#not even mentioning that a-spectrum experience is so varied in general

[canofwyrmz]

My Tourette's recently came back from "remission" (unsure if that's the right term in context, but alas) and i am so pissed off thinking about fake claiming again.

To anyone out there discrediting me off the bat, yes, I have been officially diagnosed by medical professionals. I meet as many of your bullshit little criteria as your heart could desire for who "really" has Tourette's.

The truth of the matter is that you will never conclusively know if someone is "faking" any disability, but Tourette's is a good example here. There are so many things about Tourette's that make it a perfect disorder for fake claimers to sink their little teeth into. I've been perusing the fakedisordercringe subreddit, kinda trying to bait myself into getting angry, and I've been particularly looking at the traits they claim are telltale signs of a faker.

The catch: almost all of these traits are normal parts of the spectrum disorder that is Tourette's, or very easily explained in context.

For instance:

"In this video they're ticcing every few seconds, but in their old videos they never tic."

1. Tics vary from minute to minute, hour to hour, day to day, etc. I had a year and a half where my Tourette's was almost non-existent. I very occasionally had minor facial tics, but that was it! Waxing and waning of symptoms is incredibly normal for tic disorders, in face, tic disorders very often go away with age, or at least get better. Some people's tics get worse with age though.

This isn't even to mention medication! Some people take medication for Tourette's, and this may heavily impact the severity/frequency of tics. It's rude asf to ask a stranger their medication status, but personally, I was prescribed Guanfacine for my tics. It made me sleep so much that it was a worse experience than having my full force tics. I went off the medication, and started ticcing more! It's also true that other medications not specifically prescribed in the aim of reducing tics can also have an impact on them. I have a hunch that the Abilify I was taking the last couple years is what might've put my Tourette's nigh fully into remission during that period. How medication intersects with someone's experience is very complicated and individual. You know what they say about assuming.

Another piece worth mentioning is the fact that Tourette's is a syndrome, as opposed to a disease. A disease has a known, single root cause for the condition, i.e. a bacterium, a virus, a known mutation. Syndromes are names for clusters of symptoms that occur together often enough to be recognized as their own things, but without a shared or known root cause. People have Tourette's (or any tic disorder really) for many different reasons! This is why no two people who tic do so in the same way, there are many root neurological/biological causes that are all producing the same general symptoms.

2. Tic disorders can have a very rapid onset, and they can appear at any age (although before late teens is most common). Mine started over a few days, from absolutely no tics, to uncontrollable and severe attacks.

3. Tics can be very dependent on environmental triggers. Stress, excitement, level of focus, repetitive noises (including other people ticcing!), energy level, et cetera are all common triggers for tics. One person's trigger might be another person's tic relaxant. It varies for each individual; I personally tic much more frequently at work as of late, because the environment is very stressful, loud, and repetitive.

4. If you're watching a video, you're seeing someone's curated public image. They might suppress tics for the camera. They might film on mild tic days. They might edit out tics. They might be ticcing just as often, but invisibly (e.g. right now I have several tics that involve my tongue, totally invisible to everyone else!).

"Their tics look forced though."

Lots of tics do look forced, especially complex tics (tics involving multiple muscle groups), but they are still unvoluntary or involuntary. You have absolutely zero ways to tell apart a tic that looks forced from a tic that is forced. "They tic too much."

Discussing tics is a very, very common trigger for said tics. Filming yourself talking about your tics is likely to trigger them. Some people tic a lot, or very violently, all the time! Some people only tic severely occasionally! See above for the variability of tics, even within a single person.

"They don't tic enough."

Focusing on something, i.e. speaking to the camera, will reduce tic frequency or severity for some people. For some it makes it worse. Again, see above for the variability of tics!

"They have too many common/cute tics."

You can catch tics. If someone's involved with a lot of disability spaces or spends time around other people with a tic disorder, they'll likely pick up some of those common tics. Not everyone gets contagious tics, but most people seem to.

"Their tics are too convenient."

Many people with tics are able to redirect the premonitory urge toward a different, sometimes milder tic (e.g. one of my current tics is clenching my face, and shutting my eyes hard for several seconds. Driving seems to let me focus enough to not be too encumbered by tics, but when I do feel like I'm going to do an eye-shutting tic, I'll usually redirect it to a different body part, or sometimes just one eye instead of both). Not all people w/ tics are able to redirect tics and have absolutely no control over them. For those who can, though, this may cause their tics to look "convenient" in that they're keeping the reigns on the more inconvenient tics. See above for why someone might (or might not!) tic more on camera.

(Assuming they're faking already): "If they really understood Tourette's they wouldn't fake it because it's just so awful and horrible and impossible to live with, it's a curse that ruins people's lives!"

Most disabled people don't want your half-hearted pity. For the love of GOD, do not use the severity of some people's tic disorders as a weapon against that same community. Yes, some people are significantly impaired by their tic disorder; it's a disability. That doesn't mean you should treat the few disabled people you believe like sick little wet kittens with terminal cancer, and the rest of us like we're attention seeking fakers who are an acceptable target for absolutely vile harassment and dehumanization.

And some broader ones that are often used against many other disabled people:

"They're not diagnosed."

You do not become disabled upon diagnosis. Diagnosis is descriptive, not prescriptive; your disability is no more or less real due to dx status.

"They already have sooo many disabilities though."

Disabilities are more common than you think, and tend to occur together. For example, Tourette's is heavily associated with Autism, ADHD, Anxiety, Depression, and especially OCD. Please don't give me your amateur statistics work that assumes occurrence of disability is an entirely isolated variable.

"They have blue hair and pronouns."

Queer people are more likely to be disabled, disabled people are more likely to be Queer. For instance, Queer people are especially prone to Autism, among other disabilities, which puts one at a significantly higher predisposition to tic disorders.

"They talk about their disability/disabilities too much."

Disabilities affect people's daily lives, and if they want to talk about how that impacts them, stfu and listen! If someone wants to spread awareness or acceptance of their disability, stfu and listen! If you don't want to listen, stfu and go away.

There's more. There's a lot more. I could continue writing this for the rest of the afternoon, and I'd still have more to talk about. I've been thinking about Tourette's a lot more since mine came back just recently, and I think a well organized post like this is a good thing to put out there. The takeaway is really that you can never look inside someone else's head. The convolutions of others' minds are a lockbox to which they themselves are the lone key-owners.

I feel like the least we can do for each other is give everyone the benefit of the doubt.

Yes, I'm aware that some people do in fact fake disabilities. My point is not to refute the mere existence of people faking their disability, but to say we cannot know who they are. We must treat everyone as though they are being honest, because everyone is deserving of that kind of dignity by default. This paranoia about who is and is not "really disabled" does us absolutely no good, it hurts innocent people in the process, likely many, many more than any "actual" fakers (by whatever standard you even truly measure that).

As an aside, even if someone is honest to god faking, they're probably not doing just peachy. Someone desperate for that kind of attention probably needs that attention. Something is wrong, and this is their way to express their need for help. When has it ever done any good to shame and mock people who are unwell? Some people really truly do just want to feel justified in mistreating the most vulnerable members of society.

[realmermaid333]

my first autism awareness month post lol (im so late)

For this autism awareness month I want to talk about the more I guess "taboo" part of autism acceptance and the Autistic Experience TM

People say they support people with autism until an autistic person makes a social mistake and says something weird or stims in an "odd" way or does literally anything "strange". As soon as we unmask or the mask slips people no longer want to support us. 

I see this a lot with social mistakes being made then people being extremely judgmental and even going as far as saying people are using autism as an excuse to make social mistakes. While this has happened before, it isn’t always the case.

A big reason why we need autism awareness is people don't fully understand what autism is. 

I'll give a simplified definition: Autism is a developmental disability that impacts the nervous system. It impacts social and emotional development and common symptoms are difficulty with communication and social interaction, obsessive interests, and repetitive behaviors. 

There's more to it but that's the gist. Autistic people misinterpret social cues pretty often and that can lead to small miscommunications or even huge misunderstandings. Some people with autism struggle to tell when someone's joking, some autistic people struggle to tell when a joke or comment is appropriate, some autistic people struggle to tell if they are arguing with someone, some autistic people can't tell they are hurting people's feelings unless they are told. 

We are a wide spectrum. There are varying levels: level 1 (generally low support needs on most days/for most people), level 2 (generally medium support needs on most days/for most people), and level 3 (generally high support needs on most days/for most people). 

I find that a lot of the time when people are introduced to the topic of autism it is from a level 1, low support needs autist who is great at masking. While those people deserve and need platforms too- I myself am a level 1 with lower support needs, though I am not very good at masking- we often ignore the level 2 and 3 autistics and those who are visibly autistic.

There may be a time when an autistic person says something that makes you upset or uncomfortable and you need to communicate that. Not everyone can tell they said something that made someone uncomfortable. I think we would all also benefit from being less judgemental when someone makes a social mistake. All humans make them from time to time, though especially autistic people and other neurodivergent people do. 

I am also tired of people saying that mentioning you’re autistic after accidentally saying something that makes someone uncomfortable is using it as an excuse. It is not an excuse and shouldn’t be used as one! But it is an explanation. Understanding that someone is autistic is really good background to knowing why they may have said something. An autistic person may share they are autistic after a misunderstanding so you know it wasn't intentional and that they understand now and hope to avoid the same thing in the future. 

As a lot of ya’ll are my friends, and I may be one of the only autistic people you are friends with, though only online. I want to tell you about my own social mistakes. I come across much more neurotypical online because I can overthink what I say lol. And most of the time it isn't healthy. I am so anxiously self aware to the point of self sabotage sometimes. When I am in online spaces I overthink what I'm going to say and sometimes edit and revise messages before I send them (I am trying to stop doing this). This is how I tend to avoid misunderstandings! I do get scared I'll mess up and people won't want to talk to me anymore. I shouldn't do that! But yeah, irl I have accidentally said things that people didn't like. I've accidentally made people uncomfortable because I couldn't edit and revise my words after I said them like I can when I type before sending. 

This is an easy thing to do in general even for someone who isn't autistic! We've all done something like this before. But when you're autistic and you may miss the context of jokes others were making or you may entirely misread a social situation. Then you try to join in and sometimes it doesn't work or you fuck up. It happens! I've done this before many times. And unfortunately people tend to be really judgmental about social mistakes, at least in my experience. It makes being autistic really hard sometimes. 

And this does not mean that you shouldn't tell an autistic person they've made you uncomfortable or said something you didn't like! That kind of constructive criticism is okay and necessary! People won't know you're upset if you keep it to yourself, especially if this is a person who reads social cues and body language poorly. This post isn't to excuse something negative an autistic person may say or say your feelings are invalid if an autistic person makes you upset. It's just to hopefully help people be more understanding. 

i don’t wanna type a tldr, just read/skim i guess. but here’s a crappy one. 

Social mistakes are a huge thing for autistic people and it just saddens me and makes me self conscious sometimes the harsh ways people deal with them. it can be really easy to make a social mistake for most people, but especially for autistic people, and especially in online spaces. 

prepare for more of my rants & musings about autism related things

[heterochromicnachos]

Serious post, please respond appropriately and respectfully in comments, tags, and reblogs.

The treatment of autistic people on the internet and autism in general is something that has been bugging me for months, and I am entirely disgusted with how people treat them.

Important things to know

Autism is something you are born with, and is not something that develops. It is not a disease, a virus, or anything contagious. It cannot be corrected, as there is nothing to correct. The development happens in the womb, and it is not the parent’s fault that their child is autistic. Main point, it CANNOT. CAN. NOT. be caused by vaccines.

Autism is a spectrum. Autistic people are like snowflakes, as no two are alike. Each autistic person is unique in their own way.

Autistic people can experience sensory overloads, where they are so overwhelmed that they shut down. How they shut down varies. This can occur in going nonverbal, having a meltdown, and much more.

Autistic people are not always disabled or unable to speak. Remember, autism is a spectrum. The people with the abilities to talk and speak are referred to as a high-functioning Autistic. The people who have difficulties with the previously mentioned things are not high functioning, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t autistic.

Now. Let’s talk about why this post exists.

It has recently come to my attention that a tiktok account is posting their daughter’s breakdowns to the platform. You heard me correctly, they are putting their child’s sensory overloads and vulnerable moments ONLINE. and they are essentially painting their child as a bad kid, when in reality they’re just autistic.

One such TikTok occurs on a Christmas, from the looks of it. The captions claim the child is upset because they didn’t get what they wanted for Christmas. While yes, that can warrant a meltdown, it’s a difference from a breakdown. Thw mother is sitting and recording this while the father antagonizes the child, taunting them. The child then goes to start hitting the adult, which causes them to THROW the child into the couch, from where the child begins to violently hurt themselves.

