#maybe its the damn beanie i hate drawing hats :(((

[hecksupremechips]

Why must I be plagued with the curse where I just fucking suck at drawing my favorite characters

[vexelier-suix-cipher]

"Could you do Teruteru, Hifumi, and Ryoma getting drugged by a love potion and falls (even harder) for the reader (who has already fallen for them)?"

100% I can!! :D

Warnings: Mentions of love drug/potion, slight obsession(?), and swearing.

===

Hifumi Yamada

•Proceeds to rant about how amazing Hifumi is

•Fanfic boy loves you very much!! (Though he did his best to hide it)

•It felt like when a cat loved it owner. Celeste went out the window. This man would get on his hands and knees for you. 🙇🏽‍♂️

•You also loved him very much!! (Literally Taka had to keep Mondo from lunging at you two and screaming "JUST DATE ALREADY!!")

•Oh but what's this? A drink on his desk after a hard day of drawing and writing manga?

•Well of course he drank it!! He chugged that drink and felt quite satisfied after.

•And back to work he goes :›

•He had some music on and his script for his next manga, scribbling out the sketches for his newest manga when he felt the sudden urge to go see you.

•It was nothing too new. Could've been he just wanted to show you the script for his manga!! A beta read!

•So Hifumi happily found you and sat you down, showing you the script for his manga!

•He felt a bit- different.

•He felt like he needed to have you in his arms.

•He needed you closer.

•He needed- you.

•The even more clingy behavior continued for a few days.

•Though you didn't mind, you did find it a bit strange.

•Why was he so clingy?

•You already read this script-

•And read that one too-

•Didnt he have things to do?

•He was going to fall behind in his schedule if he continued like this!!

•So when you saw him walking over to you once again, you pulled him to the side and questioned him.

"Hifumi, you've been acting kinda strange these past few days. Are you okay? Don't get me wrong, I love having you by my side but you're going to fall behind in your schedule."

"Well...I don't really know how to explain it. I feel like I've got to be with you all the time!! A-And I'm getting work done!!"

•He huffed and whined for a while longer as you continued asking him things before he got frustrated with himself and finally blurted it out

"Fine!! Fine. I like you, okay? I have for a while a-and I just didn't know how to tell you-...I found this drink on my desk one day and now that I think about it, it could've been one of those love potions that I've been hearing about...could've made my feelings stronger.."

•He started muttering towards the end but you could understand the gist of it.

•You reassured him it was fine and that you accepted his feelings.

•Which was returned with a loud,

"HUH?!? YOU DO?! WHEN- HOW-"

•*Once again has to calm fanfic boy down*

•After calming him down (again) you went over your own feelings.

•He had the brightest smile on his face I swear

•He just couldn't hold back!

•So he picked you up and held you close, hugging you sweetly

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!"

===

Teruteru Hanamura

•AGGRESSIVELY RANTS ABOUT HOW AMAZING HE IS

•Love Potion exists?

•He probably bought it.

•This boy is already so head over heels for you it's absolutely adorable.

•He 100% cooks for you.

•Breakfast? In bed.

•Lunch? Made your favorite food.

•Dinner? You can eat with him! :D

•And his food is just 😩 to die for

•He does his best to tone down the sexual comments a bit, though he can't help if one or two slip out!

•Compliments you every 5 minutes no lie.

•Though he does turn cherry red if you compliment him

•If you allow petnames, he WILL call you darlin' and sugar the most.

•Now for the fun part

•He was most likey cooking and was working with the oven.

•Ovens hot. His clothes are pretty hot.

•So he stripped got something to drink out the fridge

•He blindly took a glass out the fridge and drank it.

•Drank the damn love potion-

•He knew he accidentally drank it. He read the label he had put on the glass right after he drank it.

•Unlike Hifumi, he tried staying away from you

•Poor boy doesn't know how to show such strong feelings :(

•He still does cook for you though

•And leaves you little snacks

•Did yelp when you came into the kitchen once without him knowing (it's true I was the dust on the oven window)

•Alot more fiddly and nervous when he has to go ask you something

•His gaze is towards the floor and he's playing with the ends of his scarf as that adorable accent decorates his speech

•Hes so nervous oh poor baby

•You found him scurrying everywhere once trying to find his hat when you had to point out it was on his head-

•He was so embarrassed-

•He apologized and walked back towards the kitchen

•He cooks his feelings away

•That is alot of food-

•Once he disappeared into the kitchen you went after him

•You had been wondering why he ran away from you every time you saw him

•You were worried :(

•As he went back into the kitchen, he paused hearing someone else's footsteps.

