion but, while he found some stuff to be interesting, he’s not really into it compared to Dakota.

- After the events of the episode “We’re Going to the Zoo”, Dakota brought back tickets for his collection, along with a picture of him holding squirrels in his arms while another one has its head coming out of Dakota’s pants, near his feet. Dakota went back to the zoo several times and ended up learning what every animal was and in which section of the zoo they were.

- When the two are fired and banned, they only get like an hour to pack all their stuff. So Dakota uses some future deus ex machina technology, making their house surrounded by a barrier that only the two of them can open. That way, nobody can touch the house and, if they were to be able to go back to the future, which seems to be the case if season 2 was already thought of when “A Christmas Peril” was made, Dakota could find his collection intact, along with the rest of the house.

- Once stuck in the past, Dakota kind of gave up on doing a collection. They don’t have enough space and the realization that Cavendish could now die anytime put a lot on stress on him and most of his thoughts were on Cavendish. This stress started to dim out after the events of the second half of the season, when Dakota realized that maybe the world was done trying to get rid of Cavendish, given how the man was able to survive alone for about a month. During the first celebration they had since getting banned, Cavendish bought something animal-related as usual and it led Dakota to wish to start a collection again. Given the space and their current situation, this collection would mostly be pictures that he can keep in an album in a drawer. Cavendish would probably be the one to buy the album after realizing that Dakota started taking random pictures again.

- At some point, Cavendish learns that there’s a petting zoo in Danville and decides to use it as a birthday gift/surprise. Dakota has never been more in love with him than during the moment when he stepped out of the car and saw the place’s sign (with the exception of their wedding and honeymoon).

 …aaaannnd I just made Dakota have an hyperfixation, didn’t I ?

Though, to be honest, I really do want to write characters that are diverse, not only in terms of sexuality like I already do but also in upbringing and neurodiversity. Thing is, to write a neurodivergent character, I need to have the answer to these questions : How often do they stim ? What are the most common stims and what is and isn’t considered as such, aka what does the character does in the show that seems to be a stim ? How does the character acts/should act with others ? Which social cues do they understand ? Which ones do they not understand ? How to write a character that you can tell is neurodivergent without having to make them scream ‘I’m not neurotypical’; with instead having the only ‘confirmation’ of it being in the tags ? How to make them very excited about something without falling into the ‘autistic people are children’ stereotype ?

As long as I can’t answer these questions, I refuse to be an idiot and try to write about something I know I will mess up. And while I do have the curiosity and will to learn more, if not simply because I’m curious about neurodiversity, don’t expect me to write about it anytime soon. Right now my priority is to ‘digitalize’ all the dozen fics I wrote on paper (two of them had been in my writing pile for two years, and several for a year) while making the eventual post that comes to mind like this one.”

Edit : So a few weeks after making that post, I started to learn more about neurodiversity because being autistic makes you curious to know what kinds of behaviors are due to you not being neurotypical. And, as it had been pointed out, I’m not using the correct term here. I didn’t give Dakota a hyperfixation but a special interest. From what I understand, the difference is that hyperfixations stick to you constantly for a while (a few weeks or months), leading you to easily hyperfocus on the topic, before you suddenly start to get less invested in that interest. On the other hand, special interests can stick for months or sometimes years. And even if you’re not constantly thinking about your interest, it’s still there in a corner of your mind and you never get tired of it and keep the knowledge you accumulated to talk about it anytime.

So yeah, I gave Dakota a special interest. The reason why I thought it was a hyperfixation is because I see this term be very often associated with ADHD and a lot of people see Dakota as having ADHD. But still, my bad for mixing up the two. And the reason I didn’t edit the post sooner is because it kind of slipped out of my mind until I made a new post today that mentions this one. Sorry for that too.

[lunaticsandidiots]

Hi ! Can I get a Gotham ship/pairing please? I'm bi, and I use she/her pronouns. I'm 4'11, and my hair is dyed auburn (naturally mousey brown, although I was blonde for the majority of my teen years, minus the one year I was blue !). I have blue eyes and I'm covered in freckles. I'm studying arts and humanities in college, and I hope to become a journalist after graduation. I'm a Pisces, with a Pisces moon and a Sagittarius rising ! I'm an INFP, but am easily mistaken for an ENFP because I seem more extroverted than I actually am !