This is not the effect of an unruly child. This is the effect of a child being overwhelmed to the point of not understanding what’s happening anymore and is trying to take out their emotions in any way possible. And the reactions of the parents, recording a child SELF HARMING HERSELF and did NOTHING. I am genuinely livid, and I have the overwhelming urge to find that child’s parents and literally beat sense into them. (I will not act upon this urge, however.)

Upon further investigation of the video, every single adult present is recording this child having an overstimulated breakdown, and no one is doing anything to help. This isn’t dealing with an unruly child, this is borderline ABUSE.

These videos aren’t spreading awareness, they are demonizing their child and their mental difference all for the purpose of clout.

The next topic is the use of autism as an insult and a slur.

People have begun use the phrase “autistic” to essentially the same effect as the word “retarded.” They believe they can use a word to entirely make an opponent’s argument crumble because “they don’t know what they’re saying, they’re stupid.”

It pisses me off that people think this is okay. But the minute I make fun of someone’s depression to the same effect achieved with the “autistic” argument, I’m suddenly the bad guy. Yes, making fun of their depression is not nice, but the fact that making fun of someone’s autism is perfectly fine makes me want to scream.

Finally, the representation of autism in media and online.

Autism is basically the laughingstock of mental differences. People use it as an excuse to not get vaccinated. (Even I, with a severe fear of needles to the point of growing faint thinking about them, has to get vaccinated. We are attempting to find a way to get me vaccinated anyway) They use it to make others irrelevant, and they use it to make the younger generations look stupid, claiming it didn’t exist until we made it up.

Autism has continued to get a bad rep, and I needed to get all of this information into the world. The more people know about this mental difference, the better we can help he children with autism.

Thank you for reading.

[entity56]

so what’s the “dissociative” in dissociative identity disorder like how do you dissociate or whatever with this specific disorder (does this make sense?)

Yeah, it makes sense. Don't worry!

So, the 'dissociative' in 'dissociative identity disorder' most refers to the dissociation that occurs in between different identity states. (For me, for example, with my disorder that lays on the spectrum, I am incapable of 'switching' without completely dissociating.) But it also refers to the general dissociation that occurs when you aren't switching, are still in front, etc that at best makes you a bit brain foggy and at worst makes it difficult or even impossible to tell who you are.

I don't necessarily have DID (that I know of), but the degree at which I personally dissociate is pretty similar. Like I mentioned, I'm incapable of leaving front without heavily dissociating and becoming 'outside of myself' (and it usually takes a bit to 'ground' back to my body even after I'm back in front), but I also experience other 'milder' forms of dissociation; depersonalization, derealization, general dissociation, and a sense of being blurry (not being sure who I am). And the degrees at which a person gets these, and how distressing they are, can vary depending on the case. For example, the dissociation I get during switches doesn't bother me (sometimes it's even kind of comforting to get a break) but it moreso bothers me when I'm dissociating outside of that context, which I do pretty often.

Sorry for rambling! And if anybody wants to correct me, please feel free to ♡ /gen

[johaerys-writes]

Hey! I see you sometimes talking about your Achilles being neurodivergent (and I think I saw you mention Patroclus being nd too) and I was wondering if you have any specific headcanon? And, for example, if the headcanons vary depending on the universe of each fic or if they are somewhat fixed.

Hi! My answer is going to be about Achilles, because he is the one I talk the most about being ND.

I personally find that Iliad Achilles has some character traits that are widely recognised now as being on the spectrum: he is very direct and often very blunt; he is quite set in his opinions and has a rigil moral code; he means exactly what he says, often without bothering with societal niceties, and hates when others don't do the same; in the iliad he feels his emotions to the max and has extreme outbursts of anger, frustation, grief etc. So I like to joke about Achilles being on the spectrum and thinking of all the different ways this affects his behaviour.

But the truth is that I don't take all this very seriously, at least when we're talking about canon Achilles, Achilles in general. I'm not a big fan of diagnosing fictional characters with real world conditions, especially when they weren't intended to be perceived this way. When we talk about Achilles, we're talking about an ancient folk hero who appears in a work that was written thousands of years ago, during a time that autism wasn't even a thing-- our very definition of autism that we have today, and being "neurodivergent" in general, is very recent, and until a few years ago someone being on the spectrum meant something completely different, for the most part, than it does now. Achilles is also a demigod and is intentionally written differently from every other character in the Iliad; in that case, perhaps it's his divine ancestry that makes him behave in such ways, like his extreme anger or his bluntness. We can’t really know for sure.

Some people might say "but ASD/ADHD has always existed, we just have a name for it now!" That is true, but the most important thing to keep in mind when saying "oh, x character in autistic/has adhd/some other disorder" is that this isn’t a real person, but the creation of a real person (or real people, in the case of folk heroes). So even if unconsciously, let's say, Homer wrote a character that has autistic traits because it's something he saw in the real world, that would be his own interpretation and his own biases when it comes to this specific group of people. This example is kind of silly because we don't really know who Homer is, if he was one person or many, or what sort of artistic liberties he took when he transplanted Achilles from greek mythos into the Iliad, but I feel like it's something to keep in mind in general when we perceive a certain character to be neurodivergent: that they are only some other person's interpretation of what e.g. autism is, and not what autism actually is.

When it comes to my own personal headcanons, I mostly talk about Achilles being ND in my own works, and specifically in my Disasters AU. His traits are intentionally more pronounced there than in canon or other AUs of mine, because this is how I imagined him and it's the sort of story I wanted to tell. I never spell it out in so many words in the fic itself, and it isn’t even in the tags anywhere, because it isn’t what the story is about. And Achilles' ND traits are mild for the most part I think, and we don't even see a lot of the struggles that he has off screen because, again, it isn’t the focus of the story and also he isn’t a real person lol. He is just someone I wrote and I think it would be kind of unfair and maybe misguided to equate his struggles to those of an actual person living with this disorder because, again, he is my interpretation of what ASD is and looks like and might not correspond to how others experience ASD, and in any case it should all be taken with a grain of salt. But at the same time, I'm glad when someone reads my work and finds a lot of what Achilles does relatable, I think that's one of the coolest things about stories and literature, that we see some of ourselves in there.

I hope this answered your question somewhat! I don’t know if this was what you had in mind when you asked me, but I just felt like I had to put it all out there lol.

[a-god-in-ruins-rises]

excluding the wicca, and other weird kinda basic "spiritualism" that usually young women get into for aesthetic or out of boredom, what part of modern european derived paganism is cringe? are the public celebrations or festivals people have insincere or incorrect? are a lot of westerners and especially americans who practice it just cringe in general unrelated to what they practice? why is wicca even considered cringe?

well, what you mentioned is the bulk of what i consider cringe. i find the pagans on the other side of the spectrum cringe too though. the ones who are so rigid and dogmatic in their reconstructionism that they are basically christians in all but name.

anyway, this got a bit long so keep reading if you dare...

most public celebrations i see are pretty embarrassing. but i think that's mostly because most are performed by the aforementioned new age/spiritualist groups. so i think some of their inherent cringe just rubs off on the ceremonies, even if the ceremonies are done sincerely/correctly (which i'd say they rarely are and that definitely contributes to the cringe). not that i think there is only one correct way of doing things. i'm all for creating new traditions.

as for why wicca is considered cringe, it will obviously vary from person to person. but to me it just comes off is deeply basic and artificial. the religion was almost entirely invented wholesale in the 50s based on a bunch of ahistorical assumptions. and it just feels really larpy and performative and surface-level. i've never known a wiccan with any real deep theology or philosophy. it feels like it's only ever a phase. and honestly that's all it ever should be.

and just my personal experience with wiccans has always been cringe. i've known wiccans and they always just act cringe. they'd dress up in cheap costumes and stand in circles around crystals and recite awkward chants. they'd find spells and curses on the first new age blog they find. no real consideration for history or the seriousness of magic. no serious study or thought. it's always just doing "whatever feels right." it's like the pagan version of satanism. it's just what loner kids get into to be edgy and find some sense of community. and that's fair. it's baby's first heterodoxy. but don't expect me to take it seriously as a religion for adults. like i mentioned earlier, it should only ever be a phase and i expect any serious pagans to grow out of it.

[bumblebeerror]

I’m sorry, I know this is beating a dead horse but I HAVE to break down this anon.

For context: This anon was sent to me, and similar ones were sent to @maybe0rdinary [if you want to be untagged lemme know] because we both expressed nondisordered (in this context, meaning: symptoms that do not negatively or significantly effect our quality of life at this current moment) symptoms that are associated with psychosis. In my case, I have ongoing hallucinations of common repetitive noises, such as doors closing or opening, footsteps, doorbells, phone buzzes/text tones, phones ringing or hanging up, dogs barking, people talking, etc. These hallucinations happen almost daily, but because they are easy to check and only startle me occasionally, I’m both used to them and don’t really have an issue with them. I don’t know why they happen, and honestly I don’t particularly care to find out unless it becomes more bothersome.

So, let’s break it down, shall we?

I don’t know what “fucking disgraces to the medical community” is supposed to mean, if I’m honest. I’ve heard of transmeds? Maybe it’s something similar but either way. I don’t really care that much tbh. The medical system has a long and sordid history with mental health and I don’t really seek their approval whatsoever.

Whilst I absolutely can HAHA FUNNY 🤪 my way out of whatever I want because I am awesome and cool,

I in no way said that faking a mental illness is okay. However, I will say that fakeclaiming random people online based on your understanding of a book of diagnostic criteria meant to be used by doctors is absolutely far more harmful to mentally ill people as a whole than someone pretending to be mentally ill for clout.

L.A. and I are in no way effecting doctor’s opinions of psychosis in any meaningful way. I assure you that just like homophobes, doctors in general who already have low opinions of psychotic disorders and the people who have them will not be further swayed.

Ah yes, I forgot I cannot have Symptoms until I am designated my Disorder by the doctor.

Delusions can and do happen in disorders besides psychosis. In fact, there’s a whole disorder called Delusional Disorder. They can present in Bipolar Disorder and even Major Depression, dementia, and that’s not even mentioning various schizophrenic disorders…

Visual Hallucinations can also be caused by various schizophrenic disorders, bipolar disorder, dementia, and also PTSD, Borderline Personality Disorder, Parkinson’s, migraine…

Auditory Hallucinations can be caused by the above and also by insomnia, narcolepsy…

Point being, psychosis is not the only disorder or condition that causes delusions or hallucinations.

“OBVIOUSLY you would have had to have gotten them treated” presumes a lot about the cost in both time and money of getting those things diagnosed. It presumes a lot about someone’s resources. It presumes a lot about how much literally anyone at a job or in the medical field cares about someone who is struggling, even if said struggle is obvious.

“Literally wouldn’t be able to hold down a job” presumes that anyone with psychosis or a disorder that can cause hallucinations or delusions is helpless, useless, or otherwise incapable by default of acceptable or masking behavior, mental fortitude, or any other ability really.

Which is incredibly ableist to assume off the bat about such a wide and varied spectrum of disorders and such a large number of individuals.

“Shut the fuck up and let people with actual psychosis speak” is presumptuous at best. I won’t say anything more.

I do not have psychosis - and I have never claimed to. I don’t presume to speak for everyone who’s ever had an auditory hallucination the same way L.A. talking about a delusion from years ago isn’t presuming to speak for anyone but them and their own experience, and I feel that was obvious from the way they phrased their experience.

Disorders are disorders only if they negatively effect your quality of life. If you were to have clinical depression, and you learned coping techniques to combat it effectively to the point that it doesn’t impact your day to day life, your brain has not stopped having a predisposition to not having enough serotonin receptors. Your brain has not magically been made neurotypical. But, provided that your coping mechanisms adequately negate the symptoms that negatively impact your life, you could be considered no longer disordered.

The same is true with any symptom or condition that could be categorized as a disorder - if it doesn’t impact your quality of life… it’s not a disorder. It is a requirement when it comes to shit like this that the thing be hurting you. If it doesn’t hurt you, like my auditory hallucinations don’t hurt me, it’s not a disorder.

Speaking about a symptom of a possible disorder does not equal stolen valor or speaking over others with that disorder, and using it as such feels very much like a silencing tactic. I hope you think carefully about doing this in the future.

All in all, I think maybe you need to spend more time researching and speaking with other mentally ill people in general.

I think you are probably pretty young and pretty new to discourse in general, and that’s okay. The benefit of the doubt is a powerful tool, and I hope when it comes to these things you use it more, because your passion is admirable.

