#it's not an actual diagnosis (which I have been desperate for so I can get help)

[fitzselfships]

Stretchy helping me when my delusions and hallucinations get bad 🥺

[drdemonprince]

I just wanted to say, I've been thinking all about your piece about the stages of unmasking and autism acceptance. (Your writing has been so helpful for me and my partner as we've been figuring out how they can unmask and live fully and authentically!!)

But I kept coming back to the bit about grief, and loss about the confusion after figuring out youre autistic. For my partner, I was SO HAPPY when they got their diagnosis and it was a huge step forward for us, but also it was scary because I was like wait... Did I fall in love with your mask? Who are you actually??

And the answer is, yes, I fell in love with the mask. I fell in love with the performance of themselves that they showed the world that then turned out to be too exhausting for them to maintain in a close relationship. But the cool thing was, the actual person who stood up for themselves and set limits and was getting to know themselves truly and actually? That person is fucking awesome and I adore them.

Anyways. Thanks for everything you do. Thank you for showing me and so many others how to live joyfully and authentically and in true relationship.

oh my god that's so sweet, thanks for sharing anon.

I think many of us believe ourselves to be masking far more comprehensively & effectively than we actually are. It's part of why we still feel so completely alienated from people ; others can sense that we are keeping the world at a distance, and it prevents them from bonding as fully to us. And the flip side of that is also often true -- we may fear that if we stop masking our loved ones will abandon us, because they will hate the person we really deep down. But throughout our time with them, there have been key "tells" of who we really are, little leakages of the sides of us that we fear showing so desperately, but which our loved ones caught wind of, and actually found to be some of the most lovable parts of us all along.

The people who only love our masks are, typically, the people who would like us to remain featureless and compliant. But the people who really love us already love what is behind the mask -- and they might see that version of us better than we do ourselves.

I'm glad things worked out well for you and your partner.

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

hi there, could I get poppy playtime (if that is to many characters then just catnap and dogday are fine) with a reader that has pica (if you don't know what that is it is where a person can tend to eat or bite on things not edible, like paper, erasers, eca)

I can do a few!

.....

Huggy (saved/rescued) + Poppy

While in his "idle mode" on the podium, he sees you munching on a piece of paper like lettuce and then plush stuffing like it's cotton candy.

And then you just snatch the key from him and move onto the next puzzle, and he goes "???????"

Why did you eat those things? Did they somehow sustain your hunger?

Huggy only gets to learn more after you save him from falling (and tame him with an actual edible snack you brought along), taking a breather after freeing Poppy from her box.

When he grabs one a random paper, you assume he wants to draw something as a way to communicate...until he starts chowing it down.

In his mind, humans DO eat paper and he's been starving and cannibalizing toys (and trying to eat you) for nothing...

But then he spits it out, picking shredded bits out of his teeth, before glaring at you as if you told him to eat that.

You're a little scared and confused until Poppy explains that he was only trying to mimic what you do, and she asks why you eat such random little things.

Eventually you explain to the pair of your condition called "pica".

You've had it most of your life, with an official diagnosis to boot, but it never really hurt your digestive tract.

Over the years you've cut the habit, although being stuck in this factory meant you had to find other sources of food...even those not even considered food at all.

Some of your coworkers knew about it, and their only complaint was the occasional eraser going missing thanks to you (which you deny stealing...most of the time).

"I always joke about having a cast-iron stomach," you tell the toys. "Food is the least of my......"

But you pause and look at Huggy, realizing he might be offended by you shrugging off food as negligible to your survival.

No matter what, though, it's not gonna stop him from trying different non-food items and seeing what tastes good.

He might've eaten pieces of clothing and plush fabric/stuffing over the years, albeit none of it was delicious by itself.

Dogday

"They want nothing more than to crawl beneath your skin and eat away at you bit by little bit--fill what feels empty inside themselves."

"Jesus, that sounds horrific." You say as you crunch on a piece of chalk (one of several that you got from the schoolhouse) nonchalantly.

Dogday takes immediate notice and is rather concerned. He knows the chalk and crayons here are made to be non-toxic, but insists they're not safe for human consumption.

He fears it's gonna kill you and begs you to stop, saying you needed to live.

Before you could fully explain your condition, the mini-critters are closing in, so you free him and haul ass out of the playhouse of horrors.

After making it somewhere safe where you could patch him up, he presses you on why you continue to eat all these foreign objects.

But he jumps to the conclusion that you got desperate after running out of food, going mad from hunger like the other toys did...

He recalls Picky Piggy going through something similar, and he gets a bad flashback to the Hour of Joy when he had to stop her from eating Crafty's paint....and the corpse of a Smiling Critter -

"Dogday? Hey stay with me..it's okay. I'm here, I'm here.." You console him, calming him down from his panic attack. "I'm not going crazy, alright? I just have this small condition called pica."

"...p-pica? Oh. I thought...kids grow outta that.." He mutters, finding familiarity with that term.

He's had his fair share of toddlers putting things in their mouth that could be choking hazards.

You shake your head, explaining that it stuck with you, but it doesn't cause your stomach any pain as long as you're careful about what you eat.

Dogday's relieved you're not losing it.

Even so, though, he's gonna feel nervous if he catches you eating another piece of chalk.

But it's just his instincts as a child caretaker, so you couldn't blame him.

Catnap

He hangs out in the shadows for the most part, watching your every move...and he does pick up on your strange habit of eating non-food objects.

It's something orphaned toddlers in the playhouse often did, and he'd see the other Smiling Critters hurry to take the items away from them before any emergencies happened.

But those memories mean nothing to him.

All he's doing is waiting for you to eat the wrong thing and keel over.

Unfortunately for him, you just keep trudging on, munching on a crayon like it's normal before throwing your gas mask back on.

He doesn't know how you manage to stomach so many things, and honestly is kinda envious.

Why can't he and the others sustain their hunger like you did?

It does make for some rather..amusing situations, though. Such as when you're in the smoke factory and use the elevator to escape him.

You just stand there as the doors close, eating some chalk and crunching it loudly without breaking eye contact with Catnap's horrific eldritch form.

Obviously, you're stress-eating at that point, but he doesn't have to know.

Miss Delight

The schoolhouse was like a cafeteria for someone with pica, aka you.

While looking for generators, you just pick up whatever you find: erasers, chalk, crayons, etc. and start biting them, or even chewing and swallowing them.

It only succeeds in angering Miss Delight right away, as she sees you doing all of this and snaps at how "childish" you are for eating things you shouldn't.

But you when shout back that you have pica, the PA system suddenly goes quiet.

Like Dogday and Catnap, that definitely triggered some memories for her, which she dwells on for a while before realizing you were still in the school..

And seeing you eating stuff makes her howling stomach grow louder.

"Barb" says you're mocking her own hunger, especially since she notices you gathering the notes she left around the place, and insists on killing you.

When you finally do encounter her, she is visibly disturbed by you crunching on a piece of chalk and throwing it to the ground to distract her, buying you time to break eye contact and flee.

She calls you "crazy", but you're not the one chasing her with a weapon made of a ruler and colored pencils.

[accio-victuuri]

read a book for me. 📚

inspired by people who were curious about the books featured in xz’s video, let’s take a look at what they are. i’d like to think these were pre approved by XZ and are related to his interests. i’m not removing tge possibility that one of these were chosen by someone from xzs or the director himself. i’m tagging this as cpn because there will be some cpn. if you don’t wanna go that route and just enjoy learning about the titles featured, then go ahead. 😉

1. Restoration House by Kennesha Bucks

You don't have to live in your dream house to make your living spaces feel more like home. Home is meant to be a place to belong. A place to gather and connect. A place of beauty. A place to restore your soul. In Restoration House, author and designer Kennesha Buycks will encourage you to embrace your home and your story so you can create mindful spaces that give life to you, your loved ones, and all who enter.

