#people don’t talk about dopamine crashes

[angelsonthesideline]

My boss just sent me for a walk because I was about to break down

[foolishxprincipalitee]

What is hyperfixation like?

So, I didn’t care about Sherlock Holmes at all until about six weeks ago.

I watched BBC Sherlock as my gateway drug, then read a bunch of fic, started listening to the podcast Sherlock & Co, bought a copy of the new queer anthology When the Rose Speaks Its Name, started watching the Jeremy Brett series, and now I’m reading Bending the Willow: Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes while simultaneously cycling through BBC Sherlock - AO3 - Sherlock & Co - When the Rose Speaks Its Name - Jeremy Brett - misc. Sherlockian googlings on a daily basis.

I can feel dopamine coursing through my veins every second that I get to interact with Sherlock Holmes related media, which is a considerable amount of time. I draw fanart at work and scribble gay little thoughts in my journal. There is not an atom within me that isn’t vibrating for Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock Holmes byproducts.

And yet nobody in my real life wants to talk about it with me, no matter how hard I try. I tried reaching out to my brother who has always been an ACD Holmes fan and he literally hasn’t replied to me in a month. He’s got kids. All I’ve got is a new Sherlock Holmes hyperfixation.

I posted some of my new art on Instagram and received a very weak response even though I was really excited about it and still think it’s some of my better work. I deactivated my account because I was so sad.

The isolation impacts me negatively. It pushes me further and further away from “real life” and into escapismland, because that’s where all the dopamine lives. I find myself on Tumblr or making edits on TikTok where no one really knows me or cares about me but people who care about the same media I do might respond.

It would mean everything to me for someone to care both about me as a human and about my interests, especially in the first few months of a hyperfixation when I literally cannot shut the fuck up about it.

But instead I am doomed to this lonely life of soaring highs, swinging from media fixation to media fixation, telling strangers on the internet that I am desperately in love with fictional characters, and crash-and-burn lows that most people don’t even understand.

I am a 30-year-old woman technically diagnosed with both bipolar and autism spectrum disorder. I am a weird gay aunt who will never have a longterm partner or children or possibly even close friends. I am actually a really nice and cool and hot person.

And I am only in love with Sherlock Holmes.

For now.

[decaeysa]

HEADCANON.

akali has adhd & bpd.      this short story confirmed both for me, but i won’t go too deep into it because i want to talk about how it manifests and how she deals with her symptoms. prefacing this with i have both, so i draw on my own experiences for my interpretation of akali, and that akali doesn’t know she has anything wrong with her brain, and thus has never tried to improve any of it.

recklessness & impulsivity.    these are things that she struggles with a lot. they also often lead to  self destructive behaviours  in the form of unprovoked violence with the hope of retaliation, drinking*, smoking*, unprotected sex* and occasionally self harm. a lot of what akali does follows the machiavellian principle of the ends justify the means, with the ends usually being some kind of satisfaction in the form of the dopamine she lacks. it’s also something she carries with her in her work as an assassin.

splitting.     along with the other numerous reasons that akali does not like associating with other people, she is fully aware of her splits and actively keeps people away to avoid doing it. when she does get close to someone she spends a lot of time dreading when they’re going to do something that tips her off and causes her to split. outbursts following a split are usually toxic and thus, she successfully manages to push away the people she cares about most and reinforces her own idea that she is not worthy of, and is difficult to love. this is why for the most part, she does not care for a romantic partner and prefers to have purely sex-based relationships with people. also has a penchant for ghosting people. akali tends to leave behind a long trail of people who she’s hurt, or who just don’t understand what happened before she disappeared (which is a fantastic plot point that people should definitely take advantage of... nudge nudge). 

emotional volatility.     passion, obsession, rage, hatred: everything she feels, she feels in extremes. there is rarely a case where akali can feel a ‘normal’ amount of anything for a person  --  it’s either deep, all-encompassing emotion or complete neutrality. in runeterra she has never had time for a relationship with anyone else, but in modern verses she tends to have strings of fast paced, obsessive relationships that crash and burn. her heightened emotions leave her vulnerable to the wrong sorts of people who are able to take advantage of her, only worsening her toxic habits and making it difficult to engage in any kind of healthy relationship.

* primarily in modern verses.

[llamamonger]

My dear friend got engaged yesterday to their romantic partner of 3.5 months. I knew this was coming soon, and they told me earlier that they were planning to get married as soon as February of next year, about 8 months after they started dating. Of course I don’t think this is terribly wise—it feels unnecessarily rushed & almost a deliberate attempt to get married before they have a chance to have any conflict. My goal has truly never been to separate them, because their partner is, on paper & in practice, a decent person who shares their values. But I’ve always had a feeling that there wasn’t enough critical thinking happening, not enough self-awareness from either of them, which would set them up for poor decision-making & pain. I didn’t want my friend to get hurt or make choices based on what they wanted to be & not who they actually are. So much of their dating involved communication & behaviors that research shows can accelerate feelings of closeness & love, in addition to triggering the dopamine high of the brain’s reward system. I’ve seen my friend go through an attention addiction before, and I was worried. I still think they may be experiencing that because of a tendency to feel insecure still, and maybe they think getting engaged & married fast will give them the security they are craving. But there’s always a crash after a high, especially after marriage. I don’t know if they’ll listen to me if I warn them about this. They’ve started listening to me on many of the things I’ve suggested they think about, so maybe they do understand where I’m coming from now. A little while ago, even after having a hard talk with them, they said they knew I wouldn’t like it, but that I needed to accept that they were planning to get married very soon, and I sharply told them not to make assumptions about me. Maybe finally, finally they understand I’m not out to sabotage their relationship simply because I want them to think critically about things or because I’m not fully agreeing with them. Others I’ve brought up my reservations to also start assuming things along these lines. Why do allos think this way? It’s so insulting. Worse, I worry that people think I’m simply jealous, even romantically so.