Hobbies wise, I have been involved in musical theatre since before I can remember, and I was the head of the debate team and the editor of our school newspaper and yearbook in secondary school. I was also heavily involved in school choir ! I'm very emotional, and tend to cry over everything - both the good and the bad ! I'm also very impulsive and tend to dive into situations head first without weighing the consequences first. I'm a strong believer in going with my gut. Those who don't know me all that well assume that I'm a mum friend, but I'm more of a wine aunt friend - encouraging my friends to do the stupid things, and offering to cover for them if their plans go awry ! That being said, I do care about my friends a lot, and I get very protective over them. If they get close with people who I believe have bad intentions, I make sure to pay close attention and make a list of anything the other person does that makes me feel like they're not good for my friends - which may seem obsessive, but I've never been wrong yet !

My style is all over the place ! One day I could be wearing a 90s grunge get-up, complete with the low-rise wide leg jeans and cropped halter, and the next I could look like I'm going to a fancy job interview in a tweed suit just to actually go down and get the groceries in ! This is the same for my music taste, honestly - I can listen to anything and everything, my taste changes with my mood.

Other fun facts about me, since I don't know what else to include;

- I'm a very "picky" eater - I can't stomach certain tastes or textures

- I have hyperactive and inattentive ADHD, and I have trouble staying still or staying on topic when talking, intertwining stories and making a five minute conversation last five hours

- I can read 700 page books within a day, when I put my mind to it ! Because of this, I've collected so many books over the years, to the point that my bedroom has became something of a library - I won't reread books, but I also won't get rid of them once I'm done because I form attachments to things !

- I can't do basic maths

I am so sorry if I've included too much information and went way overboard ! Thank you !!! 💞

dont apologise honey - the more information the better! i love to get to know you guys, and it helps me match you up!! i ship you with...

selina kyle!

she’d notice you wearing an outrageously fabulous outfit to do the groceries as she was stealing candy and would have to talk to you

she’d absolutely love how creative you are, often times interrupting you mid-assignment just so you can explain what your topic is and ask a million questions

knowing selina, she’d probably be a dick and try to (lovingly) tease you about being in choir, but also wouldn’t stop pestering you until you sang for her

she’d also love how loyal and protective you are. our girl’s got a lot of trust issues, so even just seeing the love and care you take to make sure your friends are safe and happy would fiercely warm her heart and reassure her

you’d also be the go-to alibi girl - if she came running to you in the night, frantically looking behind her with a nervous laugh, you’d go through your mental list and choose an alibi for her - dinner and a movie, homework, you name it, you’ve got it

and she’d always thank you with a tight hug and a sweet peck on the cheek as she looks away to hide her blush

she wouldn’t be the most physically affectionate partner, but she’d do little things like bring you books, helping you stay on task or making sure the restaurant you go to has a menu you can order from comfortably

[mkstrigidae]

from the ask meme abt writing, i have a few questions about your writing process! how do you stay organized with so many pov’s in AWPH? i always wonder what writing app/site fic writers use (word, google docs, etc.), and if it’s not too much, could you show a screenshot of how that looks?

Hi friend! :) I am terribly sorry it’s taken me a while to answer this- life has gotten in the way

Oof- so the answer to that question ‘how do you stay organized’ is probably ‘I don’t’, but I’ll do my best. (this ended up long and fairly disorganized)

About APWH POVs:

For the different POVs, there isn’t really a process I have to choose whose POV is used for what scene- I’d probably be more stern about it if were writing a novel, but because it’s fanfiction, I kind of just go with whatever feels right at the time. There is one thing that’s absolutely deliberate, though- I’ve never written a scene from Petyr’s POV, because he’s the exception to narrative omniscience.

There have been a few instances where I’ve had to switch whose POV i was writing from as I went along, or after I finished a scene- Meeting Jon Arryn is an example from the most recent chapter. Initially, it was from Sansa’s point of view, but Sansa overthinks everything and so it kept going off in all sorts of weird directions and I couldn’t pin it down. Once I started writing as Robin, it got much easier.  

The single most difficult thing about keeping all the different characters straight is remembering who knows certain things, and who doesn’t know certain things.

Take this, for example. The two characters closest to omniscience are Oberyn and Sansa, but where Oberyn knows Baelish’s history and can understand certain aspects of his motivation because of years of working on the case and studying him (in addition to a hefty understanding of human psychology), Sansa isn’t always completely aware of how important certain pieces of evidence are, or how relevant certain things are to Petyr’s motivations. The two of them understand Baelish more than anyone else, but in drastically different ways. The biggest thing is that Oberyn is aware of Petyr’s relationship with Catelyn, and how he feels about her, whereas Sansa has no idea about that, and still doesn’t really understand why Baelish took her in the first place (although she’s been doing a repeat speedrun through the five stages of grief throughout the entire thing, poor kid).