2. LORI WILDE

that red book just says the author’s name and no actual title but if you look her up, she’s all about that romance novel. here is her website if you wanna know what i mean. if you move a bit, the spine of it says “boy” so i think it maybe one of those books that has the cowboys in it!

3. Next is LIT UP, which is a black book. I’m not so sure if it’s a real book and when you search it, there are a couple of contenders. Tho i personally gravitate towards p2 since it’s black and the plot of the story is something i think XZ will enjoy!

it says out of the cubicle and into the real world, it’s like him getting out of his work cubicle years ago and discovering the world.

book overview:

Eddy Gilmore found himself on society’s fringe after being exiled from Corporate America. Despite years of higher education and exemplary service inside a cubicle’s pixelated world, he had no tangible or transferable skills to offer his community. Amazingly, failure was the door into tapping dreams and gifts that had long been ignored as impractical.

This true to life adventure is a pilgrimage into the real world, a place where neighbors make and produce things that sustain life and bring joy. When their eyes were opened to the talents all around them, Eddy and his wife discovered how to produce value themselves, and sank roots into the community. By working together, they are building a life they might never need to retire from.

4. The Interior Design Handbook

Frida Ramstedt believes in thinking about how we decorate, rather than focusing on what we decorate with. We know more today than ever before about design trends, furniture, and knickknacks, and now Frida familiarizes readers with the basic principles behind interior and styling—what looks good and, most of all, why it looks good.

The Interior Design Handbook teaches you general rules of thumb—like what the golden ratio and the golden spiral are, the proper size for a coffee table in relation to your sofa, the optimal height to hang lighting fixtures, and the best ways to use a mood board—complete with helpful illustrations. Use The Interior Design Handbook to achieve a balanced, beautiful home no matter where you live or what your style is.

5. Limits of the Known

A celebrated mountaineer and author searches for meaning in great adventures and explorations, past and present.

David Roberts, "veteran mountain climber and chronicler of adventures" (Washington Post), has spent his career documenting voyages to the most extreme landscapes on earth. In Limits of the Known, he reflects on humanity’s—and his own—relationship to extreme risk. Part memoir and part history, this book tries to make sense of why so many have committed their lives to the desperate pursuit of adventure.

In the wake of his diagnosis with throat cancer, Roberts seeks answers with sharp new urgency. He explores his own lifelong commitment to adventuring, as well as the cultural contributions of explorers throughout history: What specific forms of courage and commitment did it take for Fridtjof Nansen to survive an eighteen-month journey from a record "farthest north" with no supplies and a single rifle during his polar expedition of 1893–96? What compelled Eric Shipton to return, five times, to the ridges of Mt. Everest, plotting the mountain’s most treacherous territory years before Hillary and Tenzing’s famous ascent? What drove Bill Stone to dive 3,000 feet underground into North America’s deepest cave?

What motivates the explorers we most admire, who are willing to embark on perilous journeys and push the limits of the human body? And what is the future of adventure in a world we have mapped and trodden from end to end?

6. Eat, Drink, Nap: Bringing the House Home

The quintessential style, cooking, and home interior book from Soho House, the world's leading members' club.

Since the first Soho House opened its doors over 25 years ago, we've learnt a bit about what works. Contemporary, global yet with something quintessentially English and homely at its heart, this is Soho House style explained by its experts:

- From planning a room to vintage finds: bringing the Soho House look home.

- Our House curator's advice on how to buy, collect and hang art.

- The art of a great night's sleep: how to design the perfect bedroom.

- No-fuss recipes and chef's tips: here's how to make your favourite House dishes.

- Inside Babington: our take on country-house living. Wellies optional.

- Flip-flop glamour and poolside style from Soho House Miami Beach.

- All the secrets of cocktail hour: House tonics and barman's tips.

- Spa treatment at home, DIY facials and chocolate brownies.

Eat Drink Nap, a 300-page highly illustrated book, with a foreword from founder Nick Jones, and photography from leading food and interiors photographers Mark Seelen and Jean Cazals, shares the Soho House blueprint for stylish, modern living, the Soho House way.

7. Styled

It’s easy to find your own style confidence once you know this secret: While decorating can take months and tons of money, styling often takes just minutes. Even a few little tweaks can transform the way your room feels.

At the heart of Styled are Emily Henderson’s ten easy steps to styling any space. From editing out what you don’t love to repurposing what you can’t live without to arranging the most eye-catching vignettes on any surface, you’ll learn how to make your own style magic.

With Emily’s style diagnostic, insider tips, and more than 1,000 unique ideas from 75 envy-inducing rooms, you’ll soon be styling like you were born to do it.

8. The other book i’m seeing is WINTER TID then it cuts off so again it’s tricky to confirm what it is! My best guess is WINTER TIDE but if you google that — i can’t connect how XZ will read that lol.

EDIT: adding this one seen from the alternate MV,

The Tale of the Body Thief by Anne Rice

is a vampire novel by American writer Anne Rice, the fourth in her The Vampire Chronicles series, following The Queen of the Damned (1988). Published in 1992, it continues the adventures of Lestat, specifically his efforts to regain his lost humanity during the late 20th century.

=========

now let’s look at the CPN.

i see fans saying the style related books could be because of his work before. but he is more of a digital and design artist right? he does logos and stuff that can help their brand identity. i don’t remember him being an interior designer. there is also the eat, drink, nap which has topics on cooking and being a good host. these books are making me clown so hard! my head canon is xz is keeping himself busy ( as if he is not busy enough already ) with designing their home. his and wyb’s — if that wasn’t clear enough, that’s what i’m insinuating. if he isn’t traveling, i would imagine he is the type who just wants to spend time at home in between jobs. it is their home. their sanctuary. so xz would make sure that it is according to what they both want and that it’s stylish.

and when he is at home sipping wine, while waiting for Bobo, is he reading a LORI WILDE BOOK? lol. sexy millionaire cowboy you say? 👀👀👀👀

😂😂😂😂😂

or reading something like the LIT UP book which is more up his alley ( but again i’m not sure if this is the exact title )

what is out of place is limits of the known. out of place compared to the theme of the other books, but xz is someone who is into nature and climbing of sorts. but i haven’t seen him climb the way yibo did in ETU. the most popular cpn is that this is yibo’s contribution to the selection. or maybe he read it after yibo and liked it. OR he is also becoming interested in rock climbing — which is not a far off possibility.

-END.

[itsaspectrumcomic]

hey! before I begin, I wanted to say how much I love your comics!! the style and palettes are really soothing, and it's always nice to read them, relate heavily, and not feel quite such an oddball!! so thanks :]

I (very recently) received the results of my diagnosis for autism and adhd (I got both, and a couple other smaller things) and was wondering what things you did differently immediately after diagnosis that helped you? I've tried things like proper organisation and cleaning, keeping on top of deadlines for college as much as I am able, and trying to study as much as I can (a levels are very stressful even though I've only just started the course, and while these solutions are what's considered "good" by the college, its not really helping me as much as I would like)

a large part of the diagnosis was dedicated to brain function (I had the privelidge of being assessed privately, so the evidence was very detailed and thorough), and I scored stupidly high on vocabulary and language study. However, I feel like there's somewhat of a disconnect between the effort I've put in on my foreign language studies and the progress I'm seeing- I'm trying so so hard to understand grammatical concepts and absorb a lot of vocabulary in preparation for some smaller tests in the near future, but I'm not seeing the reward during lessons or even with preparation. I am fully aware that with all the work and effort I'm spending, I am closer than I would like to be to a meltdown and probably burnout, which I desperately want to avoid. It just feels that although my brain is wired for linguistic study, I feel like I'm falling behind or failing

I guess if you have any advice or anything that helped you once your diagnosis was confirmed, or tips for study, I would be greatly appreciative :]

Tldr: struggling with study and fearful of failure, any advice?

hnng I remember the stress of A levels, you couldn't pay me to go through that again 🫠

After being diagnosed I started to allow myself to unmask and stim in more obvious ways. Previously my stims had generally been pretty small, like flicking my fingers or wiggling a bit, but now I allow myself to flap and rock and play with fidget toys as well and it genuinely does help release tension.