If I’m being perfectly honest with myself, yes, I’ve hoped at different times that they would break up. Part of it was a bit of selfishness, holding on to the silly idea that maybe without the romantic partner in the picture I’d have a chance to have the deeper friendship I wanted, a long-shot remedy for my loneliness. But a larger part of it was how things just weren’t adding up fully to me, or were adding up in a way that seemed like my friend could get hurt. It’s a weird, foreboding feeling I can’t quite place. If I knew their happiness would be guaranteed, I would’ve been fully on board the whole time, because I knew from the beginning that I wasn’t going to get to keep my friend for long. I’ve tried very hard to try to see if this indescribable foreboding is my selfish desires or my insecurities or my anxieties, and I still can’t shake it. It feels petty to have that negative feeling when all I want to be able to do is support them in whatever makes them feel loved and happy. If I felt loved by them, this would be exponentially easier. Maybe that’s why it feels petty, because it feels like maybe everyone’s right, and I wouldn’t have an issue if I was just getting what I wanted. The sinking, sad little feeling I get when I’m reminded, so often, of how…outside of their life I am, how even more outside I’ll be soon. It’s grief, though, not jealousy. How I wish people could understand that! How I wish my friend could. I don’t know if many people can understand what it’s like to hold the happiness of seeing someone you love so happy alongside the dread of something ruining that happiness alongside your own immense grief & loneliness.

[wawawawawawawawawawawawawa]

[context: i went on a rant on this post about gray morality while high but reblogs are turned off BUT i want my rant to be rebloggable so uh. here it is verbatim copypasted]

i feel like this about izaya but i cant put it into words, i guess like because. i see him as a guy with aspd who doesnt know how to manage a disorder he doesnt know he has, or he’s learned somewhat but the alternative was less miserable?

because, see the thing about aspd is. when you’re first learning how to manage it, it’s miserable! aspd is kind of like, an addiction to dopamine. in aspd your brain produces like. 4x the amount it should. and a lot of times, aspd and adhd are both there, and with adhd the dopamine is very very low. see? these two work in tandem! you don’t WANT to recover, because being ill feels better. you’re happier, you’re entertained, you get rushes of dopamine all the time… but you’re horrible, probably. like izaya says, in order to be entertained you have to keep evolving. you have to do worse and worse things to satisfy yourself. that’s when it changes from acceptable to A Problem. because one day you’re a writer satisfied by making their friends squirm and cry from angst, and the next you’re actively triggering people for a reaction. and its hard to stop because the dopamine, there’s just so much of it.

what i’m saying is, it’s a mental disorder that feels very good to have. like the mania of bipolar- like when you’re manic, you suddenly feel invincible and so so so so good, until you crash? like that feeling. it doesn’t WANT you to recover, and you also don’t want to recover, it feels so good to have. but it also doesnt because youre lonely on account of the aforementioned Sucking. studies show that theres a correlation between “people with aspd who recovered” and “people with aspd who are married,” but did the marriage fix them or is them attracting a partner indicative of their aspd being “less severe?” and therefore more likely to recover? ah if only we had a person with aspd here we could ask them-

PSYCHE MOTHAFUCKAAAA THATS ME!!!! it’s probably the first one. lol. i started improving symptomatically once someone came into my life and actually STAYED there. he didn’t “fix me” but he did help! and i wouldnt say i’m “recovered” wrt the aspd- it still is a disorder that feels very good to have.

but what i’m saying is- izaya. if he has all this. this, “inescapable negative outcome” is. yeah. he either “recovers” and regresses back into a depressed ball of boredom, surpressing every single impulse or emotion because “what if it’s the one that makes me lose control?” and being terrified of becoming a monster like everyone says People Like Him should be…. OR he leans more into the behaviors and urges he knows suck, spiraling into a domapine-addiction that slowly makes him into a worse and worse person and remaining lonely? like. he’s already lonely!!! neither outcome actually promises real happiness, so at some point you;d be tempted to lose control, just to get SOMETHING. and i think that’s what happened to izaya. and this isnt to be like “oooooo baby nothing is his fault,” we can talk about how all this IS his fault like, mental illness and addiction do not excempt someone from consequece and douchebaggery. but it IS something to think about- like, those suicidal girls fell down a spiral of mental illness, and so did izaya. like, he sucks, but also, you can kinda see how him being neglected all his life means there was no other way this couldve gone, especially with knowing shinra. like, he sucks now, but he never really had an oppurtunity to be anything other that that. there was nothing else that would’ve happened, because of every other inevitable thing.

and how do i know that someone w aspd would eventually choose the willing mental spiral? i am ACTIVELY developing a drug problem right now, i know my chance of becoming addicted is VERY high and possibly am showing early signs like cravings and stuff. i know. but i’m still taking the drug because it’s doing exactly what drugs do to people- make them trmporarily happy and get rid of the boredom and sadness of repression. i know what’s going to happen to me but i was eventually tempted into it. you would be too if you had my life.