I’m glad you were on anon - it means I can pull this ask apart now that I’m done clowning on it and explain why I clowned it without fear of you getting personally hurt.

I think this is an opportunity to learn, and I hope you take it. I think that this is something you care deeply about, and I hope you continue to do so and aren’t doing so only for internet points. I hope you can take a moment to listen to new voices, and try new perspectives. They have important and helpful insight to offer.

[brid-jagtap]

Blog# 5

Uncanny Valley and Hyper-Realism

To further explore the topic of reality, I conducted additional research on computer-generated realism, particularly focusing on character artistry and the principles of realism in character development. I examined the concepts of character stylization and realism, striving to find a balance between the two. I was already familiar with the term "uncanny valley," which pertains to hyper-realistic computer-generated characters, and I took the time to delve deeper into its definition.

What is the uncanny valley?

I found an article by R.D. Caballar, who describes it as the phenomenon is an eerie or unsettling feeling that some people experience in response to not-quite-human figures like humanoid robots and lifelike computer-generated characters.

They took the example of AVA, AVA is a digital human that is virtually indistinguishable from a real one, but the author mentions something about them that makes it not quite human that can make people uneasy. This feeling is known as the uncanny valley.

The uncanny valley is a concept first introduced in the 1970s by Masahiro Mori. Mori coined the term “uncanny valley” to describe his observation that as robots appear more humanlike, they become more appealing—but only up to a certain point.

Once they reach the uncanny valley, it gives us a feeling of strangeness. The author explains that “uncanny valley can be defined as people’s negative reaction to certain lifelike robots.”

Though there is no scientific validation to the phenomenon of uncanny valley, it is often criticised as one. Mori himself said in an IEEE interview, “Pointing out the existence of the uncanny valley was more of a piece of advice from me to people who design robots rather than a scientific statement.”

The principles of the uncanny valley are applied and are equally important while creating CG characters.

I want to discuss an animated series I watched not too long ago, Love Death + Robots (2019). It is an animated anthology series created by Tim Miller, produced by his studio “BLUR” along with others from different countries.

It had a series of unrelated episodes from different studios with a variety of art styles.

Some of the episodes like, Beyond the Aquila Rift, Helping Hand, and Lucky 13 had very hyper-realistic character designs and animation. Others like, When the Yogurt Took Over, Alternate Histories, Suits, and Fish Night were very stylized. Lastly, the episodes, the witness, Sonnie's Edge and the dump were not hyper-realistic but had very realistic animations and environments. In this anthology even with so many varying art styles, they have managed to keep it away from the uncanny valley. Keeping apart the stories, plots, and messages from the animation and designs never felt uneasy with any episode, all of the styles, animations, and emotions felt believable and high quality.

The photo-realism of the character or environment does not directly relate to the popularity or emotional engagement of the audience. There are many other examples of very stylized works which are quite popular amongst the audience.  I believe many times live-action adaptations of Anime or Games fail because realism doesn’t directly mean better.!

References: Caballar, R.D. (2019). What Is the Uncanny Valley? [online] IEEE Spectrum. Available at: https://spectrum.ieee.org/what-is-the-uncanny-valley.

Mori, M. (2012). The Uncanny Valley: The Original Essay by Masahiro Mori. [online] IEEE Spectrum. Available at: https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-uncanny-valley.

[accesscounselling]

How Dublin Depression Counsellors Can Help You Save More Than Just Money

Depression is a pervasive mental health condition characterised by sustained feelings of sadness, loss of interest in previously enjoyed activities, and an all-encompassing sense of despair. These feelings can impact your daily life in profound ways. It’s a silent shadow that can quietly infiltrate all areas of your life, turning even the simplest tasks into insurmountable challenges.

While depression is a universal condition, Dublin has its unique set of challenges that can exacerbate it, from the notoriously dreary weather to city-specific stressors like housing crises or work pressures in a bustling city. Coupled with these is the anxiety around the cost implications of seeing Dublin depression counsellors. This is certainly a valid concern, but what if we told you that not addressing depression could cost you far more?

Hidden Costs of Unresolved Depression

Depression doesn’t just live in your mind. It seeps into every aspect of your life. It affects your productivity at work, strains your relationships, and wreaks havoc on your physical health.

Consider the smaller paycheck from those unproductive hours or lost workdays because you simply didn’t have the energy or motivation to face the day. Add to that the potential healthcare costs due to physical health problems linked with depression, such as heart disease and diabetes.

These expenses are rarely discussed, but they are very real. They paint a very clear picture – the cost of not treating depression can be enormous.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), depression is a leading cause of disability worldwide. It significantly compromises work productivity and results in missed workdays, with the degree varying depending on individual circumstances and the severity of symptoms.

Dublin Depression Counsellors: Your Ally in Mental Health

Fortunately, there’s a broad spectrum of help available for people like you who are struggling with this mental health condition. These include Dublin depression counsellors who are always ready to assist during your recovery journey.

These dedicated therapists and counsellors act as an unbiased, sound support system working with you to identify triggers, address negative thought patterns, and devise coping strategies. Their role is holistic, aiming to realise lasting changes for an improved mental state.

Therapies facilitated by Dublin depression counsellors come in various forms, each designed to cater to your unique situation. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, and interpersonal therapy are some of the widely practised approaches. The counsellor’s objective in offering these therapies is to equip you with the necessary tools to regain control over depression, making each therapy session a stepping stone towards recovery.

It is worth mentioning that depression is not a “one-size-fits-all” condition, and neither is its treatment. Depression counsellors in Dublin acknowledge this, emphasising the importance of personalised therapies to individual needs. By understanding your specific circumstances and tailoring techniques to address these, counsellors help you to individualise your path to wellness.

How Much Are the Fees of Dublin Depression Counsellors?

As mentioned, the question of cost often looms large when considering therapy. So, let’s talk specifics – how much does depression counselling cost in Dublin?

Fees vary depending on factors like their experience, location, and type of therapy offered. Generally, you can expect individual sessions to start at €75, with lower rates starting at €35 sometimes available for students or through organisations offering subsidised therapy. Though this might appear steep at first glance, consider it primarily as a long-term investment for your mental well-being and quality of life.

Furthermore, some alternatives can be easier on the pocket. For example, group therapy sessions typically cost less per person. Similarly, online depression therapy may be more affordable than in-person counselling. It’s also crucial to note that many depression therapists in Dublin, including those from Access Counselling Clinic, operate on a sliding scale basis, adjusting rates based on your financial situation.

Ultimately, financial constraints shouldn’t deter you from seeking help. Remember, prioritising your mental health is crucial, and there are options to fit your budget.

How Can Depression Counselling in Dublin Lead to Cost Savings

Depression counselling presents direct financial benefits that often go overlooked. One such advantage is the potential to reduce reliance on medication.

While medication can be crucial for some, therapy can offer a complementary or even alternative approach, leading to significant savings in prescription expenses. This is achieved through the empowerment and coping strategies gained in treatment, which can reduce the frequency of depressive episodes over time and, consequently, the need for medication.

Furthermore, regular counselling sessions can improve psychological health, resulting in fewer clinic or hospital visits. In fact, studies have shown that effective mental health care can significantly reduce overall healthcare costs, with some suggesting savings of up to 24% for specific conditions.

Indirect Financial Gains From Depression Therapy

Apart from the direct savings, depression counselling can yield valuable indirect financial gains. One key benefit is workplace productivity.

Depression often leads to “presenteeism” – being physically present at work but mentally absent. Counselling equips you with coping mechanisms and stress management skills, turning presenteeism into productive engagement. Studies show a 21% increase in work performance for employees treated for depression, translating to financial gains for both employers and employees.

Notably, counselling’s impact extends beyond managing symptoms. It leads to improved focus and motivation. Moreover, as you address and manage your depression, you are more likely to build stronger communication abilities and enrich your interpersonal skills. These newly acquired competencies don’t just alleviate emotional anguish but can leave a lasting impression on colleagues and superiors. Honing these skills can pave the way for career advancements, pay raises, and access to superior job opportunities in the future.

Furthermore, by helping manage depression, counselling can influence overall decision-making abilities. Depression can cloud judgment and lead to impulsive spending or neglecting bills. Improved mental well-being paves the way for rational financial decisions, enabling you to plan effectively and manage your finances responsibly. This can prevent debt accumulation, improve credit scores, and free up resources for future investments.

More Than Financial Savings: The Other Benefits of Seeing a Depression Counsellor

Counselling’s benefits go far beyond financial gains. It’s an investment in your mental health and overall well-being, which can pay dividends in every aspect of your life.

For one, depression therapy helps unlock self-discovery, guiding you through reflections and explorations to understand your thoughts, emotions, and triggers. This newfound self-awareness becomes the starting point for positive change and personal growth.

Working with a depression counsellor can also help cultivate resilience, equipping you with coping mechanisms and stress management techniques to navigate challenges and bounce back from setbacks. The result? A life empowered and brimming with fulfilment.

But the ripple effects don’t just affect you. Depression can cast a shadow on relationships, but counselling offers tools for repairing and rebuilding them. You will learn effective communication skills, expressing your needs and concerns clearly and openly. This can foster deeper understanding and empathy with loved ones.

Therapy can also develop conflict resolution skills, allowing you to navigate disagreements without negativity or blame. Consequently, this can strengthen your bonds with family, friends, and colleagues.

While the specific outcomes differ for each individual, the essence remains the same: counselling empowers you to live a happier, healthier, and more fulfilling life. It’s not just about saving money but investing in a happier, healthier you.

In conclusion, depression counselling is more than a tool to regain control over your mental health. It’s a comprehensive approach towards a better quality of life. While cost is often a concern when seeking treatment, remember that the benefits of counselling extend far beyond monetary savings.

If you or a loved one is struggling with depression, Dublin depression counsellors can provide invaluable support tailored to your needs and circumstances. Choose to prioritise your mental health. Remember, you are worth more than just savings – you are worth investing in.

Looking for help to overcome the challenges of depression? Our dedicated Dublin depression counsellors are here to offer you a safe and supportive environment to navigate your journey towards well-being. Call us today on 01 5240708 and experience the life-changing benefits of counselling.

[aspecpplarebeautiful]

How often do allosexual people feel sexual attraction? Everyday? Every now and then? Only to people they have a crush on? What’s the allosexual experience? Maybe it’s not the best to ask this on an aspec blog but it’s worth a shot

Can they feel it towards only close friends or do they feel it towards strangers as well? I’m questioning if I’m aroallo after developing sexual attraction to a close friend (i feel really bad :( hoping it fades soon)

It can definitely vary from allosexual person to allosexual person. And there isn't a clear distinct line where on one side the person is clearly allosexual and the other they're clearly ace spectrum. Instead there's a large grey area where some people in that gray area will relate more to allosexuality and some will relate more to asexuality. (And there's a lot of factors that determine which side a person falls on, including personal experiences, what they individually determine to be useful, personality, etc.)

As a general rule though allosxual people tend to experience sexual attraction fairly regularly. So if you're going long periods between experiencing attraction, or after being attracted to a person it's a long time before you're attracted to another, that's something a lot of ace-spectrum people experience too. And how long that period is can vary, it could be weeks, months or even years for some people.

Allosexual people will also often usually experience strongly and in a sustained way, whereas some ace spectrum people who experience sexual attraction will feel it weakly or it will fade easily.

So yeah maybe allosexual people won't experience sexual attraction every day, but won't usually have long gaps between experiencing it either.

Some allosexual people will only be sexually attracted to one person at a time and it may be they also have a romantic crush on that person as well. Others won't, and will experience it to a wide range of people at the same time.

Often they will experience sexual attraction towards strangers.

Another common thing for ace spectrum people who do experience sexual attraction is that often they will experience it only under certain circumstances. So for example you mention needing a crush on someone or only being attracted to close friends, both of those can be a form of demisexuality, which means someone who only experiences sexual attraction to someone they've developed an emotional bond with. So if that sounds like you, Anon, I would definitely look into demisexual as a label and see if that resonates.

Another big thing to look at is sometimes it can be easier to tell if identifying as ace or ace-spectrum is right if allosexual feels wrong, or you feel alienated by allosexuality or that you're not meeting the criteria allosexual people are expected to meet.

And also don't worry, this is a great question for this type of blog, because I think it's something a lot of people who are questioning wonder about.

All the best, Anon! And let me know if you have more questions.

