#it just makes things more confusing lol

[chirpsythismorning]

I’m sorry but nothing will ever beat Finn’s drive playlist that he made during s3 filming, with songs like Me and Michael, The Basement, Gay Thoughts and No Woman lmaoooo

[crybaby-bkg]

cw: pregnancy, kids (you guys have a daughter together), fwb’s, angst with a bit of a hopeful ending, refers to you as ‘girl’ once

Friends with benefits Bakugou who never really got over his ego to fully commit to you. You’re a little ashamed to admit it, but when you fell pregnant, you thought that things would change. That the whole “no feelings” aspect would’ve been dropped, that he would’ve embraced you fully.

But he just…didn’t? If anything, he distanced himself away from you, became so formal like you were another coworker he would address. It was heartbreaking, going through your first pregnancy feeling so, so alone, but having to grin and bear it the whole way through.

He supported you though in every way that he could. He never missed an appointment, would trek to your house during late nights whenever you craved something. He even moved you in to his own apartment during your last trimester, but a couple months after your baby was born, you went back home. You never felt unwelcome, but you couldn’t pretend to be a happy family when he slept in the guest room every night.

So now, you coparent quite easily. At least, it seems easy to Bakugou, but really, it’s all a facade.

In all honesty? He thinks he’s a fuck up. An idiot. The stupidest, shittiest person who’s ever existed.

He thought what he was doing was enough, that the words he didn’t say carried across oceans, formulated into titles that he never verbalized. So when you told him you would be happy to coparent, his world felt upended suddenly, as he holds his tiny little baby girl in his arms.

Coparent? How could a couple coparent? Where did he go wrong? (He only slept in the guest room to give you and baby space, only moved you in late because you lived so far away and you were getting so big. He never said I love you because he was too embarrassed to say it out loud. He didn’t know he had to say it out loud to solidify it. He thought you just knew.)

So it’s why his heart breaks when he catches a glimpse of curly blond hair and red eyes in the grocery store. He tries to duck behind an aisle, but his baby would recognize him anywhere. (It’s true; you’ve sent many videos of her recognizing him on billboards and tv commercials and magazines.)

“Bakugou?” You call, ducking around the corner to catch a glimpse of him. He tries to act nonchalant like he’s looking at cans of soup, tries not to cringe at your formal name. He turns when you come into view, eyes drinking in your attire. His heart breaks a little when he recognizes the shirt you took in your second trimester, still has the pic you sent him of you grinning as you show off what you stole.

“Hey.” Bakugou greets gruffly, mouth pulled tight, but it cracks into a grin when his daughter starts squealing. She’s in the front part of the shopping cart, twisting her little chunky body to get out and get to him. She damn near screams when he sets his basket down to pick her up, rubbing his nose to hers.

“How ya doing, squirt?” He asks quietly, pecking at her chubby cheeks as she instantly starts babbling to him. He holds her close to his chest, eyes full of pure love for his baby girl, and it makes your heart squeeze so tight you think it might burst.

“This isn’t your neck of the woods.” You mutter, head tilting to the side as you take in your daughters excited face to see her father. Bakugou’s eyes snap to your own, letting his daughter play with his fingers in the meanwhile. He looks embarrassed, cheeks a dusty pink as he grumbles and looks away.

“I was just picking up some stuff to drop off for her. Was gonna text you and see if you were home,” he replies, and something tells you that it’s a lie. But you don’t pester him about it, just nod a few times, taking in the sight.

He looks so good like that, in his compression shirt and sweats, his hair mussed from your daughters incessant pulling. He’s grinning at her, but looks so bashful when he turns to you, like he’s thinking about things he knows he shouldn’t, like he has a boatload to say but can’t cough up.

And if you were a mind reader, you’d be so fucking right. He can’t help but reminisce on before you got pregnant, the nights spent with you. The day you told him you were having a girl, the tears you cried when you delivered her. He thinks, filled with so much guilt the entire time, that he wants another one. With you.