(disclaimer i am not 100% sure if the neuroscience is accurate here, brain scans wrt psychology are not an exact science and the study could have been wrong or biased, i don't remember and i'm sure i didn't remember when i was zonked off my ass- but there is a sort of link between aspd and adhd so it makes sense that they'd both mess with dopamine production. but yk, take it with a grain of salt)

[a-calico-rabbit]

so somthing fun happened today

ight; background:

It was my turn to make dinner today. All right, let’s move into the kitchen and make it!

problem one: dopamine crash

for those of you who don’t know how ADHD/Depression and a lack of happy chemical works (all 3.2 of you) dopamine is a chemical in the brain that makes stuff happen. Activates neurons. Including the muscle ones. So if you don’t have enough, no move for you.

so there I was, sitting in the living room (mystypæd toom, so is living tomb now. Fits the story) unable to get up. Fun. I decide to [word sorta similar to inquire/aquire] some help from my friends and mother, the “heckling of the croud” to make my feeties do the big steppy. Didn’t work. Rock as stone, no move.

But then I had a very good Idea.

if I couldn’t stand up from the chair because my motivation to do so was non existent, I simply had to get off the chair. But how would I get out? We already established that I can’t stand standing, so what? (It is pertinent to note that at this point I was on FaceTime with my mom, who was at a small party with the neighbors. Where she proceeded to get all of them (only like 10 people in total, but still a crowd) to yell “get up, [name]!” I got heckled by a literal crowd. It did not work. But that does mean what happened next had an audience)

I realized I could fall. See, if i tucked my legs in and leaned forward, I would off myself from the seat. So i did, and was now one step closer to the goal—i could still not stand. Fuck. (At this point, my mom thought i had stood, and proceeded to yell this “fact” out to the heckers (hecklers, but funyn typœ) for them to revel in their drunken victory. There was cheering. I managed to get out that no, I had in fact fallen. To an “ahhh” (think wii bowling reaction to failure) from said crowd)

whelp. Only one thing to do. I scat (scooted. I had not shat) across the floor to get to my destination: the kitchen (we’re not even tehre yet and it’s already been several paragraphs. We’re not even standing). Here we encounter obstacle numero dos.

Princess Lily O’Doherty

Heckin pupper

this, as one might imagine, was a challenge. I was immediately distracted by the booper in front of me. She was the cutest. Is the cutest. The the pooper doggo of aww. Need. Needed. Could not move past. Paralyzed by cute, i was. My mom was yelling at me to pass, to not get distracted. But I couldn’t, i was enthralled. I needed a solution, and fast.

so i pushed her.

if I couldn’t avoid the problem, then id just move it till I didn’t need to deal with it anymore. I scooted her along the floor and scooted up to her, over and over again. During this, my mother went to find my dad. Scoot Get another voice into the room. Scoot scoot She couldn’t, so she got my uncle. I was finally in the kitchen when she got up and left me.

one problem: I was still on the floor.

then the dogs started barking.

I turned around and peeked out the front window, spotting my father and a different uncle (note, im from California, so uncle and aunt mostly refers to family friends and close neighbors) on a return trip to aquire more wetware (read; beer) i could only see their heads (still on floor) but i was sure it was them.

i scat to the garage door, holding back the three pupperoonies (hecking goodins) cracked it open and called for my saviors. But I could not hold them back. The dogs crowded around me, pushing at my arms and the door itself to get through. Get to them.

just as I was about to give up hope, release the hoard and finally answer “who let the dogs out?” They came. Through the door that is they were already there in the house at that point i just couldn’t talk to them.

like the deus ex vino he was, he came in and asked.

“why are you on the floor?”

“couldn’t get up.”

“why?”

“not enough motivation.”

“oh.”

“could you help me up?”

he reached down, and like god reaching for adam on Michelangelo’s masterpiece he grabbed my arm and pulled me up to heaven my feet.

at last, I stood.

aaaany way after that I completely flubbed my stirfry by adding al the shit in at once but [chaos cook] perk made it come out alright so eh what’s it.

anyways thanks for listening to my TEDtalk bye!

[yesterdayiwrote]

Such high hopes after yesterday, I even had hope after the red flag lmao he even managed to overtake norris almost immediately after the restart and then it all came crashing down... unbelievable this is so depressing honestly

It’s partly my own fault for letting the silly men in cars affect my mood so much, and annoyingly I’ve always somewhat worn my heart on my sleeve and let myself live somewhat vicariously through the people I root for which I admit, is entirely a me problem. I get too attached and the lows hit somewhat harder, especially initially.

Usually after a few hours, or a day or two if it’s really bad (lol, Sakhir), I pick myself up and can be like… oh well, it’s not as serious as my brain is making me think it is… but idk, this year it’s just felt like running up a treacle covered hill in the search of something to release some dopamine, or just a little bit of a happiness kick, and it’s somewhat made worse when you have to contend with all the other bullshit.

Idk, it had been 4 weeks so I guess absence makes you forget the bullshit, and yesterday as well kind of makes things like today feel worse. I don’t have anyone much I talk about f1 with, so it’s kind of tougher processing the disappointment alone as well if that makes sense?

[zhaychik]

Decided to switch it up and try and be healthier. Working out, getting up early, all the good stuff. I feel great in the mornings and then I just crash and I’m feeling worse than before. Are dopamine crashes a thing? Like without the assistance of drugs. My body just gets hopped up on good hormones for the first time in forever and then decides the rest of the day I’ll sit and try not to cry. I think I’ll probably download a therapy app or something. Not in a good financial spot to be paying for a proper therapist and my insurance is shit.