But there are basic facts of the story, and then there’s the ‘who knows what’ aspect of it. Someone broke into the Stark’s home in White Harbor and stole Sansa from her bed- this is a fact. But only a few people know who it was that broke in or how it was done. An assassin was hired to kill Petyr Baelish at the airport and failed. The Lannisters know who the assassin is, but Oberyn and Daemon don’t yet.

There are lots of complicated relationships among the characters too- Jon knows more about Robb than any of the rest of them, except maybe Rhae, who only ever shows vulnerability to Willas and Marg, and so the rest of us don’t really get to see her soft side. Arya’s relationship with Catelyn is extremely complicated, and as such, she has a lot of baggage going into meeting Sansa that Sansa has no idea about. Lyanna is aware of what’s generally going on politically, and is working on several important stories that could provide some insight to Oberyn, but they haven’t talked about politics too much recently, because Oberyn’s too busy with the investigation and Lyanna’s busy with her job. There are secrets that Robb has been keeping for an extremely long time, and secrets that Sansa’s keeping without even realizing it. There are a lot of things that were odd or abnormal or red flags in Sansa’s childhood that she doesn’t even realize are odd, because she has no other frame of reference.

In terms of keeping the other stuff straight, I have a page at the beginning of the APWH Master Document (it’s so long dear god), that basically has character names, ages, locations, and time zones written down. I’ve tried making like, character info compilations, but I’m not very good at updating them so I stopped that (although I found a particularly funny bit about the targs in one that’s sampled below).

Generally, I think it’s more important to understand how your characters react to certain situations and their most basic personality traits and values, rather than just having a long list of stats on them, so that tends to be my approach. If I’m worried that I’m about to write something that conflicts with a previous plot point, generally, I’ll go back and skim the story for mentions of them to double check- I’ve reread APWH so frequently that I am genuinely sick of the first five chapters, haha.

Unfortunately, a lot of it tends to just be that I have an extremely good long-term memory for details. The trade-off is a god-awful short-term memory, though. It’s partially the ADHD. I’m on the verge of trying to keep things straight with an excel doc, tho.

The timeline is one of the trickier aspects, so I tend to scribble them out anytime I’m thinking about when and where certain events happened. Generally, I use Sansa’s abduction as year zero, because I do not understand how years work in Westeros and have elected to just use my own- here’s a sample of one I scribbled down the other day when I was trying to figure something out.

(Sorry about the post it notes- those are covering some spoilers! ;D)

About my writing process:

It is…. Not as streamlined of a process as I would like, haha. Generally, I go by chapter. I kind of have a rough idea of what I want to happen in each chapter, and generally that evolves as the story does.

For each chapter, I kind of just bullet point out some things that I want to have happen, and then try my hand at writing some of them. Some of my best ideas happen after this process, though, like the scene where Robb and Sansa find out that Baelish moved them out of the city while Robb was in town to avoid a confrontation. But I have those bullet points, and usually rough chapter titles and rough summaries before the chapters start. (Some things blacked out because of spoilers ;D)

I think that if I waited until I was inspired to sit down and write, then APWH would maybe be done by like, 2070, so I usually kind of sit down and just start writing- some of it is good, some scenes I discard completely, and usually, once I hit on something that works, the plot flows where I want it to.

I generally know how I want the chapters to start, based on how the previous chapter ends (My writing time for them usually overlaps bc it’s a natural continuation). Once I figure out roughly how I want the chapter to end, though, the whole thing starts coming together, and it’s easier for me to figure out what doesn’t belong in the middle, and what might be missing.

I started using one master document on word, because I swear to god I did not intend for this story to turn into the behemoth that it is, and that lasted for about twelve chapters before I realized that the damn thing was 368 pages of tiny font (I don’t double space my lines when I write bc I like seeing as much of it as I can). So I’ve switched to individual word docs for each chapter as of chapter 13, and used google docs to share the chapter with the wonderful @nowmywatch-begins who was kind enough to beta read the thing and remove the excess of commas I tend to use. I use color coded highlighting to indicate different things- turquoise means I want to go back and rework something, green means I need to check to make sure something doesn’t conflict with something I wrote previously, yellow is for sections that I might not want in that chapter and might need to move, etc. Anything I end up discarding goes in a section at the end of that chapter labeled ‘outtakes’. I used to have a lot of trouble rewriting things because I hated to get rid of them, so this circumvents that particular issue. I get to keep what I wrote, while still improving the story by being willing to throw out certain parts.