It sounds like your're working really hard - if you feel close to burnout and/or meltdowns, you might be working too hard. I also found it really hard to take breaks when I was studying (...still do) but the truth is, by not allowing your mind to rest, you're actually making it harder for yourself to learn and retain information.

So my advice is, take a break! A real break, not 'I'm gonna scroll on my phone for a bit' or 'I went to the toilet that counts as a break right'. Get up, step away from your work for at least an hour, and do something you find relaxing and fun. Go for a walk or just sit outside. Make yourself a drink. Take a nap if you need to. Try to avoid looking at screens during your break if you can. And when you go back to studying, schedule times to have regular short breaks as well (eg a 10 minute break every hour). I set alarms for mine because otherwise I forget to move for five hours.

A break allows your brain to process the information and let it settle properly. When you go back to work you'll hopefully feel more refreshed and able to take in information again. Remember, if you've just started the course, then this is a marathon, not a sprint, so please try not to overdo it and burn yourself out right at the start. Conserve your energy for the long haul.

If you're still struggling, are you able to ask for help, maybe from a friend or a teacher? A teacher could give you some techniques on how to improve in the specific areas you find difficult, and sometimes just talking through the bit you're having trouble with or not understanding can help a lot.

Good luck with your studies and I hope you take some time to rest as well :)

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

This might be a bit of an uncomfortable topic, but do you feel that Kate's cancer diagnosis has changed the Sussex PR strategy?

I'm seeing a lot less olive branches, and less of that kind of PR overall. It stopped the "royal racist" line of attack stone cold dead.

Where do the Sussex go from here - if you care to offer an educated guess based on tracking new rumors and PR analysis - when they can't take potshots at their favorite target?

Yes and no.

Yes, the racist royal storyline has definitely been dropped, but I don't think it was exclusively because of Kate's illness. I think it was because of the hot mess Scobie (and Meghan) got into with the Dutch translation of Endgame leaking out; the only way that they could rescue themselves was if the racist royal story was dropped completely, and then Kate was sick right after and someone had a tiny sliver of humanity to know better. (My theory is that it was WME who knew better, because Sussex Squad was still going all in on kkkate.)

No, because the olive branch and reconciliation stories are still out there. It's just Harry being the face of those stories this time (they were Meghan's stories a bit before this) and they're spinning it in a "we just want to support them and help however we can" kind of way. I think the difference why this round of olive branches and reconciliation isn't getting any traction is because William and KP has done a very good job making it unequivocally clear - through leaks, through the rota, through their reactions to Charles's trial balloons - that the Waleses do not reciprocate the desire for reconciliation because they have other, more urgent, more bigger things to focus on at the moment...like health matters.

As for when they'll fire up the Kate cannon again, well, it depends by what you mean. Sussex Squad has already been fired up, each time Kate makes an appearance. They make comments on social media, which then gets picked up by the blogs and the royal rota, of things like "hmm, she can go to Wimbledon in a designer dress but she can't go to a cancer charity" or "that's a fake lookalike because her smile is different" or "look at that line on her face, that's definitely a facelift scar" or "suuuuuuuuuure, she's getting chemo because look at all that hair" or "she's really faking that smile, she absolutely hates standing next to William, they're definitely divorcing." And they'll continue making these comments every time Kate makes a public appearance because that's what they do.

If you mean when will Harry and Meghan specifically say something that targets/attacks Kate? I don't know. It could be the fall, if they see William back on his "regular" schedule but Kate is still convalescing; they could make a dig at Kate thinking William won't notice. It could be after Kate has the all-clear and is able to resume working (because the optics of beating up on a cancer patient in the media definitely isn't good, let alone a cancer patient as well-loved as Kate is). It could be if/when the Sussexes becomes desperate enough for new attention from the BRF or William.

I do feel pretty confident saying that one of the reasons the Waleses are being very careful about Kate's day-to-day is because she worsens with stress. And if there's one thing everyone knows about the Sussexes, it's that they cause, and add to, stress everywhere they go and no one wants to take the risk of the Sussexes adding to Kate's stress and triggering flare-ups. (Because my takeaway from Rebecca's article isn't that Kate was sick for weeks or months before they planned surgery, she was actually suffering for years, like maybe it was a chronic condition she could manage by avoiding triggers and it just became critically urgent in January to address.)

So I would speculate that the Sussexes might be a little more hands-off regarding their use of Kate in the media until she's fully back full-time but they'll use Sussex Squad to poke and poke and poke in the meantime.

But we'll see. Things can always change.

[doctor-hopper]

I'm really tempted to comb through his lines about luck and write meta on it, because even off the top of my head, looking only at DR2/Dangan Island content, it's like

His FTEs frame bad luck as being part of good luck: bad thing leads into something good enough to compensate

But he has at least one Dangan Island line where he anticipates something bad after experiencing something good

And interestingly considers nothing much happening to him to be bad luck in Dangan Island's ending, even though he had a good time, which warrants some unpacking (my current hypothesis is it's because his impending death is making him desperate to make his life meaningful, not 'waste' his remaining time)

Not all of his examples fall neatly into his luck cycle model, especially not the FTE version where the events are connected. The diagnosis and HPA admission were separate-ass events, in DI's ending he expected his convo with Hinata to go well because of the aforementioned general '''bad''' luck too, the events of chapter 5 are hard to sort into the model, some DI interactions make it sound like he just has extreme outcomes sometimes (eg. he'd win capture the flag first try every single time), etc etc.

I have a feeling at least some of the way he talks about his luck is copium, especially in his FTEs since he really had to focus on the idea of bad -> good in the killing game. But as you say, he could have been intentionally oversimplifying... and if he actually thought the cycle worked both ways, saying he lives in fear of bad things every time something good randomly happens might've veered too close to genuine vulnerability. Which he avoided (by his standards anyway- I think he lacked awareness of how bad the kidnapping + plane stories were) until the final FTE.

Either way, I definitely need to scrutinise his lines more :'D

A ton of good points! Komaeda’s luck is fascinating and nowhere near as clear-cut as he originally makes it sound. Fics where he tries to “game the system” and finally gain some sort of control over his luck are interesting—but honestly, I feel like he’s already been trying to do that for as long as he’s lived. And he exercises an impressive amount of power under those restraints! But…also.

As for anticipating something bad after experiencing something good, I do think the way Komaeda portrays the order of events is just what he tells himself and/or Hinata. In reality, good and bad luck are two sides of the same coin to him—the real important part isn’t the order, it’s that nothing good can happen without something bad happening too. Everything has a price. Luck is a zero-sum game.

(He touches on this again in 2.5 when he says there’s “a fixed amount of luck in the world” and so he’s content to suffer the bad luck for everyone else’s benefit. In the dream-world sim, the luck he experiences is apparently “ideal”, but it still has to exist. There still has to be an Omelas child of sorts. Komaeda would just rather it be himself.)

