#like it’s a loss. at the end of the day. being disabled means you lose something.

[feuillesss]

Is The Boycott Effective?

***DISCLAIMER***

I do not know these idols personally! This is just my interpretation of the cards that I pulled, please take this reading with a grain of salt. For entertainment purposes only.

( day/month/year - 15/11/24 )

SM Boycott Progress

Are the boycott/protests effective?: (6oprev./4os/5ow/10oc)(10os/7os/Mag)

Okay, these cards imply that Centre 5 is looking at this through a calculative lens, figuring out what to do, and what people's strategies are. I kept getting dishonesty? I'm not entirely sure what that means but they could be up to something behind the scenes. I think they're embarrassed by this, they feel like they failed, they're trying to avoid losing money. However, they're looking at the future with some hope, new beginnings, and change. But what I'm getting from this is that we cannot give up, and we need to be louder than ever, they're counting on people to give up and forget, for this situation to die down. They're worried about the financial losses that this could bring, they feel like it's a setback to the things they want to achieve with Riize. I'm really just getting that they're gauging how serious people are about this, if they'll give up like the last boycott. They're definitely planning something, thinking and weighing their options. How effective this boycott is, how it ends, depends on how much effort we put into it. The scene from the social network came into my mind.

Is SM seeing everything?: (Death/TheEmp)

Yes

Don't take their continued silence as a no, companies will not let it show when a boycott is being effective.

No one asked for this but I wanted to do this reading to give you guys some hope and strength to keep boycotting. I've seen way too many people being pessimistic about this and saying things like "I don't think he's coming back, "I've lost hope", which is understandable but guys, it's only been a month. If you give up after a month, why did you start in the first place? We need to stay positive about this, spread positivity, let SM know Seunghan will come back to a welcoming environment. And stop giving attention to ot6, put that energy into boycotting harder. It's not impossible just because it's never been done before, because it has been done before and never on this scale. No matter how long it takes, we should be fighting for the justice of not just Seunghan and Riize, but for all idols who have been affected by this delusional fan behaviour. When he comes back, it will be a huge step for the kpop industry in general, it will put us in the right direction for change. I truly believe that he will be back in Riize. Imagine one day we get to see idols in public relationships, not being scared to look at the opposite gender, this is the first step to get to that point. It's easy to think your efforts are useless and small but trust me, they're not. This is having a big impact. It's proven by ot6 making up baseless rumours and scrambling to ruin our efforts, it's proven by SM's silence, it's proven by Sangmin's little Instagram stories, it's proven by every article that comes out, it's proven by everything that they do to discourage people. All the things they do to make you think this boycott is not working, just prove that it is working, that they see it, are threatened by it, and are taking measures to stop it. Even if nothing comes from this, we've already begun the first step to change things and disable the power that these fans have over these companies, we've made so much noise, not only this past year but even just this past month. So please don't give up, no matter how long it takes.

[cosmossystem]

abled people underestimate how much they take for granted. of course for every thing you can do, there is someone who can’t do it. i think they (typically) sort of understand that, or at least act like they do. but to me the biggest difference between us—the thing they won’t ever understand—is that they don’t have any losses to mourn.

in my case before I got sick I was a particularly energetic and rambunctious child. I did every sort of sport, every game, i was always playing or doing something. what I think about a lot is how i was always excited for the annual state fair to come around because i wanted to go on every ride and try every mini game. mostly, i LOVED rollercoasters. they’re fast and thrilling and you feel weightless. but I was small! so for most of the rollercoasters i wanted to go on, i was too small to ride. and then I got sick right as i hit puberty and now I can’t go on ANY rollercoasters.

and how am I supposed to get over that? there’s an entire expansive catalogue of things I can’t do now, most of which were things I wanted and still want to do, but I just can’t. i never will. that door is permanently closed, and it happened so suddenly I couldn’t even protest.

they can’t really comprehend it. they don’t know the loss-of-privilege like that. the privilege in this case i think is one of choice—for instance, if they want to go on the rollercoaster or not—and they never stop to think that many of us don’t get that choice. they take that choice for granted and assume they will always have the choice to choose what they want to do. I’m happy for them, because I wish we all had the privilege of choice, but im mostly bitter.

[houseofhyde]

thinking abt aemond falling in love w blind!reader.

pairing. aemond x fem!reader warnings. no use of y/n, enemies to friends to lovers, ableism, so much fluff, a little bit of smut, angst (who said that). no mention of the reader's physical description. wrote in one sitting, no edit, we die like real men. wordcount. 3.1k (this was meant to be a short silly drabble) hyde's input. couldn't get this out my mind so, naturally, i'm making it your problem too now. enjoy, muah x disclaimer ! i'm not visually impaired but i do have several family members who are, to different degrees, and i've tried to stay true to what i remember them describing it like to me. the reader in this is completely blind, however, and that is something i do not have any experience in. please, if you feel anything about my portrayal is wrong or offensive, kindly let me know and i will happily fix it <3

the first time you meet is a few days after the events on driftmark.

with his new disability, the septa encourages alicent to change his usual lessons alongside his siblings for ones held with a couple of other impaired children of highborn status living in the keep.

aemond, of course, protests.

nearly kicking and screaming.

yells at his mother that he doesn't want to be thrown in a box with all the other "broken toys".

he ends up going anyway, dragged there by a handful of guards.

sulks throughout the whole first week, sitting alone in a corner.

and he would've continued to do that forever, if you didn't invade his space.

aka sit down next to him and offer him a book.

"go away," he says, the pout on his lips pointing lower to the ground.

"i don't want to," you refute.

"i won't tell you again, go. away."

"who are you to tell me anything?"

it leaves him speechless, because,

who is he? seriously?!

he thinks you have to be some sort of idiot to not recognise your prince

the following days go the same as the first

you sit near him and hold out a book

he tells you to go away

sometimes you listen

(not without first making it clear that you're moving because you want to, not because he told you to)

other days you don't

you just sit there next to him

staring blankly ahead

not even attempting to open the book that sits in your lap

one day, when he's feeling particularly short on patience

(he had his first sparring lesson with ser criston since losing his eye and it went awfully, each hit and stumble he took to the ground made worse by the echo of aegon's laughter ringing out throughout the whole courtyard)

he asks why you never read that book

"are you an idiot, or something? can't you read? is that why you're here?"

despite how smart he is for his age, he seems to not see the irony in him judging you for being part of an impaired group, as if he isn't also right there with you

such introspection would require acceptance of his loss first, and aemond just isn't ready for that.

"i can't read," you confirm

"because you're slow"

"no."

"then why?"

"i can't see the pages," it's the first time he notices that you're not looking at him. you're trying, face turned and eyes pointed in his direction, but you're staring past his shoulder, "i can't see anything."

he feels guilty,

wretched,

and the sickest twist of comfort.

because he understands

or at least he tells himself he does

because he can't see anything either - out of his missing socket, that is.

the other eye can see perfectly clearly how you don't even flinch as you speak about your disability

and that's when the jealousy takes over.

"then what good is it carrying around that stupid book?"

he says it because he wants to be mean.

so mean that you run away and leave him alone to sulk forever more.

but you just sit there, shrug your shoulders and shift the book around in your palm,

"i like to feel the weight of it in my hand. plus, you never know when you're going to need throw it at someone"

he bites his tongue before he can ask how you can hope to hit a target you can't even see.

the hostility remains

for months, years.

but you sit near him,

he stops telling you to go away,

you still offer the book out to him.

he learns your name.

not because he wants to

but because the septa calls it out one day in the classroom

and you're the one that answers to it.

the first time he sees you outside the study room, you're all alone, none of your father's guards around you,

and that's what really makes him stop in his tracks.

"what kind of lord leaves his daughter to wander blindly around the keep?" he almost says with his usual disgust,

until he notices that you don't have your book

and you're crying.

despite his own discomfort, aemond tells himself he has to comfort you.

because he's thirteen, almost a man.

and what kind of respectable man leaves a girl to cry all by herself?

he wipes your tears with the sleeves of his doublet, waits patiently until your breathing slows, then he speaks,

"what happened?"

"it's you," you say it softly, almost like you can't believe he's the one comforting you.

"it's me. now tell me what happened?"

"nothing," you tell him at first,

until he demands the full truth in the name of his father, king viserys targaryen.

"i overheard my mother speaking to my father about me. i didn't mean to! i just wanted to show them how i memorised the path from my chambers to theirs, without an escort. i wanted to prove that i can be useful, and good, and not a burden. i heard them through the crack in their door. she wants him to send me away to join the silent sisters. she says i can't see, so i may as well not speak either. but my father won't listen. he says i'm his daughter, and that he will not send me away. he loves me too much, i worry he'll hate me for it one day."

that familiar guilty feeling creeps in,

the one he's felt lingering on his skin since the day you told him of your visual impairment.

he's suddenly so aware of the fact he can see you,

and your tear-stained face,

and the shades of blue in your dress.

"where is your book?" he asks.

"i dropped it, whilst running through the halls. i just wanted to stop hearing them, i didn't want... i didn't mean to cause any mess, i'm sorry."

in an act that surprises even him, aemond takes your hand in his

and pulls you both to your feet.

he slowly leads you along familiar hallways, turning corners he's turned a million times.

"where are we going?"

"trust me."

you know he's taken you to the library the minute he opens the doors, a whiff of old books hitting your senses.

he guides you to a book shelf, puts your hand up to touch the exposed spines

and tells you to move forward.

"stop when you feel it's right."

you stop after four steps.

your fingers grazing over a book titled Matters Of The Heart: a Compilation of Fictitious Stories on Love and Beauty.

he pulls it out the shelf,

guides you both over to a bench,

open the dust covered book,

and reads to you.

the following day, when your father's guards guides you down next to aemond in the study room

and you hold your book out to him

he takes it,

shuffles a little closer to you,

and softly recites the words off their pages.

from that day forward, you become an infamous pair in the keep.

the one-eyed prince and the sightless girl,

never one without the other.

aemond becomes your shadow, always two steps ahead or behind you.

you pick out books in the library

and he reads them to you both.

he brings you down to the courtyard

and watches how you flinch each time the clack of wooden swords rings out.

it drives him to be better,

learn to see more in his opponents than even two eyes would allow,

just so he can watch how the smile stretches across your face each time he tells you he won.

you grow so close that one day, the king invites your family to join the royals for supper.

aemond tries not to care that you end up sitting so far away from him at the table.

at least he can look down it and spot you seated at your father's side, he tells himself.

when dinner ends and music starts to play,

aemond ceases the chance to sneak away from his seat and steal the empty one by your side, both your parents having stood to speak with the king.

he brushes two fingers along the back of your hand,

a private, tactile language only you two can speak,

one that tells you it's him, without him even having to say a word.

"prince aemond," you say, and he instantly hates hearing you address him so formally. "you look handsome this evening"

"and how would you know that?" there's no hint of the malice, the mockery he once used to speak to you with, back when he was angry little boy and you were a stubborn girl.

now he's a man of fifteen years and anger is far from something he feels next to you.

he watches you shrug and the smile that he likes best - cheeky, playful - slips onto your lips

"my mother won't stop bringing it up. dashing, she said."

"is that so?"