•He turned around and jumped slightly when he saw you

•Begin the anxious southern rambling and questions.

"O-Oh! S/o! What brings you to the...the kitchen??"

"Teru, what's going on? You keep ignoring me."

"W-Well I don' mean to cher' I-Its just I' been kinda stressed lately a-an' I don' wanna bother you with tha'-"

•Oh sweet boy almost cried just talking to you

•He wanted to confess so badly!!

•He just wanted to hug you and bury his face into your neck!!

•But he was so scared :(

•After a good talk, the confession just slipped out of him mid-sentence

"I already apologized cher'..."

"C'mon Teru, what's been REALLY happening with you?"

"W-Well...the truth is I accidentally drank a love potion and since I love you so damn much it strengthened my feelings...I-I didn't wanna make you uncomfortable so I stayed away in case I-"

"Did you just say you love me?"

"I-I did..?"

•Oh certainly he did. And when he realized, he apologized 10x more.

•You had to shut him up by squishing his face

•After a good explanation about you loving him too, he clung onto you with a laugh.

•He sat in your lap (and after some consent) kissed your face all over, muttering a soft 'I love you' after each kiss

•You two sat together like that for quite a bit, just laying in each other's presence

"Thank you so much....you don't know how much that means to me...how much YOU mean to me..."

===

Ryoma Hoshi

•Ah yes. Tiny, edgy, ex-tennis, cat loving, deep voiced boy

•Where do I start?

•Lets start with

•He's absolute shit at feelings.

•Like really.

•He refused to believe he fell for you.

•His heart was racing? No it wasn't. It's probably because he was out of breath.

•He's flustered and blushing? Kinda hot in the room y'know.

•You get the point.

•He hates the fact he fell for you. He doesn't know what to do.

•He lost almost everyone he ever loved before. Why would this be any different? He didn't want to put you in danger.

•Ryoma hanged around with you though. He was a bit quiet but he went basically everywhere you went

•No one really messed with you when little man was with you.

•This was okay. He could hide his feelings. You wouldn't be in danger and he wouldn't ruin his relationship with you.

•Then the world announced a love potion was now available!!

•Ah shit.

•That damn Kokichi.

•All he wanted was some water and that little panta-loving gremlin switched it out with the new potion.

•He had already chugged around half the bottle before he realized it wasn't his juice.

•Ryoma would've just left it at 'Oh I just poured the wrong drink in' if it wasn't for Kokichi coming up to him about an hour later.

"Nishishishi....how's the love potion working Ryoma?"

"The what."

"Oops~"

"You little-"

•Kokichi went to the nurse with a bump on his head from Ryoma hitting him with a tennis ball.

•You thought Teruteru hiding away was bad?

•Ryoma refused to leave his dorm.

•He came out at around lunch time to get food, go to the bathroom, and then back to his dorm.

•No one was allowed in.

•He could feel the effects of the potion working.

•He wanted to get out and cling to you so badly. It almost physically hurt

•Fucking hell-

•Him. Ryoma Hoshi. The guy who basically gave up on life, wanted to run into your arms like a little kid.

•He almost cried.

•Of course you were worried!! He locked himself in his dorm without warning!!

•And he refused to talk to you!!

•You came to his dorm door almost daily, trying to pry open the damn door.

•With no avail.

•Goddammit.

•It wasn't until a few weeks later which he made a plan.

•He'd confess and leave right after.

•If you said no, that would be the end of it.

•If you said yes, ...well he didn't really plan that far.

=

•Ryoma met up with you at the back of the building, looking down at the ground as he heard your footsteps.

•It took a minute of small talk before he started speaking

"Listen, Kokichi switched my drink out a few weeks ago for that new love potion they're selling. I already had really strong feelings for you but with the potion they increased. I know you probably don't feel the same way but I wanted to tell you because it was starting to get too out of hand for me."

•He rambled on a little about how you would never like him and that he apologized for having such feelings and-

•You yanked his beanie down to his face, letting out a small huff.

"Ryoma Hoshi you have no idea how long I've been waiting for you to confess. You're an amazing guy Ryoma, and I really do wish you confessed sooner since I feel the same way. Now shut it with all the sad shit and come here."