As for good being caused by bad vs. just following it, it definitely happens both ways and he’s definitely contradicted himself. Beyond that, even, there are cases in the game where it’s not totally clear what sort of cycle is involved in the luck he experiences. In 2-1, he draws the short straw simply because he wanted to. Was the bad…offscreen? Was it the killing game itself? Would “being forced to clean” actually count as bad luck even if he wanted it? Was it then followed by the good luck of finding the secret passage? People hypothesize that his luck works differently in the simulation according to his own belief, which would complicate things even more, but I’m sort of back-and-forth on that theory. There are arguably examples of luck working the way Komaeda claims it does in DR2, also—such as getting the Despair Disease the worst out of anyone thanks to his compromised immune system, but being able to discover in the hospital that Tsumiki was the culprit. ending up in the hospital but meeting a lovey-dovey nurse GONE WRONG

I’ve always read the Island Mode ending as copium myself. I do definitely think he was hoping for a chance to die meaningfully on the island, and I guess in his mind that could be bad luck, but it doesn’t really fit his model. The way he tries to nudge Hinata into agreeing it’s bad luck, the scene reads to me like he just needs to believe it’s bad luck so he can solemnly ask Hinata to be his friend. (And I think it’s notable that in the word he uses for friend here is 友達 tomodachi, which in this context could be understood as more of a personal friend—everywhere else, he’s used the word 仲間 nakama, comrades, to refer to the whole class as a unit.) And remember, being loved by someone is another way that Komaeda’s death could have meaning—so even if he didn’t end up in the climactic situation he was expecting, perhaps he’s realized there’s another way to get what he wants. :’)

But, yeah, what decides if something is good or bad luck for Komaeda though? I think even that’s not always clear to him.

I’ve heard the view that it “gives him what he immediately wants while taking away what is subconsciously valuable to him” (from TheAmityElf, I think) which is interesting, especially to play with as a writing tool, but not ultimately convincing. Some events could be loosely mapped to that pattern, but others contradict it a bit—you can’t tell me he just wanted money, and he did actively try to turn down his invitation to Hope’s Peak.

Which is now also making me think: Since the diagnoses and the invitation weren’t directly related, do you think he even connected them in his mind at first? What if he didn’t, and so he was afraid that by going to Hope’s Peak he would be invoking even more bad luck yet to come?

One more interesting dimension of his luck to think about is whether it hurts others vs. himself. In 2.5 it only hurts Komaeda, but that’s not quite the direct opposite of his real luck, because his real luck gave him cancer and dementia! However, it also does seem to be proactive in protecting him from actual death in both 2.5 and the rest of canon.

I’ll conclude this reply with this…relevant blackout poetry (blackout infographic?) I made years ago and which you suddenly reminded me of, lmao.

Silly coda: This is why Komaeda’s favorite word is eucatastrophe.

(…How lucky, then, that people say “Komaeda, eucatastrophe!” to him all the time!)

[happyk44]

In terms of healing and recovery, I talked to someone abt this before I think Piper would not seek help for HPD. Like I just don't see it happening. One of the things with PDs is that ppl don't see their behaviour as a problem or as the crux of any problems they may experience because of it and I think with that in mind Piper wouldn't seek out help for desperate need to be the center of attention, even at the expense of other ppl.

And thinking about that I was wondering about Annabeth and her NPD and I think while she might seek help for certain things, she'd get frustrated with any physician that makes her feel like something she talks abt is her fault. If she brings up a situation and they seem like they're implicating that she was in the wrong, she gets angry and more set in her ways. Even if she senses that her way of thinking may be a problem, she's too stubborn to accept it and she will rewrite that thought into a sense of "no, other ppl are the problem, I'm fine".

Meanwhile I've always been of the thought that Percy would accept help for his BPD. I feel like traditional talk therapy is not helpful for him because he's too emotionally repressed to talk about himself that way to a stranger but that he would talk informally with specific people (usually Carter or Grover, probably Nico as well and Jaz in the Nome AU; Annabeth is too much of a problem solver, "just do this and you'll be fine" kind of person to really help him out so he doesn't like voicing his problems to her because she won't listen, she'll just jump to "I can fix this for you" and it never works).

So yeah, Percy wouldn't go to a therapist but he'd be okay talking out certain things with people. I feel like Nico might be able to convince him to speak with Pasithea (who I HC to be Nico's therapist) a couple times, and in the Nome AU Jaz might be able to get him to speak with the doctors at the first Nome, but in either case it's never very regular because he can't stand talking about his feelings and his traumas. He does do his best to correct his behaviour and learn healthy coping mechanisms because he doesn't want to hurt anyone, but it is a slow process.

Similarly with Clarisse and the ASPD headcanon, I feel like she also has a desire not to hurt ppl, although it's more so limited to the ppl she cares about (Chris, her siblings, any other close friends), so she does seek help for her anger issues (because they make her get physical and she doesn't like that about herself) and her disinterest in other people's feelings (because when she's really stressed out the people she loves are also affected by this). Which is how she is like. The only one of the four to have an actual diagnosis lol.

But she does actively seek regular help from professionals and when she gets frustrated with it, she thinks about Silena dying because she didn't care about how the war would affect the others, she was just pissed off with the Apollo cabin, so fuck everyone else, and she actively chooses to be better every day and gets up and does the work she has to do. She'll never be cured of her ASPD, or her anger issues, but she can do her best to make sure the people she loves are not harmed it.

The reality is that not everyone seeks help for their issues, diagnosed or not, and I think it's realistic to look at certain characters and think "would they reach out for help? would they realize there's something wrong? would they accept it if someone suggested that something was wrong?" and concluding that the answer is "no, they would not". Healing is messy like that.

[thotsfortherapy]

also I was watching HealthyGamerGG’s video on women with ADHD about how ADHD symptoms in women aren’t interpreted as symptoms, but rather as failings of being a woman… oh you can’t keep the house clean, the kids fed, and the Christmas tree decorated? Bad Woman. You can’t manage your schedule and your husband’s schedule? Bad Woman. You’re too emotionally sensitive and reactive in relationships? Hysterical and probably on your period. It is not seen as a disability or as someone who might need help, instead it’s just chalked up as this internal thing that is wrong with you and they punish you with shame.

It really reminded me of my own mom, how she could never get us to school in time, I would always be the last one picked up from the playground because she would be late, how I had to do my own laundry and make my own lunch (aka just a package of salted crackers because i also had undiagnosed ADHD and could not make my own lunches), how she would randomly fly into rages… and now that I have my own ADHD diagnosis and am trying to work out how live as an adult, I feel like I can extend so much more sympathy towards her. Because I also know how much shame she feels around her inability to “Be a Good Mother” as society wants her to be, and that one of her worst fears is that she is a bad mom. Which sucks! Because it turns out that so many things she did that made me feel like she didn’t care (like missing my school plays) is actually the symptom of a disability that she never got help for. And the only difference between her and me is that we’re living in different eras, we have access to different information, and we have surrounded ourselves with different people. As much as I appreciate my dad, he is not supportive at ALL and makes my mom feel like she’s completely at fault for all her ADHD symptoms.

As opposed to my partner who was like “hey man, I think there is something actually wrong with you let’s get you some help” (after I almost crashed his car lol) and who helps me so much with basic life stuff that when he’s on a shift rotation I can tell not because I notice that he’s gone but because suddenly I am not eating, I am not sleeping, and life suddenly does not go smoothly anymore (why is there no food in the fridge? Who put all these clothes on the floor? Where are my keys?) (obviously I notice he’s gone but life also just coincidentally seems to fall apart whenever he’s not there..)