“‘S it okay if I walk my favorite girls home?” He asks you gruffly, nibbling on your daughters cheeks to hear her giggle again, uncaring of the drool she leaves on his hand. You feel your eyes widen at his term for you, face suddenly flushing. Favorite? You, his favorite?

Something tells you that you shouldn’t fall down the rabbit hole that is Bakugou Katsuki and his suppressed emotions and shitty ego. But there’s another something that tells you to trust it this time, to let things happen organically and without expectation. So you do.

“I’m sure she would love to show her daddy the new toy her grandma just brought her.” You tell him, giggling when he rolls his eyes at the mention of his mother. But he walks with you the entire time you finish up your grocery order, holding your daughter the whole time and pays for your groceries despite repeatedly telling him that he doesn’t have to.

He pushes her in the stroller stored underneath the shopping cart on the way home, making small conversation. And when you’re halfway home, does he reach for your hand. Only to cross the cross walk though, he tells himself, only for your protection. But he doesn’t let go until you’re in your own place, and even then, he’s close by the entire time. He helps you put away groceries, remembers where everything is like he lives here.

And for some reason, the familiarity makes your heart ache a little more than you would like it to.

[silusvesuius]

steer clear of ....the illigitimate child of... nvm

[relaxxattack]

rereading the hivebent commentary makes me so annoyed that people are never really willing to analyze the actual effects that alternian culture clearly had on every troll, especially the highbloods. pretty much the only troll who ever actually gets taken in the context of her upbringing is vriska.

no one ever seems willing to think about the character arcs of trolls like equius and terezi, who are also bluebloods with extremely hypocritical and toxic understandings of the people around them-- equius is boiled down to a gross creep who is just like that naturally and definitely didn't get it from his society in any way, whilst terezi is scrubbed of virtually all her flaws and turned into a strange sort of based love interest character who is all about being gay and too cool to be tricked by any of the alternian propaganda. quadrants? classism? how silly! terezi would never believe in stupid shit like that. she's quirky! and GAY!

despite the fact that equius and terezi both obviously have much, much more to their personalities than that-- and the alternian empire is informing way more dangerous things about these kid's beliefs than "kiss annoying people".

[javierduffy]

in my head, kieran survived the o’driscoll kidnapping, but by the time he’d got back to shady belle after someone found him bleeding out in the street and took him to the doctor, the gang was gone, and he took the opportunity to escape the gang lifestyle, running off to strawberry and beginning work with the timber folks

years later, you can find him at pronghorn ranch in epilogue 1, lovingly tending to the horses in the barn when you go to scoop the manure, and he’s made an honest living for himself. and the o’driscolls are gone because sadie killed then all and he is finally safe and happy is anyone listening can anyone hear me

[winryrockbellwannabe]

this guy is honestly making me question too much shit

bc there's no way in hell is just that nice, right?

at this point either: 1. he's being this nice and kind bc he has a crush on me, 2. he's honestly that nice, which will make me have a crush on him, bc omg. he's just the nicest person ever

[bitchapalooza]

So apparently I've accidentally given Sanji a feeding kink in the current fic I'm writing without realizing? Huh...

[lesbiancarat]

want to give my two cents on the AI usage in the maestro trailer--

i think seventeen doing a whole concept that is anti-AI is very cool, especially as creatives themselves i think it's good that they're speaking up against it and i hope it gets more ppl talking about the issue. i also understand on a surface level the artistic choice (whether it was made by the members, the mv director, or whoever else), to directly use AI in contrast to real, human-made visuals and music in order to criticize it. i also appreciate that they clearly stated the intention of the use of AI at the beginning of the video

however, although i understand it to an extent, i do not agree with the choice to use AI to critique AI. one of the main ethical concerns with generative AI is that it is trained on other artists' work without their knowledge, consent, or compensation. and even when AI generated images are being used to critique AI, it still does not negate this particular ethical concern

the use of AI to critique also does not negate the fact that this is work that could have been done by an actual artist. i have seen some people argue that it's okay in this context because it's a critique specifically about AI, and it is content that never would have been done by a real artist anyway because it doesn't make sense for the story they're trying to tell. but i disagree. i think you can still tell the exact same story without using AI

and in fact, i would argue that it would make the anti-AI message stronger if they HAD paid an artist to draw/animate the scenes that are supposed to represent AI generated images. wouldn't it just be proof that humans can create images that are just as bad and nonsensical and soulless as AI, but that AI can't replicate the creativity and beauty and basic fucking anatomy that's in human-made art?