I write out of order frequently so I keep a separate document called ‘APWH- Bits and Pieces’ that I use whenever I’m doing something like that- it acts as sort of a holding tank for these scenes until I feel like they fit in the story. I also just keep random notes in there, questions that I think need answering, random sentences that just come to me, ideas I’ve jotted down when an idea sparks, etc. There’s a lot of stream of consciousness kind of stuff because I tend to process ideas by writing them down, and so I have stuff like ‘okay so what if Lysa did X and Petyr was here and does Sansa have a college scholarship???? Is the Braavosi prison in the northwest or the south? Why is Westeros still a monarchy? do the tabloids follow the royal family like in britain???’

Like, I have the ending for APWH written, but it’s fairly disjointed, and i think I’ll be able to flesh it out more as the story goes along. I like having a general idea of where I’m going with my writing, but I also will modify those ideas frequently as I go- sometimes the characters really do write the story for you.

This is probably not very organized, and waaaaay longer than you wanted, but I hope this answers your question!!! Thank you for the ask! :)

[bestworstcase]

farran rereads lost lagoon: chapters 5-6

- mixed feelings about eugene’s first impressions of cassandra here. on the one hand, she did make a snide remark about him being a thief, which must sting when he’s already making an active attempt at self-improvement and attending classes in criminal justice. this isn’t tts eugene - who spends 6-7 months loafing around the palace basking in luxury until cass drags him for being self-absorbed and lazy. this eugene has a work ethic and seems to feel some actual responsibility regarding his new role as rapunzel’s consort. it’s not fair for cass to make a snap judgment about him based on his past and decide to be rude to him because of it.

on the other hand… he and rapunzel did just barge into her space against her will and her subsequent prickliness was reasonable, which eugene doesn’t seem to have any awareness of. and taking into consideration the likelihood that this cass is supposed to be about 17 while eugene is an established adult, that isn’t a fun vibe.

- sort of amused by the role reversal of eugene, in the licensed fanfic cassunzel s1 au, is the one who introduces rapunzel to the library. i guess the key to unlocking rapunzel’s romance option is to not show her the books. but also, why is eugene the one showing her around lol

- did he steal from the coronan palace so much that he just knows where everything is

- the dialogue in this chapter is… hm

“You can take these books back to your room if you want,” Eugene said.

“I can?” I said, staring at the stocked shelves around me.

“I think I’ll open a window,” Eugene said. “It’s a little musty in here.”

like what’s going on here? is this a dialogue bug introduced by spot editing that didn’t get patched before publishing? does eugene have adhd? is this a romance novel™ thing to demonstrate that while eugene and rapunzel talk to each other plenty they’re not on the same wavelength to such an extent that raps asks a question and eugene responds with a complete non-sequitur, which will be contrasted with how completely rapunzel and cass ‘click’ together later? hello?

- one point in favor of the romance novel™ theory is that immediately after this eugene conks out instead of sharing in rapunzel’s discovery and exploration of the library and it is implied he is having a fun flynn rider dream ie he’s lost in his own fantasies and oblivious to rapunzel’s. symbolism!

- anyhoo, this is when the plot device of the ‘lost lagoon’ book of poems turns up. i will say that, having spent the better part of my teen years working in an actual library, it beggars belief to say that a book got shoved behind other books in a popular section (sports) by mistake and got left that way for so long that dust blooms out of it when it’s finally cracked open again; likewise, anyone who attempted to intentionally hide the book this way is an idiot. my dude, you are in a palace riddled with secret passageways. maybe hide the secret book there?

like it’s not even well-hidden. rapunzel pulls out one (1) book from the sports section and immediately spots it. which also just feels dumb. like… there’s a million other ways this book could have been hidden. inside another book would have been more believable. rapunzel rips a bone-dry book of census records off the top shelf because she’s insatiably curious about corona’s people and surprise! it’s got this slim little book of poetry crammed inside it. like ??? i know it’s juv fic but make an effort

- coronans canonically speak english according to this i’m die

- rapunzel hides the book from arianna just… because, and i can’t help but feel this is another case of anxiety written by someone who doesn’t quite get it. she’s ‘just not ready’ to share this book of poems that means absolutely nothing to her yet except that she thought it sounded pretty.

but like. this girl grew up with gothel, who made a habit of belittling her interests, thoughts, feelings, and desires. everything rapunzel had she had because gothel deigned to give it to her, and anything she valued could have been snatched away just as easily. in the film it’s made clear that rapunzel hides pascal’s entire existence from gothel, and while the reason for this isn’t spelled out, it’s clear to me that she was afraid gothel might hurt or get rid of pascal should she learn of his existence. so, like. this is all a recipe for rapunzel having this general anxiety about things being taken for her and with this fear being linked to mother figures it makes sense that arianna would tend to trigger it especially. there is a perfectly obvious, understandable reason for rapunzel to be terrified of sharing anything she found by herself and sees value in or is excited about with her new mom, even if she knows rationally that arianna would never take it from her.

as it is, it really comes across more as an arbitrary plot device to keep the lagoon a cassunzel-only thing.