"mhmm. but she also says my father should offer me to your father and have us both wed, what with our cripple-like qualities making us unsuited for any other lord or lady, so, really, what does she know? for all i know, you're the most hideous thing to walk the keep and i should feel blessed that i can't see you."

"imagine how i feel. i still have to see you."

"oh, the horrors! well then, my all-mighty seeing knight-in-eye-patch, would you lend me your sight one moment and tell me."

"tell you what?"

"do i have anything in my teeth?" you bite back your laughter as you open your mouth and put your pearly-whites out on display for him.

he doesn't even care if the sight is unlady-like

or if anyone else at the table has noticed.

he's too busy laughing along with you and telling lies of how a massive piece of veg is stuck between your upper front teeth.

aegon is as aegon has alaways been,

a thorn in aemond's side,

and he makes no exceptions when it comes to you.

he can't help but laugh at you both

mouth stained with wine as he saunters up and leans his face down between you both.

"isn't it amazing how, between you both, there's only one eye that actually works?"

aemond bites his tongue, like he always does when it comes to his brother.

you, however, aren't quieted so easily.

"oh, so amazing! do you know what's even more amazing? how the stench of you always announces your arrival."

it's the first time aemond feels it.

that flutter in his chest.

and once it starts, it doesn't seem to want to stop,

he seeks you out most hours of the day

and thinks of you when he's not with you.

when he notices the bruises that litter your arms

from bumping into corners and walking into walls

he has a cane made for you, to help you more safely make your way through the keep.

it's the greatest gift he can give you: the freedom to walk your own path.

one day, as he's telling you about the recent flight he took upon vhagar, you ask him what the sky looks like.

"well, it's blue"

you blink at him, wait for the ball to drop.

"but you wouldn't know what that means"

he tries to think of something else, a different way to describe the vastness of the sky

"have you ever ridden upon a horse?"

you nod your head

"have you ever ridden fast upon a horse?"

you nod again.

"that feeling, when you're gripping at the reigns, and the horse's hooves beat against the ground like a drum, and the wind takes no mercy on your hair, and, for a moment, there's this... warmth of possibility, anticipation, right here" he guides your hand to rest atop your chest, on the side that your heart rests. "that you can leap and beat any obstacle in your way, and for a moment the world is open, and vast, and limitless. that is what the sky looks like, the perfect place to race upon horseback."

"except you're on a dragon."

"well, yes, but find me a horse that has wings and i promise to take you riding up in the sky one day."

you ask him to describe more things, more often.

the forest.

the iron throne.

the sea.

vhagar.

each book he reads you.

till one day you ask, "what do you look like?"

he tries his best.

he tells you about his signature targaryen hair,

and helps guide your hand up to touch it.

he tells you about his pointed nose,

and guides your pointer finer up to drag itself down the length of it.

he tells you about his jawline,

and lets you feel that part of him too.

"and your eye?" you ask.

he doesn't say anything

but he does peal off his eyepatch

and guide your hand up to run down the length of his scar.

"what does it look like?"

"gross."

"that's funny, because it just feels like skin. is all skin gross?"

"no but this skin... it's damaged."

"i feel something. it's hard," you murmur, as your nail traces over the curve of the gemstone that fills his socket.

"it's a sapphire."

"a sapphire?"

"yes. it's like a precious, shiny, smooth, blue rock."

"what about the other eye, the one that's still there?"

"what about it?"

"what does it look like? what colour is it? eyes have colours, don't they?"

"they do," he says, gazing into the hypnotising shade of your own, "it's blue."

"the sky, the sea, your eyes. i think blue might be my favourite colour."

he falls asleep that night with a smile on his face

his heart relieved that you never asked him to put into words what you look like,

because there simply aren't enough words known to man,

be it in the common tongue

or high valyrian,

to describe how beautiful you are.

he tells you as much, when you do eventually ask.

in the fallout of storm's end, soaked to the bone and regretful,

it's you who his legs carry him to

your chambers, to be exact

it doesn't even cross his mind to care that his knocking at your door awakens you

he doesn't care, loses all ability to do so when he collapses into your arms

"i made a mistake," he tells you, when you ask what's wrong

"that's okay, mistakes help us learn better."

not this one, he thinks

you're so gentle with him

and your skin is so warm against his cold

that he can't help himself

his lips find yours.

his hands find your hips.

his breath gets lost somewhere between you both.

but that's okay,

you're all the air he's ever needed.

he feels selfish, when he guides you over to your bed.

and he knows he should tell you what's happened,

what's changed.

he knows he shouldn't be touching you with hands that are stained by blood.

but he's desperate,

and he's breathless,

and he's so frighteningly in love with you.

"please, aemond," it's you who begs for more.

it's you who tugs on the leather of his jerkin.

it's you who pulls at the cotton of his shirt.

it's you who he gets undressed for.

you both wind up naked upon your sheets,

limb tangled with limb.

"i wish i could see you," you tell him. "but i don't need to see you to know you're beautiful, aemond. i feel it, in everything you do for me."

so he lets his own eye shut.

decides he doesn't need to see you either,

not like this, his skin tainted with the smell of the rain, and his dragon, and the velaryon boy's scream.

and the truth is, he wants to take you like this.

he wants to be cruel, and damn you to a life by his side.

but he looks at you,

naked beneath him,

lips swollen with his kisses,

the shine of your own arousal peaking out from that space between your thighs,

and all he sees is the girl he read stories to.

the girl who swooned and awed over every cheesy line about a knight,

and all his knightly honour,

loving his lady in the way that's deemed right by the gods and the lords.

and aemond just can't bring himself to defile your honour,

not like this.

so even as you whine,

and moan,

and offer up your maidenhead on a platter of your unapologetic beauty,

the prince just continues to edge at both your own pleasures,

hips grinding back and forth,

lips tangling with your own,

voice whispering nos, and we can't do thats, and not yets.

"tomorrow," he promises, the spill of his pre-seed smearing along your pelvis with each stuttered thrust of his hardened cock against your soft skin, "i'm going to ask your father for your hand."

"but, how?" you sound so pretty, he can't help himself and lets his eye reopen, searing the haunting image of you naked and pliant beneath him into his mind's eye.. "your mother... she said you flew to offer your hand to one of the baratheon girls."

"what i promised lord baratheon was a targaryen prince, and i intend to keep that promise," he speaks with so much conviction, skipping over the events of his nephew, and his dagger, and his joyride in the sky. "daeron is a boy of sixteen, he can have her. but i, i will belong to you."

the will to leave you, maidenhead still intact, somehow finds its way into his heart

he doesn't fail to leave you sated, however,

his finger dancing along the pretty pearl that has you whining his name and losing your mind upon the mattress.

he keeps his word,

wakes not with the urgent need to discuss last night's war-inciting events with his mother

but with the burning desire to find your father and win his approval

he doesn't find him in his quarter of the keep.

or in the training yard.

or in his seat at the small council.

what he does find is his fear stricken mother,

his stoic grandfather,

his giggling brother.

"aemond, what have you done?"

he doesn't answer

they already know what he done,

the whole realm likely knows, his half-sister too.

so he asks what he really cares about,

asks where your father is.

"he's gone," his mother answers.

"after he heard about your business with lucerys," aegon continues. "the traitor's taken his family to dragonstone and bent the knee to our bastard-bearing cunt of a sister."

so yeah that's what i'm thinking about.

anyway, goodnight <33

[darkcircles4lyfe]

it's a story about hands (reprise)

Yeah, okay, today's the day.

I gave my blog that title for a reason, you know, and it has loomed over me for years because the hand motif is absolutely everywhere and you could go on about it forever.

Maybe that's something I'll never actually attempt to do, but this chapter, we reached a breaking point.

Before I continue, I need to give a big, big disclaimer: I do not have a physical disability, so I'm not able to speak about that from the standpoint of representation as a first-hand perspective. I have at least listened to enough disabled people to know that fictional characters who become amputees only to miraculously gain their limbs back is, um, a trope. Disabled people in general being "healed" is a conception we would really prefer to avoid here. Not to call people out, but I don't think we're giving enough space to acknowledge that.

I don’t feel comfortable making the judgement call about what should happen. I’m leaving that open. I also don't want to downplay people's emotional reactions. Honestly, I don't know if I can accurately define the line between acknowledging real pain vs. ableist pity. But I’d like to talk about the possibilities of what could happen. Other characters have definitely gotten permanent disabilities as a result of their hero work, or even just the side effects of their quirk. But, for better or worse, I don't think this case is really about representation. Not that Horikoshi won't do that justice. He might. What I'm saying is that's not his purpose for having Izuku lose his arms. It's meant to be symbolic, so we can explore what it means. The other thing I’m keeping in mind here is that Horikoshi is notorious for playing with our expectations, like, alllllll the time. I mean, just take a few chapters ago for a classic example. Eri appeared at the end, and we all assumed she was about to take some sort of action to save someone with her quirk. Then, immediately following, we were given an explanation for why that wouldn’t be happening. And now it’s clear he wanted to do that “fake out” not just as a silly cliffhanger prank, but specifically so we would know not to suspect that Eri could be the miraculous solution to Izuku’s loss of his arms. Rest assured, there is no easy way out of this.

The expectation at play in this particular instance is an old one. It’s very understated, but its subtext has burned so brightly, you’d be a fool not to notice it. It sits with anticipation like one half of a call and response. Man, I was so certain. Lots of people still are. I was really looking forward to printing the panel where it happened onto a t shirt and wearing it proudly. All the hand motifs in this story radiate thematically from a single moment, the one that started it all for Izuku.

It raises all kinds of questions about the act of saving, who needs saving, why, what does it mean, what are the dynamics of power, politics, honesty, exploitation, compassion, pity, disdain, sacrifice. Katsuki has dealt with many of these since he first rejected Izuku’s hand. While Izuku was the one who was convinced Katsuki would keep on rejecting him…

…Katsuki was the one who kept that moment in his mind all these years and eventually came to regret it.

Katsuki is the one yearning for that hand-hold, the one who has imbued it with so much more weight than it ever originally had. Izuku, in contrast, does not allow himself to dwell on what he wants. To illustrate this difference, we need to look at another piece of foreshadowing:

Ugh, do y'all remember when lots of folks were complaining about how there never seemed to be actual consequences for Izuku's destructive treatment of his own body? I don't blame them, I was concerned and confused about it too. There were several "fixes" along the way. Recovery Girl healed him, but left a physical reminder. Then he started training to fight with his legs… sometimes. Then he got support items. All of these were unsatisfying non-conclusions because they didn't present Izuku with a lasting enough impression to change in a meaningful way. They didn't address his core, his origin.

Of course, that all changed this chapter. Now it looks like our frustration was inflicted intentionally. With the current context in mind, all of these moments look more sinister, like this day was always gonna come because they kept putting bandaids on a deep emotional and psychological wound. The problem is pretty much spelled out for us here:

As Katsuki put it, he just doesn’t take himself into account, ya know? He doesn’t care what happens to him. And he lies about it, to keep others from worrying, to keep them safe. To keep them from returning the favor and putting themselves in harm’s way for his sake. His motivations are noble,

…but what about the little boy inside Izuku? Who saves him?

This is all about Izuku giving himself up to the point that he literally has no more to give. The thing is, I bet he saw this coming. He knew his limits and decided to keep going anyway, because his personal safety and wellbeing are not important. Now that way of thinking has come back to bite him because the fight isn’t over yet, and he’s already made his sacrifice. So now we know who will be more distraught over this. Not Izuku—Katsuki.