I’ve been a bit of a recluse sitting in my apartment at my desk all alone until my boyfriend gets home. I keep saying I might go out for a walk or something to get fresh air but I don’t. I think I fooled myself into thinking I’m not depressed anymore. That it was just S.A.D. and that the vitamin D supplements, that I don’t even take anymore, fixed it all. It does go away doesn’t it. It either resolves or you pass away. And I’m not dead yet. Not planning on it any time soon. I have big plans for life and plenty of people that I love and that love me. This isn’t really something I can just talk about though. Which makes it perfect to type up and send out into the universe (tumblr)

I’ll deal with it when I deal with it

[thebibliosphere]

I had a question.

So, just an hour or two ago, I was going through some sort of “manic high”, sorta like how somebody with bipolar disorder would have (I don’t have BPD). It felt like a bullet train at max speed and completely derailing, and it was incredibly draining. It also got me wondering.

Do people with severe enough ADHD deal with ADHD episodes like this? My search attempts are often futile because all of it is just talking about how to differentiate between BPD and ADHD and BPD manic episodes, but nobody ever mentions ADHD episodes; the only time I’ve seen it mentioned ever was when somebody made a clip of crankgameplays to show what an ADHD episode looked like.

Do they even exist? I’ve got no idea, so I was just wondering if you knew.

Hey! Sorry, I saw your other ask a while ago, but I wanted to talk to my ADHD specialist before I answered because I’d never heard of the term “episode” being used to describe ADHD. I’m also going to splice both questions together here and answer them in segments in the hope it helps :)

So like I said, I’d never heard of the term “episode” with ADHD, and neither has my specialist. Part of ADHD is having a natural ebb and flow between inattention and hyperactivity, sometimes skewed toward one or the other, depending on your ADHD type. (What are the different types of ADHD?)

Your type of ADHD may also fluctuate because of other factors, such as stress, changes in medication, hormonal fluctuations, lack of sleep, overstimulation, or even under-stimulation, to name a few. Another overlooked part of ADHD is emotional dysregulation, which may cause rapid cycling emotions that may look like an “episode” to someone unfamiliar with what that actually qualifies. The way my therapist explained it and using your example of bipolar disorder, “episode” is used in diagnostic criteria to categorize manic or depressive episodes that last X amount of time, are usually severe, potentially requiring hospitalization, and are accompanied by other symptoms not found in ADHD.

Our “bursts” of energy or lack thereof typically don’t last long enough to be considered episodes. This isn’t to say they are not severe or debilitating, especially if you suffer from things like anxiety or depression that ADHD can feed into. Merely that “episode” is not used as part of the language used to discuss ADHD, which is likely why you’re not finding anything.

So, do ADHDers experience intense bursts of energy that are draining afterward? Yeah, we can do, especially if we lean more toward hyperactive than inattentive. (And again, it's normal to fluctuate and also for things to be affected or worsened by secondary factors.)

And I'm going to put the rest under the cut because this is hella long.

I’ve seen some people think that all hyperactivity has to come with fixation, but that’s not how ADHD works. It’s true if something gets us excited or gives us a dopamine boost, we might be more prone to becoming hyperfixated and burn all our energy up on that. But you don’t need something to fixate on to experience hyperactivity. Some of us are just wired to the moon sometimes, and yes, it can be very draining when it ends. Some people find medication helpful in regulating their hyperactivity/preventing it from coming in such big swings and dips.

Speaking personally, when I'm hyper and nothing is grabbing my attention, the world and people around me can feel painfully slow. It's like I'm going a mile a minute doing everything but achieving nothing. The crash that comes after can also be particularly bad, as I also have dysthymia, which can tip over into a major depressive episode depending on other factors in my life at that time. For years I was misdiagnosed as having "probably Bipolar Type II" by a doctor who didn't believe teenage girls could "get" ADHD* and convinced my parents I needed psychoactive drugs. The drugs I was on didn't help, in fact, they made me worse so I was taken off them.

It wasn't until I found an ADHD specialist as an adult a few years ago that I made any real progress. And I'll be honest, I was shocked when she diagnosed me with ADHD, I really didn't think I had it. Right up until we started doing the work and slowly but surely my mental health began to improve and my understanding of myself with it.

Sometimes there are days when I will be wired to the moon and it will derail my entire day because I can't focus on a single thing/I'll focus too much on a single thing. Other times, like when I am closer to my menstrual cycle, I'll crash into inattentiveness and depression because of how my hormones affect my various different conditions, including my ADHD. Medication would likely help with this, but due to medical reasons, that's currently not an option for me so I do the best I can.

That said, if you’re experiencing something more than hyperactivity but it's not mania, you may be experiencing a form of hypomania and you should talk to a doctor about your concerns.

Hypomania typically occurs in Bipolar Type II disorder, which is less severe than the manic episodes in Bipolar I. I’ve experienced both manic and hypomanic episodes in my life due to medication interactions, and they felt very different from ADHD hyperactivity. It's not just derailing mile-a-minute thoughts, it's something usually completely mood-altering and out of control feeling followed by devastating crashes.

If you're on any medications and are worried you are experiencing something like this, you need to talk to your doctor. You might just need a dosage tweak, or you might be better off on a different medication altogether. Also, make a thorough check of any and all medications you are taking to check for any interactions.