•You told him, tugging him closer by the sleeve as you engulfed him in your arms

•Ryoma felt like his face was on fire. Butterflies in his stomach and a giddy, tingly feeling throughout his body

•He let out a low chuckle, hugging you back and sighing softly

•This was nice. He felt....loved.

•He liked this feeling quite a bit....he had missed this feeling quite a bit.

"Maybe I should've confessed sooner."

===

AHHHHHHHH I HOPE YOU LIKED IT-

I absolutely adore these three.

If you want me to add or fix anything just say the word!!

I had a great time writing this!!

Thanks for requesting!!!

-Vex ∆

[artofdigression]

I’m 23 years old.  The 2 years leading up to now have been a complete whirlwind, but somehow, in this time, an actual music career has begun.   I’m a composer, a producer, a singer, a songwriter, a visual artist - among many labels.

I sit in front of my piano.  I know how to play all of 2 pieces - Gnossiennes 1 & 2 by Erik Satie.  I learned them by ear 4 years ago while working the reception desk of an art gallery that had two baby grand pianos hidden underneath the stairs.  I would get bored when no one else was in the gallery and venture down.

In my studio, I have piles of introductory music books, minuets and ballads laying around - some given to me at a young age, some passed down by dead relatives who knew I had a ‘good ear’  - or were maybe too dead to give a shit about where their old sheet music went by the time I got my hands on it.

I decide, for what feels like the 100th time, that I will learn how to read music.  

I had my first piano lesson when I was 10 years old.  My piano teacher was nice - a young, lanky, 20-something music student who wore beanie hats and played electric guitar in a rock band.  I thought he was pretty much the coolest and wanted to be him.  Unfortunately, I don’t think he was particularly ‘stoked’ in the same capacity to work with me.  I had very little enthusiasm for any of the mind-numbingly boring rudimentary theory curriculum, the limited repertoire I had to choose from (away in a manger or… the other version of away in a manger) made me want to rip my hair out, and reading sheet music would send my mind into kaleidoscope-vision.

I would also have kaleidoscope-vision in school. I struggled with school.   I was a rambunctious little human.  My attention span was uncontrollable (unless we were reading or drawing, then I absolutely paid attention). Looking over old report cards, there was a lot of ‘needs to stay on task’  and ‘could use help with organization’  - anecdotal pieces of advice I heard so much, I think the meanings eventually became hollow to me (or maybe the meanings were just hollow to begin with).  

Getting me to sit still for 30 minutes was an excruciating feat for any adult in my life, so 2 hours? 3 hours? 6 hours? Good god, I wanted to climb the walls.  When the teacher would start talking, I would look past their gaze - into Lala Land as adults disdainfully called it.  (I still deeply hate calling it Lala Land, but, for continuity purposes, we’re going to reclaim the name in neon lights.)

Lala Land was great.  Real life?  Not so much.  In real life, from third grade until high school graduation, my teachers (with the exception of 3 gems) were blatantly judgemental of me.  They’d think nothing of admonishing me in front of my peers if I fidgeted or looked out a window.  

Because the amount of physical energy I had was not conducive to a classroom environment, I learned to dissociate from my body.  Because looking out a window meant I was not looking at a chalkboard, I learned to look past the chalkboard to find Lala Land, its neon letters burning behind my absent gaze. Past the letters, there would be a window. I could look out the window and its glass panes could evaporate and autumn’s leafy gusts of wind could sweep me away and I’d never have to worry about a messy desk or a missed assignment or classroom of judgemental eyes looking at me again.  The next day’s fantasy would be the same, but different.

Children’s imaginations are often playful and fantastical.  Take a kid with a traumatized brain, however - and imagination can give them a seemingly supernatural ability to create, in their mind, what they need for emotional survival.  That was me.

There were parts of my childhood that were truly blissful, gorgeous, hilarious and nurturing.  But I’d be denying you, dear reader, important context if I didn’t tell you that a significant part of my young formative years was steeped in grief, chaos and abandonment.  I assure you need not build castles in the air in understanding that I was a child with a traumatized brain.  And though I was surviving, trauma had created a faceless, nameless internal chaos for me that I didn’t truly even recognize until adulthood.  Trauma changes the way brains function. That’s a lot for a kid to be dealing with.