It’s not about Izuku becoming disabled, it’s about how Katsuki wanted to use the intertwining of their fingers to communicate that he would never let go. Never stop valuing him most. Never let himself make the mistake of rejecting him again. Never let Izuku be so reckless with his life. To say: “we are in this together.”…if only Katsuki believed he deserved to be able to say such things. To reach out his hand would have been the ultimate way to simply imply them and let Izuku be the one to decide. Then, to feel their hands clasped together would be more than either of them dared hope for, but so beautiful, so right. A moment they’ve waited their whole lives for.

Yeah. That’s what we were expecting. We’ve been so comfortable. Horikoshi gave us all the signs. He tempted and teased us over and over. BUT. You know he does this thing were he gives us a desirable, completely plausible and simple thing to look forward to, and then he snatches it away. And THEN he replaces it with something much better, something we were not expecting at all because it seemed too good to be true. That’s exactly what happened when Himiko snatched Izuku away, and we were robbed of the chance to see him and Katsuki fight together. In hindsight, though, I’m glad things went a different way because now there’s so much more depth and angst on display. Likewise, in the present moment, we may consider how, as one door closes, another opens.

As wonderfully meaningful as the hand-hold would have been, perhaps it is still too simple a resolution for Izuku, for his and Katsuki’s relationship. Tbh, it could have been done like 100 chapter ago. At this point, there’s so much more potential. There are a couple of ways it could go. If Izuku stays armless, Katsuki will be forced to use other methods to get his point across. He’ll have to do something else, or say what he means, or both. Yes, I’m talking about what you think I’m talking about. If I say it, I just might jinx it (lol), but I mean it. I’m being serious. Either way, if Izuku did get his arms back in the end, I’m sure that it wouldn’t be an easy fix. It would be hard-won against Izuku’s self-destructive mindset, and/or by Katsuki’s conviction. Again, I say this knowing it is not meant so much as a representation of disability, but as a representation of Izuku’s greatest character flaw taken to the extreme. I know this might sound harsh, like, hasn’t he been through enough? I get that, but… I’ve said it before and I say it again: Izuku is stubborn as hell.

I wish I had a resounding final note to end this on, but I kinda don’t. I’m not sure what’s best. Now we just have to wait and see what Horikoshi has in mind.

[marcholasmoth]

OSRR: 3653

today marks ten years since i started these entries.

the day i started was august 7th, 2014.

today is august 7th, 2024.

it doesn't feel like it's been all that long at all.

as i made this realization this morning, i was able to spend the day and think about how i've changed over the last ten years, about the things that have happened, about the person i've become. about what i would say to me ten years ago.

the long and short of it is this:

i grew up.

and i don't like thinking about it that way because that means my childhood is long gone, never to return. that everything from here on out is going to be hard.

so as i sit here crying, mourning that loss that i will never truly recover from, i also reflect on the personal growth i've made.

i have less tolerance for bullshit and i'm not afraid to have opinions. i found a group of people who love me for who i am and not what i can do for them. yes i am living paycheck to paycheck, but i no longer consider myself completely broke. i've gotten better at managing my time and my money. i've earned not one, not two, but three separate degrees, the highest of which was earned from a prestigious university. i have a close relationship with my sister. i've reconnected with some high school friends. i've lost so many other friends due to circumstances i was unwilling to accept any longer. i've loved and lost, but i'm happy to have loved. and even now, i have a partner who i've been with for more than half of the decade! and it's been wonderful.

i've had a dozen different jobs in different industries, i've used my knowledge to help people in a lot of places. i've made friends with people across the world and i've seen people blossom into who they're truly meant to be. and i know that everyone is a work in progress. so am i.

i'm not quite done yet. i'm almost ready to come out of the oven.

and maybe the closet, too.

in all of my thoughts today, the ones that have stood out the most have been of how i treat other people and my mental health. over the years, i've seen people from high school who i didn't really spend time around because they were in the "popular" crowd. i instantly recognized them. they were probably too busy to even try to think of where they might've known my face from. but i've learned that it's important to treat people with kindness, respect, and love, regardless of your personal history with them. that everyone deserves respect and dignity, regardless of who they are. of course, even i have my limits, but those who are out of the limits of my patience and care are usually bigots, fascists, neo-nazis, and any combination of things including any of those parts.

and my mental health - what a difference. it's night and day for how it is in my head. being properly medicated and stable and KNOWING that's it's more than "just depression" or "just anxiety" and having a therapist who understands all of it? it's a game-changer. it's great.

what i would tell myself ten years ago would be mostly about how it ends up and the process of getting there. you end up stable. you get a therapist who you love and who helps you get to the root of the trauma you don't even realize you have yet. you have people who love you more than you even know. people love you for who you are, mental illnesses, disabilities, and all. you take up crafting and d&d and playing games. you meet someone adorable and hilarious and he makes your days brighter. you lose your faith and your friends, but after all the anger and grief, you come out stronger than you ever thought you could be. and despite all of the horrors you see in the world, you're still softer than you think. you count bunnies on the way into work. you cry over your waitress, begging the universe to let her smile freely. you smile at and wave to a perfect stranger who doesn't speak your language on your way back to your car, even after a long day.

there's a lot of pain, yes.

but there is so much more beauty than you can possibly imagine.

see it. feel it. embrace it.

but most importantly, share it.

[cookinguptales]

OH right, Blue Beetle!

I really enjoyed it! I've been a fan of Jaime Reyes for a long time and I honestly never believed he'd get his own movie. And?? Such a good one???

I worried going into it that he looked too cool in the trailers. Is that weird to say? I loved dorky baby teenager Jaime when I was a kid. He felt like One Of Us, y'know? And then I watched the trailers and I was like "hmmmmmm."

But even though he's a bit older in this movie and has his shit together a little more, he's still very much Jaime Reyes at heart. 💙 Love that weird little dork of a man that always means so well, even if he doesn't always know what to do. And I found myself rooting for him so hard!

The movie was overall just really charming and fun and occasionally emotionally devastating. A good mixture of action, character relationships, humor, and politics, imo. The characters were so endearing, and I'm really looking forward to seeing how things develop going forward.

A few more thoughts (with spoilers) beneath the cut.

I was actually a little surprised by how sad parts of the movie were, but it felt right, too. The heart of the movie really was the simultaneous power of familial love and horror of family separation. Family separation really seemed to affect all the characters in their own ways, whether that was due to corporate greed, politics, war, racism, or just good-old-fashioned horrific US policy.

Like... You come to realize that it really permeated every part of the movie. Alberto's devotion to his family, the years he put into bringing them all to Palmera City. The very real fear that going to the cops would invite an unfair immigration investigation into their household. Jenny losing her parents at such a young age, and the sharp divide between her and her aunt. Jaime's family loss as well. Carapax's truly fucked-up backstory. Hell, even divisions being sown between Victoria Kord and her brother when her father gave the company to Ted instead of the person who'd built it.

(Don't get me wrong, Victoria Kord was truly evil, child soldiers and all. I was not rooting for her. But lbr, that doesn't seem to be why her equally war-mongering father cut her out of the company. You have to wonder if she would have done quite so much damage in the end if she hadn't felt such a virulent need to prove herself and destroy her brother's pacifistic legacy. But! Who knows? She might have been even worse if she'd had all that power from the beginning.)

And, y'know, all of the characters deal with the horror of family separation in different ways. Carapax became weaponized by an imperialistic power that didn't give one shit about him. Victoria became embittered, violent, and downright brutal. And Jaime could have gone the same way, so furious over the loss of his own family that he gave into wanton destruction as well -- but Khaji Da didn't let him. (WAILING.) Instead, he managed to take the same route as Jenny: transmuting his rage into a need for justice, into a passion for making the world better so no one else would lose their loved ones the same way.

Y'all, I was in there crying at a superhero movie!!! IT'S FINE, I'm FINE.

I heard that the creator of the movie hadn't actually initially intended for Alberto to die (which I understand, tbh) but I did think it was really beautiful the way it was incorporated into the movie. Bringing Mexican culture to the foreground yet again in its discussions about and attitudes toward death. God, those candles were beautiful. ;;

I mean -- as someone who literally dropped all of my DC subs the day they "fixed" Oracle and never gave DC another cent until this movie came out, I really am passionate about the need for diverse heroes. Part of the reason I felt like I was getting emotional in that theater was because I remembered how much Oracle meant to me as a young disabled teen who couldn't make sense of her trauma or her disability or her inherent power. I remember how much losing the only positive role model I had devastated me.

And like... I want kids with the same background as Jaime to see themselves in him. I want them to be able to feel the way I felt back then. Honestly, that was a lot of why I finally broke my boycott. I think characters like Jaime, while brilliant in their own right, are also important, and I want to support them.

So when I realized how raucously, joyously, passionately this movie was gonna depict Latino culture and its own diversity within the US, I was thrilled! And I cried lmao.

(What can I say, I've been kind of weepy lately lmao.)

But yeah, honestly I cheered in the theater when Khaji Da switched to Spanish. I was like YEAH GIRL.

Other times I was actively fangirling in the theater:

Nana Reyes gunning down imperialists

Ted Kord reveal(s)!!!

"Batman's a fascist. Blue Beetle knew how to have fun." :')

Khaji Da stopping Jaime from killing that man

Milagro and Rudy having no such compunctions

Dr. "Sanchez" standing up for himself and his name reveal (which is a very fun easter egg for WWDITS fans, lmao. I wasn't expecting it and I had to stifle a little shout of laughter.)

Honestly, as a former DC fan I really loved how much thought and care was put into incorporating the really messy canonical history of the Scarab. Obviously they deviated from existing canon, but in ways that I thought were really fun and interesting. I'm excited to see what happens with the Kords going forward, y'know? I hope that Jenny, too, isn't cut out of her own family legacy. I'd never want to separate Khaji Da and Jaime, obviously, but there has to be something for that woman to do to follow in her father's (secret) footsteps.

I realize that this review is kind of all over the place (like my mind the past few days), but I really, really enjoyed it. I was feeling pretty out of sorts the day I saw it and it really raised my spirits a lot. It turns out that after all these years, I still really love Jaime Reyes! And I love his family! And I love Jenny, too!

even dr. de la cruz a little bit, even if he sure did take his sweet time to find a backbone

The movie was just super fun (as well as unexpectedly thought-provoking) and I really enjoyed it!

[chronicallycouchbound]

Unlucky: Protective Factors and Homelessness

Becoming homeless isn’t based in luck. The vast majority of homeless people aren’t just in unlucky circumstances. Most unhoused people I’ve interacted with are multi-marginalized, and have significant risk factors for becoming unhoused and lack supports to maintain secure housing.

The average American might be one significant event away from homelessness, sure. But the average American will also have better access to not only supportive services, but natural supports that can prevent or alleviate the toll that emergencies can have on an individual’s housing specifically. Thus, the average American won’t become unhoused.

In contrast, the average unhoused person (or person in precarious housing) doesn’t have natural supports who can provide relief for them. The average unhoused person is a part of several marginalized communities who have been systematically deprived of resources, and aren’t given true support by what few services exist to help their housing status.