[titan-fodder]

The Warrior Experience; ft. the Marley Warriors

Rating: Explicit; mdni

Pairing: Zeke, Reiner, Porco, Pieck x fem!reader

Word Count: ~5.3K

Warnings: mildly dubious consent (reader isn’t exactly there of her own free will but is still dtf), multiple partners, voyeurism, virgin Colt, rough blowjob, rough sex, unprotected sex, mentions of unpleasant contraceptives, lots of cum, clear bias toward Reiner

A/N: I don’t know what happened today. I just got possessed by the horny ghost. Enjoy~

It’s always Magath who retrieves you, the sour-faced General swinging open the door to your small room without any type of knock or warning. 

On most nights, he takes a look at you, frowns, then grunts the name of whoever is actually calling for you—requesting your “presence”. This evening, however, he remains silent, leaving it a mystery that keeps you curious as you make yourself slightly more presentable, pulling on a skirt, running a comb through your hair, just enough to look a little more human. 

You walk in silence down the hallways, your hands clasped behind your back as the older man struts in his usual militaristic fashion. As you near the Warrior quarters, you do your best to prepare yourself, but without an idea of who you’re meeting, it’s difficult. 

Because they’re all so different. Galliard, for instance, usually starts the nights off aggressively. He particularly likes slamming you into various surfaces, pinning you down with a bruising grip, but his demeanor changes as soon as he’s inside you. The once careless young man turns to jelly underneath you, gasping and groaning as his adrenaline wanes and he unravels. 

Always tired and slightly unstable, Reiner is soft. Even when his thrusts are deep and harsh, his hands remain gentle, calluses feather light as they dance up and down your ribs, over your breasts. His stamina varies. Sometimes, when he’s a little more out of his head, a little more haunted, he ruts into you for what feels like an eternity. Most of those instances, he doesn’t even come. You’re just there for a distraction— “A nice one,” he tells you quietly, gratefully, but you still know where you stand with him. 

There are nights when he’s desperate for release, however, taking you with quick, sloppy thrusts, spilling inside you within minutes then rubbing your clit until you squeeze him back to full hardness so that he can do it all over again.

Zeke is the hardest to predict, on far ends of one, sadistic spectrum: he either wants you to do all the work while he smirks up at you with a cigarette between his lips, occasionally blowing smoke into your face, or he wants to dominate you entirely. When he falls into the latter category, you’re in his bed for hours, sniffling or sobbing, biting your lip to keep yourself from begging him to stop—one, because he won’t listen, but also because it isn’t your place. 

The Warriors are honorary Marleyans which means they’re much more important and valuable than you are. Your opinion never matters, least of all in the bedroom. 

You’re more or less a toy for them to use, an Eldian plucked from Liberio and brought to the military base with no real say in it. The Warriors are all young and virile, after all. They have needs like anyone else, but despite their honorary status, they’re forbidden from sleeping with Marleyan women. 

So, you live here, at their beck and call with one purpose and one purpose only. 

To your surprise, Magath stops before you can get to the sleeping quarters you are very familiar with at this point. You stand outside of a closed door, raise an eyebrow at the General but don’t dare question him. 

“They’re in there,” he grumbles, nodding to the door before turning around and walking away.

They…

Raising a suddenly very heavy hand, you knock lightly then shift awkwardly until the door opens and reveals Galliard. His perpetual scowl is in place, but he nods his head in acknowledgment then moves to the side to let you in. 

Galliard isn’t the only one in the room—what looks like some kind of conference area with a sizable wooden table surrounded by chairs, a window on the far end displaying the night sky and twinkling stars. Nearly all of those chairs are full, one scooted back from the table that you can easily assume belongs to the redhead standing behind you.

Zeke is lounging comfortably, feet kicked up on the table as he puffs on a cigarette. Reiner is sitting in his chair backwards, slumped forward to rest his head on the wooden backing, though he lifts it to look at you with bloodshot eyes. Pieck, who you do not see often at all, is slouched with her arms pillowing her face, offering you a lazy smile that’s laced with something you cannot place. 

There’s one more person in the room, the vaguely familiar face of Colt Grice, Warrior Candidate slated to inherit the Beast Titan in a few years. You’ve seen him around the base, usually trailing closely behind Zeke, but haven’t gotten the chance to speak with him yet. 

You remain standing even as Galliard takes his seat again, nibbling on your bottom lip, waiting expectantly—nervously. The last time you were in a room with all of them at once was when you’d first been brought here, and that had just been for informal introductions. There had also been another Eldian with you at the time, a male to keep Pieck satisfied, but he’s… No longer with you. 

In true leader fashion, Zeke is the first to speak after taking a long drag from his cigarette, tilting his head back to blow it into the air and creating a haze over himself. 

“Glad you could join us tonight, sweetheart,” he shows a short, unconvincing smile, and that paired with the condescending pet name leads you to believe he’s in one of his more controlling moods.

“I’m just glad to be able to service the Wa—”

“Yeah, yeah, you don’t need to do all that,” he waves you off. “I’ll cut to the chase.”

“Let her sit down first, Zeke, geeze,” Pieck murmurs before holding a small hand out for you, beckoning you to take the seat next to hers.

Never one to argue or disobey, you shuffle over to it and lower yourself, but you can’t relax, not with so many pairs of eyes on you. 

Galliard is twitchy, bouncing his leg up and down, pushing his hair back too often. Reiner, unmoving, just blinks slowly at you, expression flat. Grabbing your hand, Pieck offers a nod that isn’t the slightest bit reassuring while Zeke pins you with an icy gaze. 

“Colt here is gonna be a big boy Warrior pretty soon,” he says, motioning to the boyish blond in the corner who suddenly seems more interested in the floor than anything. “And, he hasn’t been given the chance to have the experiences he deserves. You follow?”

You nod, easily putting the pieces together. They want you to sleep with him, some sort of sexual initiation.

“As I’m sure you’ve picked up, Titan holders don’t have the longest lifespans, so I figure he needs to enjoy what life he has left.”

Another nod, then you start to stand only to be stopped by Galliard who asks, “What’re you doing? Sit back down.”

“Oh,” you plant yourself back in the chair, eyes growing as your stomach sinks. “I thought you wanted me to show Colt—”

Zeke laughs around his cigarette, adding even more smoke to the air around you, and shakes his head. “No, you misunderstand. You will be showing Colt a thing or two tonight, but in here where we can all watch and… Lend a helping hand if need be.”

Mouth going dry, you can’t stop yourself from frowning. Sleep with Colt… In front of all of them? You don’t fancy yourself much of a performer, doubt you’ll be able to put on any kind of good show under so much pressure.

But, you can’t protest. You can’t go against their wishes or complain. You should consider yourself lucky, being able to service the Warriors. It means you’re a half-step above the other Eldians—a devil but a halfway useful one.

“Um. Okay,” you consent.

Zeke claps his hands together. “Excellent,” then tells you. “Bathroom’s down the hall. Go rinse off, do whatever you need to do to get ready, then meet us back here.”

You don’t dawdle, doing exactly what you’re told. The restroom is obviously for multiple people, a few stalls with cheap curtains to block you from view. You make quick work of bathing so that you’ll have time to prepare yourself, starting the process of stretching yourself while under the spray. With no idea how large Colt might be, and taking into account that he might be completely clueless about female anatomy, you make sure to work three fingers into your cunt, moving them as best you can until you’re a little loosened up and wet. 

When you return to the conference room, you’re just in a towel, folded clothes under your arm and placed in an empty chair. 

“Easy access,” Galliard smirks. “Good call.” You squeak when he slaps your ass then sit on the edge of the table as you’re directed to. 

Most of them have shed their boots and jackets, looking a little more casual now. It doesn’t put you at ease—if anything, it makes you think the others will get a little more involved than Zeke originally let on, and the thought alone is enough to overwhelm you. 

It takes some prompting for Colt to muster the courage to approach you. The others scoot to the edges of the room, giving the two of you center stage. It's daunting, but you do your best to forget about them, to focus on the nervous blond in front of you. 

Spreading your legs, you pull him by the shirt to stand between them then look up at him through your lashes and ask, "Am I allowed to kiss you?" You can never assume. Everyone has different rules. 

When you're with Reiner, he has his mouth against yours more than he doesn't, Galliard will nip and suck against every part of you that isn't your mouth, and the closest Zeke gets to your mouth is prying it open to spit on your tongue. 

Naturally, Colt looks to his War Chief for answers, but Zeke just shrugs. "Your choice, big guy. You're the one calling the shots."

Colt contemplates for a little while but eventually nods and swallows. "Uh, yeah. That's okay, I guess."

He seems to feel just as awkward as you do about this whole situation, would also probably prefer for it to happen in private, but you imagine he's doing everything in his power to show that he's worthy of inheriting Zeke's Titan. He's basically in the same boat as you. 

Reaching up, you lace your fingers behind his neck and pull him to you, pressing your lips to his slowly, softly, trying not to spook him too much. 

After gaining as much experience as you have over the last year or so, it's rare for you to feel shy when getting intimate. Three of the other people in that room have seen everything there is to see about you, your most private of body parts, your most visceral, primal reactions. You have nothing to hide any more. 

Colt is stiff against you. His hands are still by his sides, lips firm but unmoving. 

He has no idea what to do. It's almost disappointing, knowing you're about to spend the evening teaching this kid, fresh faced, twenty years old at most and completely clueless. 

You're saved when a gruff voice makes you pull away: "Alright, this is hard to watch." Reiner sits up and rubs his eyes, then swings his leg over the chair to stand and walk over. "Grice, have you ever even seen anyone kiss before?"

Cheeks turning red, Colt moves out of the way, stuttering out "W-well yeah, but I never watch." 

The taller man takes the vacant space between your legs, and you inhale sharply when he slides a large hand to the back of your head, tilting your face even further upward. Reiner kisses you in a way that makes your head spin. He has that desperate taste he always has, and even without opening your eyes, you can tell he's frowning. But his hand is cautious, careful not to tug your hair just like he's careful not to knock his teeth into yours when he parts your lips with his. 

"There we go," Zeke laughs, clapping twice and cheering, "'Atta boy, Braun!" 

Reiner's tongue dances with yours in a heated back and forth for a few seconds before he pulls back. He doesn't smile, but he does sigh in a thoughtful manner before turning to Colt and pointedly telling him, "That's how you kiss a woman."

Reiner softly scratches the back of your head in a fond gesture, then steps away and motions for Colt to try again. 

He's slightly more confident this time around, starting off slowly at first but eventually pushing against you harder and harder until it's a little much, and you just barely push at his chest to get him to let up. He replaces pressure with tongue, probing and curious but not awful. 

"Undo her towel, Grice. Get a move on," Galliard demands. 

Colt reaches up with a shaky hand, breathing through his nose while keeping his lips attached to yours as he pulls at the loose knot just above your breasts. The material falls and pools around you on the table, and before he can be criticized again, you grab one of Colt's hands and place it on one of the perky mounds. You move your fingers over his, showing how you like to be massaged then guiding him to your nipple. 

"Oh, this is very romantic," Zeke drawls, snapping his fingers to get someone's attention then addressing, "Pock," who grunts in response. "You're a tit man, right? Your turn to show him how it's done." 

The sound of a chair scraping on the floor rings throughout the room, but instead of pushing Colt out of the way, Galliard stands on the other side of the table behind you, bends forward, then grabs you by the hair to pull you down. The breath is knocked out of you as your back hits the table, and you blink up at the redhead in surprise. 

Upside down, your face is about level with his hips, maybe a foot away from his pelvis, but before you can dwell on it, Galliard's rough hands are on your tits, groping, massaging, then pinching your nipples so that you arch and moan. 

"Know I probably shouldn't like it so much, but you sound so pretty, baby," he growls, flicking over the hardened buds then squeezing again. 

"We're all devils here. You can like it as much as you want," Reiner gruffs. 

"Justifying your own feelings?" Zeke snarks. 

You aren't able to see or hear Reiner's response, too busy whining as Galliard starts to slap your tits over and over, making the flesh burn and sting. 

Porco groans, "Mm, love that bounce," hitting them a few more times then stopping and allowing you to take a shuddering breath. 

Your body is hot all over, especially your chest, and your pussy is starting to throb. After playing with yourself in the shower, the heated kiss you shared with Reiner, and now the abuse Galliard just showered on your tits, you're starting to get restless, ready to be filled with something. 

"While I'm right here, m'gonna show you somethin' else, Grice."

Galliard grips your upper arms and slides you closer to him on the table, then undoes his pants and pulls his cock free. As soon as you feel the tap on your lips, you open up for him, relaxing just in time for him to shove his length over your tongue and into the tight sleeve of your throat. 

And, pride actually wells up inside of you. That hardly ever happens. 