- there’s a lot of odd characterization decisions in this book but i think rapunzel being resistant and reluctant with regards to the idea of having a human companion is probably the weirdest. ??

- arianna feels like she’s characterized the way a lot of fanworks characterize her, i.e. the authorial mouthpiece who (in the case of cassunzel fic specifically) overtly ships cassunzel and does things to facilitate that relationship. don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to see her doing stuff at all, but… i dunno, i find this brand of arianna doing things just a little wearying. let her just be her own character.

- implication is that arianna and the captain agreed that cass would be rapunzel’s lady-in-waiting, arianna okays this with rapunzel and then tells rapunzel to announce it to cassandra at this public holiday feast. with no prior warning. wow. i think the kindest possible reading here is that the captain has been telling arianna that cass would be delighted and honored to receive this position and arianna assumes he’ll give cass a heads-up as a courtesy beforehand, but that paints the captain in a pretty bad light on account of him lying and essentially manipulating the queen in order to force his teenage daughter to accept this huge responsibility that she vocally does not want. in any case, absolutely nobody involved in this shitshow gives a damn what cass wants.

- lagoon comes in hard with the saporian!cass symbolism l o l. rapunzel reads a saporian poem out loud, not knowing what it means but loving the sounds, while daydreaming about becoming friends with cass.

- arianna seems to genuinely believe cass will be thrilled to have the lady-in-waiting gig sprung on her, which seems to lend credence to the theory that cap has been talking it up as something cass wants. or the intention here is to paint arianna as an out of touch noblewoman, but i don’t think that’s what howland was going for. i don’t know, it’s an odd conversation.

- eugene calls cassandra “sport” lmfao

- lagoon cass has never read a book in her life, apparently

- i don’t want to keep harping on this too much but it keeps leaping off the page at me; cass’s behavior throughout this dinner scene really just bleeds teenagerhood. eugene and rapunzel both make actual stabs at conversation by asking her about things they know she’s interested in, and cass brushes them off/stonewalls them. in tts, on the other hand, cass is actually pretty open to deep conversations with both rapunzel and eugene—it’s just that they never. ask her about herself. eugene goes 6-7 months before he asks cassandra a personal question in cassandra vs eugene, which if i remember right is the only time he asks her a personal question. rapunzel gets very invested very fast in becoming friends with cassandra, but she does it by strong-arming cass into being her partner in a contest, and when cass decides to open up to her it isn’t in response to rapunzel asking her things. the dynamic is totally different.

- actually now that i think about it - lagoon cass feels a lot like the cranky new dreamer version of cass (you know, the flavor of new dream fans who resent cass for ‘being mean’ to eugene, ‘being controlling’ of rapunzel, and ‘stealing’ eugene’s narrative spotlight). this cass is rude, she does come off as a bit spoiled and very bratty, she is nasty to eugene for no good reason, and while i do sympathize with her on the grounds of her evidently being a child i don’t find her to be especially likable or compelling as a character. if cass acted like this in tts i think the cranky new dreamer contingent of the fandom would have a much stronger leg to stand in - especially if she was still supposed to be 22.

like… this:

“So,” Eugene said, distracting me. “What’s it like to be the daughter of the captain of the guard? You obviously have a thing for weapons.”

“So,” I said.

“Have you been training since you were a little kid?” Eugene pressed on. “Do you have friends in the castle?”

“No,” I said. “Who needs friends?”

“Jeez!” Eugene muttered while Rapunzel whispered with the queen. “I don’t need just any icebreaker here, I need a pickax.”

I rolled my eyes.

this is way more interest in cass as a person than eugene shows in tts… like ever. at this point, eugene has met cass ONCE for a few MINUTES and he already knows more about her than he does in cassandra vs eugene, after six or seven months of frequent contact. yet cass scoffs and gives him monosyllabic answers and radiates way more hostility for way less reason than she displays even in tangled before ever after. i think eugene is totally justified in going, yeesh, what’s this kid’s deal?

- rapunzel goes straight from “i’d like you to be my lady-in-waiting” to “you’re my new lady-in-waiting!” without waiting for cass to answer. and i mean, at this point it is a done deal, queen’s orders and all, so i can’t hold this against rapunzel at all. but man, the adults involved in this decision sure aren’t concerned at all about making sure rapunzel learns how boundaries and consent works.

How was I going to train? How was I going to live the life I was born to live?