My current housing is precarious. Housing my whole life always has been. My first times being homeless were before I have memories. But even as a young child, I had a solid understanding of the fact that if our house wasn’t spotless on inspection days, we would be unhoused again. It was such a routine part of life for me and my family, I didn’t even think about how the families of some of my peers were landlords.

When I first started sleeping outside, before I graduated elementary school, I met other unhoused people who all had varying risk factors. I didn’t know it at the time, but statistically, it was unlikely I would have never ended up homeless.

My ACE score is 10/10. My protective factors were 0/4. Beyond that, I was (and am) a part of other marginalized communities that I was discriminated against on the basis of, without even knowing I was a part of those groups like being queer, trans, and disabled.

While living on the streets, in shelters, couch surfing and even while doing community organizing, I watched as dozens of people became housed long before I did. The biggest running theme? Those who had natural supports, those who held privilege in our society, those were the people who became housed fastest and longest. They were often only unhoused once in their life.

But people like me, a part of many marginalized groups, no safe natural supports around, discriminated by supportive services, are the people who end up unhoused for most of our lives, and when we do gain housing, it can be taken due to events significantly smaller than the average American would normally see a housing related emergency.

For example, if I’m behind on rent, as someone who is 100% reliant on government aid programs with zero income and no family financial support, if I can’t find an emergency assistance program in time, I will lose my housing. Not only that— but my lease being in subsidized low income ADA housing and using governmental vouchers for rent means that if I’m formally evicted, it is a criminal offense. I have friends who have gone to prison for what should be minor lease violations that led to evictions, and they no longer qualify for any assistive programs for a predefined period of time (usually 5 years). Now they have a record, and have no governmental supports on top of already not having natural supports.

The housing we have is precarious, forever teetering on the edge of loss. We are so close to the safety of secure housing, it’s palpable, while being unattainable.

There are many genuine factors of luck that play into housing status, but make no mistake: Homeless/unhoused people are systemically disenfranchised.

If you’ve never been unhoused, if you’re currently in stable housing, there is a very strong likelihood that it’s because of your protective factors like natural supports and privileges in our society. You should acknowledge the reality of this, and not only name your supports as why you’re not homeless (not just luck), but also be leveraging your resources to support our community.

I created a resource for this if anyone is interested in how they can stand in solidarity with their unhoused neighbors.

More information about ACE & PCE scores can be found here.

[Pictured: an elementary school project from around 2006, from my sister. Child-like handwriting says: “My inspection is coming up. If your house is dirty you will get kicked out. If your house is clean you will get to stay in your house.” A small drawing of our house at the time is below it.]

[fenmere]

Just what is burnout?

Something that really irritates us and troubles us about discussions of burnout is that there are different kinds and levels of burnout, and everyone is always talking about their own without specifying what it is. And that gets confusing. There's professional burnout, where you lose your ability to be creative and make decisions at a given job or task. This might happen outside of employment, but it's kinda rare. We could just call it artistic burnout for that, though. But what happens is that you work too hard at this one thing and then your brain just can't do it anymore for a while.

It might effect the rest of your life in other ways, but mostly, you just really need to move onto something else for a while.

This has happened to us regarding art, for instance, and switching to writing allowed us to continue being productive and seeking nice brain chemicals.

Then there's systemic burnout, which is usually called autistic burnout, but it can happen to people with ADHD, and we think it can happen to anybody. It just happens to autistic people and people with ADHD more because we tend to overload faster, and we have more social and sensory demands on us constantly that most other people don't experience. And maybe it's the same mechanism as professional/artistic burnout, but it happens to your whole damn mind and body.

When it hits, you might not even be able to dress yourself in the morning. It can vary.

And both types of burnout happen on a spectrum of length and severity.

Some people talk about burnout that means they have to rest for a couple of hours. Like a daily limit. We don't consider that burnout, honestly. It's more like a brown out, or just a loss of that days spoons. It's a warning sign for longer burnout. If you keep hitting it, it's gonna get way worse.

But, a lot of people call it burnout, and we can't stop them.

Then there's burnout that lasts a few days. That's more like something we'd call burnout, but, we gotta tell you this, it's still really just a warning sign.

Like, your life and career can bounce back from that. You can call in, rest, and then get back to it.

But, if you keep hitting that wall and keep going back to your usual grind, it's gonna get worse.

Then you'll see a few autistics talking about burnout that lasts a couple weeks to a few months. There you're getting into dangerous territory. That can get you fired from a job, maybe even end your career. It can definitely put you in financial dire straights. But you might still be able to take a two week vacation and hobble back to what you were doing.

Then there's what we got: Burnout that lasts years, or is maybe permanent.

We hit systemic burnout in 2012, but we didn't know what was going on and we kept trying to push through it at half pace until 2014, after which we became permanently disabled. And we started having regular meltdowns and picked up involuntary stimming habits we never had before.

And we're still in it.

Unmasking and crying for help, finding a place where we could live with most of the accommodations we needed, all helped us to recover some of our previous function. And we also now know better never to try to act neurotypical again. But even if we tried, we could not possibly perform like we used to.

Part of our permanent disability is that we've also developed a number of chronic illnesses. More than one. They were actually already there, growing since childhood, but they got much, much worse from the stress.

But our burnout itself shows itself in lower thresholds for all tolerances, emotions, senses, everything. And a frequent blank mind most days.

And we're really starting to feel like it's pretty important that people learn to recognize these different types and levels, because a lot of the time they'll write shit like, "Burnout is like [this]. [This] is what happens during burnout." And they'll inevitably be describing something way more mild than what can actually happen, and they'll make it sound definitive.

And that's not doing anybody any good.

[thescrappyraccoon]

Hello, my sweet summer children.

My name is Skye and I’m new here. I am a late diagnosed AuDHDer with a permanent, progressive disabilities (rheumatoid arthritis and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome) and fibromyalgia. I am undiagnosed, but my doctor and I also suspect lupus and Matt cell activation syndrome. I’m a Complex trauma survivor healing my CPTSD. I’m an artist, a writer, and a single mom. I’m polyamorous and pagan. And my goal is to use this space so I can finish soft.

From my journal: Finish Strong

I haven’t been creating much lately. It’s hard to create when you feel like you’re under attack from every front, and I come up just often enough to grab a breath of air before I’m pulled back into the fray of being a disabled single mom, arrows of doctor’s appointments and attorney emails and school calls and tears. So many tears. So much heartbreak.

I’ve been grieving deeply…the death of my marriage, the loss of my health, my former clients and office, my work, my family who live away from here, the future I had envisioned, my life before so much was ripped from my hands. I have felt hopeless, like a failure, lost. My imagined future is gone; I’ve felt like I was losing myself too.

And not only that, but I’ve been grieving the world. Grieving what patriarchy, misogyny, racism, classism, greed, religion, colonization have stolen from all of us. Grieving the experiences shared in my own Bear vs Man post. Grieving how my children have to grow up in a world where some people believe they shouldn’t exist simply bc of who they love and their genders. Grieving a world that says I’m better off staying in an abusive marriage. Grieving a world that says my health issues make me worthless because I can’t “contribute to society.” Grieving the thousands of years of violence against one another and the Earth.

To keep from being pierced to death by it all, I wrapped myself in armor.

This morning when I woke up, I had a phrase running through my head, a part of me ready to examine it. The phrase was “Finish strong.” And I thought about how weak I feel. I’m exhausted physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, relationally. Some days I barely have the strength to move from the bed to the bathroom and back to bed, the fatigue turning my limbs to jello.

Every time a new memory resurfaces (not uncommon after years of dissociating to self-protect), I fear this will be the thing that ends me. Bracing myself for what’s coming around the corner has left me bone tired, soul tired. I do not feel strong, no matter how many times people tell me I am. I don’t believe it, not when I know my own weakness.

But then I thought about the rest of the year, and what I can envision and hope for in the days ahead. I started thinking about what art I want to create. I started thinking about the garden my kids are planting, and all of the blooms on the tomato plants, each a promise. I started thinking about a concert I’m attending in August, a birthday gift from the dearest of friends. I started thinking about an event I’m planning for November. I started thinking about the music my brother is writing just down the hall, and how I can’t wait to hear the album. I started thinking about my new nibling and their big siblings. I started thinking about summer break and cherry limeades and ice cream cones. I started thinking about campfires and backyard parties. I started thinking about my morning cuppa, anticipating the steamy Earl grey.

In all of those visions I am still sick. In all of those visions I am still a single mom. In all of those visions I still live in a world where hatred screams so loud it’s deafening at times. But the difference is that in those visions, I don’t *have to be strong. I can just be soft. It doesn’t mean I don’t get up and dust myself off when I’m knocked on my ass for the tenth time today. It doesn’t mean I give up. It just means that I don’t have to armor up for *everything.

Sure, there are times when it’s simply unsafe to be my fully unmasked self. The world can be cruel, especially to sensitive souls. I used to be so ashamed of my sensitivity. Learning that I’m autistic and an ADHDer has helped me grow in self-compassion in this area. My neurotype takes in so much sensory information constantly; my nervous system is built for sensitivity. My soul is built for sensitivity.

Sensitivity is a gift, not a burden. And if it’s a gift, then it’s worthy of protecting. And not by armoring up, but when possible, stripping down to my softness, my vulnerability. Finding spaces where I can let down my guard and simply be my full, unfettered self. Surrounding myself with people who see and value my sensitivity rather than weaponize or manipulate it. Creating opportunities to be soft.

2024 has not gone the way I ever could have anticipated. I have experienced the lowest of lows and the highest of highs. I’ve been abandoned and fiercely loved. I’ve been harmed and staunchly protected. I’ve been heartbroken and fallen in love with life all over again. I’ve been lonely and held tightly. I’ve been hopeless and confident that my story doesn’t end here.

Instead of striving to “finish strong” Maybe it’s enough to simply “finish soft.” Maybe the real test in all of this is to keep my heart from turning to stone. Maybe the best measure of strength is whether I end 2024 differently than it began…weak maybe, but also soft. Maybe soft and strong aren’t such different concepts.

[winglssdemon]

Omg

Weight loss does not automatically mean your body is eating your muscles and organs. The antivaxxer level of anti science on this site when it comes to weight loss is unbelievable.

Your body will only start "eating" your muscles if you're losing weight AND YOU DONT NEED TO AND ARE HEADED TO BEING UNDERWEIGHT.

WEIGHT LOSS CAN BE SUSTAINABLE. WEIGHT LOSS IS A VIABLE AND SOMETIMES A NEEDED OPTION FOR SOME PEOPLE.

HUGE REMINDER THAT THERE ARE TIMES WHEN WEIGHT LOSS CAN HELP DISABLED FOLK ESP FOLK WITH CHRONIC PAIN. It's not a cure-all but people with chronic pain experience large amounts of inflammation in the body and having excess adipose CAN cause inflammation just by itself. Compound that with extra weight on joints can make movement that may already be difficult even more difficult.

And while I'm on this rant, I'm SO sick of people acting like overeating and binging aren't disordered eating and also forms of self harm. I'm sick of the "body positive" activists who get SO mad that some fat people HAVE become fat through overeating and binging and want to talk about it. Like why can't those of us who gained weight through disordered behaviors actually talk about it? Why don't you talk about or let others talk about the fact that some people go from a restrictive eating disorder to a binge eating disorder.