So much of what I do (and what I can’t do) reminds me of my mom, which gives me a lot of complicated feelings because I never ever wanted to end up like her. But the older I get the less I see someone who is evil and the more i see someone who never got the help they very desperately needed. And that is sad. But then I’m also like damn I wish she had been the one to figure this out, because instead of being able to teach me how to accept my ADHD and work with it, instead she just passed down all the shame, the maladaptive coping mechanisms.. forcing me to sit still, praying to God instead of trying any sort of professional help (no hate if God helps you but therapy was much needed for me), and most importantly just constantly shaming me for things that I am further and further realizing are completely ridiculous to shame someone for 😭 the amount of times I got called weak or sensitive 😭 EXTREMELY ironic considering the shit she’d get mad at me for!

All of this to say,

TURNS OUT THIS IS A DISABILITY, NOT SURE IF ANYONE ELSE KNOWS THAT (sarcasm)

[itsnotmyfaultsomepeoplecantread]

"Am I actually autistic," I whisper, while picking out half of the vegetables from my soup because they make the texture wrong. "What if everyone was right and I am just choosing to be a mess, and there isn't any other explanation for my weirdness," I say, reciting my ABCs backwards, and listening to the same song on a loop because it keeps me focused and calm. "I don't even have special interests," I say, knowing full well that I get wildly invested in specific shows/movies/information, and have re-watched a niche TV show about thieves dozens upon dozens of times because it makes me happy, and I get exhausted by too many new pieces of media.

"Are my support needs even valid," I scream, on the phone with my mom during a panic attack that was triggered by the wind unpredictably whistling through the pipes. "Is my level of social anxiety and unresponsiveness enough," I ask, thinking about how my remarkably vivid memories since the age of two are primarily filled with a life wrought with social struggles, which have never, ever gone away, even after years of practicing small talk and rehearsing conversations in my head in never-ending loops.

"What if I'm just broken," I sob, quietly, knowing that before my diagnosis, no treatments worked because my brain is functionally different, and I don't have control over what that looks like. "What that's not the answer," I say, texting my partner who sits on the couch next to me, because I have lost my words, and thinking of how no one ever noticed my verbal shutdowns because my silence was preferable to my occasional periods of babbling. "What if I'm not even autistic," I whisper, quietly, into a dark room of memories of everyone that has ever told me how deeply weird and wrong I am, but act surprised when I tell them I'm autistic.

As I ask myself these questions, I wrap myself in the perfectly-textured sweater that was the closest thing I could find to the ancient, hole-filled one I cried over when I left it on the plane at 22 years old. The sleeves of my sweater cover scars from a decade of picking at my skin. The picking helps me process the day's social interactions, and attempt to understand my own mysterious emotions.

The exhaustion it yields is unbearable. I tire of fighting to be heard, yet struggling to explain with the accuracy I desire. Of constantly hearing how everyone "is a little autistic," because I cannot possibly be disabled if I have spent years trying desperately to learn basic small talk. Because most people don't care to learn, or to reach behind the mask and see what lies beneath. They don't know me. And yet, despite their doubts, I find myself torn apart when they inevitably get frustrated by my inability to read invisible boundaries between faintly marked lines. I follow the social cues I am told to follow, and still I get it wrong.

The lack of trust builds the walls that so few have been able to breach. Even fewer remain welcome, becoming those whom I treasure with undying loyalty. I remain honest and open, my idealism and empathy wanting so desperately for people to be as good as I know they can be. But that doesn't prevent the rejections from haunting me, convincing me that my existence is wrong.

It haunts me.

So, I spiral. I think of how much I copy others, at the cost of my own identity. I think, too, of my stubborn refusal to do what everyone else is doing or is telling me to do, and of every time that I have panicked over something that no one else understood. I think of how many times I have felt like an outsider; of how many times I sought out the company of my teachers to that of my peers. I think of every test that I cried on, while others laughed at me — of how deeply depressed and angry it made me, knowing that they would never understand. And I worry that I don't even fit the standard of normal for my own diagnoses. I worry that I am this way by choice. I worry that I am judged. I worry.

But as the worry hits me like violent ocean waves, I let it wash over me until the feeling calms. And I finally let it go.

[elskamo]

I Actually Have Some Good News for Once!

And some bad but at least things are finally turning around for the end of 2024!

I Won My Court Hearing and My Benefits Have Gone Back Up Again!

I've gone back from a little over £300 to £800 a month along with some backpay for the year or so that my benefits were wrongly reduced. Unfortunately almost all the money has been spent on things like repairs, replacing broken items, and living costs. Although it went rather quickly at least it went to towards things that were desperately needed.

I did have to give up quite a large chunk of the money to my parents in order to keep staying with them as I still don't have anywhere else to live, but again, at least I have a rood over my head for the winter.

I'm still job searching and am potentially hoping to look into working abroad in Canada using their IEC program, that being said it's a long way off for me and I would have to get a lot of paperwork, finances, and other things sorted out first. So for the meantime I'm still looking into work here in the UK.

I Had My First Two Appointments at an NHS GIC and Have Started Testosterone!

I previously went private in 2021 back when I had a job and actual money to get my Gender Dysphoria diagnosis but ended up not being able to continue with that GIC to get hormones due to everything that happened in late 2021/early 2022 onwards. My first appointment at the NHS GIC covered A LOT of safeguarding stuff as well as catching them up on what happened at my private appointment and how I've been since then. It was a very quick turnaround for my second appointment, the first was on November 5th, the second was on November 26th!

At my second appointment I chose to take the large injection every 12 weeks so I can have my health monitoring done at the same time at the appointments, I'm expecting to have one earlier injection in 6 weeks time that my GP should agree to take over but I have a backup appointment scheduled at the GIC just in case there's a problem transferring my prescription.

I did find out through the health monitoring and through chatting with both doctors that I have PCOS as well as raised liver function. The former should be easily treatable with Testosterone, but I have the option to get surgery later down the line if I'm still experiencing severe side effects from the condition, the latter is likely down to the medication I'm on so I'm waiting to book an appointment with my GP to get it changed or reduced.

I Had My Assessments With a Psychiatrist and Will Be Starting Therapy!

I'm still waiting to confirm what exact diagnosis I've been given but the psychiatrist frequently mentioned Dissociation/Dissociated Parts as well as (C)-PTSD during our appointments. I'm being referred onto the Trauma Pathway which has three phases, the first being Stabilisation Therapy. Given how close it is to Christmas and knowing how long things take on the NHS I probably won't have my first therapy session until the New Year but you never know.

Hopefully with all the good things that have happened recently I'll be feeling up to creating more content and posting more frequently like I used to, at the very least I'm in a much better position than I was two years ago when everything started going wrong - Ronald

[justforbooks]

In 1990 the Spanish writer Juan Goytisolo published a short essay called Paris, Capital of the 21st Century. By the end of the 20th century, he had decided that Paris was exhausted. The city of avant gardes, ideas, revolutions and class struggle, which had defined so much of European and world history, was now no more than a museum. As almost a lifelong Parisian and a lover of the place, Goytisolo desperately wanted Paris in the 21st century to retake its place as a great metropolis. But this could only happen, he argued, if Paris reinvented itself by “de-Europeanising” itself. By this, he meant it had to look towards the world beyond Europe, welcoming its sometimes dissident non-French, non-European voices to make itself a truly global city. Only in this way could Paris be brought back to life.

More than 30 years on from that essay, Simon Kuper has written a book about what it has actually been like to live in Paris during the past two decades. I have lived in the city for exactly the same period, in the working-class district of Pernety, and seen all the changes that Kuper has. The view from Pernety and the view from his hipster right bank world have not always been the same. He often underestimates, for example, the severity of racial and class tensions in Paris. To his credit, however, he is always aware of his limitations as a foreigner and as an apprentice Parisian.