There's no time to acclimate really, your only choice being to just lay and take it, so you do, choking and gagging around Galliard's cock as everyone else watches. Tears stream down the sides of your face, but you feel them get wiped away and open bleary eyes to find Pieck peering down at you, soft hands catching the drops as she coos, "You're doing so good, love."

You squirm on the table, start to rock your hips into nothing—no one—in desperate need of friction now. 

"You want something stuffed in that pussy?" Zeke calls out. 

The vibration of your responding whine makes Galliard curse and thrust into your throat until your forehead is pressed against his heavy balls. Strings of spit leak from the corners of your mouth. You try to slurp and suckle, but the steady pistoning of Galliard’s hips just keeps pushing more out. 

“I’ll take that as a yes. Colt, you wanna go for it, or do you wanna watch first?” Zeke questions.

“Um, I—I’ll watch first, I think.”

“Good choice. See how it’s done before diving in.”

You’re barely aware of the conversation around you, mouth full of cock, gentle hands on your face. Pieck must not be fazed by being so close to her comrade’s privates because she just keeps stroking and praising you, like she thinks you might break or lose it. 

There are fingers on your wet folds, spreading them apart, then the harsh sound of spitting before a glob of thick fluid lands in your pussy. Zeke smears his saliva over your clit, and you buck under his touch, moaning when two thick digits are pushed into your heat all at once. Your cunt spasms around the intrusion, getting used to it as he continues the job you’d started in the shower. 

“I don’t always do this sort of thing just ‘cause I like the way she feels all tight and tense on my dick, but if you don’t want her to whine as much, I’d advise prepping her with your fingers or mouth.”

You squirm and writhe, the glide of his fingers getting easier with every thrust as your hole drools slick onto the table beneath you. Zeke’s palm grinds against your clit, pressure and friction where you want it most for half a second before it disappears—comes back, disappears—until you’re forcing yourself down on his hand. 

He lets out one of his standoffish little chuckles as you slide up and down Galliard’s length and fuck yourself on Zeke’s fingers, but the delicious sensation disappears entirely when Zeke pulls out, probably to work himself out of his pants, then presses the blunt head of his cock against your clenching hole. He pushes the tip in only to pull it back out, tap it against the swollen bundle of nerves a few times, then finally pushes in all the way. 

You’re a little too far up on the table now, and Zeke doesn’t bother warning you or Galliard as he tugs you back down to better situate you on his cock, causing the other man to slip out of your mouth.

“Fuck man, I was getting close!”

Without a care in the world, Zeke shrugs him off, tells him, “Come on her face or something then, I don’t give a fuck.”

Your voice comes out hoarse as you moan for all of them to hear, teary eyes cracking open to see Galliard step back and lean against the wall behind him. His fist is tight around his shaft, but he’s pumping himself slowly, like he’s suddenly pacing himself despite just having fucked your throat raw. 

A rough pinch to your nipple brings your eyes to Zeke, blond hair hanging in his face, glasses slipping down his nose. The top few buttons of his shirt are undone, but other than that, he’s basically fully clothed. He’s flushed from his neck down to his chest, jaw barely hanging open as his eyebrows raise. He’s certainly enjoying himself, and you can’t say you aren’t because the drag of his thick cock in your pussy is incredible. 

Your head lolls to one side and you find Colt staring at you with wide eyes, watching the way his superior sheathes himself in you over and over. It makes you blush, so you turn to the other side, see Reiner posted up in the corner, about half hard in his pants as he watches your face. 

Mouth dropping open, you shut your eyes, trying to will away the skin-prickling sensation of being watched. You raise your arms above your head, hands dangling off the other end of the table, and Pieck takes them, squeezing once before lightly running nimble fingers over your sensitive skin.

You’ve never been with her, not that you’d be opposed. She’s very pretty and seems kind enough. But you had guessed you weren’t exactly her type. Now, though, you second guess yourself since she seems more than content with touching you. 

The painful squeezes of Zeke’s fingers are batted away, replaced by the ghost of stimulation on your sore nipples. Pieck rubs over one so lightly you hardly register it, but it still shoots right to your pussy, makes you clench around Zeke. 

He’s holding you by the hips now, pulling you onto his cock, and it goes like this for a while. At some point, the wet sound of Galliard jacking off fades, but you doubt he’s come; he’s typically quite vocal when he climaxes. 

Zeke never lets up, fucking deep and fast and right over the spot that makes you leak until he suddenly pulls out and shoots strings of hot cum onto your thighs and the table between them. 

“You don’t… Inside?” Colt speaks up.

Rubbing his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt, Zeke answers, “Never. That’s preference, though. I just don’t want any accidents to happen.”

You would remind him that you go to the medic after every encounter you have with the Warriors to get checked out, given an unpleasant medicine that leaves you sick for a few days, but it’s hard to think straight right now. 

Before Colt can move toward you again or any more questions can be asked, Galliard is rounding the table, cock in hand once again, shouldering Zeke out of the way so that he can bury himself in your pussy. He’s a shorter length than the man who was in you just moments ago, but a little thicker. Veiny and curved upward, Galliard always feels good inside of you. Unfortunately for you, he’s basically been edging himself since you were pulled from him, so he doesn’t last long at all. 

Unlike Zeke, Galliard has no qualms about coming inside of you. You feel his seed fill you, mixing with your own wet arousal and making you drip with it when he pulls out. 

“Couldn’t help myself,” he grins before giving your pussy a slap, making you push more of his cum out. 

You hear someone suck in a deep breath, and Colt slowly shuffles over to you. He stares at your throbbing cunt for a while, raising a timid hand to stroke over now messy folds, and you let out a mewl, a very soft, “Please…”

Pieck places a tender kiss at your hairline that makes your heart jump into your throat, such a kind gesture as she murmurs against you, “You’re doing so well for them.”

“Can I—” You blink up at her face, floating upside down over yours. “Can I do anything f-for you, Pieck?”

She shows another one of those smiles, the kind that’s hiding a little something, and she shakes her head, wavy, black hair flowing over her shoulders. “I’m just enjoying watching. You’re very pretty to look at.”

You bite your lip, unsure of how to respond, so you just let her keep touching you, keep cooing and doting. You’ll never say no to affection like this. 

Colt doesn’t have any trouble finding your entrance, which is a relief. He lines himself up and pushes in painfully slowly, panting the entire time and letting out one very satisfying, “O-oh, shit.”

“Feels good, doesn’t she?” Zeke hums.

Colt nods, arms beginning to shake on the table. He seems to be holding himself back, whether it’s from coming or fucking into you is a mystery, but eventually he bottoms out and stays still save for his trembling. It isn’t uncomfortable, but you do feel very full, his hips flush against yours, cockhead nestled right up against your cervix. If he was any longer, you would definitely be in pain. 

“Grice, you can move, you know,” Galliard jabs, but Colt just shakes his head. 

“One second. Lemme just…” He shifts his hips some, not thrusting as much as grinding into you, and you cry out when he presses against that far wall. 

You can feel Galliard’s cum leaking down the curvature of your ass, pooling with whatever of Zeke’s is left on the table. You’re so wet, noisy when Colt finally does start slowly pulling out and pushing in. The squelches echo in the conference room and make you cringe, but Zeke seems to appreciate it as he hums, “Listen to that sloppy pussy.”

“Like music to my fuckin’ ears,” Galliard adds.

Colt has trouble keeping an even pace, his hips stuttering often, but the ridge of his cock strokes over the sensitive spot inside you—the one that makes you drool and babble—almost every time. Your muscles clench around him, changing the sensation for both of you, and when that rhythm becomes even more erratic, you know he’s close.

“Fuck, fuck, I—”

“Just add to the mess. We’ll clean up later,” Zeke reassures him.

Colt’s eyes find yours for the first time since he started fucking you, searching for something like permission, so you nod and show a lazy grin.

“It’s okay, you can come in me.”

That sends him over, a strangled gasp ripping from his throat as he milks himself in your cunt. You can feel the pressure of building liquid inside you, pushing on your insides, but it wanes when Colt pulls out. 

You feel swollen and used at this point, but your core is still hot with the desire to come. There’s a chance you won’t, especially now that Colt has finished, but you can always get yourself off in the privacy of your quarters if need be. 

The freshly fucked blond receives a couple slaps on the back, some patronizing comments from his War Chief, and you take the time to just breathe and melt into the table, enjoying the way Pieck is stroking your hair now, smiling at the other Warriors. 

Your eyes are just about to close when you see Reiner making his way over. He stands between your legs for a while, just looking over the damage, the slight discoloration of your chest, your raw nipples, mouth swollen from Galliard’s cock, then finally your used pussy. 

His fingertips brush over sensitive skin, making you shudder, and you nearly cry when he asks, “You ready to get yours?”

You nod, sucking in an unsteady breath. Reiner mouths the word, “Okay,” then unbuckles his pants and pushes them down to his thighs, and the tears really do start to gather in your eyes now because Reiner is big, and you're already getting sore from three other cocks you've taken. 

He rubs his hands up your thighs, tells you, “Wrap your legs around my waist,” which you somehow manage even though they’re weak with numbness. 

Reiner doesn’t push in just yet, though you can feel his warm cock rubbing between your engorged lips. Instead, he slides his arms under your back and lifts you, turning so that he’s sitting on the table and you’re in his lap, ankles still crossed at his lower back. 

“Just go at your own pace.” His voice is quiet, his mouth hovering just over yours, and here, like this, you almost forget about the others. 

You lift yourself just enough to line his tip up with your leaking entrance then lower yourself onto his cock inch by inch. His girth stretches you, always burns just a little, even when you’re well prepared. 

Your spongy walls make room for him, sucking him in even as you whine at his size. He waits for you to get settled, for you to start rocking, and only then does Reiner start moving. His cheeks are pink, light brown eyes nearly taken over by blown pupils, but the shift of his hips is slow and deliberate, hitting just where you need him to.

He keeps one hand at your back to help you balance, but his other moves down to press on the puffy flesh at the apex of your cunt. It forces your clit to rub against the coarse hairs on his pelvis, and you throw your head back as you finally, finally get that friction you were craving. 

Reiner lowers his face to your chest, warm tongue laving over one nipple in a soothing manner as it pebbles against the muscle. He moves to the other and does the same, suckles on it softly so that you dig your nails into his back.

You leak with every shallow thrust, various fluids getting pushed from your wet pussy, and the closer you get to your orgasm, the worse it gets. You squirt first, a juice thinner than your slick arousal dribbling from you and coating Reiner’s thighs. 

“Fucking—” He cuts himself off by kissing you, obviously uncaring of the fact that you had someone else’s cock in your mouth maybe half an hour ago. He licks into you, holding your body tight against his as your muscles tense, thighs rigid around his waist. You climb and climb, gut hotter and hotter until you reach your peak and moan into his mouth. 

Your hips start moving on their own accord, a little faster as you squeeze the thick cock inside of you until your body grows tired enough to stop. Reiner keeps the same, slow pace, rumbles, “Just keep squeezing me, and I’ll come soon.”

So, you do, clenching around him and trembling the more overstimulated you become because you’re so sensitive and so swollen and so full. Every part of you aches. Every shift of his cock makes you whimper, but when Reiner finally spills inside of you, holding you down on his spurting cock, you sigh and slump against him. 

You breathe heavily, and so does Reiner, his chest, now damp with sweat, rising and falling against yours. His shirt chafes against your nipples, making you hiss, but you’re too exhausted to move.

“Is that what sex is always like with you two?” Galliard scoffs. “That was some soft shit. I’m a little disgusted.”

If you were a little more lucid, you’d consider calling him out and announcing to the room how wanton he gets alone in the bedroom, but your brain is functioning at minimal capacity right now.

“Oh, leave them alone, Pock,” Pieck chides, and you glance across the table at her with tired eyes to find another one of those smiles on her face. “Everyone deserves some softness, especially this little angel after the way you guys treated her.”

“Didn’t treat her any differently than I normally do,” Zeke says, voice slightly muffled as he speaks around a new cigarette. 

“In that case, I offer my condolences,” Pieck tells you, pulling a little snort from you. 

“S’fine,” you slur. “I’m just happy to service the Warriors.”

Galliard rolls his eyes. Pieck hums thoughtfully. Zeke smirks. Reiner lets his head fall to your shoulder.

And, Colt croaks out a honestly endearing, “Well, I, uh, appreciate the service,” which makes you and all of his superiors laugh. 

It’s not an easy job, this one you've been given. You try to be grateful for the opportunity, but most days end with you struggling to find your own self worth.

Tonight is different, though. It’s rare that you feel genuinely appreciated, but right now, sitting in Reiner’s lap with Colt looking at you in both embarrassment and gratefulness, you feel that maybe you're worth something.