Fury heated my blood as I stared down the moon.

heh.

i wonder how much howland knew regarding the planned villain arc, because on the one hand lines like this are drenched in foreshadowing, and she’s done a much better job establishing cassandra’s belief in destiny than tts did. but on the other, had she known about the gothel twist, she would surely have known that cassandra is several years older than rapunzel, and that doesn’t square with how cass… acts.

this is half-remembered hearsay so take it with a grain of salt, but i seem to recall something about cass, in her original conception, being younger than rapunzel (and also aware of her parentage, and secretly villainous all along). could howland have been working from information given to her during the transitional stage between that proto-cass and tts cass? that would explain a lot.

- the last paragraph of 6 is the most effective passage in the book thus far:

This was a decision that had bars around it. I couldn’t protest without falling out of favor with the king and queen, and then there would be no way I’d ever be allowed in the guard. I couldn’t argue my way out of this with my father. A royal assignment was the final word. My fate had been sealed. I fell to my knees and stifled a scream.

[struwwelzeter]

RZK: "90% of the time great music is created on drugs" - I do not like the sound of that. I think he would create good music without drugs just as fine. Its not greatness of the music, but his perception about what he thinks sounds ready. And when you are high a lot is more tolerable, even the previously soberly shitty music :) Please, i need your take on this.

Ah god. Difficult topic.

This ... might get longer?

There is a difference, I think, between writing on drugs, and then listening back to it on drugs. I think assuming that someone would preceive the outcome differently/as better on drugs than off them is tiny bit presumptuous. Not because it’s not possible, but because different drugs work differently, depending on who takes them and in what headspace. Acid for exemple is an entirely different beast than cocaine is, and both will work differently depending on how you feel when you take them to begin with.

Now going off that quote that I like so much; the drugs only helped me to get going, I have a feeling for him personally it’s not so much about the creative process itself but about energy levels. There is something about having more ideas than energy that is horribly restrictive and frustrating and that at least in my experience can even really block you because then you don’t know where to start. Add to that a fear of failure, that just gets perpetuated by not knowing where to start and you’re stuck, and it’s paralyzing. Coke or heroine in that circumstance are honestly only a logical temptation, because they boost self esteem and mental energy, and they don’t feel like you’re a different person. Why do you think so many students take Ritalin to get through studying for exams. For someone without ADHD Ritalin can almost be cocaine light, and it doesn’t feel like it does that much to your personality other than getting your brain to a place where it does what you ask of it. I don’t know if this is me reading into too little data, but I feel like all the people I know of that got into coke or heroine too much were the kind of hyper creative, high output people that Richard is like too. I think of Nikki Sixx especially, and the way he is described almost the same way, especially during his low points: overbearingly creative, controlling in the studio, hyper obsessive about his visions.

Then you have this huge amount of 70s psychedelic rock music written on acid, which is a completely different beast. I have zero personal experience with hallucinogens because they scare the shit out of me, but there is enough literature and science out there that basically proves that they change your perception of the world in general, make you feel more connected, and actually do help people understanding themselves and are a catalyst for discovery. I mean, alot of psychedelic and prog rock is pretty out there. There is something to be said about “would they have really dared to do all that without the drugs?” Think about all the self inflicted judgement and restrictions and rules we all carry around since childhood for psychology reasons - and then think of something that helps you switch off those controls and just “be”. You could argue alot of musical development would have never happened without the drugs. And if it did, it would have been made by artists with great self esteem, maybe.

Now, I don’t want to say that you can’t make great music without drugs, but I think it carries the question why artists do drugs to begin with. There are things that make creativity easier and things that make it harder. And yes, someone psychologically on top of it might pull it off greatly without them. But if you have low self esteem for exemple, which is a very common thing especially for perfectionists, and it cripples you, and cocaine makes that go away, it’s just an easier out than going through years of therapy first. Not to mention that you really need to be ready for therapy.

And then there is the next question which is “would someone really make the same art if they were that healthy psychologically that they aren’t tempted by the drugs as an easy out.” And I think the answer to that is “it depends.” I know we all want to get rid of romanticizing the suffering artist trope, but honestly... it’s just a fact that for many creatives (not all!!!) that is exactly how it works - no pain, no art. Can you really create something with the same level of empathy and shared anguish if you haven’t been there yourself? When we talk about the kind of art that touches us because it doesn’t leave us alone in our grief and in our pain, our insecurities and imperfections and failures? I personally honestly do not think so. It’s also just the fact that some people use creativity as therapy, as a vent. I think of Beth Hart who is diagnosed with BPD and has said that when she is doing well, she’s more interested in taking part in life with her loved ones and doesn’t even think of writing, but when she’s doing bad, she can’t even exist without that outlet. And then it can start that circle - I need to create something, so I need to make myself feel something, and it’s like self harm. I think I just made the point that being healthy mentally helps with creativity, so yes, you can make great art being happy, the problem is that for some of us the need disappears as soon as the happiness is present. I am not saying it’s like that for everyone. But honestly, as someone who has been through this too, I am getting a bit tired of the whole “people can do art just as well if they are happy.” Yes. Some can. Some can’t. Stop dismissing our experience, thank you.