it feels very obvious this was not just a way to cut corners and costs like a lot of scummy people are using AI for. ultimately it was a very intentional creative decision, i just personally think it was a very poor one. and even if some ethical considerations were taken into account before this decision, i certainly don't think all of them were. at the very least i feel like the decision undermines the message they want to convey

i would also like to recognize that i myself am not an artist, and i have seen some artists that are totally on board with the use of AI in this specific context, so clearly this is not a topic that is cut and dry. but generative AI is still new, and i think it's important to keep having these conversations

[soupmanspeaks]

Rip Michael Afton you would've loved Vine

[5eyed]

yayo! (real name: yolanda). shes xeress crush. i want to give her some tattoos or piercings but i couldnt think of good ones yet..

[helpimstuckposting]

TW: mentions of homophobia, brief f-slur mention More silly conversations and goofy friendship moments that Steve hasn't had in a while! I just love the Robin/Steve/Eddie dynamic, it's my favorite out of everything so I hope you like and I did it justice

I’m a ghost and you are a shadow

Part one | part two | part three | part four | part five | part six | part seven | part eight | part nine | part ten | part eleven

—

After their midnight talk, Steve couldn’t just go back to bed. There were too many thoughts, too many emotions, too much going on in the past day for his mind to quiet enough to let sleep take him. Instead, Eddie kept him company in the kitchen. They talked about the other Steve, Eddie hesitant at first, but Steve reassured him he wanted to know more about the man he could have been, the one everyone saw when they looked at him.

It was interesting, hearing all the differences of his life that appeared from the crossroads of his father living and dying. Apparently, Richard Harrington had died in some sort of travel accident when Steve was four. Eddie didn’t quite know the details, he’d never asked, but the rumor around town was that Mr Harrington had gone off on a business trip the morning of Steve’s fourth birthday. He came back in a casket.

Steve could vaguely recall begging his father to stay home for his birthday that year. He’d begged and begged until his father relented, it was probably the best birthday Steve could remember. And yet, because of that, the rest of Steve’s childhood suffered. Oh, the irony, Steve thought.

They went over some of the pictures hanging on the photo wall, Eddie dramatically re-enacting a few of them, though Steve could tell it was hard. If Eddie’s rings were his armor, Steve thought maybe his DM persona was a shield. Like it was easier to remain detached if he pretended they were campaigns and not memories.

Steve also noticed that since their talk outside, Eddie refrained from calling the other Steve ‘his Steve’. He just called him Steve, just like it was another person who happened to have the same name. It was nice, like Steve wasn’t a replacement or the same person or a mistake. He was just Steve, and so was this other guy. Two different people with the same name, like it was normal.

It was a relief, in those moments, to be someone new, someone separate from the other Steve. It made him feel a little less like he was taking up space he shouldn’t be in, and Steve thought maybe that was Eddie’s intention. He said Steve wasn’t taking someone else’s place, and he kept his word.

At some point, before the sun rose, the stairs creaked with footsteps. The two had been crouched over the counter with cups of coffee, legs too numb from sitting for hours. Robin swayed sleepily into the kitchen, blinking one eye at a time before rubbing at them with her balled up fists. She looked kind of like a toddler who was searching for her parents. Steve snorted into his mug, setting it down before he choked on the liquid inside. Robin’s eyes narrowed at him, before she rolled her eyes and lazily lifted two fingers up in a peace sign.