In piano lessons, my teacher would sit with me and we would go over the theory of a piece of sheet music - that was my brain’s cue to look past the kaleidoscope paper, nodding “yes, mhm, got it.” But then, when he’d clap the rhythm of the piece, my brain would engage and I’d clap the same rhythm back, no problem.  After that, he would play the piece for me as an example - this was where my brain would hyper-focus.  I would retain, retain, retain, and I would play the piece back, not reading a note, but looking past the page all the same. This wasn’t a ploy to dupe him. This was a system of which neither of us were consciously aware. I was just 10, and playing piano.

Outside of school, I was different.  I was encouraged to sing, I would go to my parents’ choir practices every week and sit in the pews of Saint Mary’s Church and listen to 30 voices reverberate through it.  I would shoot the shit with adults and carry around books about Roman mythology and Egyptian hieroglyphs and I would talk about how I wanted to travel the whole world and I would make 1-page comics and I would dress up my dog and I loved the ballet costumes from Stravinsky’s Firebird and… I digress.  

Outside of school, I was different. Music calmed my internal landscape enough for me to be myself.  No - actually, music calmed my immediate surroundings enough for me to make sense of my internal landscape… Actually, both.

On a borrowed piano, I would sit and endlessly ear out songs (Carmen, movie soundtracks I liked, songs my mom sang, etc).  I would walk into my Saturday lesson and proudly showcase the self-taught triumphs of Sunday through Friday for my teacher, only to be met with a brief pat on the back and the god-damn sheet music to 'away in a manger’ - which I still hated and still couldn’t read, but played anyway.  After 5 months, I eventually made it clear to all parties involved that I was done with piano, and my parents finally gave into my weekly protests.

When I was 7th grade, I started playing french horn in the school band and, for whatever reason, continued for 6 and a half years.  I still saw through a kaleidoscope when I got a piece of music, but there was one other french horn player in my class so I usually copied what she did - Unless we had different parts in which case I fumbled constantly through band practice until I finally figured out what I was playing.  Band, generally, had a negative impact on my relationship with music.  I think the only reason I stuck with it was because the feeling of playing music with such a large group of people triggered some kind of dopamine rush that my brain loved.  I would get ASMR - auto sensory meridian response - also known as “that fuzzy, warm, calm feeling in the centre of your brain” - some folks experience it and some folks don’t.

A lot of changes in my home life happened in that 6-and-a-half-year period.  After years of week-on, week-off pivots between my mother and father’s separate homes, my father permanently moved to Sweden when I was 13.  My mother became my primary parent while dealing with the loaded blows of bankruptcy and multiple reckonings around her own life challenges.  We moved into a home that had completely gutted walls and plywood floors (left unfinished by previous tenants with renovation goals too ambitious to finish).  The situation was chaotic.  So, so chaotic.  But, from that time up to now, my mother was (and continues to be) an incredible support to me.  She could see that I was struggling, and did everything in her power to advocate for me when I couldn’t advocate for myself.  I can only imagine the feeling of knowing something is not right with your child and being told by everyone around you that your child is fine.  Her support was integral.

When I was in 9th grade, she and my homeroom teacher (also a phenomenal support to me at the time) pulled some strings to have an initial psychological assessment performed on me - not technically “official” - as it was conducted by a student of psychology, I recall - nevertheless, it provided enough insight to validate that there was an underlying dissonance between what most of my teachers were saying about me (lazy, bad attitude, etc) and what was actually going on in my head, and that a formal assessment would be necessary to help me. My name was put on the waiting list for a psychologist that year.  But, the entire island had only 1 or 2 psychologists available (Totally appalling).  And so I waited... And waited... And waited...   And while I waited, I continued to find refuge in my visual art practice, as well as learning other instruments on my own terms.  

I refuse to say something cliche like “art  and music saved my life” because creativity isn’t a sustainable singular lifeline for anyone, and believing so feeds into the highly problematic mental health stigma as it pertains to those who create for a living...  But art and music did play key roles in tempering my inner storms.  Now, as a musician, I allow my craft to be a teacher, not a therapist.

When I was 16, I went to my first voice lesson.  I kept at it for a year, and… excelled? I totally excelled - personally and musically. This did wonders for my confidence (I attribute a lot of that to my voice teacher at the time, who had a really supportive and receptive approach to my weird energy levels and the idiosyncratic ways I learned). I did festivals, took a Royal Conservatory exam - and I was still excelling, which honestly shocked me at the time because I was so used to failing everything.  