So in conclusion I think the whole “can people do great art off drugs” is pretty closely connected to “do you have to suffer to make good art.” They’re connected, I think, because arguably, drugs are self medication and as such an indication for suffering. Not always. Or better said: sometimes someone really is happy and just wants to dance an entire 48 hrs, and the only way to do that is to pop some amphetamine. Drugs are a means to an end, to get yourself to a point where you can do something that without them you can’t do without a lot more effort. Until they’re not, because they also do fuck you up, they’re mostly a promise that is never kept. (Hallucinogens are a bit different but that’s another story.) Don’t take drugs, kids. I’m just saying, that initial motovation to take them after just curiosity, isn’t so much about the drug itself, it’s about what it helps you do. And yes, maybe it often does make you go “oohh this is actually pretty nice” even if you would look at it differently sober. The question is: would it then see the light of day? Or would it be left in a drawer for not being good enough.

This now reads entirely like a pro drugs rant. It’s not. I repeat: they fuck you up. Cocaine can make your heart short circuit and kill you in one go. Addcition means it won’t make you feel better oretty fast, it just starts making it feel normal again. All that, you have heard this before. But I do understand why people are tempted by them, why so many artists have taken them, and I would never judge someone for taking them either.

A lot of people have reported that getting back into song writing after quitting the drugs has been hard. We all know the skills they posess are the same with or without them. Maybe they’re even better without them. But what does that help if you’re experiencing your sense of failure wide awake? I think that’s what people mean when they say good art is made on drugs. It’s not about the skill, it’s about censorship of the self.

[crystalrainwing]

hey hey hey august can I hear the wasp story?

THE WASP STOR(IES)

i will begin with a small bit of context. my mom used to be fatally allergic to wasps, specifically yellowjackets. i can’t remember what it was exactly but she had something done to make her not allergic to them anymore, or at least barely allergic. my dad has adhd and he also has a pretty skewed sense of danger; he’s very impulsive and these things combined have resulted in some... interesting... things.

THE FIRST (major) WASP STORY, aka my dad makes questionable decisions: part one

i can’t remember whether this was before or after The Wasp Incident but i believe it was before. at this point in time my youngest sister, squid, was probably four or five and EXTREMELY afraid of wasps because of something that happened when she was 2. at our old house, during the summer she wouldn’t go downstairs because wasps lived in our air conditioning and they’d get blown out into the main room down there. anyways. the rest of us didn’t like wasps either.

except, of course, my dad. my dad was and is not afraid of wasps.

outside my parents’ window was a massive wasp nest. one of the bowling- or basket-ball sized ones. mostly they didn’t bother us. my dad once stuck his hand in the nest just for funsies and only got stung like. 3 or 4 times. so. not too aggressive.

my dad, on this day, was leaf blowing our concrete patio. and the window was RIGHT there.

he wondered, what would happen if i stuck the leaf blower in here and turned it on?

so. he did.

we couldn’t leave the house for a day and a half. but the wasp nest was gone, at least, i guess.

THE SECOND (major) WASP STORY, aka my dad makes questionable decisions part two

this was maybe a year ago (so after The Incident). now there’s a kind of hornets called bald faced hornets. we were already familiar with them from The Incident. they’re mostly okay, because they won’t attack until you’re near their home (usually in a tree). but once they do, their venom is particularly painful. (unrelated but every year they’d eat any apples that fell to the ground and they’d get drunk cause the apples were a little fermented. it’s really funny.)

so in our cherry trees was a big wasp nest. we, of course, wanted to eat the cherries but me and my sisters were willing to just. not go near the tree; that particular tree did not in fact grow any cherries. my dad, being unafraid and bored, decided to find a way to get rid of it.

his original plan was to ‘just stomp on it.’ don’t ask me how that would work because i simply don’t know. he didn’t either. that was the end of the plan. notable problems include the fact that it was in a tree and the fact that it was full of wasps.