I'm on a cocktail of meds for my MCAS, which if I were to combine them with the SSRI one of my doctors wants me to try, would result in serotonin syndrome. The doctor didn't notice this, but the pharmacist sure as shit did!

Some people (ask me how I know) even develop mild hypomania from overusing the sunlamps used to treat SAD (link), which is why brands like Verilux now include warnings in their leaflets about not using the lamps for more than X amount of time a day. Thankfully it goes away once you stop overusing the lamps.

Which actually brings me to something you asked last time about being unable to sleep at night. Insomnia and delayed sleep phase cycles are not uncommon in ADHD. This is likely because our circadian rhythm is thought to be out of whack (link).

You also mentioned having racing thoughts at night too, which is not uncommon either with hyperactivity. I find if I get overstimulated before trying to sleep, I’ll end up lying there awake with what I like to call “radio ADHD” playing in my head. It can range from snippets of songs stuck on repeat, conversations, things I’ve watched on TV, arguments, or if something is happening the next day, fixating on not being late for it. Hence, I end up getting no sleep because you can’t accidentally sleep in if you don’t sleep. *jazz hands of despair.*

Sometimes I find Radio ADHD soothing if it’s fixating on something chill, but it can get annoying fast and even distressing if I’m tired and can���t “change the station.” (I’d say “shut it off,” but as of yet, I’ve never been able to do that. Medication helps some people with this, as can looking into “sleep hygiene” if you haven’t already.) Conversely, if I’m bored or something is too stressful, I will 100% fall asleep because my brain would literally rather just turn off than do something I don’t want to do or is a low dopamine reward task.

Brains are fun.

Anyway, I uh, I am not sure if any of this is useful to you, but I hope it helps. Mostly I'm just repeating back what my specialist said when I asked her about it lol. Good luck, and I hope you figure things out.

----

*NB: It's important to note that ADHD and Bipolar Disorder can be comorbid. It's not a one or the other situation. I’m just throwing it out there in case hearing that helps someone else pursue the proper diagnosis!

[just-dreaming-marvel]

Love and Medicine ~ 4

MASTERLIST

< previous chapter

Word Count: 4,700ish

Summary: Your new roommates annoy you and Steve presses your buttons. 

(I do not own Marvel or Grey’s Anatomy.)

Val, Scott, and Clint had been living at your place for almost two days, when you woke up to Val standing at the foot of your bed. 

“Aaah!” You exclaimed, jumping slightly.

“Clint’s room is bigger than mine,” Val complained. You got out of bed, quickly tripping as Val continued, “I have more clothes, I should have the bigger room.”

You let out a groan as you picked yourself up off the floor and headed out of your room. Only to be met with Clint as well.

“I got here first,” Clint stated.

“It’s Y/N’s house, she should decide,” Val said. You continued down the hall, heading downstairs to the kitchen.

“My room is like, two inches bigger than yours!”

“You have a bigger closet!”

“So? Why is everything always a competition? I think that you can put your clothes somewhere else!”

“Everywhere else is filled with Y/N’s parent’s boxes.”

“Y/N? What are you going to do with all this stuff anyway?” You entered the kitchen to see that Scott had made breakfast. “Because maybe we can put some of the boxes in storage.”

“Or we could unpack a few things,” Scott suggested, handing you a plate of food and a cup of coffee. “Make this place a little more homey. Maybe some throw pillows and lamps, a few paintings.”

“Oh, paintings would be nice.”

“A quiet morning before work would be nice,” you muttered into your coffee, having sat down at the table.

“Yeah!” Val agreed with Clint and Scott. “You have all this amazing stuff just packed away. In the back hall, I found this box with like a hundred tapes of someone performing these amazing medical procedures.”

“Really?” Scott questioned. “We should watch them. Y/N, do you want to—“ You got up from the table, quickly leaving with your coffee in hand. “Wait, where are you going?” Your roomies followed you.

“Y/N,” Clint called. “We’re just trying to help. We could unpack for you.”

“Yeah,” Val added. “You wouldn’t have to do—“ You slammed your bedroom door in their faces.

“Y/N?” Clint whispered. “Do you want some privacy?”