The author, a journalist for the Financial Times, begins by describing his arrival in the city in the early 00s, a refugee from extortionate property prices in London. He finds in Paris an alternative economic universe, where decent city centre apartments were affordable along with a good quality of life that wasn’t dependent on a big salary.

Initially, Kuper bought into the shibboleth that Paris was a dead place – economically moribund, artistically bankrupt, something very much like Goytisolo’s museum. Over the years and decades, however, as he settled in, established a family and a way of life, Kuper began to change his mind as he navigated the unpredictable joys and vicissitudes of Parisian daily life. This involved wrangling with tough neighbours, taking kids to football matches in the banlieues (the outer suburbs, which are definitely not museum-ified), learning schoolyard slang from his kids (which contains a surprising amount of street Arabic), dealing with his wife’s cancer diagnosis, negotiating the daunting French social security system and, perhaps hardest of all, learning how to act as a proper Parisian – a performance that demands mastery of an almost infinite number of behavioural codes.

Kuper is a self-confessed “Bobo”, a member of the middle-class elites and as such most of the behaviours he has to acquire revolve around the right way to wear clothes or making the right sort of conversation. Above all, you should never appear to be provincial (an old Gaulish word, plouc, is still used by Parisians to describe out-of-towners) or from the banlieues (wearing sports clothes is a giveaway). As he learns to be a local, however, Kuper can seem a little too pleased with himself and there are moments when, as he yet again cycles down a lovely cobbled street to another designer coffee shop, you wish he’d get a puncture.

Nonetheless, Kuper is a clear-eyed observer of the history that is happening all around him. He witnesses the revolt of the gilets jaunes, which he notes are in part a protest “against Paris itself” (against people such as Kuper, in fact), sees the burning of Notre Dame, sweats through historically unprecedented heatwaves and copes with the pandemic. The most momentous – and terrifying – event that marked Kuper’s Parisian life was the night of 13 November 2015, which no Parisian who lived through it will ever forget. He was in the Stade de France when the first bombs went off, the prelude to a night of massacre that finished with 130 innocent people dead. Ever the professional reporter, Kuper keeps his feelings to himself, until a few days later he cries in front of a friend, broken by the strain of living in a city that seemed about to go mad.

Now the Olympic Games are on the horizon and Paris looks set to announce itself again to the world as a global leader, as the multicultural city imagined by Juan Goytisolo. For all of the transformations of the past two decades, however, Kuper is always alert to the city’s particularity. This is the immutable essence – to be found in the daily pleasure of the menu du jour or just the snarky, nasal banter at your local zinc (bar) – that makes Parisians love their city, and foreigners such as Kuper (and me) love it even more.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[swiftfootedachilles]

Hi! 47, 48 and 49 for the headcanon tag if you are still writing them please ty ily 🧡🖤

47. AU if they had a more normal childhood- How would they be in high school? (Would Ian be a jock? a cheerleader? would he be popular? Would Mickey enjoy studying? what's his favorite subject?) i don't think there's a universe where ian and mickey have normal childhoods and still come out the other end as ian and mickey. but if they had somewhat-stable childhoods? i think they would still be the goofy army kid and the drug dealer. mickey would barely make it to graduation and he would be a class behind, but he wouldnt drop out without even finishing freshman year like in canon. ian loves rotc but he doesnt have tunnel vision fkr joining the military, because hes not as desperate to get away and start a new life. maybe ian gets his math tutoring from mickey, and mickey studies for english tests with ian. i love aus where they are more than just secret fuckbuddies in high school. i need more of them holed up in ians room at dinnertime, passing cigs and joints, teaching each other about inverse trig functions and symbolism in the great gatsby. yeah a lot of things are still shit and they still make a lot of mistakes. yeah mickeys dad is still a piece of shit and ian barely makes it through senior year from the stress of his diagnosis. but it's better. and they are still ian and mickey. so it's all still worth it in the end

48. After awhile, do you think people got to Ian and Mickey for relationship advice? (Gallaghers / friends / franny ) i definitely think debbie tries to subtly hound mickey for info about sandy. what she's doing, where she's at, who she's hanging out with. at first mickey tells her to ask sandy her fucking self, but he realizes 1. he has to be nicer to the only free welder he knows 2. nothing he does to deflect the questions actually makes debbie leave him alone. so he answers her curtly and holds in his annoyance for debbie's obsession with his cousin. eventually he actually tells her something worth listening to, and debbie takes the hint and tries a new tactic for approaching sandy (debbie hasn't been able to get her out of her head and she needs closure or she's gonna combust)

i think lip and tami also sometimes try to drag gallavich into their fights. "you know what it's like living together in a small space, tell her im right." "you've made your relationship work for a while, why dont you give him some advice on how to do the same thing." ian tries to stay out of it because hes very biased toward lip, but mickey honestly dgaf about lip and tami's relationship so he tells them they're both equally and dumb and annoying and they better find someone else to talk to about all this relationship shit before he rigs their duplex with c-4s

49. Gallaghers post canon: Does Lip go back to school/ gets a profession? Do all of them talk to Fiona? What happened with Debbie and Heidi/ Sandy? Franny? Does Carl open the cop bar/ stays a cop? Does Liam live with Lip and Tami? How does he deal with Franks death? okok i have many thoughts about post-s11. i will be as succinct as possible as to not write a 10 page essay about my fanon theories. if y'all want that you'll have to pay me to go on a podcast or smth.

i don't think lip goes back to school, at least not in the near future. maybe further down the line, but for now he's in the mechanic and refurbishing business. which honestly he can make a hell of a lot of money doing so i see no reason why he would feel the need to go back to school and burn himself out and be in debt all over again.

the siblings keep in contact with fiona. i like to imagine she eventually moves much closer to chicago like fort wayne or springfield. somewhere that makes long weekend visits possible. they definitely facetime and are on good terms. if she moves closer i can see liam possibly moving to live with her? or at least stay with her during summer break

fuck heidi i really dgaf about her. i hope debbie and sandy can at least make up and be cordial with each other. i think they are very off-and-on for a looong time. toxic situationship that neither can seem to get away from. they both got shit they gotta figure out if they ever wanna be girlfriends again. sandy throwing debbies trauma in her face was FUCKT UP. and what the hell was with her secret son?? that plot was weird as hell😭

carl dont need to be a cop so yeah i will make him a bartender instead. fuck the cop bar thing, but they can have, like...a cop night or something. like tuesdays and thursdays during happy hour they get a discount or smth. but i REFUSE to turn it entirely into a cop bar. carl lives in the apartment above it

ummm okay so first and foremost lip is NOT selling that house idc what anyone says I AM NOT LETTING HIM DO THAT. DO YOU KNOW HOW BAD THE HOUSING MARKET GOT IN 2021? FUCK OFF. he and tami are either gonna have to suck it the fuck up and live in the gallagher house (ITS A FREE FUCKING HOUSE!!!!) with liam and probably also debbie and franny at least for a little while longer, or lip has to stop being an idiot and live in one of the MANY FREE HOUSING OPTIONS TAMIS FAMILY GAVE THEM. DONT piss me off phillip. with carl, ian, and mickey out of the house i don't see why they can't live there for at least a couple years. debbie can take her time finding an apartment while still living there, liam can have some semblance of normalcy in his life without having to move schools, the older sibs can get their own room (lip and tami, debbie, liam, franny and fred), if they can't make it work then they can't make ANYTHING work. it's literally half as crowded. and i think liam takes franks passing really hard, but i like to think everyone is much more supportive of him than ian was toward mickey when terry died. liam, carl, and mickey can have a heart-to-heart about their complex relationships with their dads. i dont think fiona comes up for the funeral - she probably goes on a bender in miami lbr. but i imagine liam has a decent enough support system that he won't be traumatized by franks deathl

[fenmere]

Sup! an ask about DID diagnosis: how is it ableist, and you've chosen not to go for it?