“Sup, Dingi,” she croaked, voice not quite awake yet.

Steve shared a look with Eddie, scrunching his nose up in a sneer and nodding silently toward Robin, what the hell did she just say?

Eddie snorted and took a gulp from his mug, a silent don’t ask me, sent back.

Robin sighed and pointed to Steve, “One dingus,” she said, then pointed to Eddie, “two dingi,” she concluded, before wandering over to Steve and stealing his mug of coffee. She clasped it in her hands and shuffled over to the other side of the counter island, plopping herself into a stool. “So what were you two lovely ladies talking about at four in the morning?”

“I was telling Stevie here about that one time Steve bet you couldn’t beat his track time and you sprinted so hard you threw up in your lunch bag before band.” Robin squawked, slamming the mug down on the counter and leaning threateningly toward Eddie.

She jabbed a finger at him, “Not cool Munson, we agreed that story went to the grave!”

Eddie laughed maniacally, bouncing in his place, “I lied, Buckley, tough shit!”

As Robin leapt from her stool to chase Eddie around the kitchen island, Steve silently stole his mug back to watch it all play out. He’d dreamed of this so many times, the casual teasing and horsing around just like the kids did. He’d never had a large group of genuine friends, just Tommy and Carol and whoever else they deemed cool enough to join them that week. It was never light hearted jokes and stupid faces, it was silent smoking and jabs that were too sharp, too mean spirited. Carol taught him how to hold himself, how to look intimidating and aloof. She’d never in a million years stoop down to make herself look stupid for a laugh or to cheer someone up. She was calculated, like his mother, but now he wondered if things had been different, would she have been happy too? Does a Carol or Tommy in this universe chase someone around a counter to make them laugh? Or any other universe?

After a couple laps around the kitchen island, Robin caught up to Eddie, tugging his back to her chest and lifting him off his feet. She looked like a wrestler trying to suplex Eddie into the ground but she couldn’t get him higher than a couple inches, tops. Steve snorted into his coffee again as Eddie shrieked, shards of pain stabbing through his nose as he coughed the liquid back out of his lungs and sinuses. There were tears in his eyes from the choking and the laughter and the tightness in his chest, and after hacking up the dredges of coffee in his lungs he kept watch as Eddie kicked and screeched and Robin struggled to keep him in her arms.

Eddie threw himself forward so his feet finally landed back on the ground, and it was Robin’s turn to yell as she was hoisted onto Eddie’s back from the sudden movement. She still refused to let go as Eddie rapidly stalked around the counter, squatting to keep Robin’s weight on his back as she kept his arms pinned to his side.

Steve could watch them fight it out for hours, if he were honest and it had been years since he’d laughed this hard. The rest of the party was going to show up eventually today and they’d have to start looking into the gates, but for now Steve watched and laughed and rolled his eyes as Robin finally gave up her hold and slid off Eddie’s back, pooling onto the floor like a sad little puddle.

“First you break our vow, then you try and murder me, and for what? For what, Munson? I know where you sleep!” She mumbled into the tile.

Eddie crouched down to lean over her, smug look plastered over his face. “I’m pretty sure you tried to murder me, this was purely self defense.”

“And I’m sure the cops would say you had it coming!” She said, lifting herself off the floor and sitting back in her stool. She snatched Steve’s mug up, took a sip and then squinted at him, slowly lowering the mug to the counter and pointing at it.

“Did you spit in this?”

“Not on purpose,” he replied, voice still a bit hoarse from the coughing fit. She gagged dramatically and shoved the cup back in his hands, standing to pour her own.

“It’s about time you learned how to be self-reliant,” Eddie teased, sitting down in the next stool over, across from Steve who remained leaning over the counter, elbows holding his weight on the shiny granite while his ankles were crossed behind him.