You sighed as you slumped against the door. You were beginning to regret this whole roommate thing.

~~~

When you interns arrived at the hospital later that morning, you were immediately told to head to the pit (the ER). You were all helping each other suit up (gowns, gloves, etc.) while you talked.

“Fools on bikes killing themselves,” Gamora grumbled. “Natural selection is what it is.”

“So what’s up with Gamora?” Peter questioned quietly. “Is she off her meds?”

“You’ve never heard of the race?” Clint asked. Peter shook his head. “Every year this bar—“

“—The HYDRA Bar—“ you cut in.

“Yeah. Every year, they hold this underground bike race.”

“The race is completely illegal,” Scott added. “And—“

“Crazy,” you interrupted. “A bunch of bike messengers racing against traffic trying to beat each other for free shots of tequila.”

“All-out, no holds barred competition,” Peter said, “sounds like fun.”

“Yeah,” Val scoffed. “You would think that.”

“The race doesn’t even have any rules,” Clint added. “Except eye gouging—no eye gouging.”

“Oh great,” Natasha murmured. “We're going to be trapped in the Pit bandaging up idiots when we could be up in the OR?”

“What kind of people engage in a race that has, as its only rule, that you can't rip out the eyeballs of another human being?” Scott wondered.

“Men, Scottie,” Peter responded. “Men.”

“I need someone to get up to the OR floor,” Gamora stated loudly. “The Chief needs a right hand.” You all shot up your hands. “Clint.” 

“Yes!” Clint exclaimed, rushing away.

“Okay people, the rules of trauma. Don't mingle with the ER interns, they don't know their ass from their esophagus. Sew fast, discharge fast, take bodies up to the OR yesterday. Don't let me catch you fighting over patients. Got it? Come on, let's go.”

You interns rushed into the ER, seeing injured bikers everywhere.

“Oh, it’s like candy,” Natasha commented. “But with blood, which is so much better.”

Val and Natasha quickly started bickering about a biker that was just wheeled in. You looked around, trying to find an interesting case to jump on to.

“Ooh,” you said after seeing a guy with nails in his side. “I’ll take that guy.”

“No, you’ll have to beat me to him first,” Peter responded. You both ran to him, getting there at the same time. Peter pulled the curtain closed between them and the patient. “Heads he’s mine, tails he’s yours.” He fished out a coin from his pocket.

“Why do you get to be heads?”

“Because I have a head, and you are tail.”

“Excuse me! How do you make everything dirty?” Peter flipped it. “Ha. Tails. There are plenty of other cases.”

“So go get one. I was here first.”

“I am not backing down so I can do sutures all day while you're up in the OR. This is a surgical case, and you know it.”

“It's superficial. I mean, it's cool, but it's superficial.”

“How do you know those things didn't rupture his peritoneum?”

“Because he's sitting up, and he's sitting there talking to us!”

The patient pulled the curtain back. “Allo,” he said with an accent. “Excuse me, I was wondering if you could take these out, and sew me up, so I can go and win my race?”

“Well, we can’t just pull them out,” you told him. “I mean, we ought to—“ Peter quickly started ripping the nails out of the mans side. “—do some tests—“

“Oh, wicked.” The man smiled with a nod, grimacing a little with each pull.

“Are you out of your mind?!”

“it’s a superficial wound,” Peter said, handing the nails over to you. “Sew him up, and let him finish his race.” Peter walked away.

“You—you— ugh!”

“Good man,” the patient commented.

“Just, don’t move while I go get something to sew that up.”

“Of course, darlin’.”

You huffed in annoyance as you left to grab a suture kit. Coming back, you realized that the patient had been watching you the whole time, clearly checking you out. Which only made you more annoyed. Not that the guy wasn’t attractive, you just started the day feeling annoyed. You led him to a trauma room and cleaned the wound before beginning to sew it up.

“The name’s Hunter, by the way,” the patient stated.

“Hunter?” You repeated as you tried to concentrate on what you were doing. “Okay.”

“Hey! Don’t diss!”

“Not dissing, just concentrating.”

“Ah, you got a nice touch,” Hunter commented as you pulled another stitch. “And by the way, you are a rocking babe.”

“Seriously, do you actually think you have a shot here?”

“I like to think I've got a shot everywhere.”

“Look, you really have to let me take you for some tests, and a CT. You could have internal bleeding.”

“No thank you. I’ve got a race to get back to.”

You finished up the last stitch and stood up so that you could be face to face with him. “Why? You can't win now anyway.”

“Doesn't mean I can't cross that finish line. There's a party at the finish line. Do you want to meet me there?”

“One test. A CT. I'll have you out of here in an hour.”

“Can't do it, gotta go.”

“Okay, well, you realize that you're leaving against medical advice and I strongly urge you to stay.”

“The frat guy said I could go.”

“The frat guy is an ass. Okay, well, you have to sign an AMA form.” You reached behind you and grabbed a clipboard with the form.

“Darlin', I will do anything you want me to.”

“What is it with you guys and your need to dirty everything up?”

“I don't know. Maybe it's just testosterone, eh?”

“Maybe. You might want to see a doctor about that, too.”

“Come here.” He took the form, quickly signing it. “There.”

He handed the form back before getting up. Hunter took a few steps towards the door before spinning around. He grabbed you and kissed you.

“That was for good luck,” he whispered, walking away backwards. “Don’t worry, darlin’, you’ll see me again.” He left the room.

“For your sake, I hope not!” You called after him.

Shaking your head, you began to strip the bed. You couldn’t help the feeling though, that you were being watched. Looking up, you saw Steve standing outside the door. 

“What do you want?” You asked as Steve entered the room.

“You make out with patients now?”

You looked up at him with a small smirk. “What are you jealous?”

“I don’t get jealous.”

“We had sex, once.”

“And we kissed, in an elevator.”

“And we kissed in an elevator, once!”

“No, seriously, I mean come on, go out with me.”

“No.”

“You know, I almost died today.” You gave him a questioning look. “Yeah, I came like this close.” He gestured with his hands, a small gap between his finger and thumb. “How would you feel if I died? And you didn’t get a chance to go out with me?”

You rolled your eyes. “Get over yourself already.” You headed for the door.

“Come on.” Steve followed you.

You spun around. “It’s the chase, isn't it?”

“What?”

“The thrill of the chase. I've been wondering to myself, why are you so hell bent on getting me to go out with you? You know you're my boss, you know it's against the rules, you know I keep saying no. It's the chase.”

“Well, it’s fun. Isn’t it?”

“Yes see?” You waved a finger at him. “This is a game to you. But not to me. Because unlike you, I still have something to prove.”

You took your leave, hurrying to find another patient in need.

~~~

You were walking past a patient room when you heard Val call your name.

“Y/N!” You rushed in. “He’s crashing.”

“Well, what the hell are you doing?” You asked her. “Call code!”