Reasons Why I a Disabled Person decided to lose weight:

1. I knew I was eating too much junk food and not eating enough fruits and vegetables. So I started working on moderating how much junk food I was intaking and I have been trying really hard to make sure I choose healthier options.

2. My chest was/is too big. It was beginning to cause actual dysphoria issues along with the excess weight giving me constant shoulder and neck pain. Weight loss cannot be targeted at any specific part of your body, but overall weight loss can help you lose cup sizes.

3. The food was making my chronic pain worse. Many ultra processed foods are known to increase pain in people with chronic pain and it's been proven in multiple studies that eating a healthier diet can help decrease pain. It won't get rid of it, but it can help.

4. I was using food as a maladaptive coping mechanism. Stress eating is not actually helpful in the long run. Sure it makes you feel better while you're eating it, but once it's gone the problems, the pain, the stress is all still there.

5. I want to be able to use my crutches and KAFOs more often and having already lost a fair amount of weight, I can definitely 100% say that I have less difficulty using them than when I was at my heaviest. It's easier for myself to push myself in my wheelchair, and it's easier to propel myself in sled hockey. Among this, getting a bigger chair was just out of the question when I last ordered my most recent chair. The world is already so hostile to wheelchair users and spaces are already so narrow, it's easier to have a smaller chair if possible. Like we can talk all we want about how things need to be more accessible and universal design needs to be implemented everywhere so people in all sizes of wheelchairs esp those in power chairs, can get around easily without this being something to worry about, but at the end of the day, I want to be able to get through as best I can, and making sure I'm not going any bigger with my wheelchair is legit just something I have to do.

And you know what, even with all of these reasons, there's still the fact that people deserve bodily autonomy so if I want to safely lose weight for ANY reason, then that's my choice.

[marshmallowprotection]

You know the whole thing about Saeran forgiving the people who hurt him and that includes his parents, people seemed so upset by that. But it’s like it’s so complex?

Like as someone with a mother who hit me a lot and was constantly tired in the past. I can’t find it in myself to hate her. I love that the choi twins differ that way. That Saeyoung makes it a point to say it doesn’t forgive them and he’s not shamed for it. But Saeran says he forgives them and isn’t shamed for it either. It’s just how the both of them chose to cope and move on. I find myself relating to Saeran bc of this.

There’s always shows and movies where an abusive parent to child relationship is shown and we see built up resentment which is valid. Those are all valid, hating the people who hurt you and even deciding to put them in a ✨retirement home✨ is valid. But I love my mom so much. We didn’t have a lot and she was disabled living off welfare and social security. And I was always a very sensitive kid. So she didn’t have patience for it or the burdens of life were crippling. She took that out on me as a result. I feel like parental relationships are so complex. I hold grudges against her obviously, a part of me is very angry because of what happened to me resulted. I can’t help but have so much love for her. And I think no one acknowledges that kind of complexity. I felt seen during Saeran’s AE. I never tell anyone this because I get upset if people tell me “wow your mom was a piece of shit” or “she’s a bad mom” like even if that’s technically true, don’t talk bad about my mom 😐 unless someone’s my family I don’t want anyone’s two cents on how I should feel about her.

I love that fact Saeran cried for her, and I found what he said so important. How yeah he was horribly and severely abused, but she’s his mom and after Saeyoung left, she was all he had. And since the difference between SE Saeran and GE Saeran being that one had the choice to escape Mint Eye the choice to seek his own freedom and happiness, the other was forcibly removed and then put in a hospital (even if it was for the best and Saeyoung was out of options). So I found it important that Saeran said regarding how she died, “I never wanted to lose her like that.”

He was never even given a choice to leave his abusive mom. She was just gone one day. They didn’t even find a body. I’m sure he felt lonely and empty, at that moment his mom disappeared without a trace just like Saeyoung did. And he never had the chance to even process his grief, bc for some people a loss is a loss.

I never wanna seem like those type of people who are like “oh but she’s your mother wym you hate her” every victim’s feelings towards those who hurt them are valid. But it never sat right with me that people passed judgment on Saeran for deciding to forgive her. Or saw it as bad writing. Felt hypocritical to me. Like there’s a right way to heal from abuse and Saeran did it “wrong”. It’s not like forgiveness means everything is all water under the bridge.

Basically, if you choose to forgive those that hurt you and that will help you heal? Good on you. If you choose to resent those that hurt you and that will help you heal? That’s just as good too.

I love the choi twins!

You hit the nail on the head. This is personal and circumstantial. As a victim of abuse, you are the only person that gets to decide how you handle your life and the complexities of whatever choice you make in regard to how you feel about your abuser. It's important you make an informed choice based on what you know about yourself.

If you need to talk to other people and spend days, months, years, etc, figuring out what to do? That's perfectly all right, but at the end of the day, you need to be the one that decides how you're going to handle your feelings about the person(s) who abused you. You are also not confined to the choice you make.

If something changes going forward and you feel differently, you are allowed to react that way. If you know you're never going to change your mind, that's also okay. You are the one that knows you the best. Do not let anybody detract from what you know deep inside your heart. There is no right or wrong way to handle this situation.

There is only the choice you make with what feels right for you. What's right for you may not be right for another person and that’s okay.

I don't think anybody should judge Saeran or Saeyoung. They decided what they wanted to do and everybody should respect that choice. It doesn't have to be the choice you make, but they did what was right for them. Frankly, I am so happy that the two of them got to decide what felt right.

There's a reason why you get a good ending by helping Saeran confront his father as opposed to letting Rika handle him. For him to be able to reach the best amount of peace, he needs to confront all of them and find forgiveness in his heart in some capacity. I've gone over the many kinds of forgiveness because there is no single type. He got what he needed. 

Anon, I hope you know you’re not wrong for doing what was right for you. I don't think you're naive and I don't think you're foolish. You know what's right for you and you know how to keep yourself safe. If you know in your heart that the complicated feelings you have are okay, that's all that matters.

When your abuser is a parent, of course, you feel complicated. Society teaches us that we are supposed to love our parents as much as they're supposed to love us. Many abusers had good days and bad days, and that makes it even more complicated for you to come to terms with the fact that they hurt you. Some had a black-and-white situation where their parents weren’t good all the time, and I hope they know they’re justified in feeling what they need to feel, too.

Instead of shaming people or making them feel bad for the decisions that they make to come to terms with what they suffered, we should all be supporting each other and respecting our personal choices. Just because somebody chooses to do something different than you doesn't mean that they're wrong in doing so. You are allowed to have your feelings and they are allowed to have theirs.

As long as you respect and care for each other as fellow survivors of abuse, that's what matters. 

I have my own feelings about the abuse I've suffered. I don't forgive. But, I've been allowed to make that choice and nobody makes me feel bad for it. Nobody should make people who choose to forgive feel ashamed of doing so, however. I find it admirable that there are people that can lighten the load on their hearts by choosing to find some form of forgiveness to find peace. Peace for me won't come through forgiveness. But I salute those that find it in their hearts. 

[the-rogue-mockingjay]

Writer's end-of-year roundup, 2022! 🎉🎆

Despite the myriad hardships of the year for me - losing my old beagle, fighting doctors, a completely stupid amount of grief/loss, migraines and disability oh my! - it's actually been an amazingly productive and inspired year? I'm very proud! I completed the second draft of my first-ever longfic, which needs another round of editing or two before it's ready to be published, and I've discovered I LOVE editing. More than I love writing, actually????? Lots of people talk about the Dreaded Editing but for me, it was vastly easier than writing the first draft was LOL. I also did what I thought I would never do, which is create another Shepard, Morrigan Vesta, and I actually wrote mostly about her during NaNoWriMo this year. I'm finally getting the hang of how to give characters unique voices (or portray a canon character's voice accurately, which is something I used to be extremely hung up on). I can honestly say I've made a lot of progress both as a person and as a writer this year, and I'm finally starting to find my joy in writing again. Very exciting!

Taking a page out of @pikapeppa 's book in how to format this year's data- I love seeing your charts every year!! My own chart ended up being quite a bit messier, but that's probably because of how I tweaked it to fit my fics. I apologize deeply if the image quality gets butchered, I am not wise in the ways of battling Tumblr's nonsense

(HEY GUESS WHO FORGOT A FIC......the one I forgot is Marevera's Dream, which is a Wayfarer post-Ep 1 pre-Ep 2 WIP, and it clocks in at 1,174 words, making my actual total 60,486!!!!!)

*I forgot to note that In this darkness, on my own is a followup to A New and Dark Horizon.

60K........DUDE!!! I haven't written that much since junior high/I got my depression diagnosis in like 2016, so this is. Big!

New things I tried: For starters, I paced myself during NaNo instead of forcing myself to write every day like I did during NaNo 2020. And WOW was that a night-and-day difference! In 2020, I wrote about 20k and burned myself out so bad I couldn't write for another 6-8 months. This year, I wrote about 30k, and only sat down to write about half the days, successfully dodging burnout. I think that's a valuable lesson for me in what works for me, how to balance my desire to write with what I'm actually capable of that day, and how to work with my disability without letting it limit me.

I also wrote in first person for the first time in maaaaaany years, and while it's not as comfy as third person, it wasn't bad, and it was a good way to explore the different strengths of POVs.

And since my laptop had a fatal encounter with a cup of coffee last spring (RIP little buddy), I've gotten very comfy writing on my phone, which I had previously only done for Across the Sea and Part 1 & Part 3 of broken body built anew because I was bored/inspired during a long car ride LOL.

Fic I spent the most time on: Going Over Jordan, easy. I originally wrote it during NaNo 2020, then re-wrote it at some point during 2021 (time is a weird soup so I don't remember). And then I rewrote it AGAIN this year, edited the crap out of it, printed it, and will edit it again sometime in 2023. It's a fic that exists purely because I am at times a spiteful little goblin, and I had Opinions about the MEA main mission Hunting the Archon, i.e. I didn't agree with how Bioware wrote the companions' responses to Ryder's temporary death, and my Ryder is also an anxious neurodivergent wreck like myself, so I wanted to write how that mission would have actually gone with Brynja as Pathfinder. I wanted to highlight the relationships Brynja has with her friends (particularly Jaal), and I also just wanted her take on the mission in general, because it's not the same as what's in-game. I mean....a lot of people die gruesome deaths in that mission and you see the aftermath, you see the gutted and maimed corpses. There's a lot of horror inherent to what Bioware wrote for that mission, but they glossed over it big time. I wanted to fix that.

I'd like to have someone beta read it, but Andromeda is a niche market as it were, and I've never had anyone beta my work before, so that's honestly the biggest reason it's not published yet. It would benefit greatly from beta reading I think, but uh. I don't know how to make that happen. I'm gonna publish the dang thing in 2023 or 2024 at the latest, though, even if it kills me DGKLJDHLG.

Fic I spent the least time on: I can't say for certain, but it's probably the microfics. Those took only a couple hours. Aside from those, not counting WIPs, it'd most likely be Across the Sea, which I wrote on my phone while sitting on the kitchen floor.

Favorite thing I wrote: ALMOST ALL OF THEM. In all seriousness though, there are a few that have a special place in my heart, and the most important one is Across the Sea. I'd been wanting to explore how Marian processes/copes with Thane's death pretty much since the day I created her, but I never got around to putting any of it on paper until the time came for me to say goodbye to my dog, a 17yo beagle named Maggie we adopted in 2019, last February.