I dont think it can't be ableist and troublish, but i just want to know how exactly, to understand problems of systems better.

OK, thank you so much for asking! So.

The most direct and immediate problem we've run into regarding a DID diagnosis is that in both the U.S. and U.K. (and likely in other countries), it can be used to legally remove your rights as a human being. It can be used in court as evidence that you cannot give informed consent, which can be used to deny you access to medical care, custody of children, or even to force you into a conservatorship, among other dangers.

We are transgender. We were figuring out our plurality just between having been granted HRT and trying to get our surgery lined up. Our therapist was very worried for us, when we started talking about our amnesia, blackouts, and changes in personality, even though we were all in agreement that we needed transitional healthcare.

She resisted giving us a diagnosis of DID because it could potentially halt our transition. And we were able to demonstrate to her satisfaction that we had effectively integrated (not through final fusion, but through cooperation). So we both agreed to forgo that diagnosis.

We were lucky we got such a good counselor.

That's one way in which DID is ableist. The diagnosis can be used to deny patients of things they desperately need, or that they should have the right to access regardless.

The other way is how the diagnosis is conceptualized as a disorder to begin with.

It's maybe getting better as medical academia is getting a better understanding of it, but the original diagnosis of DID is a step back from Multiple Personality Disorder.

Part of the whole purpose of replacing MPD with DID was to deny the autonomy of alters and system members, and to refer to them as "dissociative identity states" rather than people. Which is not how most pluralities experience themselves.

But also, just at the very basis of it, both MPD and DID have been classified, studied, and defined almost solely by singlets. Not pluralities. Not people who are actually experiencing these things. So the diagnosis is rife with misunderstandings, mischaracterizations, and bad assumptions.

And it's all based on the assumption that being a singlet is the default, healthy state of a human being, and that deviation from being a singlet is somehow disordered and wrong and needs to be fixed.

Sure, if someone experiences genuine distress at being plural, they should be able to seek help regarding it. And there is now language in the diagnosis to accommodate some of those who are not distressed by it. But it was originally rooted in that saneism, and most clinical professionals still exhibit it, and prove themselves to be dangerous to their patients and their patients' human rights.

[temporalhiccup]

Can you please give an update on the Twilight Throne? It's been 2 and a half years

Two and a half years, omg.

So context before the update:

When I first announced pre-orders for Twilight Throne I was in a dangerously confident state: I had been playtesting the game for about two years almost every week, and even under different GMs the game worked great! I thought, surely, I just need to lay this out and it'll be fine!

It's not an excuse (well, maybe it is) but becoming so terribly disabled by several things in my late 30s and being ravaged by its effects in my early 40s sucks. I have no medical/financial support. I have not managed to procure a single diagnosis. I am pretty desperate in what I've had to do to get minimal support. (It's better than nothing!)

I wasn't prepared for how quickly one can become more disabled—and recovery can never be counted on. I always thought "Things should get better soon, they have in the past" but they never did. Months, then years, passed as I struggled and my mental health was eh, not great.

On top of that, the laptop that had the Twilight Throne layout file died horribly, and I did not have the mental capacity to try to retrieve the files (I have been trying for, apparently, years now, augh)

The good news is that I somehow survived the intense requirements for top surgery (along with actually having the money for it, basically everything I earned from Apocalypse Keys and other work). Top surgery helped with the demons of gender dysphoria that were impacting my disabilities and mental health...

...but I got more disabled as a result. Yay!

Among other complications (I had to go in for a second emergency surgery for example), the worst was an intense PCOS flare up that lead to the nerves in both thighs getting severely damaged, resulting in constant mind-searing pain. It's hard to describe the domino effect that had. I haven't found a doctor who takes it seriously. After six months, it's uh, sometimes tolerable, which I hope is a sign that the nerves are healing! Fingers crossed!

Basically it got to the point, across these years, that I could no longer sustain several things: patreon, almost all my projects, etc. I couldn't keep up with Twilight Throne, among many things that are important to me. I'm also not doing well money wise, because of years of not being able to work as much, whoo!

So! The Update!

Twilight Throne is still complete in its current version, missing the GM sections/support.

Despite the nerve damage and other things, I am doing much better. My mental health is improving. I'm still uh really disabled but (and this may be hubris again) on some days I can manage more work than the bare minimum.

Because Twilight Throne still works well if you're at least somewhat familiar with Forged in the Dark, my current plan is to forego the unfinished fancy layout I had worked so hard on and create a simpler PDF based on the Google doc.

People will get the game, and that's what matters!

The plan is to upload the simple PDF in early 2025, hopefully around January-March! Please be gentle with me if I can't do this, I really want to and I think about Twilight Throne all the time.

I am still actively working on the next version of Twilight Throne when I can, and I do have a publisher for the game, so it will reach a finished state at some point! I just can't say when that is.

I know this is long, but can you believe I left out so much? I tried to stick to the pertinent details.

I really am grateful for everyone who supported and believed in Twilight Throne. I know there are people who are understandably upset. I don't expect "I'm trans and disabled" to be a good enough reason for folks, but it's the only one I have.

If you are upset with me about it, I get it. Just trust that I am, on a daily basis, upset with myself for my limitations and weakness. The chronic pain is a constant reminder of what I am not capable of. It is what it is, and I understand that my best will often not be good enough.

It would be nice to live in a world where I had easier access (or in a lot of cases any access) to the support I need, but, well. And I unfortunately enjoy making ttrpgs and art, and still want to try doing it.

So I will continue to fail, to let myself down, to keep hoping that I can keep making things. I keep trying.

But because of what happened to Twilight Throne, and many other projects, I don't share much of my work online anymore.

[junowritings]

Baldur gate matchups :0000000000

Cool nouns: he/she

Gender pref: no pref :0

Zodiac: Aries sun, Leo moon, libra rising

MBTI: intj-a

How I describe myself: huge nerd, collector of stupid shit, I am both the golden retriever boyfriend and goth girlfriend in one genderless human shaped mass. Girl kisser and dilf enjoyer (deadass men my age freak me out a little but…. dilfs….. explodes)

Hobbies: Digital art, web design, cooking, video games, reading,

How other people describe me (/pos):

- “you feel act like the embodiment of a mango monster”

- “The fact that of all of us (in reference to the polycule) you don’t have an autisim diagnosis is more of a jumpscare than you being ginger”

- “You could tell me the sky is hot pink and if you said it with the same conviction you say most things I’d trust you completely on it.”

Character flaws? Idk how to phrase this without it reading as self deprecating- issues I know I have that would inevitably be relevant to knowing me.

- I lack both empathy and sympathy almost completely, which makes me absolutely horrid at comforting people unless they want practical, logic driven solutions.

- I have a bad habit of seeing my solutions as the only viable solution, even if it’s been proven to be wrong/ineffective

- I can be incredibly arrogant (bordering on elitist) about the topics I am passionate about

- I form strong opinions of people quickly, and they are extremely difficult to shake (a bad first impression with me usually ends in a distain so strong I inconvenience myself to avoid said person, and it’s just as hard to convince me someone I like has done something wrong without extremely concrete proof, and even then I’m inclined to forgive them.)

Love language: gifts!! Usually art, or trinkets and cooking.

Miscellaneous and potentially unnecessary facts about me:

- I really like terraria

- I’m allergic to sunlight (literally)

- My bed is more categorically akin to a nest

- I’m completely nocturnal (re: sunlight)

- I’m also allergic to gluten, milk, eggs, pollen, grass, mold, citrus, red meat, cats, and dogs.