“I can’t. I’m not supposed to, he’s brain dead.”

“Well Val, if he’s brain dead, you have to let him go.”

“No. It's only been five hours and thirty-three minutes, he's supposed to get six hours.”

“Well, we can't do anything to make him live, it's not our place to make that call.”

“He's a person, we're doctors, we should have every right to make that call. We can't just stand here and do nothing while he dies. He has a right to the next twenty-seven minutes.”

“Screw it. I’ll get the dopamine, you get the blood. We’ll transfuse him.”

You and Val worked together to save the guy, with Natasha coming in to help. After you got him stable, you and Val decided to take a walk.

“He’s stable,” you stated, walking up the stairs.

“For now,” Natasha said, coming down the stairs. “I had a radiologist look at his chest, apparently he has a traumatic aortic injury. He's going to rupture and bleed out.”

“So he needs surgery,” Val said.

“If he's going to remain a viable organ donor, yeah.”

“If he's going to live.”

“Val…”

“No! I’m not giving up on him. He has the surgery, he lives longer, that's the point. So I'm going to help find the family, you guys find a way to get him into surgery.” Val continued up the stairs.

“She’s vice-president of fantasyland.”

“So who do we go to?” You asked. “Gamora?”

“No, we need to go higher than Gamora.” Nat and you followed Val up the stairs.

You came to the conclusion that you needed to talk to Banner. You found him entering the men’s restroom.

“Let’s just wait until he’s done,” you suggested.

“No,” Natasha said. “Just open the door and talk to him.”

“Are you for real?” Natasha and Val pushed you into the door. “Dr. Banner?” You nervously called into the mens bathroom.

“Hello?!” Banner exclaimed.

“Okay…” you quickly closed the door. “Yeah… nope.”

Natasha pushed you aside and opened the door. “Dr. Banner, I know you’re busy, but our John Doe needs an aortic repair.”

“The guy from this morning?” Banner questioned, still doing his business. “Isn’t he legally dead?”

“Well, yeah, he's kinda still around? We gave him two units PRBCs and put him on pressers.”

“On whose orders?”

Natasha shut the door, giving you a look before forcing you to open it.

“Mine,” you squeaked.

“You gave a brain-dead John Doe a blood transfusion without consulting anyone. And now you want me to repair his heart.”

“Well, yes,” Natasha replied.

“You do enjoy crossing the line, don’t you?” Banner moved to wash his hands.

“He is an excellent candidate for organ donation,” you added.

“I am a surgeon. I save lives. This guy is already dead. Now, this is the men's room. Either whip one out or close the door.”

With a sigh, you closed the door and started walking away. As you did so, you got an idea.

“I think I’m going to regret this,” you mumbled. “I have an idea. Just… I’ll page you after I find an answer.”

You quickly left in search of Steve. You found him in a hallway and pulled him aside. You explained the situation, with him actively listening.

“You're asking my advice?” Steve questioned.

“Yes,” you responded with a nod.

“Now who’s chasing?” He teased.

“Not funny. This is important.”

“Okay. You want to get around Banner? You gotta find a way to get the Chief involved.”

“Okay—”

“And agree to go out with me?”

“Nope. Not happening.” You turned around.

“You’ll cave, eventually!” He called after you. “I’ll get her.”

~~~

At lunch, you, Val, and Natasha ran into Clint. He was in the middle of eating a sandwich when the three of you came up to him, standing in a line, staring.

“What’d I do?” He asked, food in his mouth.

“How close a match for the liver is your guy to our John Doe?” Val asked.

“Very.” Clint swallowed. “Same type, same size. UNOS couldn't find a better match, why?”

“And he's the Chief's VIP, right?” You asked.

“Right.”

“How much would you kill to be in on a transplant surgery?” Natasha asked.

“You underestimate me. I'm not a baby, I'm your colleague. You don't have to manipulate me, if you want something, all you have to do is ask.”

“We want you to go over Banner's head to the chief,” Val said.

“Ask me something easier.”

~~~

With a bit of persuasion, Clint finally caved in. Val, Natasha, and you watched from down the hallway Clint stop the Chief.

“Sir?” Clint called.

“Barton,” Fury turned around. “How’s Jackson?”

“Fine. Sir, actually, that's what I want to talk to you about. I-I kind of think that— we— uh, me, and the other interns, we think— we’re— we're not—“

“Barton, I’m not getting any younger.”

“We found Jackson a liver.”

“We are so going to hell,” you muttered. “Banner’s sending us straight to hell.”

“On an express train,” Val added.

“If it works,” Natasha said.

Peter came up to them. “What are you doing?” He asked.

“Nothing,” the three of you responded in unison. 

Peter noticed that you were watching Clint and Fury. So he began watching too. Banner walked past but Fury quickly stopped him, adding him to the conversation.

“Yes,” Val grinned.

Fury left soon after, leaving Banner to give Clint a questioning look. Clint immediately followed after Fury. Banner turned to look at the rest of you.

“Oh, crap,” Natasha muttered.

You three hurried away, leaving Peter. Peter quickly went after Banner.

“Dr. Banner! Dr. Banner!”

~~~

You found out through the OR board that Peter had been chosen to assist Dr. Banner in the surgery. You and Natasha were extremely irritated. You all sat up in the gallery, watching the surgery.

“I seriously hate that guy,” Natasha said.

“Peter is vermin,” you added in agreement. “That surgery is ours.”

“At least Banner is doing the surgery. I don't care about Peter,” Val said. “Clint? You did good.”

“I'm going to have to dodge Banner for the rest of my career,” Clint said, shaking his head. “He could kill me and make it look like an accident.”

“Now that would make an interesting Dateline,” Scott said.

“Really, Scott?” You questioned, trying to suppress a laugh. “That’s the first thing you go to?”

“Hey! You can’t deny that you wouldn’t watch it.”