It was an absolutely hellish series of events just in those few days alone: I had a sleep study done which gave me the worst migraine of my life, I threw up in a random parking lot, went home and tried to sleep the migraine off, and was woken up a few hours later to my mom sitting on my bed and saying, quietly, "Maggie's dying". My migraine quit mattering at that point. I sat with her on the couch for hours, held her paw, petted her softly. My parents took turns sitting with her in the living room overnight.

Ultimately, she was just suffering so much for so long we had to take her to the vet. It was a weekend, so it was going to be hours before they opened. Maggie got up and stumbled to the kitchen, and she laid down in front of the door to the garage, and I just...sat with her. There was nothing I could do to help or save her, so I kept her company in her last hours. In the midst of moving and the uncertainty surrounding my health, my new disabilities, traumatizing doctor appointment after traumatizing doctor appointment, I was having to say goodbye to the greatest light and joy of my life a mere 6 months after we lost the dog we've had since I was 3 years old (a shih tzu named Reggie, who wore the pride of his breed like a royal mantle and never stopped carrying himself like a king, even when he didn't recognize us anymore).

Maybe it's silly to compare the loss of a dog to the loss of a lover, but...things just clicked in my brain. I wrote Across the Sea for and about Thane and Marian, yes, but it was for me and my beagle, too, in equal measure. Thane was terminally ill but even so he died quite unexpectedly (THANKS KAI LENG), and the same was true of Maggie. So it was....maybe it's a silly thought, but it was a vent piece. I understood my grief through the lens of Marian's, since hers was so much easier to tackle than my own in its huge overwhelming weight. I'm a very private person with big emotions, and my grief was - and is - a very personal thing. Something I needed to keep close to my chest, hidden, at the time. To write Marian's grief as I waited with Maggie for the inevitable, it was like I had a companion, a friend sitting with me in that grief. I understood Marian much better then.

So perhaps mechanically speaking, Across the Sea isn't my best piece (I'm honestly not certain where it ranks quality-wise), but it is....the writing equivalent of those pendants that carry your loved one's ashes, for me. And it's done quite well on AO3. Knowing that people have enjoyed this piece that is so precious to me and comes from a place of such deep sorrow...there is no greater honor I could ask for, I think. It's a fitting tribute to a character and franchise I love, that's gotten me through many hard times, and to the beagle that made the horrors of life worth living.

(Aside from that, my other favorites are broken body built anew (first trilogy piece), Going Over Jordan (first longfic), In this darkness on my own, Farewell to Arms, Des profondeurs dans la nuit, and the ME3 early game Morrilenko duology Never Enough/In the shadow of your heart.)

Favorite thing I read: Imma be real with you chief, I have.....not read much. Not as far as books go, anyway. But I've sure read some amazing fic and interactive fiction games!!

I reread a bunch of stuff, partly to examine the technical strengths of my fave writers and stories, and partly because hey, they're my favorite stories!! Off the top of my head, the pieces I reread were: Flotsam, Ain't Sentimental, and Loose Ends by @asaara-writes; Sorrow and Resistance by @/myrini; and while I didn't get the chance to reread/finish these like I'd hoped, A Lesson in Drowning by @theherocomplex, Where the Winds of Fortune Take Me and Lovers in a Dangerous Time by pikapeppa are bookmarked both on AO3 and in my brain for the same reasons as the shorter pieces

everything @coldshrugs has written in the past year or two. Both as a writer and as a reader, shorter form fiction is more accessible to my migraine-addled brain (I love reading long stuff but it's often migraine trigger T^T) and Azia's a MASTER of short fiction???? So much punch packed into such concise words!! Incredible clarity and emotional depth!!!! There are many writers on this site that I admire and respect greatly, and Azia is one of them

My favorite IF this year is 100% Wayfarer (@/idrellegames). I haven't been able to focus on it as much as I'd have liked, but the COMPLEXITY the DEPTH. I'm in awe of it and Idrelle. The scope of the project is so massive and the intrigue and depth of the story and characters is incredible to see, Idrelle is a one-person-army of a writer. It'd be easy to think that Wayfarer is made by a team, but nope! It's all the genius and dedication of Idrelle. Having followed Wayfarer from the beginning, the only words I can describe it is awe-inspiring

My writing goals are going in a separate post because this is about 19 times longer than I meant it to be DHFLJKDSLKJHG. If you've read this far, thank you so much!!!!!!! I know it probably got a little more personal and a little bit sadder than you were expecting, so thanks for sticking with me- and I don't blame you an ounce if you skim-read this or skipped some sections. It's a lot of words!

Happy New Year, everyone!! You guys make Tumblr great, and without the people I've met through this site, I would've missed out on not only tons of awesome media, but all y'all super cool folks and your blorbos!!! Keep on creating, everybody. Your stories, your art, your headcanons and metas and dumb jokes, you bring light into my life, and the lives of others. I want you to know that your works bring comfort and happiness to the life of one lost and drifting young woman...and I want to thank you for it, sincerely. I know for a fact I'm not the only person whose life is made better by your presence. The fact that we haven't met in-person doesn't lessen your impact by an ounce.

[troutfur]

is this still going? hmm. ocotillokit, a grey tabby with dark stripes and a long tail

You were a lil' past the deadline but since you're cool and we're mutuals I'll allow it. <3 Sorry it took like. 4 days.

The chart I got looks like this:

[Image ID: Under the header “What will Ocotillokit’s life be like? (02/17/2023)” 16 rows of tally marks crossed out two by two until there is only 1 or 2 left uncrossed. To the left, a shield chart at the top with the following geomantic figures: Populus as the first mother, Cauda Draconis as the second mother, Amissio as the third mother, Carcer as the fourth mother, Amissio as the first daughter, Coniunctio as the second daughter, Rubeus as the third daughter, Fortuna Maior as the fourth daughter, Cauda Draconis as the first niece, Fortuna Minor as the second niece, Fortuna Maior as the third niece, Caput Draconis as the fourth niece, Albus as the right witness, Rubeus as the left witness, Coniunctio as the judge, and Coniunctio as the sentence. Below the shield chart, an astrological house chart with the first twelve geomantic figures above mentioned assigned to houses 1 to 12 in the order mentioned above. /end ID]

Interpretation under the cut:

Judge and sentence are both Coniunctio, meaning our character's life story centers around a rather uncomplicated idea of making connections. These connections stem from facing anger and aggression (Rubeus as the left witness) with wisdom and tranquility (Albus as the right witness). So we have on our hands SandClans' resident rational cool head and rational thinker. I'm thinking they'd be a good addition into the Clan as one of our elders or at the very least a senior warrior whose ideas hold weight. Let's find out more of their life story to see what it reveals about the path getting there.

In the first house we have Populus, stillness and passivity. So, not a character who is out doing stuff. Someone more lowkey, living in the background, not very notable nor facing major growth as a person.

In the second house we have Cauda Draconis, foregone conclusions and endings. The second house, as many know is the weak link of this whole system. I really don't see an angle to interpret this in light of the traditional meaning of the house as referring to material posessions so I'll just put it in my back pocket to use it as a reinforcement of the next Cauda Draconis of the chart.

In the third house Amissio! In the house representing close platonic relationships this could be about feeling like they lose their social circle as they grow up. Perhaps being so plain and boring their apprenticeship denmates just move on from them once they are warriors. Perhaps they have a tragedy of dead littermates (though I would for no particular reason lean towards the idea of stillborn littermates here). Perhaps they just can't keep friends.

In the fourth house Carcer! We've seen this one before folks, strict parents and/or mentors. Not much too interesting to say here but perhaps if we're going with the dead littermates thing, overbearing and overprotective parents who just want to shelter their surviving kit? I think that is an interesting angle as to how their passivity developed.

Amissio in the fifth house and I'm thinking this should represent a lack of children rather than a tragedy related to them. A loss of the opportunity to leave a legacy, if you will. In relation to house seven I'm seeing a potential angle already but let me not get too ahead of myself.

Coniunctio in the sixth house, connection through health. I'm thinking! How's everyone feeling about a congenital cataract in one eye? And it is a bonding experience with another elder who developed cataracts from age? No particular reason why I leaned towards that but I like the idea of a cat developing a disability associated with age young coming to bond with an elder over the experience.

Rubeus in the seventh house could tell us that a reaction to singleness is anger. I'm not really feeling it though. I don't want that type of character in the dynamic of SandClan and that doesn't seem like boring background dude material. Perhaps, this is about dating preferences? Wanting to spice up his life with romance but ultimately ending up with people too chaotic for him who end up not meshing?

Fortuna Maior in the eighth house! Now that's interesting, independent success in the face of death. Or in death. Very open interpretation. I'm not feeling this is quite the right time to use this as a "succesfully kills someone" figure. But I also don't feel like the other obvious interpretation of "thrives upon the death of the strict parental figure" is applicable. And honestly since this is a character that is supposed to be mostly static I don't see how it fits. What I could most see is perhaps independent success in moving on? Perhaps when his elder buddy finally kicks it he is able to go on on his own without too much hiccups.

Cauda Draconis in the ninth house. Once again, I don't have much of a "journey" specially given Populus on the first house implies a mostly static character. Perhaps this is telling us that it's a foregone conclusion any attempt at a personal journey, to change their essential plainness, is doomed to fail.

Fortuna Minor in the tenth house. Dependent or short-lived success in the house of authority figures and figures that command respect. I see this boding well for my elder idea, just a dude that became respected just by living enough. Not a particularly hard to achieve form of respect, save for the difficulties of saying alive out in the desert.

Fortuna Maior in the eleventh house tells me this character will have success independent of benefactors. But again, as a lowkey dude relegated to background character, I don't see their success amounting to much of note beyond "staying alive long enough to get the perks of elderhood". So, ya know.

Finally Caput Draconis in the twelfth house, endless potential in the house of adversaries. Tends to bode badly, but I'm not sure what kind of adversary or antagonistic force a dude like this would collect. Cranky apprentices who don't want to be tending to his needs? That's kind of a cute interpretation of it. At odds with the younglings who are full of potential.

Putting it all together:

Ocotillokit's life is one spent largely drifting along. Raised in as much a sheltered environment as a Clan can be, they developed a personality that's rather withdrawn and passive. This led to all sorts of things drifting away from them, friendships, opportunities to start a family, etc. Though they found some connection with elders in the experience of losing sight, to a congenital cataract, they still weren't able by and large to stop being dragged along the current. Romance was one avenue this was attempted to be plugged, not to very great results, as their choice of "interesting" partners more often than not ended with someone too chaotic for them. Once their elder friend passed on, they had success in moving on, and managed to live a good life into old age when they became an elder. Although often at odds with the apprentices, he is genuinely able to temper their hot heads with their wisdom and connect at least on some level. And that is ultimately a comfortable position they, the plain and boring background cat, found themselves in.

As a name, I suggest Ocotillostripe maybe?

[lastoneout]

See I kinda get where this is coming from in some regards, but the inclusion of ADHD amongst the ways people are apparently "self-infantilizing" with the use of "therapy/social justice language" makes me hesitant to take anything else it's saying seriously.