Oh, also, I could still barely read the music.  Kaleidoscopic forever.  

Many classically trained musicians describe the experience of being overwhelmed when they get a new piece of music (especially if it has theory components they may not be familiar with or something) - totally normal. But then, they concentrate, deconstruct it from the page section-by-section and eventually learn to play it with neurotypical grace. Deconstructing written music on the page to understand what was happening became a little bit less nauseating as I was exposed to it more.  I WORKED at theory and understood parts of it, but only… theoretically.   Being able to transcribe that (limited) understanding into playing?  That never happened for me.  The page would remain kaleidoscopic until it felt like my brain was just going to short-circuit and cave in on itself.  It was weird, and trying to describe to anyone in band class (teachers and students alike) made me feel like I was on a different planet.  So, when the heat was on (whether that was in performance or in private lessons or “sight singing”) I kept relying on my ears and refined my ability to hold my own in band concerts, private voice lessons, choirs, musical theatre productions.  

Meanwhile, in high school, my academic life was still basically the worst.  I had adversarial relationships with nearly all of my teachers. I barely passed each year.  Emotionally, I also had a lot of anger seething below the surface of my consciousness.  I had internalized so much of what so many teachers had told me - that I was smart but lazy, that I had a bad attitude, that I was disruptive, distracted, manipulative etc.  - and having gone through some pretty drastic events that effectively destabilized my home life, this all had a profoundly negative impact on my self-worth.

One year later, I was 17, in 12th grade and school issues had not gotten any better (still muddling through - grades between 40% and 60%).   I had just given up at this point… Except now, instead of having the teachers before, who were mostly unhelpful, but at least straight-up about being judgemental of me based on my “laziness” diagnosis, I had a haul of teachers that were giving me these new weekly out-in-the-hall John Keating-wannabe-motivational speeches, telling me how much “potential I have” and how “I’m wasting it away” by “not trying” in class (every hollow pull-up-your-socks/nose-to-grindstone idiom in the book.  It was infuriating at the time).  I’m sure most of them just wanted to help.  But I needed someone to listen more than I needed someone to talk at me.  

A helpful thing that DID come out of 12th grade (4 years after my name had been put on the list… shoutout to our provincial government for still not caring about investing in public mental health) was that I finally got access to a provincial psychologist.  She came during the second semester of grade 12 and did extensive testing on me to find (surprise! but… not really) ADHD - which explained the colossal difficulties I was having in my academic life due to my chaotic brain not letting me get my shit together in the ways I was being told by neurotypical folks around me to get my shit together.

For those that aren’t informed about ADHD - it’s a form of neurodivergence that can manifest in too many ways to name here, but to fit an elephant in a minivan:  There’s that part of the brain that naturally helps you regulate your attention/concentration/sleep/energy levels/appetite/feelings/working memory/pretty much anything remotely involving executive functioning… That’s nice, right?  I wouldn’t know because apparently mine’s broken. There is also extensive research that directly links ADHD to childhood trauma, as well as biochemical imbalances in the brain.  

I could get all in-depth about ADHD science right here, but this is my story, not an essay,  and it would make for an even longer and more digressive tangent that would likely overshadow THE OTHER SIGNIFICANT THING the psychologist noted in my evaluation.

Amidst a bunch of my brain skills that were, statistically, above average for my age - like my working vocabulary and ability to retain auditory information - many of my visual processing skills - meaning, things like reading something and copying it down accurately or following written instructions without constantly needing to reference them - were shockingly below average for my age.  The tests showed that this was something my brain had immense difficulty doing.  

What’s an example of a visual processing issue in school? Well, I was always the last kid to finish copying text from the board (and I mean, like, multiple paragraphs behind my peers) before the teacher could move on to the next page.  

What’s an example of a visual processing issue in music?  Reading written notes and playing them on an instrument.  When I heard a piece of music, however, I could learn it very quickly.  

Knowing what was going on in my brain brought me a whole world of clarity and validation.  I knew that I was going to lead an unconventional life because of it (whatever “a conventional life” means these days).  I knew that most post-secondary education would be inaccessible to me as a result of my grades and probably be, at that point, more harmful than helpful.  

Knowing what was going on in my brain helped me to understand what I didn’t need anymore.  I didn’t need the validation of my teachers or my peers.  I didn’t need a number on any piece of paper to determine my competence or ‘work ethic.’  

Letting go of school was the best thing I’ve done for myself.