[after-nine-at-the-oasis]

Hi guys!!!

I wanted to let y'all know that it's Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome Awareness Month!!

Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (or EDS) is the general name for a group of complex connective tissue disorders. For example, the type of EDS that I have is Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (hEDS). It's the most common type, but due to the complicated nature of narrowing down genetics and a lack of funding for EDS research, there is not a known gene that causes it.

EDS has no cure, and symptoms can vary greatly between person to person. It can be completely debilitating. For me personally it means joint pain and instability, subluxations (partial dislocations), maybe even dislocations (I'm not entirely sure), muscle pain, soft skin, easily bruised skin, exhaustion, circulation issues similar to Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), gastrointestinal problems, and more.

Honestly, my life right now is a great example - due to weather, hormones, my bad decision to wear heels yesterday, and probably just bad luck, I'm currently going through a flare up. Coincidental that it's in the beginning of May! This all means that I have greater, sharper pain, I'm more tired, and finding it more difficult to walk than usual.

EDS greatly impacts my life. Perhaps not constantly, but just one thing I could mention is the fact that EDS has taken my ability to run. I can't run for very long, and it is not near as easy for me as it is the average healthy person. Often I regret it afterwards due to the pain and exhaustion it causes.

Having EDS also caused me to develop what is most likely Amplified Musculoskeletal Pain Syndrome - my nerves don't treat pain like they should, and they often overreact.

Sometimes, it's honestly really hard to stay positive. But, I don't have it as bad as some, and I still have a lot of good things in my life. I'd really like to preserve those. My life is not hopeless just because there is no cure or even true treatment right now.

EDS research is underfunded, and many people don't even know this disorder exists. If you'd like to donate, that would be wonderful, and I've reblogged some links for that. You could also probably find some online with a little research. But my main goal here is just to raise some awareness! That is the whole purpose of the month, after all :). If you want to know more, please don't hesitate to reach out to me or do some research. I might even be able to provide you with some resources :). Everyone's experience with EDS is different, though, so I'm just one opinion. For me personally, my symptoms worsened about a year and a half ago, and I got my official diagnosis (the previous one was Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder, which is a general term) just a few weeks ago, on April 22nd, 2022. I'm quite new to this disorder and this community, so despite my research, I don't have much personal experience yet.

Also, the symbol for EDS is a zebra! Specifically, a zebra-patterned ribbon - think the pink ribbon for breast cancer. People with EDS are commonly called Zebras, due to the medical saying "If you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras." The saying means that a symptom is usually not indicative of the rare disorder, it's indicative of the common one. But, there are the rare ones that exist! EDS is one of them, often being missed. A few other diseases go by a zebra, but EDS is the most common one. So, if you want to show your support, post some zebras!!

Lastly, there are many other underfunded disorders and diseases that have awareness months in May, so maybe look them up and learn a little bit :).

Thank you for reading this, I truly appreciate it. I am sorry that it got so long - I have a lot to say on this topic and it's not often that I get the chance to.

Happy Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome Awareness Month!

Have a great day 🥰🥰🥰🥰.

[shinigami-social]

Hi, big fan of this response overall, let me cover a quick thing before getting more in depth:

I think the biggest thing I need to specify is that I am not transfem and do not identify as transfem. I am a transsexual man, and I would consider myself FTM or ITM. I am not arguing that my experiences are transfeminine, and I actually think your response really helps clarify a number of my points on the nature of intersexism and misogyny that results in this experience so frequently related to transmisogyny.

Point 1 being said, people with my intersex variation get assigned male all the time. It’s usually considered a “female” condition (because one has XX chromosomes usually), but it has a spectrum appearance and does not immediately result in someone being AFAB, nor does it immediately result in someone being CTF. These two things being different is also something your reply fails to really get into, but they do result in different life experiences. A person can be AFAB and CTM which results in a relationship with transfemininity due to the fact that every part of their life outside of a single moment at their birth assigns them to the role of male, and a person can be AMAB and CTF and therefore experience a relationship with transfemininity due to the fact that, regardless of any bioessentialist viewpoints, they have been socially put into the male category. And there will be people in both these categories who do not have a relationship to transfemininity because the intersex experience is deeply varied. While most perisex people and many intersex people are assigned a sex/gender once at birth, many intersex people are either/both

Medically/legally reassigned later in life (their variation is discovered, new information about it comes up, as they grow up an attempt is made to “match” their sex to their appearance)

Socially reassigned. They may have been assigned a gender at birth, but the world doesn’t know what that is, and intersex people constantly move through the world being treated as different things in different contexts. There are, even if you have never considered it before, people who AFAB whose life experiences are otherwise the same as a perisex AMAB transfem, because being intersex simply doesn’t allow for absolutes.

All this being said, I generally agree with the bulk of your response. I feel that the experiences I talked about are, as I said, relation. There are similarities and parallels, but it also isn’t the same thing. I think that, as you mentioned, it can result in a type of solidarity, but at the same time, it leaves out the fact that transfeminine intersex people who have the actual same experiences do exist. AGAB cannot be the sole event used to define a person’s relationship to these constructs, especially when, and I am aware this isn’t common but it does happen, intersex people are not always even assigned a gender.

I didn’t share my experiences to prove I am transfem, but to provide context for the type of experiences I see many people use as evidence for what they think makes them transfem. It is, however, the entire point of my post to say that those experiences are classic intersexism and intermisogyny from, using the terminology you have taught me here, intersex people people who have always experienced misogyny from within womanhood. Not all intersex people have this experience, including not all intersex people with my condition.

So for all this, I’d like to clarify once again that this post was ultimately meant to be about the ways in which intersex people with these experiences communicate their relationship to womanhood, because I don’t think transfeminine is the word for this specific relationship. I think intersex is the word, but for whichever reasons, people struggle to identify that as the answer.

I hope this all made sense, like I said in the original post, I really did want exactly this: a proper and healthy discussion.

This is probably going to be massively controversial, but I just feel like it needs to be said at this point. I desperately need people to read this very carefully and approach this in good faith. General blanket warning for intersexism, transphobia, and intersectional misogyny with both of these I just wonder how many people in the intersex community just like… fundamentally don’t understand the way being intersex impacts your gender. I know that sounds fucking wild because obviously being intersex impacts your gender but like… it feels like a lot of people reach for comparisons to the binary over just, like, the label intersex itself. The thing on my mind in particular is the stark difference in what transfemininity seems to mean inside and outside the intersex community. This isn’t to refer to AMAB and/or CTM intersex transfems, but in particular people who were AFAB and/or CTF.

I want to clarify before I get into the main body of this post that I fully believe people can be AFAB and/or CTF and be transfem. This post isn’t to say that this never happens, no one ever experiences the combination of these two* things, or that people who identify this way are wrong for it. I just want to open up a discussion about why people are identifying this way, I guess. It’s not about invalidating anyone or their experiences, on the contrary, I really want to discuss the varied nature of the intersex experience.

I was AFAB, and I would generally consider myself CTF. I have simple virilizing classic CAH. I experienced many of the events which a lot of people talk about as why they relate to the transfem experience or consider themselves to be transfem. I grew up with a tenuous connection to girl/womanhood at best, I had the locker room harassment, I was widely rumored to be a hermaphrodite and transgender (no one could decide in which direction), I was put into situations specifically to attempt to uncover my “real” sex/gender. Even when I was seen as a girl/woman, I was Wrong about it. When I was seen as a boy/man, it was before I had ever come to terms with that identity for myself, and it was instead something thrust on me against my will for being a girl/woman Wrong. I was, for much of my life, locked out of womanhood in various ways.

I can very easily understand why people with experiences such as these would relate to transfemininity (and on a “relation” basis, yes, I would say I relate), and perhaps even identify with it based on how these sorts of things impacted them in particular. That being said… I have never understood why people think this is somehow not just being intersex. I’m not trying to say it can’t possibly be both, but sometimes it feels like people just refuse to acknowledge that this is a very common experience of the intersection of misogyny and intersexism. There are certainly transmisogynistic elements to it, I think transmisogyny and intersexism are deeply intertwined and always have been, but like… to act like this is solely transmisogyny feels like a denial of the intersex experience. For intersex people who were AFAB, are CTF, and/or likely some other types of intersex people depending on their circumstances, this is entirely par for the course because they are intersex. The things I described are, above all else, intersexist in nature. They happen to people for being intersex. There are aspects reminiscent of transmisogyny and perhaps even motivated by transmisogyny in many cases, but this distinct experience that I see many, many intersex people have experienced, it is to me such a classic experience of growing up intersex.

This is to say nothing of the appropriation of the transfem experience (no, I’m not accusing you or anyone else specifically of doing this, if it doesn’t apply to you, it doesn’t apply to you, but yes some people are objectively doing this). I am not focused on that. It is its own separate issue, but the thing I am trying to communicate here is why people struggle to find themselves in the word intersex when the thing that caused them these traumas is being intersex. The denial of intersexness and intersexism as explanations for the experiences directly caused by being intersex. The need to use terms broadly conceived of within perisex communities to describe perisex experiences of sex and gender to describe experiences inherently outside of the perisex view. To me, it seems like there is a very clear difference between using intersex transfem to describe “I have Klinefelter and also I am a trans woman” and “due to my experiences with PCOS, my relationship with femininity is deeply complicated and I use transfem as a sort of code for reclaiming my womanhood that I feel has been denied to me.” And like. I am not saying that these couldn’t possibly both be transfem experiences! I am not the decider of what makes people transfem, and it’s not really my business at the end of the day, but these are still just like, objectively different concepts being described. This is what I meant at the beginning of the post by the inside-outside usage of the term. It feels like transfem, in intersex spaces, is often used as a shorthand to describe a specific relationship to femininity and womanhood and this relationship is not necessarily “transitioning to femininity.” At the same time, it feels like it is being used this way because in some way, perhaps, the community is lacking in language that adequately communicates “my being intersex locked me out of womanhood, even though womanhood is what I was assigned and expected to conform to” which is, to me, a fundamental difference between most (not all, I’m aware we cannot ever make absolute statements when it comes to intersex experiences) AFAB/CTF and AMAB/CTM transfem experiences.

To me, I feel that intersex does adequately express these sentiments. Or, at least, it can if you let it. Intersex people pretty much inherently experience a complicated relationship to their sex and gender, and I wish we were allowed to talk about this without there being an obligatory comparison of how every intersex experience is always analogous to some equivalent transgender experience. Intersexism is intersexism, and intersex people experience it because we are intersex, and maybe we should fucking talk about that sometimes.

[phoneybeatlemania]

I was recently diagnosed with ASD and a few people were surprised cause Im not awkward when I talk to people. I'm very aware I could be projecting onto Paul but I find myself relating to him, like he seems to stim a lot in interviews. But then you dont need to be autistic to stim so who knows.

Discussion point: Paul & ASD

EDIT: Id recommend reading the response from @jeffreyrhymansss to this post (just look in the notes), since it gives far more insight into the psychology of autism then I could provide. Apologies about any misinformation I might've spread with this post, it was pure misguidance on my behalf. Not an excuse I know (I should be more cautious with this stuff) but just thought id clarify that I was never purposely being insensitive.

EDIT 2: id also like to just clarify though that I am all for discussions on Paul being neurodivergent - the same way that im all for discussions on John as having had a personality disorder. Im not personally convinced that Paul is autistic, but I think its plausible; ive just never read any in-depth and strong arguments for it, ive only come across brief speculations. I remain open to the idea of Paul being neurodivergent as a possibility, but id need to read a thorough and well-evidenced argument for the claim before really getting on board with it. Hope this cleared some things up :)

My mum is a bit like this - if you met her, it’s unlikely that you’d be able to tell that shes autistic because she’s quite low on the spectrum and interacts with people pretty confidently. Even my oldest brother didn’t know she’s autistic until last year, when I mentioned it in casual conversation and he was like “oh shit, that makes a lot of sense actually!!”. My point with mentioning all this is essentially that there are a lot of people (especially of Pauls generation) who are autistic, but just about pass for “normal” (used with some irony there, of course) enough to go undiagnosed, for varying reasons. And while you can usually tell if someone is on the autism spectrum, theres still a lot of people who learn throughout their childhood to mask their symptoms - and it becomes practically second nature. So you probably just wouldn’t know they were autistic, until you knew them quite intimately.

Personally, I don’t see tons of evidence to suggest that Paul is autistic - but there are stories here and there that make more sense (in terms of his behaviour) if you consider them within the context of him being somewhere on the spectrum. Its not a diagnosis I think you could build quite as strong a case for on, compared to something like John having BPD - still though, its plausible, its worth considering and its good to discuss it as possibility, since it could potentially help us in empathising with and understanding him.