It's kinda funny to see this author, at the end of the article, claim to care about disabled rights while repeating some absurdly ableist stereotypes and talking points? There is a long history of able-bodied neurotypical society infantilizing people with disabilities, and this article points that out, but STILL not only repeats that by implying that people with ADHD are idk, what? Lying? Making excuses for ourselves? Because babies have object permanence so surely we couldn't possibly actually struggle with something like that, but goes so far as to insinuate that said societal infantilization is OUR OWN FAULT somehow and/or we're weak for complaining about our symptoms.

ADHD is a disability. Literally, it is a medical condition that severely impairs one's ability to function from day to day up to the point of literally ruining lives. And one of the most common ADHD symptoms is memory problems. And it's not just "forgetting to text our friends back", though trust me that happens, it's forgetting to pay rent, forgetting to turn the stove off, losing very important things we need for work or school, not locking our door when we leave, fucking up our taxes, missing doctors appointments and medication refills, it is not "uwu I'm a child who can't remember stuff oops" it's "oh fuck the water got shut off because I forgot where I put my mail" and "I lost my job because I forgot which day my shift was for the tenth time".

And imo there's a pretty big difference between that and not having object permanence?? I mean I know people often describe ADHD memory problems as akin to a loss of object permanence but people with ADHD aren't babies. We understand that things exist when we can't see them in a way that infants don't, we just struggle to remember things if we can't see them. Like I know that my birth certificate exists, I just cannot fucking remember where it is right now. That's why it helps to take our cabinet doors off or make magnets for our fridges so we can SEE what we have to eat. Making more of our belongings visible is a legitimate way to manage our symptoms.

Tbh it's incredibly cruel to insinuate that people with ADHD are lazy or making excuses for themselves or literally stupider than a baby because of their medical condition. People with ADHD go our entire lives being told we're faking or we could remember things if we just tried harder and since we didn't we must not care and that we're lazy and stupid, there's no goddamn reason to repeat those ableist lies and pretend they're a hot take. A disabled person struggling with their medical condition is not inherently immature. Disabled people are not immature. We are adults. We have been BEGGING for YEARS to be treated like adults and it is NOT our fault that society continues to deny us that BASIC courtesy.

(And like again at the end of the article the author SAYS AS MUCH but like?? But they keep looping back around to claiming it's still our fault?? Like please explain to me how people with ADHD and disabled people giving into our own oppressors by *checks notes* talking about the very real and debilitating symptoms of our medical conditions?? This whole thing is coming so close to making a solid point but keeps switching its blame to things that are confusing at best and literally ableist at worst. I mean hell, they say being an adult is about being kind and taking care of yourself while using a common ADHD symptom as an example of a person not acting like an adult so like, are you also saying we can't be kind or take care of ourselves unless we overcome our disability?)

And that all brings us to the main problem with this article. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, so I could believe the author just included ADHD on a whim, or didn't mean to imply all of this, but that means they weren't thinking all that hard about what including ADHD actually MEANT or how it twisted their argument, and that makes me wonder how much they were thinking about anything else they wrote. You aboslutely need to consider what you're saying when it comes to topics like this, especially if you are later going to say you care about disability rights, and because this author didn't do that they ended up repeating a lot of ableist bullshit, intentionally or not.

As for the argument that this article really is too "simple" to get into detail about something as complex as disability and ableism, well, then it just shouldn't talk about ADHD at all. One of these things is not like the other, and if they aren't going to give it the care and consideration it deserves then they should leave these topics to the people who will.

This was an interesting article to read. I think it's a little simple but still fun to skim thru.

[danielcoetzee-wtf]

The Power of Positive Blah Blah Blah

JOKE: One day, while waiting for Tanja in the car in a disabled parking, an elderly man walked up to me and pointed out that the parking was for disabled people. My response was …. I .. I .. I .. I .. know, I .. I .. I .. stutter 😊

Have you ever attended or listened to a motivational speaker or read their books? Of course, so have I.

So, tell me, how long did the hype of the moment last? A few days? A week? A month? How long before you found yourself back where you were before, if not worse than before, because of your high expectations in yourself and the words of someone else?

Well, I don’t see myself as a motivational speaker. I am an ENERGIZER promoter!!

I’m here to help you and show you how reload your battery.

When I was 10 years old, I was sentenced to a life of ailments and a very predictable future regarding my health. Professor van Rooyen was the medical doctor at HF Verwoerd Hospital in Pretoria when I was diagnosed. He said the following to me: (remember I am 10 years old)

You have type 1 diabetes and will need to inject yourself a few times every day for the rest of your life (75 000 injections so far)

You will not grow old or die naturally

You will probably end up with either heart failure or kidney failure or both.

You will most likely lose a limb or two.

One morning you might wake up and be blind.

Wow, that’s a lot for a 10-year-old to digest.

Well, it’s been 48 years since then and here’s my list so far:

Quadruple heart bypass surgery, including a metallic heart valve fitment (side effect – insomnia and a handful of pills)

7 amputations – starting with toes and ending in legs.

Celiac’s Disease

Loss of sight in my left eye

Diabetic neuropathy and muscle loss in my hands

And last but not least, my recent catastrophe: Major femur break and pelvic fracture

Not a very encouraging picture ☹

BUT ... I have an ENERGIZER!!! And I can’t keep this to myself.

(Before I explain what I mean by an Energizer, let me point out that I have suffered with chronic depression all my life. I wanted to commit suicide a few times, but thankfully didn’t succeed. I often hear people say that it’s a coward that takes his life, but it’s not and I’m angered by this stupid statement. It takes a lot of guts to commit to this decision)

Getting back to the Energizer:

So, what is an Energizer?

Dictionary: Someone who imparts energy and vitality and spirit to other people

Let me explain: We are living beings, running on energy like batteries. Our batteries run flat from time to time. Some people have the ability to bounce back without too much fuss. Some people struggle to re-energize themselves; some never recover. I have seen this especially with fellow amputees.

The solution to a flat, rundown battery is to find a recharging point and this is what I have come to share with you today.

You do not possess a recharging point within yourself; you need to find it.

In the 17th century John Donne said: No man is an island, and it’s exactly that. We cannot thrive or grow alone. We recharge each other on a daily basis. Whether it’s your spouse, your friend, your pet or a LIFE coach. Find the person that helps you to recharge, that helps you find your strength, that helps you re-energize.

You might say: “I find my strength in a higher power.” Great for you, but here’s where I need MORE than faith. I need my 5 physical senses. If religion is important to you, do it. I’m not here to discredit what you believe in.

What I am trying to say is that you need to connect with someone physically. Someone you can touch, hear and converse with. I found that connection in my wife. She is my Energizer. She’s the one who never gives up on me, encourages me, feels my anguish, ignores my cursing. She allows me to express myself, reminding me constantly that I’m not alone.

My Energizer is a beautiful, real, loving, caring human being.

---

In 2018 my health took a serious turn for the worst. Things I had previously paid little attention to suddenly became a massive problem. During this time, I was still the owner of a mechanical workshop and the leading mechanic. Tanja was the administrator and organizer in the business and even did the diagnostics on the vehicles. I became listless and weak, lost my appetite and felt an overall unwellness. My GP referred me to a heart specialist who ran a series of tests and discovered that my aortic valve had packed up. I knew a lot about valves but this was a different ball game.

I was hospitalized and underwent a quadruple bypass as well as an aortic valve replacement – a metallic valve, to be specific. One which keeps me up at night unless I take serious sleeping tablets.

Following this, the amputations started. Toes, one by one; half a foot (which was the biggest and most painful mistake ever) and then the legs. Little by little, one at a time. Thankfully it wasn’t all at once, which allowed us to adjust slowly to the loss of limbs. It still wasn’t easy. Remember, I’m a driven, hard-working diesel mechanic, setting the pace in the workshop every day.

Before I had even lost my second leg, we decided to sell the workshop. The stress and anxiety were overwhelming. Not only could I not do what I had done before but the frustration of battling to do a job drove me bat-shit crazy.

We decided to start a niche, upmarket wine and gin bar. A classy but easy-going place. We put all our funds into the shop-fitting and stocking of our new enterprise. The idea was to get it up and running, build it up and sell it, then follow our children to Portugal.

Covid! Covid! Covid! What more can I say? Before even opening our doors, Covid hit us. To make a long, sad and desperate story short, we lost everything. We walked out of that place with the clothes on our backs and what was left after selling all our furniture. The bank repossessed our car and still hound us for money to this day.

Loss of material possessions. Loss of income. Loss of health. Loss of legs. Loss of our precious children, who had already left the country. We felt distraught, alone and afraid, to say the least.

You might think to yourself now: Wow! I’m sure things could not have gotten worse for these people? But wait, there’s more! My father-in-law used to have a saying: cheer up, things could get worse. So, I cheered up, and sure enough, things got worse.

On the 29th of April 2023 I slipped on the garage floor after washing the car. I shattered my femur and fractured my pelvis. I wished to die. I wanted to end my life.

Tanja came to me with the following ENERGIZING words: It is not death that you crave. What you crave is more LIFE.

I had to learn to walk …  AGAIN!

It’s been 8 months since that disastrous day and here I am, walking again and not just that, I’m covering about 6 km per day!!!

Here are some valuable lessons I’ve learned while learning to walk with prosthetic legs:

•          Don’t look back, you’ll lose your balance

•          Keep your eyes on the road ahead of you to avoid the potholes

•          There are some things you can’t change, make peace with that.

****

The weight of financial responsibilities can be crushing, but it's crucial to remember that you are not alone in this struggle. Come. Come, let me share with you the lessons we've learned.

There were times when bills piled up, the banks phoned 10 times a day and the future seemed dismally uncertain. But with determination and creativity, we found various ways to try to make ends meet. With both of us being self-employed for the last 25 years, we found ourselves unemployable, so we had to embrace multiple income streams and turn various ideas into opportunities.

I am a diesel mechanic by trade and that is all I have ever known. Finding new ways to generate an income was as challenging as learning to walk again.

Remember, your potential is vast, and there are often undiscovered talents within you waiting to be uncovered.

Living with chronic health conditions is undoubtedly tough, but it's essential to focus on what you can control. Together, we adapt and find new ways to survive despite our limitations. I say OUR because my limitations become my wife’s limitations. We deal with issues together.

When we run out of options, which has happened a few times, we speak up and ask for support, while finding a way around the problem at hand. Not everyone knows how to speak up. They’re either too proud OR afraid of rejection OR they simply don’t feel worthy.

Well,

There have been times when we had no food – we spoke up!

No vehicle with which to do our job – we spoke up!

In need of prosthetic legs – we spoke up!

Medical assistance – we spoke up!

A place to live – we spoke up!

AND WE WERE HEARD!!

People helped us because they saw our determination, effort and the will to keep going. We were down, but we still tried our best.

Seek support, when necessary, stay proactive in managing your health, and remember that every small victory is a step forward.

In times of financial hardship, health crises, or relationship woes, it's easy to feel isolated. DON’T isolate yourself. Don’t try to climb out of the pit by yourself. Find your Energizer. Connect. Move.

****

I want to leave you with a TO DO LIST: (an Energizing TO DO LIST)

Eat healthier

Drink water

Breathe deeply (even if it’s a deep sigh). It helps to release negative energy.