I graduated high school with nothing but a 64% average, and an ADHD diagnosis as my only tools in understanding how to get on a path to thriving as an adult human.  liberating. frustrating. terrifying - but not really. mostly liberating.

Then, my ADHD became manageable and my life got easy and I had no self-esteem issues ever again.  

… No.  That’s not how life works.  I’m 23 years old. I’ve been out of the school system for 6 years. I have deeply instilled productivity guilt (ie. I take on way more tasks than humanly possible to finish in ridiculously tight deadlines), I struggle with anxiety in thinking that friends and coworkers are saying negative things about my personality or quality of work behind my back (maybe my exes and high school math teachers are hanging out?? THE HORROR), my heart sinks into my stomach anytime any human watches me work over my shoulder (I’m a music producer, so if I’m working on songs with people, I become a blundering internal wreck when they understandably want to see what I’m editing). School did those things to me - which leads me into the accountability part of this long-winded ADHD realtalk.

I’d be withholding the truth from you if I didn’t say my teachers played key roles in aggravating my behavioural/emotional/learning difficulties by disputing them as personality flaws.  My frustration in learning would be met, at worst, with punishment and put-downs (I remember not having recess for nearly an entire week somewhere in the first half of 4th grade - which I think is a cruel thing to do to any child, let alone one with energy levels like mine).  I would be met, at best, with more hollow, invalidating advice - more ‘need to stay on task’ with a twist of ‘gotta give it yer all’ and ‘well, maybe if you actually tried…’

None of these messages sent to me were helpful.  I’m still working to unravel those knots.

This is not a dig at those teachers who saw me as the problem child (rather than seeing me as a kid who just needed support and a different work environment. There were about 3 teachers in 10 years who understood that, and did everything in their power to help.  They know who they are and I’m grateful for them.)  I understand how frustrating it is to be pushed to your limit - especially within the bounds of a job that requires you to keep your shit together in some capacity.  I understand that we that we all do our best with the tools we have at the time.  There are no hard feelings - But, I encourage self-reflection and future accountability for your impact on the way you treat any child in your life - because they are just that: a child.  Your impact can be profoundly helpful or harmful.  You will never know what a child is going through until they feel safe enough to tell you.  I didn’t feel safe with many adults - which is why most of my relationships with authority were adversarial ones.  I’m not offering a solution.  I’m just offering a glimpse into my experience.  That’s all this is.  Take it or leave it.

When a child is told again and again by the daily authoritative figures in their life that they have an attitude problem, that they are disruptive, lazy, manipulative, attention-seeking, a liar, a cheater (the list can go on but I won’t let it) - I guarantee you, the child will eventually believe it.  And I did.  I deeply internalized these labels to the point of identifying with them.  I’m still working hard as an adult to remind myself that while many of my teachers accused me of causing chaos in my learning environment, I was simply (and unknowingly) mirroring my own internal chaos.  The chaos I had created around me was a cry for help, not admonishment.  

To further the accountability segment of this experience I’m sharing with you, though I can’t offer a solution to “fix” the institution of public education (because institutions generally don’t function unless they’re flawed to begin with), I think a set of solutions may lie somewhere within trauma-informed and neurodivergence-informed teaching and the public school system being provided with the adequate resources to embrace neurodivergent students - to embrace traumatized students, not accommodate them.  I think a set of solutions may lie somewhere within mental health being taken seriously (with FUNDING, not lip service) by the Government of Prince Edward Island.   That’s all I’ll say for now.

I don’t think my experience is special - far from it.  In fact, I know that my experience is not, and never will be one-of-a-kind.  I started writing this when I sat in front of a piano and tried to do what my brain would never let me do.  I looked past the page and saw this part of my life staring back at me.  I’m not even a writer, but I felt like I had to write it down.   Looking back, I realize that I didn’t even begin to understand my own story until someone else told me theirs.

So - whether you’re a teacher or a student or both - if you’re struggling in the school system, this is dedicated to you.  If you have been turned away and invalidated by those supposed to help you, you need to know that the labels placed upon you only hold as much power over you as you allow.  Being pained by what you can’t control doesn’t make you weak, it makes you a survivor.  Surviving is hard. Surviving is so hard, but you will begin to heal.

I’m 23 years old.  I’m many things. I read music with my ears.  I’m mastering the art of looking past what’s in front of me.  

- Russell Louder