On another note, I don’t actually think that projection is such a bad thing tbh. Its just a way of relating to and understanding these people; everybody projects to some degree, and while we should constantly try to question ourselves, saying “okay, but can I back this claim up with substantial and meaningful evidence? or is it pure projection?” - and I btw fully admit that im just as much prone to getting carried away with my analysis’s at times, so much so that they run into projection, as anyone else. I suppose still that projection is essentially just an unavoidable part of interpretation - and applying our own experiences onto our speculations can have the capacity to speak certain truths about (god i hate to use this phrase) ~the human experience~ (<<< blahhhhhhhhh) just be careful, and question yourself.

[shihalyfie]

Hi :) If it's not too much trouble, could you please share your take on why they'd continue the Adventure brand after tri. was such a flop? (and a tangent: what does "dark history" even mean?). We got Kizuna, the reboot, and a 02 movie. Logically, it doesn't really make sense they'd keep investing in it.

This is a thorny topic, and I'd like to reiterate that although I've ended up making more posts related to this series and the discourse surrounding it recently (probably because it's even more on the mind now that another movie is on the horizon and a lot of people are apprehensive for various reasons), I do not want this blog to be making a brand out of being critical of this series. I’m writing this here and in public because I figured that there is a certain degree I need to clarify what I mean about audience reception/climate and how it might impact current or future works, and I’m admittedly also more than a little upset that I occasionally see Western fanbase criticisms of the series getting dismissed by people claiming that the only people mad about it are dramamongering or ignorant Westerners (which could not be further from the truth). However, this is mainly to address this and to answer your question, and is not intended to try and change anyone's existing opinion or impression of the series as much as it's me trying to explain (from my own personal reading of the situation) what practically went down with critical reception in real life; no more, no less.

The short summary of the matter is:

The series was a moderate financial success (albeit with some caveats; see the long version for details) and definitely outstripped a lot of prior attempts to revive the franchise;

However, the overall Japanese fanbase-side critical backlash from tri. was extremely and viciously negative to the point where even acknowledging the series too much could easily result in controversy;

Kizuna’s production and the PR surrounding it very obviously have this in mind with a lot of apparent “damage control” elements.

The long version is below.

Note that while I try to be diligent about citing my sources so people understand that I’m not just making things up wholesale, I’m deliberately refraining from linking certain things here this time, both because some of the things mentioned have some pretty crude things written there -- it’s not something I feel comfortable directing people to regardless of what language it’s in -- and because I don’t want to recklessly link things on social media and cause anyone to go after or harass the people involved. For the links that have been provided, please still be warned that some of them don’t really link to particularly pleasant things.

I am not writing the following information to suggest that anyone should agree or disagree with the sentiments being described. I know people tend to take "a lot of people like/hate this" as a signal of implication "it is correct to like/hate this" when it's not (and I especially dislike the idea of implying that Japanese fanbase opinions are the only correct ones). There's a reason I focus on "critical reception being this way" (because it influences marketing decisions and future direction) rather than how much this should impact one's personal feelings; this is coming from myself as someone who is shamelessly proud of liking many things that had bad critical reception, were financial failures, or are disliked by many. As I point out near the end, the situation also does seem to be changing for the better in more recent years as well.

Also, to be clear, I'm a single person who's observing everything best I can from my end, I have no affiliations with staff nor do I claim to, and as much as I'm capable of reading Japanese and thus reading a lot of people's impressions, I'm ultimately still another “outsider” looking in. These are my impressions from my observation of fan communal spaces, following artists and reading comments on social media and art posting websites, and results from social media searches. In the end, I know as much as anyone else about what happened, so this is just my two cents based on all of my personal observations.

A fanbase is a fanbase regardless of what part of the world you're from. There are people who love it and are shameless about saying so. There are people who have mixed feelings or at least aren't on extreme ends of the spectrum (as always, the loudest ones are always the most visible, but it's not always easy to claim they're the predominant percentage of the fanbase). That happens everywhere, and I still find that on every end I've seen. However, if I'm talking about my impressions and everything I’ve encountered, I will say that the overall Japanese reaction to tri. comes off as significantly more violently negative on average than the Western one, which is unusual because often it's the other way around. (I personally feel less so because the opinions are that fundamentally different and more so because we're honestly kind of loud and in-your-face people; otherwise, humans are mostly the same everywhere, and more often than not people feel roughly the same about everything if they’re given the same information to work with.)

This is not something I can say lightly, and thus would not say if I didn’t really get this impression, but...we're talking "casually looking up movie reviews for Kizuna have an overwhelming amount of people casually citing any acknowledgment of tri. elements as a negative element", or the fact that even communal wikis for "general" fandoms like Pixiv and Aniwota don't tend to hold back in being vicious about it (as of this writing, Pixiv's wiki refuses to consider it in the same timeline as Adventure, accusing it of being "a series that claims to be a sequel set three years after 02 but is in fact something different"). Again, there are people who openly enjoy it and actively advocate for it (and Pixiv even warns people to not lord over others about it condescendingly because of the fact that such people do exist), and this is also more of a reflection of “the hardcore fanbase on the Internet” and not necessarily the mainstream (after all, there are quite a few other Digimon works where the critical reception varies very heavily between the two). Nevertheless, the take-home is that the reputation is overall negative among the Internet fanbase to the point that this is the kind of sentiment you run into without trying all that hard.

I think, generally speaking, if we're just talking about why a lot of people resent the series, the reasons aren't that different from those on the Western side. However, that issue of "dark history" (黒歴史): there's a certain degree of demand from the more violently negative side of the fanbase that's, in a sense, asking official to treat it as a disgrace and never acknowledge it ever again, hence why Kizuna doing so much as borrowing things from it rather than rejecting it outright is still sometimes treated like it’s committing a sin. So it's somewhat close in spirit to a retcon movement, which is unusual because no other Digimon series gets this (not even 02; that was definitely a thing on the Western end, but while I'm sure there are people who hate it that much on their end too, I've never really seen it gain enough momentum for anyone to take it seriously). If anyone ever tells you that Japanese fanbases are nice to everything, either they don't know Japanese, are being willfully ignorant, or are lying to you, because there is such thing as drama in those areas, and in my experience, I've seen things get really nasty when things are sufficiently pushed over the edge, and if a fanbase wants to have drama, it will have drama. This happens to be one of those times.

(If you think this is extreme, please know that I also think so too, so I hope you really understand that me describing this sentiment does not mean I am personally endorsing it. Also, let me reiterate that the loudest section of the fanbase is not necessarily the predominant one; after all, as someone who’s been watching reactions to 02 over the years, I myself can attest that its hatedom has historically made it sound more despised than it actually is in practice.)

My impression is that the primary core sentiment behind why the series so much as existing and being validated is considered such an offense (rather than, say, just saying "wow, that writing was bad" and moving on) is heavily tied to the release circumstances the series came out in during 2015-2018, and the idea that "this series disrespected Adventure, and also disrespected the fanbase.” (I mean, really, regardless of what part of the world you’re from, sequels and adaptations tend to be held to a higher bar of expectation than standalone works, because they’re expected to do them justice.) A list of complaints I’ve come across a lot while reading through the above:

The Japanese fanbase is pretty good at recordkeeping when it comes to Adventure universe lore, partially because they got a lot of extra materials that weren’t localized, but also partially because adherence to it seems to generally be more Serious Business to them than it is elsewhere. For instance, “according to Adventure episode 45, ‘the one who wishes for stability’ (Homeostasis) only started choosing children in 1995, and therefore there can be no Chosen Children before 1995” is taken with such gravity that this, not anything to do with evolutions or timeline issues, is the main reason Hurricane Touchdown’s canonicity was disputed in that arena (because Wallace implies that he met his partners before 1995). It’s a huge reason the question of Kizuna also potentially not complying to lore came to the forefront, because tri. so flagrantly contradicts it so much that this issue became very high on the evaluation checklist. In practice, Kizuna actually goes against Adventure/02 very little, so the reason tri. in particular comes under fire for this is that it does it so blatantly there were theories as early as Part 1 that this series must take place in a parallel universe or something, and as soon as it became clear it didn’t, the resulting sentiment was “wow, you seriously thought nobody would notice?” (thus “disrespecting the audience”).

A lot of the characterization incongruity is extremely obvious when you’re following only the Japanese version, partially because it didn’t have certain localization-induced characterization changes (you are significantly less likely to notice a disparity with Mimi if you’re working off the American English dub where they actually did make her likely to step on others’ toes and be condescending, whereas in Japanese the disparity is jarring and hard to miss) and partially due to some things lost in translation (Mimi improperly using rough language on elders is much easier to spot as incongruity if you’re familiar with the language). Because it’s so difficult to miss, and honestly feels like a lot of strange writing decisions you’d make only if you really had no concept of what on earth happened in the original series, it only contributes to the idea that they were handling Adventure carelessly and disrespectfully without paying attention to what the series was even about (that, or worse, they didn’t care).

02 is generally well-liked there! It’s controversial no matter where you go, but as I said earlier, there was no way a retcon movement would have ever been taken seriously, and the predominant sentiment is that, even if you’re not a huge fan of it, its place in canon (even the epilogue) should be respected. So not only flagrantly going against 02-introduced lore but also doing that to a certain quartet is seen as malicious, and you don’t have as much of the converse discourse celebrating murdering the 02 quartet (yeah, that’s a thing that happened here) or accusing people with complaints of “just being salty because they like 02″ as nearly as much of a factor; I did see it happen, or at least dismissals akin to “well it’s Adventure targeted anyway,” but they were much less frequent. The issue with the 02 quartet is usually the first major one brought up, and there’s a lot of complaints even among those who don’t care for 02 as much that the way they went about it was inhumane and hypocritical, especially when killing Imperialdramon is fine but killing Meicoomon is a sin. Also, again, “you seriously think nobody will see a problem with how this doesn’t make sense?”

I think even those who are fans of the series generally agree with this, but part of the reason the actual real-life time this series went on is an important factor is that the PR campaign for this series was godawful. Nine months of clicking on an egg on a website pretending like audience participation meant something when in actuality it was blatantly obvious it was just a smokescreen to reveal info whenever they were ready? This resulted in a chain effect where even more innocuous/defensible things were viewed in a suspicious or negative light (for instance, "the scam of selling the fake Kaiser's goggles knowing Ken fans would buy it only to reveal that it's not him anyway"), and a bunch of progressively out-of-touch-with-the-fanbase statements and poor choices led to more sentiment “yeah, you’re just insulting the fanbase at this point,” and a general erosion of trust in official overall.

On top of that, the choice of release format to have it spread out as six movies over three years seems to have exacerbated the backlash to get much worse than it would have been otherwise, especially since one of the major grievances with the series is that how it basically strung people along, building up more and more unanswered questions before it became apparent it was never going to answer them anyway. So when you’re getting that frustrated feeling over three whole years, it feels like three years of prolonged torture, and it becomes much harder to forgive for the fallout than if you’d just marathoned the entire thing at once.

For those who are really into the Digimon (i.e. species) lore and null canon, while I’m not particularly well-versed in that side of the fanbase, it seems tri. fell afoul of them too for having inaccurately portrayed (at one point, mislabeled) special attacks and poorly done battle choreography, along with the treatment of Digimon in general (infantilized Digimon characterization, general lack of Digimon characters in general, very flippant treatment of the Digital World in Parts 3-5). If you say you’re going to “reboot” the Digital World and not address the entire can of worms that comes with basically damaging an entire civilization of Digimon, as you can imagine, a lot of people who actually really care about that are going to be pissed, and the emerging sentiment is “you’re billing this as a Digimon work, but you don’t even care about the monsters that make up this franchise.”

The director does not have a very positive reputation among those who know his work (beyond just Digimon), and in general there was a lot of suspicion around the fact they decided to get a guy whose career has primarily been built on harem and fanservice anime to direct a sequel to a children’s series. Add to that a ton of increasingly unnerving statements about how he intended to make the series “mature” in comparison to its predecessor (basically, an implication that Adventure and 02 were happy happy joy series where nothing bad ever happened) and descriptions of Adventure that implied a very, very poor grasp of anything that happened in it: inaccurate descriptions of their characters, poor awareness of 02′s place in the narrative, outright saying in Febri that he saw the Digimon as like perpetual kindergartners even after evolving, and generally such a flippant attitude that it drove home the idea that the director of an Adventure sequel had no respect for Adventure, made this series just to maliciously dunk on it for supposedly being immature, and has such a poor grasp of what it even was that it’s possible he may not have seen it in the first place (or if he did, clearly skimmed it to the extent he understood it poorly to pretty disturbing levels). As of this writing, Aniwota Wiki directly cites him as a major reason for the backlash.