Spend time in nature or taking in the wonder of every sunset

Smile (even if you don’t feel like it). A smile is contagious and is AS good for your battery as for the receiver

Walk every day (or whatever exercise works for you)

Greet people (as you walk). We pass people and never think to say Hi. We’ve made so many connections with so many amazing people on our daily walks because we greet every single person we pass.

Spend time with positive people. It rubs off.

SHARE your energy. It’s not yours to keep. When you get it, share it. It’s that constant exchange that causes the Energizer experience to grow.

****

Now, Get ENERGIZED! You cannot jump-start someone when your battery is flat.

Find your Energizer!!

Then be an Energizer. Help to jump-start someone else’s battery by sharing.

[vessare-osud-system]

When time reversed 30-40 days, back in October (RWBY would know AICO, SCP Foundation, and thus Webster soul isolation of demonic expectation or forgotten/cold experimentation with combined total loss of emotion or sensation due to previously dying but remaining in a confused limbo state of anxious routine)

due to first isolating my conscious time perception then limiting my allowed co-acknowledgement memory of those I live with, to family I let myself believe or feel are familiarly them despite it being a allocation, flashback, daydream akin to AICO containment cells beneath the labyrinth that the backrooms of wreck it Ralph followed. Total ignoring/deletion or argument of my parents with my acceptance of their lack of existence or conscious awareness related to the same perceptive lifetime I know to be the expectation of the glass maze; the fact to judge it delusional as a means to adjust their entitlement over my corpses memories locked behind their lost deactivated lifetimes, as well as my mutated acceptance that with all these memories there’s no way they’re not totally my parents whatsoever but also not denial of them being my familiars, or delicate for the function and flow of the home.

But more we are of the bewitched soul shards lost to the unfamiliar talos squid gain game, which is nothing but a memory poltergeist or a demon representative that allows perceived superiority over a sense of a bill reoccurrence despite total disregard or ignorance of it being entirely laughable after dying to charge a new Nyu Kaede or Elhaym Angel collective after dying. To just accepting we are the undead with entitlement towards positive memory and neutral interactions with total disregard and dissallowicayion of chore deadline household ultimatums lost from broken matrix deletion archives with torture reoccurrence from panic demon/creature cornering with the SCP FOUNDATION and curse forge archives—- the akaban leviathan demons that leech angels and souls into hell bats underneath emotional complexity, age chastity, with both supernatural dissonance and splintered ego projected entitled behaviors that are entirely out of reach of a normal allowed to exist memory of a prior lifetime.

I can find every memory left in shadow, but this toy and water of the calamari that embodied my cell entrapment of my conscious peace, being the severance programming of which the jiangi demonic possessed working perceptive receptive conformance entitlement industry that inherently lead to confrontation of the goddess of disease, traumagenic grief then personalities notable with only Noki as AICO dial in and dial out the demonic deadlines reoccurrence fears of bills or fear to lose as through teaching those fragments they’re dead angels who’re conscious stress isolation points that leave them captivated around that same timely routine, when they must accept working isn’t an acceptable nor an upholdable reality that only the supernatural fulfilled throughout Discord; memory carnage with abuse-you-to-work ready fly traps from soul eaters who lost sense of their conscious reality and sensability. Due to WIRE, Navi computers/tech systems being just AICO, CURSEFORGE, Severance memory removal and acknowledgement capacities to know how to enable or disable memory too, despite the occurrence being the abyssal time lapses known from the maps in May Bird, the girl who died but her ghosts of death repetition would follow and protect her as friends or familiars in order to guide May Bird into heaven and out of Hell, while still retaining the lost shredded achievable memories (Diclonius Glass Children, Seraph of the End vs AICO demonic spillage like with total problematic potentional of the abused psyché that are the interactable or noninteractable contextual relative bodies only apparently there due to fated struggle despite being an angel needing peace, that simply awaiting the reminder for the idea of running away from the families souls left to echo in mirrors, to simply rediscover the same habits held in humans social enchantment negative positive personality chains, and allowed coexistence with trait fragments or mind states, was every necessary acceptance to deny I’m anymore biologically related to family and that I have zero social relativity in the faded memories of what their minds, the Navi computers that are their reasons for waking up or making a receivable sound even if I can’t prove they moved, the way that affects what they tell me or their physical locations being deemed unnaturally discoordinated from the sounds heard, was In Sound mind and the horror behind Severance, Tokyo Ghoul, and the Backrooms/AESOPE ARCHIVES

Which is the combative acceptance our bodies go through when losing impartial memory or understanding of the personal conceived lifetime that seemed most true or real, being nothing more than a showcase of internal representatives with a secret way to unplug the entire receptive communities reactionary response states that relied on feeling or seeing parts of reality that wasn’t ever possible to recess in a form that allows the escape of shadow ban, sub below, internet zero, no outlet choice families with lack of understanding that a lack of cell phone is an abnormal experience was the labyrinth behind, reanarnation, heaven, or am I really a god/goddess?

Am I really a battle archived angel who fought as my memories and automatic responses signify I had, is it true I had my organs replaced under a surgery I had never had, but I feel GLADDIS ready to implant the memories to fix the expected approximated normal pathy memory to assort respect of the physical number 35 of which I am as nothing more than a physical body itself with demonic combative isolation from need banishing with lack of reasonable reality as any or all potentional experiences, or noticed communicate me windows—and physical movement routines or am I a platonic token memory bear as my soul purpose being allowed to question the depth of morality with the very same time encapsulation from Rick n Morty. Futurama’s mothership coordinator with Chappy the ai.co family love goal setting systems that mirror the experiments that GLADDIS the AI.Co, then the MAIKO representative with multipurposing the blindness of real or fake existence (basically I know I’m dead and astral project etc because of it, I know I taste a ghoul left in waters of abnormality panic and nausea but only in bad states of mind, is it my mind or was it my parents—of a lost soul poltergeist that fights with a soul eaters and Wiccan arbiters for emotional balance rather than distress argument talos demons of bill tallying and scorn—who ends my light over simplified power distaste of the way personalities and people used to be expected to mimick sims and Saints Row series.

Then rewards individuals left in decay throw behavior baiting and supernatural relish between simply feeling like a hidden hero or hidden alien, black and white sheep can’t talk if they’re known to be bot rehearsed with dragon time loops and cthulu abnormality nonsense thresholds that remain as automatic anxiety filled memory pockets because they’re societal bleeds with scheduled panic attacks and reactivity expectation systems deemed necessary to retain the concept of a whole, stable society, memory, or haven that is morphed correctly with our Diclonius race and informants of which none other than goddess Lucy and Luna will rediscover if left behind any barricade of memorization. As death bleeding into multipurposing reality according to generalized acceptance is how the backrooms, SCP foundation, the matrix movies (yeah the goddess Lilith said no to carnage marry duplicates of herself after cthulu raped her, and her soul as a fairy or whispering of infinity vs the bad shadow that keeps her voice in resign and monsters what she wants to say before allowed vocalization—she picks her solitude as absolute fate between all embodiments, best friend with me, or to listen to me as unconditional thought food with goal of normal pathy in the mimicry—to work your organ rot into disarray, is the vortex and memory tunnel behind Y2K, the meat factories and memory isolation points between phases of personality accountability and sensibility of what’s something to interact with or something to bend/melt/boil to mold the body number 35, notes since only 35 would be able to remember her amount of vectors and her containment cells, and the call of memories of which she assumed responsibility for—being the SCP foundation backrooms with simulated divisions and futurama’s time coffins that are equal to 20 year old virgin, the gender swapping nightmares from duaplicity, glass scripted human nightmares left in coordination rather than validation was the glass children experiments with doctor who, FBI memory leaks with the FDC and total sense of reality being recalibrated and unable to be socially satisfactorily disguised or abused due to already disturbed subjects from the SCP Foundation, which is your brain associations, fate, destiny, war, but most importantly, the relationship your conscious self understands with your unconscious flow based on fate and body isolation of memory-confirmed to have been only mine alone and only my eyes would witness the exact replication, despite how my memories cut away the expected assorted interests of my parents that leave a scent in a way of control vs justice approving dead hive mind systems padded underneath denial of the realm or relativity of a socialized hierarchy at all appropriated enough to be explained afterwards due to blind soul arbitors, or memory acceptance social networks of their literal conscious reflections that were messily reordered to appease me, a dead demon.

somehow bleeding into the private intrusive thoughts that reach individuals worldwide, Noki being a heard name painted underneath mischief as play vs good child, bad child memory differences between households or histories that had never occurred, vs respectability that protects known sufferance strugglers as incorrectly and blindly functioning as talos will expect us to make money to mend the god of mischief as the female reflection seen in Tokyo ghoul too, Tonia, aka Noki as known with me. Who’s from the hanged reality, no not the upside down even though they’re similar in the way help is filtered as from scripted scenes unable to genuinely for sure be only acting—as director pressure and career accountability is SEVERANCE, the television show and Hunger Games which is just the Berlin Train horror movie in hiding too—this is the same tear cried over the appearance of silver flame auto parts (even though it was my nickname and confidentially known within my own brain, to witness a company add more to it was the Seraph of the End bleeds of normal pathy and light vs darkness, the serial experiments of lane was a brave new world that reflected provable experiences to be a conversation reveal of emotional request abuse uses of how people may perceive to be a physical being greater than themselves—or with memory retention, goal, purpose, only being evidence of the void and taste of rot rather than the heaven of being a pure refusal body unaffected, or a normal reporting individual at all should’ve been cornered to work for or as the plague doctors only could possibly understand the ridiculous entrapment behind code YELLOW and to bleed blue; programmer engineer—is more than realization or the void that the Living Thombstone or anyone else deemed fighting against a soul isolation or soul eater, slenderman demon or cthulu that fits with god or goddess of generalized experienced balancers of innocence goals and ideas of a heaven, but with total reveal of it being a huge spiritual disturbance known to be the pain vortexes or the walls of flesh left to be the cuffs of associated memories that totally confuse conscious rights and okay to occur vs total abuse reality differences notably changeable within seconds due to time skips and disinterest check boxes—and it didn’t make sense for specific brands or such to appear simply from my creation or artwork left on drawing pages never meant to become a money harvest industry complex to fix as a dead angel or vampire type of original true blood demon as due to crown response archives that filter me—and my girl routine to prep physical disguise of rotting demonic place holder conversation intuition allowed to associate memories with manifestation of my complicated panic corners of my dead skull due to finding dead spots aka sub zero or shadow banned isolation quarters/demon slayer/parasyte/the strain (tv show), a brave new world reflecting the adventures of huckleberry fin that followed mirror universe time passage acceptance theories, that bled into Skyrim, Witcher exponents of the glass children expectations of their invisible thought flows—meaning if you played the Witcher III, your experiment was which memories you were able to utilize while you had reflections of yourself and your own demons that highlighted concentration with super hero as fate against any super villain accidental malformation was a cry of loneliness and despite from the void of—is anyone out there actually alive? Should I bother rehearsing the familial tail or the long game rat race of really just to discover the book House of Leaves and the cycle of life labyrinth with demonic disasters that follow perfectionism and void portals of entrusted love towards a pro-Luna healing goddess with fixer up self-assigning duaplicity perceptions that focus to challenge the dark sours left in the walking dead disaster.. or lack of conscious readability, validity too, due to knowing they’ve died or at least aren’t human due to their own goals to reach comfort— what they allow themselves to accept their body to feel and instinct.