“Shut the whole fuck up, Munson, or I swear to god-,”

“How did you three meet, anyway?” Steve asked, cutting off whatever threat Robin was about to throw out. He looked back and forth between Eddie in front of him, and Robin behind him fixing her mug of coffee. He watched as the two shared a look, both a little sad at the reminder that their Steve was gone. Or at least, that’s what Steve assumed the look was, the droop to their smiles telling Steve maybe he shouldn’t have asked. However, before he could take it back, Robin sat back down in the stool next to Eddie and started to answer.

“We were all in band together,” she said as Eddie nodded and silently took a sip from his mug.

“Band?” Steve asked. He knew Eddie and Robin were in the high school band in his universe, but they hadn’t become friends as far as he knew.

“You and Eddie played sax,” she said. Steve tried to cover his flinch at the mention of ‘you’, the reminder that they all expected him to be someone he wasn’t sparking uncomfortably in his head.

“Steve and I sat right in front of Buckley here, who always had a penchant for playing just a little too close to my ear,” Eddie chimed in, shoving his shoulder against Robins.

“Well Eddie here was never a team player, always skipping ahead or pretending to play when he didn’t like the music,” she shoved right back.

“I never-,” Steve started, pausing when the two pairs of eyes locked onto him. “I never learned any instruments.” He sighed, fiddling with the mostly empty cup in his hands. Their eyes felt like lasers boring into his head. “Mom signed me up for piano classes when I was little, but my dad said the arts were for ‘females, fruits, and fags’ so I never got the chance to finish.”

“Well hey, I’m a female and a fruit,” Robin said.

“And I’m a fag!” Eddie said, turning to Robin for an enthusiastic high five. “Guess Mr Harrington was right, huh Stevie?” he said sarcastically. Steve swallowed nervously around the saliva pooling in his mouth. He actually didn’t know about Eddie, had maybe suspected sometimes but it had never been confirmed. It felt… weird that this seemed like something he should know, but he didn’t and now he does but Eddie never told him. Or, well, he did just tell him but he also didn’t and now he knew something that he wasn’t sure he was allowed to know.

“Oh shit,” Eddie mumbled, “did you… uh,” he glanced between Steve and Robin, “did you not know about us?”

Steve shook his head, “I uh, I knew about Robin, but not…”

Eddie winced. The giddy look in his eye from the playful banter was gone, and he seemed… sadder, like Steve had just tossed water over a campfire and killed the light. “Why does it feel like I just outed someone else?” Eddie mumbled to Robin. She grimaced and set a comforting hand on Eddie’s shoulder, sharing a warm look that Steve once again couldn’t read. Again, he felt like an outsider watching over two strangers. The side of the counter he was leaning against seemed cold and wide, a million miles away from where Robin and Eddie sat side by side.

“Well anyway,” Eddie scooted closer to the counter, clinking his empty mug against Steve’s, “regardless of the Eddie you know, I’m gay so… welcome to the Queer Closet of Hawkins, you’re officially on the guest list and it’s a very exclusive honor.”

Steve chuckled, awed by the way Eddie had just closed the chasm between them. The metalhead grinned, patting the stool on his left and closing that gap even more. Steve placed his cup in the sink behind him and walked around the counter to sit in the vacant seat, the gap completely shut with a final click as Eddie lightly patted Steve’s knee.

“So what about you?” He asked, “how did you meet Robin and Eddie?”

Steve laughed, “it’s uh… a much longer story.” Eddie nodded eagerly and Robin pulled a leg up to squish under her on the stool, leaning against the counter to look over Eddie and nod just as enthusiastically. Steve looked back and forth between the two, feeling more whole than he had even just a few hours ago.

He shook his head fondly and launched into the story of Scoops, Russians, Steve and Robin’s unfortunate drug-filled escapade through the mall, and Dustin’s weird ability to imprint on older teens. Eddie laughed at that, tossing his head back and almost falling backward out of his stool.

“I was so annoyed! Dustin wouldn’t shut up about his cool new friend Eddie who played D&D and understood all his references. Eddie who was ‘the best DM ever’, who was ‘so cool, you don’t get it, Steve’ the little shit.”