- My cats name is Fortnite Battlepass

- One of the name ideas for him was Dollarama

- I own a student grade microscope

- My favourite passtime is drawing pathetic men happy and in love

- I have Gale’s orb scar as a tattoo

Uhhhhh that’s it :0 if there’s anything specific you wanna know (or if you want pictures of my cat and/or tattoo) you’re more than welcome to ask!!

Match up time! Gotta say Fortnite Battlepass is adorable and only cemented who I decided to go with in the end! Which is,,,

So get this, two nerdy golden retriever partners walk into a tavern-

Okay but seriously, is it any wonder that Gale ends up so absolutely taken with you? 

The moment he sees your collection Gale wants to hear about it. There’s nothing quite like amassing a collection of things that bring you joy and make you happy, and he’ll gladly listen to you ramble about it if you’re comfortable to - where you got them, how long you’ve been collecting, what’s the most treasured part of your collection. These are just some of the things he’d query you on, all the while taking the time to admire your collection if you have it on display or bring it out to show him. 

He's actually got a fair collection himself, though his penchant for magical item consumption may have dwindled his display far more than he would have liked - alas desperate times had called for desperate measures back then. It’s honestly very validating to have someone show that kind of interest; though thanks to his curious nature you two may be stuck in this discussion for a couple of hours. It’s fascinating though! So who can really blame the guy? 

Will actively add to the stuff you collect so get ready to expand the space for them; one of his love languages is gift giving - so if that means getting you some of the weirdest stuff you’ve ever seen for your collection just to make you smile? By the gods he’d gift you something every other day if he could - thankfully Tara’s quick to curb that before he gets over excited and offers to refurbish an entire room in his tower back home for your stuff.

I don’t know if Gale would technically count as a dilf, being on the middle/younger side of the dilf scale (I hc like mid 30’s.) BUT he’s got the soft dad bod, bad puns, a couple grey streaks AND Tara so in my heart I would say this man is on the road to qualify.

Gale would be fascinated to see you at your computer, be it creating art or working on the code for your web pages. You’re practically working a magic of your own on your computer screen, confident in your ability to create and finishing off every piece you create with a level of detail and care that he’s sure very few people can even begin to replicate. And gods if there isn’t anything more attractive to him than someone who knows their craft and is passionate about it.

I hope you’re prepared for an audience because Gale will watch you work, leaning against the back of your chair with his head upon yours or your shoulder the whole time. You’ll have to warn him a couple times not to get too close to the screen because if he gets any closer you’re gonna struggle to see what you’re doing. When it comes to your web page designing, he would try and take up learning from you if you ever offer to teach him some basics - Gale would jump at the chance, actually. The guy’s a dream to teach, but also has a tendency to ramble as he tries to figure out whatever you’re trying to teach him. He also has a bad habit of getting overconfident, which when it comes to coding with him is a surefire way for the thing to blow up in his face (thankfully not literally.)

He absolutely LOVES cooking together. This man spent months being one of the only relatively decent cooks in the tadpole party so he’s got a decent list of recipes under his belt for each of their dietary requirements. Give him a couple times, let him learn what you can and can’t have and what foods you prefer, and he’ll make something pleasantly edible - not always perfect, but damn if it isn’t tasty. May or may not have a mental list of your favourite meals that he’d remembered from passing conversations. He certainly doesn’t use this as a means to surprise you or impress you whenever he invites you over (of course he does). The pair of you might occasionally butt heads over who cooks since he has a tendency to hover around in the kitchen trying to do stuff even if he’s not the one cooking that time.

It’s no secret that Gale’s bread and butter is books and tomes of all design and creed - hells he has an entire section of his home dedicated to his collection. He’ll happily give you recommendations and gift you books that you’ve expressed interest in without a second thought; he’s just chuffed to have someone who shares in this kind of pastime! If you guys are together around the time he does return home, he’ll ask for your company to sort through all of his books together. Sure it may not be the most riveting activity unless you’re really interested in what secret books he’s had stashed in his shelves all of these years; but it means a lot to him to have you there with him the whole time as he (quite literally) rearranges his life now that he’s home. There are some books that while he’ll still keep, they’re better off somewhere else than the main room - like the tomes and scrolls and forgotten texts once dredged up in desperate pursuits better left in the past. He’ll gladly let you fill in those gaps with books of your own, to create a space in his home that’s full of you - he can think of nothing better that would occupy that space than you.

Okay, so that one comment about the sky? Yeah, that’s Gale. While Gale’s not the kind of person to go blindly trusting everything someone says, there’s that conviction in the way that you say things that somehow makes him fall for it every time. If you ever did turn around and tell him that the sky was hot pink it’d earn you an amused snort and a sarcastic ‘haha very funny’ as he looks up from whatever he’s doing. But you’re the one who gets the last laugh because he’s the one casting a ‘subtle’ glance towards the window not even a minute later, only to be met with your knowing grin the moment he turns back. Just don’t let the others know that you’ve got that kinda one up on him, because I’m telling you now - Astarion and Shadowheart? Yeah they’ll be insisting to know how you get that kinda conviction to use on the poor man later.

While I can see Gale as the comforting type when the circumstances require, I also believe that having a partner like you who can ground him back to reality with logical solutions and practical reasoning is exactly what he needs. It’s so easy for him to get lost within the confines of his own thoughts, to allow things to become too much of a mess for him to pick apart and deal with on his own. But you’re a welcome hand, there to unravel the threads pulling taught on his mind with discussions of solutions and things that he can put into action in the here and now. That is comfort in its own way, even if you may not realise it.

As previously stated gift giving is one of Gale’s love languages, so given that you’re very much the same, that idea of making a room in his house just for you may not be such a far fetched idea anymore. His gifts centre around your current interests and fixations - he’s got a good ear for listening out to find what you need and get what makes you happiest. Expect more than a few magical items though - protective accessories for when he’s not at your side, or even items with silly magical effects that he knows will get a chuckle out of you once you realise what they do. Gets flustered under the same treatment however - your gifts are precious, and he feels like no matter where he puts them there’s not a good enough place to show them off and admire them. Always gets this lovestruck little look on his face each time he passes by one of your gifts in the day to day, running his hands along them like the mere touch of them is enough to brighten his very soul.

Hope there’s room enough in that nest for two because Gale doesn’t mind in the slightest. But he will help you to make it more comfortable - comfier blankets, softer pillows for extra cushion; this man spent at least a couple years falling asleep in places around his home that weren’t his bed so he knows the importance of making it as comfortable a place as possible for you (and his joints).

Comes as no surprise that he LOVES your cat, and it’s also no surprise that he’ll spoil the guy as much as humanly possible. Fortnite Battlepass quickly becomes one of the most pampered cats this side of Faerun, not just because of all the treats Gale likes to think he’s being sneaky about giving him, but because of the fact his tower is a cat paradise. Not to mention that cats usually warm up to Gale very quickly - guy’s a magnet because more often than not you’ll find Gale in the middle of work with Fortnite Battlepass flopped across his lap or desk, or lounging over his shoulder like a purring slinky.

The first time he sees your tattoo you can see several stages of panic go through his face in an attempt to remain calm about the situation. He visibly relaxes when you explain, no, it’s not actually an orb scar but a tattoo. Very much a ‘same hat’ moment for your tattoo and his own scar. Depending on where the tattoo is and if you’re comfortable with it, you may find him occasionally brushing his fingers over your tattoo, calloused fingertips following the inky tendrils that curl away from the main circle in the centre. Please do the same with his scar, you’ll basically turn the man to mush in your hands seeing you pay any kind of love and attention to a mark which once caused him such pain.