#partly bc of her dreams but as well as her being neurodivergent - but I think in a way it heightens all of her emotions

[dulcewrites]

I’m writing this…. Thing lmao, and I hope I’m not horribly mischaracterizing Helaena. Idk I find her difficult to characterize at times.

Also trying to describe her dragon dreams… bc they it is barely touched on nor explained for her.

Edit: oouuu the way I really want to write hotd Alicent and Helaena related stuff bc I do feel like I could bring some new dynamics to their characters. But it’s come to the point where I just prefer writing them in a modern setting bc I feel like I can get them out of their situation 😭😭 I don’t want them to suffer

[crimeronan]

THIS was the moment. the moment i went oh, my God. the moment i put the book down bc suddenly it was about something i hadn’t ever read mainstream lit about before (had discovered the feeling in visceral fanfictions but not in the original lit i read. partly this is my fault for not reading more books by disabled/sick/neurodivergent authors)

this was the moment. i’ve heard some version of this speech from plenty of people. i’ve heard all kinds of opinions on People Like Me from both loved ones and strangers. still remember the time i told a coworker i’m bipolar and she laughed and said, “well, i’ll tell you something, i can ALWAYS tell when a bipolar person is off their meds.” at the time i laughed but internally i thought, how do you know? don’t you think there are perfectly normal unmedicated bipolar people in your life, and you don’t know they have bipolar disorder because they’re not overtly crazy?

anyway. this passage belongs to everyone with any kind of neurodivergence or restless creative spirit or mental illness or chronic physical illness or disability, but the specific wording — artists who burn fast and hard, exciting, dangerous, gorgeous — god that’s for me. that’s for me and other bipolar and batshit crazy people. that’s for everyone who’s met a boy who thought we’d make a nice accessory to his coming-of-age narrative and who couldn’t cope when we turned out to be messy and real and fucked up

but it’s not just that it’s cataloguing the sad wet boring tragedy of bipolar women everywhere bc i’ve read about that. i’ve written about that. pick up an essay by a bipolar woman deconstructing the manic pixie dream girl trope, there’s dozens, they’re not hard to find

it’s that this was the moment where i realized what this book is ABOUT. the moment i realized it was about surviving a world trying to kill you. about how everyone who said you were destined for tragedy is a LIAR. about how people write bipolar people (and other sick/crazy/neurodivergent/whatever ppl but this particular moment was Very Bipolar 2 me) off because it’s easier and it’s a way of washing their hands of complicity/guilt/discomfort/whatever

hennessy being people like her mother and growing up being told she won’t survive and saying FUCK IT and surviving anyway even when it beats her bloody, hennessy carving her own path, hennessy finding such small things to cling to as her body and mind are both battered

it’s a love letter. it’s a love letter to people like me and it was written by a woman who was dealing with chronic illness that was killing her. this is the book maggie stiefvater wrote as her own “fuck you, i’m surviving” love letter to herself and that’s why it’s darker and more vicious and that’s why it’s still so centered in love. this book was not written for me as a nebulous concept — it’s not a story from an author who’s overcome hardship and is now trying to reach out to others still in the pit. this book was written for her, herself, fuck you i’m surviving this is my story you can’t break me.

so it’s mine, also, bc i’m right there too. a vicious uncompromising love letter about saying FUCK what other people think, fuck what the world and capitalism and doctors and whoever else thinks, i’m making it anyway.