In general, consensus seems to be that the most positively received aspect of the series (story-wise) was Part 3 (mostly its ending, but some are more amenable to the Takeru and Patamon drama), and the worst vitriol goes towards Parts 2 (for the blatantly contradictory portrayal of Mimi and Jou and the hypocritical killing of Imperialdramon) and 4 (basically the “point of no return” where even more optimistic people started getting really turned off). This is also what I suspect is behind the numbers on the infamous DigiPoll (although the percentage difference is admittedly low enough to fall within margin of error). However, there was suspicion about the series even from Part 1, with one prominent fanartist openly stating that it felt more like meeting a ton of new people than it did reuniting with anyone they knew.

So with all of that on the table: how did this affect official? The thing is that when I say “violently negative”, I mean that also entailed spamming official with said violently negative social media comments. While this is speculation, I am fairly certain that official must have realized how bad this was getting as early as between Parts 4 and 5, because that’s where a lot of really suspicious things started happening behind the scenes; while I imagine the anime series itself was now too far in to really do anything about it, one of the most visible producers suddenly vanished from the producer lineup and was replaced by Kinoshita Yousuke, who ended up being the only member of tri. staff shared with Kizuna (and, in general, the fact that not a single member of staff otherwise was retained kind of says a lot). Once the series ended in 2018 and the franchise slowly moved into Kizuna-related things, you might notice that tri.-branded merch production almost entirely screeched to a halt and official has been very touchy about acknowledging it too deeply; it’s not that they don’t, but it’s kind of an awfully low amount for what you’d think would be warranted for a series that’s supposed to be a full entry in the big-name Adventure brand.

The reason is, simply, that if they do acknowledge it too much, people will get pissed at them. That’s presumably why the tri. stage play (made during that interim period between Parts 4 and 5 and even branded with the title itself) and Kizuna are really hesitant to be too aggressive about tri. references; it’s not necessarily that official wants to blot it out of history like the most extreme opinions would like them to, but even being too enthusiastic about affirming it will also get them backlash, especially if the things they affirm are contradictory to Adventure or 02. And considering even the small references they did put in still got them criticism for “affirming” tri. too much, you can easily see that the backlash would have been much harder if they’d attempted more than that; staying as close as possible to Adventure and 02 and trying to deal with tri. elements only when they’re comparatively inoffensive was pretty much the “safe” thing to do in this scenario (especially since fully denying tri. would most certainly upset the people who did like the series, and if you have to ask me, I personally think this would have been a pretty crude thing to have done right after the series had just finished). Even interviews taken after the fact often involve quickly disclaiming involvement with the series, or, if they have to bring up something about it, discussing the less controversial aspects like the art (while the character designs were still controversial, it’s at least at the point where some fanartists will still be willing to make use of them even if they dislike the series, albeit often with prominent disclaimers) or the more well-received parts of Part 3; Kizuna was very conspicuously marketed as a standalone movie, even if it shared the point of “the Adventure kids, but older” that tri. had.

(Incidentally, the tri. stage play has generally been met with a good reputation and was received well even among people who were upset with the anime, so it was well-understood that they had no relation. In fact, said stage play is probably even better received than Kizuna, although that’s not too surprising given the controversial territory Kizuna goes into, making the stage play feel very play-it-safe in comparison.)

So, if we’re going to talk about Kizuna in particular: tri. was, to some degree, a moderate financial success, in the sense that it made quite a bit of money and did a lot to raise awareness of the Digimon brand still continuing...however, if you actually look at the sales figures for tri., they go down every movie; part of it was probably because of the progressively higher “hurdle” to get into a series midway, but consider that Gundam Unicorn (a movie series which tri.’s format was often compared to) had its sales go up per movie thanks to word of mouth and hype. So while tri. does seem to have gotten enough money to help sustain the franchise at first, the trade-off was an extremely livid fanbase that had shattered faith in the brand and in official, and so while continuing the Adventure brand might still be profitable, there was no way they were going to get away with continuing to do this lest everything eventually crash and burn.

Hence, if you look at the way Kizuna was produced and advertised, you can see a lot of it is blatantly geared at addressing a lot of the woes aimed at tri.: instead of the staff that had virtually no affiliation with Toei, the main members of staff announced were either from the original series (Seki and Yamatoya) or openly childhood fans, the 02 quartet was made into a huge advertising point as a dramatic DigiFes reveal (and character profies that tie into the 02 epilogue careers prominently part of the advertising from day one), and they even seemed to acknowledge the burnout on the original Adventure group by advertising it so heavily as “the last adventure of Taichi and his friends”, so you can see that there’s a huge sentiment of “damage control” with it. How successful that was...is debatable, since opinions have been all over the board; quite a few people were naturally so livid at what happened with tri. that Kizuna was just opening more of the wound, but there were also people who liked it much better and were willing to acknowledge it (with varying levels of enthusiasm, some simply saying “it was thankfully okay,” and some outright loving it), and there was a general sentiment even among those who disliked both that they at least understood what Kizuna was going for and that it didn’t feel as inherently disrespectful. (Of course, there are people who loved tri. and hated Kizuna, and there are people who loved both, too.)

Moreover, Kizuna actually has a slightly different target audience from tri.; there’s a pretty big difference between an OVA and a theatrical movie, and, quite simply, Kizuna was made under the assumption that a lot of people watching it may not have even seen tri. in the first place. An average of 11% of the country watched Adventure and 02, but the number of people who watched tri. is much smaller, in part due to the fact that its “theater” screenings were only very limited screenings compared to Kizuna being shown in theaters in Japan and worldwide, and in part due to the fact that watching six parts over three years is a pretty huge commitment for someone who may barely remember Digimon as anything beyond a show they watched as a kid, and may be liable to just fall off partway through because they simply just forgot. (Which also probably wasn’t helped by the infamously negative reputation, something that definitely wouldn’t encourage someone already on the fence.) And that’s yet another reason Kizuna couldn’t make too many concrete tri. references; being a theatrical movie, it needs to have as wide appeal as possible, and couldn’t risk locking out an audience that had a very high likelihood of not having seen it, much less to the end -- it may have somewhat been informed by tri.’s moderate financial success and precedent, but it ultimately was made for the original Adventure and 02 audience more than anything else.

I would say that, generally, while Kizuna is “controversial” for sure, reception towards the movie seems to be more positive than negative, it won over a large chunk of people who were burned out by tri., and it clearly seems to have been received well enough that it’s still being cashed in on a year after its release. The sheer existence of the upcoming 02-based movie is also probably a sign of Kizuna’s financial and critical success; Kinoshita confirmed at DigiFes 2020 that nothing was in production at the time, and stated shortly after the movie’s announcement that work on it had just started. So the decision to make it seems to have been made after eyeing Kizuna’s reception, and, moreover, the movie was initially advertised from the get-go with Kizuna’s director and writer (Taguchi and Yamatoya), meaning those two have curried enough goodwill from the fanbase that this can be used to promote the movie. (If not, you would think that having and advertising Seki would be the bigger priority.) While this is my own sentiment, I am personally doubtful official would have even considered 02 something remotely profitable enough on its own to cash in on if it weren’t for this entire sequence of events of 02′s snubbing in tri. revealing how much of a fanbase it had (especially with the sheer degree of “suspicious overcompensation” Kizuna had with its copious use of the 02 quartet and it tagging a remix of the first 02 ED on the Hanareteitemo single, followed by the drama CD and character songs), followed by Kizuna having success in advertising with them so heavily. Given all of the events between 2015 and now, it’s a bit ironic to see that 02 has now become basically the last resort to be able to continue anything in the original Adventure universe without getting too many people upset at them about it.

The bright side coming out of all of this is that, while it’s still a bit early to tell, now that we’re three years out from tri. finishing up and with Kizuna in the game, it seems there’s a possibility for things improving around tri.’s reception as well. Since a lot of the worst heated points of backlash against it have a very “you had to have been there” element (related to the PR, release schedule, and staff comments), those coming in “late” don’t have as much reason to be as pissed at it; I’ve seen at least one case of a fanartist getting back into the franchise because of Kizuna hype, watching tri. to catch up, casually criticizing it on Twitter, and moving on with their life, presumably because marathoning the whole thing being generally aware of what’ll happen in it and knowing Kizuna is coming after anyway gives you a lot less reason to be angry to the point of holding an outright grudge. Basically, even if you don’t like it, it’s much easier to actually go “yeah, didn’t like that,” not worry too much about it, and move on. Likewise, I personally get the impression that official has been starting to get a little more confident about digging up elements related to it. Unfortunately, a fairly recent tweet promoting the series getting put on streaming services still got quite a few angry comments implying that they should be deleting the scourge from the Internet instead, so there’s still a long way to go, but hopefully the following years will see things improve further...

In regards to the reboot, I -- and I think a lot of people will agree with me -- have a bit of a hard time reading what exact audience it’s trying to appeal to; we have a few hints from official that they want parents to watch it with their children, and that it may have been a necessary ploy in order to secure their original timeslot. So basically, the Adventure branding gets parents who grew up with the original series to be interested in it and to show it to their kids, and convinces Fuji TV that it might be profitable. But as most people have figured by now, the series has a completely different philosophy and writing style -- I mean, the interview itself functionally admits it’s here to be more action-oriented and to have its own identity -- and the target audience is more the kids than anything else. As for the Internet fanbase of veterans, most people have been critical of its character writing and pacing, but other than a few stragglers who are still really pissed, it hasn’t attracted all that much vitriol, probably because in the end it’s an alternate universe, it doesn’t have any obligation to adhere to anything from the original even if it uses the branding, and it’s clearly still doing its job of being a kids’ show for kids who never saw the original series nor 02, so an attempt to call it “disrespectful” to the original doesn’t have much to stand on. A good number of people who are bored of it decided it wasn’t interesting to them and dropped it without incident, while other people are generally just enjoying it for being fun, and the huge amount of Digimon franchise fanservice with underrepresented Digimon and high fidelity to null canon lore is really pleasing the side of the fanbase that’s into that (I mean, Digimon World Golemon is really deep in), so at the very least, there’s not a lot to be super-upset about.

[erloeser-a]

❤ —                          𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐀𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐘𝐒𝐈𝐒; SEXUALITY.  

             in honor of pride month; this is gonna be me rambling about how yuna defines her sexuality. it will be structured into two parts — discussing her pansexuality ; being greyromantic.

      trigger warnings; mentions of homophobia & sexism  | applies: all verses; mostly main verse. 

                                                𝐁𝐄𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐏𝐀𝐍𝐒𝐄𝐗𝐔𝐀𝐋

        yuna was born in the 18th century within a secluded community deep in the siberian woods; food was scarce as well as individuals who were able to work. the mortality rate among infants was alarmingly high which is why a lot of relationships happened for one sake only; procreation. nevertheless, the love between same sex couples was never seen as something bad; it took a few years of travelling for the demon to be confronted with what she later found out to be ‘homophobia’. the she-devil never understood it & hated everything that came with it; it made her question humanity as a whole even more. while studying demonology & the tales of the old gods, there was never once a mention of homophobia. the love between individuals of the same gender wasn’t something out of the ordinary. it was like the stars glistening at the firmament; always there, even when you couldn’t see them.        so, why does yuna identify as a pansexual individual? because she simply does not care. she feels a sexual attraction to people regardless of their gender; it is not a factor that plays a role or that she pays much mind to. she just simple doesn’t care. 

                                           𝐁𝐄𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐘𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐂

       to preface this; yes, yuna does experience sexual attraction & romantic attraction very very differently. she has sex very often; after all, she is a sexual being, though, she does not experience romantic attraction very often. in fact, there is only one person within her canon whom she considers her first & only love. keep in mind that yunaeisha is many centuries old. nevertheless, she has had many relationships, though, most were because she felt lonely or just liked someone a lot  — both of these factors, however, do not conclude a romantic interest in said person. it’s just interest or even less than that; comfort.          now, an explanation on how yuna experiences being greyromantic; she is on the aromantic spectrum, however, doesn’t think that it describes her experience fully. romantic attractions is experienced but very infrequently; sometimes it even happens that she does feel love to a certain someone but does not wish to pursue a relationship like that. this is mostly due to her trauma & general outlook on love, but also because most, not all, romantic experiences are experienced very weakly. her romantic attraction also heavily varies with individuals, circumstances & how they present (those differences focus heavily on those who either present feminine or masculine.)