anyways. my mom told him that was not actually a good plan but tragically couldn’t convince him to just. leave it alone. the revised plan was to 1. go up a ladder to the nest. 2. cut it down with a... knife? saw? i don’t remember. 3. drop the whole nest + the branch into a bucket and finally, 4. shove a lid on the bucket real fast.

he didn’t even make it to step 2.

me and my sisters were outside, a fair bit away, watching. we knew it was going to be terrible and hilarious. and it was! i actually have the whole thing on video, somewhere; if i can find it and it doesn’t have anyone’s faces on it then i might post it here.

so here’s my dad, standing on a wobbly ladder which is right next to a very steep hill (our yard was essentially a downhill, a few feet of flat ground, and another downhill. good for sledding though). on the ground beneath him, the wasp bucket, and in his hand a dull serrated knife.

being who he was he decided to take a look at the wasps and stuck his hand right next to them. ‘oh,’ i hear him say. ‘these guys are aggressive.’

‘oh, they’re really aggressive.’ he drops the knife. the wasps come out.

we (me and my sisters) start running. behind us, my dad is yelling for us to get inside quickly and close the door because the wasps are CHASING him.

well. we couldn’t go outside that evening, but in the end the only consequence was my dad was in a lot of pain and had like, a fever and stuff from the venom (surprise surprise! they were bald faced hornets), and my cat acted drunk cause she got stung too.

pretty big consequence, let’s be real. i think my dad must feel pain less than other people, because... well. we all have learned th hard way how much bald faced hornets stings hurt.

THE WASP INCIDENT, aka a bizarre series of increasingly terrible misfortunes

the day of The Incident was perfectly normal. we went to a river with some friends, which was fun if a bit cold. i don’t remember the time spent at the river.

soon it came time to leave. we had planned on taking a picture together, but well, too bad. we would go home without it. oh, how i wish we would have gone home without it.

my sister, as mentioned before, was terrified of wasps. and there were a few wasps hanging around; we were near water, no big deal. if she saw one she’d scream, though.

into the woods we went, trying to find a place to take a picture (we stayed on the trail, though; there were some very little kids with us).

i clearly remember the moments before Disaster Struck. a 10 year old me found a beautiful flower. some cool mushrooms.

‘oh, here’s a good place for a picture,’ i hear behind me. the parents stood on the trail, while all the kids stood on a slope directly next to it. there was a nice log adding to the picture, it was very aesthetic, i’m sure.

suddenly, squid starts screaming. no big deal, she is five and screams a lot. she just saw a wasp, probably, or maybe hadden pinched her.

there was a little pinch on my leg. stinging nettle? maybe.

another. these hurt too bad to be stinging nettle. i didn’t know what was going on but we all ran down the slope faster than we’d ever run before.

i was feeling terrible pricks all over my body. please understand these were truly terrible. they were enough to bring me to tears with just one sting.

as everybody ran down the trail towards the cars and, presumably, safety, my mom ripped my shirt off for me because THERE WAS A WASP STUCK INSIDE MY SHIRT. once i got it out i understood what was going on - we were being attacked by wasps. everyone else was out of sight, around a bend in the trail, but i could hear their distant screams as i walked slowly and leisurely down the trail, in intense pain. i thought the trees were very pretty, and the sky very blue.

when i got to the parking lot i was met with the sight of my youngest sister, no pants or shirt on, crying hysterically and my friend doing the same. poor squid, five years old and deathly afraid of wasps, had been stung over 12 times by some of the wasps that personally i have found to be most painful. they’d gotten in her clothes.

the end of the story, right? you’re probably thinking. we go home, squid is even more scared of wasps, that’s it.

well, not quite. remember how i mentioned my mom used to be allergic to wasps? specifically, yellowjackets? and only yellowjackets?

as it turns out, bald faced hornets ARE yellowjackets. and in saving my sister from the wasps stuck in her clothes my mom had been stung six. times.

so. here we are. four parents, at least three crying children, in the middle of the woods 2 hours from civilization and, more importantly a HOSPITAL. someone camping nearby had benadryl but no one had an epi pen, and my mom was having an allergic reaction. she wasn’t going into anaphylactic shock, luckily.

but she still needed an epi pen, because she could.

just down the road was a boy scout camp, and for the first time we had good luck - there were people there. and a medical tent. we took her in, they were confused but they gave her an epi pen. i sat in the car with my friend, who was still crying. she gave me licorice. after an hour or so, my mom was fine. and we went home.

in the end everything was okay, and i have a fun story to tell. also happy to report that squid’s fear of wasps isn’t as severe these days, shes 10 now.

anyways. here are three of the reasons im not fond of wasps, and three of my favourite stories to tell friends (sorry to my irl friends who’ve heard this story SO. many times.)