Robin was leaning against Eddie’s back now, arms thrown over his shoulders to keep him planted in his stool. “Oh, oh!” she exclaimed, smacking Eddie in the chest as she thought of something.

He grabbed her wrist, stopping her from hitting him again. “Jesus, Buckley, spit it out,” he grumbled, shooting eyes at Steve, who just smiled back at him.

“Does your Robin have any game? A girlfriend? Is she cooler than me?” She asked excitedly.

Steve snorted, “I don’t think any Robin Buckley has ever had game.”

“Hey!” Robin exclaimed, and then squinted at him, assessing something in her head. “No, yeah, that makes sense,” she conceded, bobbing her head back and forth.

“She did have a massive crush on this girl Vicky from band, though, and they got pretty close. I always told Robin to go for it, because Vicky? Not straight, not at all,” he swore to them, pointing back and forth as emphasis.

“Ah, Vicky,” Robin sighed dreamily, “she was so cute.” Eddie rolled his eyes, shaking his head at Steve like he’d heard way too much about Vicky for a lifetime. “I never did get the chance to see if Steve was right about that.”

This time Steve rolled his eyes, "Of course I'm right, she was totally giving you eyes, like, constantly I can't believe you would doubt me!" he scoffed, missing for a second that he had slipped in and made himself her Steve, what he'd been trying to avoid this whole time. He had to remind himself constantly; he wasn't their Steve, he was an outsider, he was a different person. He remembered what Eddie had said by the pool; he's not a placeholder, he's not stealing someone's spot, he's his own person.

Still, with the jokes and banter and laughter, it was so so easy to just slip up and forget. He brushed it off, hoping they would too or even better that they wouldn't notice his mistake or the slight dim to his smile before catching himself. Luckily, Eddie and Robin were as close to reading his mind as possible it seemed and the three powered forward as if the slip never happened.

As it turns out, in this universe the Russian fiasco still happened, in nearly the same way. The only difference between Steve's story and Robin's story was that they'd already been friends for years, had applied to Scoops together, just like Family Video. Eddie had been working in the record store on the second floor, but was off with Wayne for a fishing trip at the time. Everything else was the same.

"I can't believe that was our first test of friendship, oh my god," Robin whined, smushing her face up with her hands and dragging them down, pulling her features with them.

"I'm still so mad I missed that, I was so useless and I had no idea until Wayne and I came back and everything was fucked. What if Samwise was on vacation and he just came back and Bilbo was suddenly a hero, missing a finger, traumatized from all this shit Sam had no idea about! I spent the rest of that summer feeling like I had missed your whole lives," Eddie said. Steve wasn't quite sure who the hell he was talking about, but there was something else in his eyes, something that Steve still hadn't translated and couldn't put his finger on. He wondered if Eddie would tell him, eventually, wondered if he'd ever be able to read those looks before they had to shove him back through the gate to his desolate wasteland of a universe.

He shoved that thought away from his mind, locked in a little box labelled 'for later', and trekked on through their morning. It would probably only be an hour now before the party showed up to finalize plans and start splitting up to put it in motion. He sighed and looked between Eddie and Robin, still going through random memories, teasing, poking, and laughing at each other. 'For Later' he whispered in the dark of his mind, joining back into the conversation as if he'd never left. He'd worry about it then, for now he was more content than ever to just sit here at the dark kitchen island as the sun kept up its rise over the horizon. He'd sit, and listen, and contribute, and laugh, and everything else could come later.

—

@devondespresso @weirdandabsurd42 @sirsnacksalot @space-invading-pigeon @aliea82 @goodolefashionedloverboi @emly03 @bestwifehaver @mentallyundone @13catastrophic-blues @estrellami-1 @cinnamon-mushroomabomination @likelylad @aellafreya @wxrmland @shunna @fangirltofangod @howincrediblysapphicofyou

[mortellanarts]

No one here follows me for writing but I would like to inform the chapter 2 of this is only 3/5 done and already double the word count of chapter 1 which means 24k so far lmao they were not kidding that post-ztd aftermath do have many characters to account for in conversation

[thetardisisnotourdivision]

Hey did I ever tell y'all about the time I dreamed that I had a baby daughter called Ellie that began with my finding out I was pregnant and ended on like her third birthday?

