#in hindsight i probably should've been more specific when i told them to act like they were fighting me for something

[starlight-eclipsed]

One of the funny things about being an artist is that it makes people more willing to go along with weird questions if you preface it with "can you help me figure out a pose"

[petrichal]

Look, I really love KobyLu, but specifically KobyLu where Koby is a marine and Luffy is a pirate and nothing else, because I LOVE seeing how people handle Koby's inner conflict while also maintaining his dream in canon.

Lead this up with Luffy being himself; he's not fazed by what other people think of their relationship, doesn't give two shits about it, but he's emotionally intelligent-- he goes along with Koby's insistence that they talk away from prying eyes (and isn't it such a pirate thing to do, to duck and hide and whisper under the canopy of leaves, to steal away treasure under the dead of night? Luffy's selfish and possessive of those he loves, so he's gleeful that there's a world where he can see a side of Koby no one else can), and *absolutely no one* would think to ask Luffy about love or dating so it's all the more easier for him to not slip his secret, this back-and-forth meeting with a marine upstart, the first person he had met from when his journey had just begun.

And as time goes on, they both get stronger, monsters in their own right and maybe more distant. But Koby's a sap so every time he sees Luffy on the newspaper after a dangerous stunt, he thinks he's so reckless but he thinks it with such endless admiration and pride that he thinks his heart might just burst. (On the same stretch of ocean, Luffy sees news of Koby too, rising up in ranks after each new exploit and his excitement grows because Koby's gonna be an Admiral and one day, he's gonna have to chase Luffy too. and if he's going to replace one of those shitty Admirals in office, well, then that's a bonus as well.)

If anyone asks them why they keep looking at the newspapers, always staying at the same page and on the same picture, Koby would deflect. He's selfish in that way too; the longer he stayed with the Marines, the more he knew he had to act against the corruption within, and he wasn't about to ruin his career by claiming he's been seeing the future Pirate King in secret. There was also that promise he made to Luffy, something about "catching him eventually" that Koby should've probably thought about harder in hindsight but remembering Luffy's sunny grin made his admission all the more worth it.

(and Helmeppo would sigh, because he's been with this idiot for 2 years and while he can't see what the hell Koby's been seeing in Luffy, if he sees even a trace of that ratty straw hat on the front page of the news, he's gonna pass it to Koby.)

Luffy, though. Luffy is loud. To people close to him- his crew, his trusted allies- he'd yap their ears off about this shy marine guy with incredible tenacity and potential for power and everyone goes woah so you know him? he's a friend? he's your WHAT and he laughs because no one really asked him before and wow, this really is everyone's first time hearing about this, huh?

(and Law knows Koby- Koby the Hero, who was around during the Rocky port incident- and he turned towards the Strawhats with a questioning, alarmed stare only to be met by the same look. Secret brothers, and now a lover?, they'd mutter under their breaths. Zoro though, he looked like he was simply being told what the day was and raised an eyebrow as if it was no big deal. As if he knew already. what the fuck?)

So when Marine Captain Koby comes to visit (under the pretext of wanting to arrest Luffy), waving his hands like he was greeting a friend rather than an enemy, wide smile on his face to match Luffy's, the crew leans back and sighs, and let him chase their captain all around whatever island they'd be docked at at the time.

And, well, if they happen to settle by the shore after that, entangled limbs and hushed talks of dreams, the world, of what lies after holding hands and chaste kisses- that's Koby and Luffy's business entirely.

[fawriel]

First of all, note to self that I need to get better about this because I keep making vague to-do lists and then act like it's surprising that I'm paralyzed by uncertainty when the time comes to actually put them into practice.

Second of all... I just want to vent for a moment about my time at a psychiatric clinic, where they made me come to terms with having a personality disorder with narcissistic aspects. Except, in hindsight, I am becoming less and less sure that said aspect plays as big a role as they seemed to think, and more and more sure that they had already made up their mind about me from the start and viewed everything I did under the lens of narcissism.

Because I was so constantly overwhelmed, I couldn't really see what was happening while it was happening. I should've taken my ADHD into account way more from the very start to demand accomodations. I was eventually kicked out for repeatedly missing regular appointments twice a day to measure my blood pressure (because I wasn't allowed to carry around my phone to remind me). After the first warning, they suggested that I have a problem with authority and ignore those appointments as some kind of subconscious rebellion. Which is a patently ridiculous idea if you know me, but clearly I rejected that so quickly that it read as defensive rather than certain.

There's so many events I could point to for the miscommunication that happened, but the one that this post really brought to mind is the skills training I had to do with a nurse. Which went awry because I had a wrong idea about skills as something you only use in an emergency. It blew my mind when we finally got to the point where he explained that your inner tension is normally supposed to be at a 0/10 and you should use skills to get there even when you're at a 1/10 or 2/10 that you've gotten used to as your Normal. But when we finally got there, he had already decided that I'm being non-compliant, that I don't want to do the work and expect him to just give me all the answers. I'd had a vague feeling that there was miscommunication going on and kept trying to explain my situation to see where the misunderstanding lies. He told me to my face that I'm not listening and that I just keep selfishly circling around myself and that anyone who doesn't know my condition (by which I'm sure he meant narcissism rather than ADHD) would think I'm a complete asshole they wouldn't want anything to do with. So before I could finally do the skills training for real after understanding what it's actually about, they arbitrarily took one of my many missed blood pressure appointments as an opportunity to issue my final warning and kick me out.

That was probably quite a mess to read, but I just had to get it off my chest. It's been bothering me so much for so many months now.

tl;dr:

1. Psychiatric clinics can be a great opportunity to really tackle uncomfortable issues. But when you're getting your diagnoses from a team of people who all just get to see you for very brief moments of time under very specific circumstances, that multitude of perspectives doesn't necessarily translate to a more accurate image of you.

2. If you have ADHD, be very aware of how it affects your interactions with people, and especially with people whose job it is to give you tasks. Even people in the mental health business probably don't know shit about how your brain works, so you've gotta get ahead of them before they draw their own conclusions.

(Source: me on twitter)

*Though, this really only applies to more smaller tasks (such as doing the dishes). Giving very specific instructions for more complicated tasks can confuse and bewilder us more.

** And yes, ADHDers can take things literally too. Its not much of an issue for us as autistic folks though.