I legitimately woke up thinking "I should go check on Ellie" and then realised she was never real and when I tell you I SOBBED. I've been haunted by an implacable sense of loss ever since. Did I travel to another dimension? Wtf happened because that was insane.

[arty-cakes]

i finally got around to centaurworld's finale and holy fucking shit??? they can go that hard??

[brittlebutch]

the thing is, you’re absolutely right! because what neurotypical people sometimes don’t understand is the massive difference between the average level of social interaction that they themselves vs other people get outside of organized or scheduled events like work or school, and also don’t understand the massive difference between what failure looks like, and how those two things overlap. i’m told that among the average neurotypical person, they’ll make a point to talk to people in their lives or hang out with friends or go on dates or chat with other people in public spaces, al to have casual interactions, multiple times a day, multiple days a week. meaning, if they have a failed social interaction, it’s buffered by the many successful interactions they’ll go on to have. failure most likely won’t mean complete isolation, because they have multiple avenues of interaction to fall back on. and, moreover, a failure in a social interaction when you have (on average) fewer than most means that now rather than that person going “oh that was a weird interaction, i talk to them a lot and it’s not usually like that, maybe it was an off day” they go “huh i don’t know that person very well maybe they’re just like that?”, which means that the odds are way different on whether relationships stay good after mistakes.

social skills are not actually as inherent as neurotypical people like to think. it’s just that when you’re always in practice, always getting back on the proverbial horse, the advice “just get back out there!” does actually work very well. but if you’re not able to do that for any variety of reasons, you can’t play the game the same way. my advice is not “try harder”, it’s “lower your expectations for yourself on what a good interaction and a moment of connection might be”. just as it’s possible you’re somehow unintentionally upsetting people, it’s possible you’re unintentionally making them feel happy, or valued, or heard, even in small, passing interactions. remind yourself that you’re working with fewer resources and a much more limited data pool. a lot of the advice being given is coming from someone who assumes they understand what the math looks like for you, because it’s very difficult to imagine that other side. so instead of trying to overlay a system made for someone who has resources that you just don’t have, you need to figure out what a functional system of interaction looks like for you, and adapt the advice given to fit your situation. my advice, bearing that in mind, is that finding communities and groups can look like a lot of different things, and getting your social needs met can come from a lot of sources, and ideally should! you would understand best what your situation is, and there’s no shame in changing tact to accommodate for your own needs and boundaries.

forgot to answer this for a bit lol BUT yeah, the post was a little bit more about the Conceptual argument than it was about me specifically, so I'm definitely already with you re: 'finding out what your Individual social goals are and working based off of those instead having high expectations based off of other people's metric' stuff. You definitely have a huge point with the "social buffer disparity" between NT people and ND people, where failures are both less demoralizing internally and less impactful externally when you're able to have a greater average of interactions generally also

but I really appreciated the "just as it’s possible you’re somehow unintentionally upsetting people, it’s possible you’re unintentionally making them feel happy, or valued, or heard, even in small, passing interactions" aspect of this message. I do definitely have a recurring problem of like, labeling Myself as an Uncanny Valley Person and automatically assuming that every interaction I'm involved in must be some level of uncomfortable for the other person -- it actually was kind of a revolution moment reading this and realizing that OH it does make sense that if I can unintentionally make people uncomfortable, it's statistically just as likely that I can unintentionally lift people's spirits in one way or another! So thank you very much for that!!

[honeykngdom]

ayo be honest, if I edited Triad Effect to reflect Obito & Kakashi as opposed to Yamato & Kakashi, would it read better? would ya'll have preferred that dynamic instead?