~~~

After the surgery, it was time to go home. You had just changed out of your scrubs and were grabbing a few things from your locker when Peter waltzed in.

“Oh, I smell good,” he commented. “You know what it is?” He turned to you. “It’s the smell of open heart surgery.” He breathed in deeply. “It's awesome. It is awesome. You gotta smell me.” He came up behind you, leaning into you.

“I don’t want to smell you,” you retorted.

“Oh, yes you do.” He nuzzled into your hair.

You quickly spun around and grabbed him, pushing him against the lockers by his shirt. “You have got to be kidding me! Okay. I have more important things to deal with than you. I have roommates, and boy problems, and family problems.” Peter yawned, glancing around. “You want to act like a little frat boy bitch, that's fine. You want to take credit for your saves, and everybody else's? That's fine too. Just stay out of my face.” As Steve opened the door, you grabbed Peter by the chin, making him look at you. “And for the record, you smell like crap.”

You turn, finally seeing Steve. You go back to your locker. Steve motioned as if to say, what happened?”

“She attacked me,” Peter said, pointing at you.

You spun back around to really attack him.

“Y/N, Y/N, Y/N!” Steve rushed over, grabbing your arms and pushing you back. He turned to Peter. “You know, you might want to leave. Before I change my mind and let her beat you to a pulp with her tiny ineffectual fists.”

He let go of you to push Peter out the door. As Steve closed the door, Peter pulled a face at you, how mature. Steve sighed. You studied him, getting more stupid feelings for him by the second.

“What?” Steve wondered.

“Nothing,” you shook your head, turning to pull your jacket out of your locker. “It’s just…” You gave him another long look, him nodding encouragingly. “Nothing.”

You closed your locker and made your way to the door. Steve opened it for you. You looked at him again for a few seconds before striding away. He looked up at the ceiling with a sigh.

“I’m telling you, Rogers,” Stark commented as he leaned against the wall across from the door. “Not a good idea.”

“How the hell are you around every damn time?!” Steve exclaimed.

Tony laughed. “Honestly, I think I may have a gift for sensing everyone else’s stupid decisions but my own.”

“Well, can you stop sensing mine?!”

“Sorry, Steve. You’re the only one making stupid decisions currently."

~~~

All you wanted was your bed. And a quiet house. When you got home, Val, Clint, and Scott were already there. They were in the living room, sitting on the floor while going through a box of tapes.

“Ooh, this one is skin grafting!” Val said, pulling out a tape.

“Skin grafting? No way!” Scott responded, taking the tape from her. “I've never seen that done before.”

“Are those my parent’s surgical tapes?” You asked, bring there attention to you.

“We should watch the skin grafting one first,” Clint said.

You looked around the room. There were pieces of furniture and art that you had sworn were packed up this morning.

“Where did all this stuff come from?” You questioned.

“Oh, I unpacked some of the boxes,” Val replied. “I was upset, and when I'm upset I like to nest.”

“Same,” Clint and Scott added. You began taking down pictures.

“Oooh!” Val quickly grabbed another top. “Hemipelvectomy.”

“Let’s definitely watch that one first,” Scott said.

“No. No. We’re not watching my parent’s surgery tapes,” you quickly ripped the tapes from their hands, “we’re not unpacking boxes,” you motioned to the boxes around the room, “and we’re not having long conversations where we celebrate the moments of our lives!” You slammed the tapes on the coffee table. You grabbed the beer bottle that sat on the table and slammed it onto a coaster. “And use a damn coaster!” You turned to leave.

“I ordered Chinese food…”

You marched up the stairs. “I hate Chinese food!”

Here’s the thing… both of your parents were widely renowned surgeons. But they both died in a terrible accident almost a year ago. After that happened, you quickly changed your last name to one of your Grandmother’s maiden names. You didn’t want all the attention. You had already gotten so much through med school and have the accident, you didn’t want anymore.

~~~

You were grateful that your roommates didn’t bother you the rest of the night. And when it came time for work in the morning, you made sure to leave without them. You met up with Natasha in front of the hospital and walked in together.

“They're everywhere. All the time. Scott's all perky, and Clint does this thing where he's helpful and considerate, and Val just, I don’t know is Val!” You complained. “They share food and they say things and they move things, and they breathe.” You let out a little whimper. “They're like happy.”

“Kick them out,” Natasha responded.

“I can't kick them out. They just moved in. I asked them to move in.”

"So what, you're just going to repress everything into some deep dark twisted place until one day you snap and kill them?”

“Yep, basically.”

“This is why we are friends.”

Peter jogged up as they entered the hospital.

“Why is Gamora making us stay in the Pit two days in a row?” He asked.

“Leftovers,” you replied.

“Leftovers?”

“Gotta get the cyclists who were too drunk or too stupid or too scared to get themselves to a hospital yesterday.”

“While meanwhile, she gets to do a freakin' organ harvest.” He motioned to Natasha.

“Oh, that kills you, doesn’t it?” She smirked.

“What?”

“That two women got the harvest.” You three stopped in front of the elevator.

“No, it kills me that anyone got the harvest but me. Boobs do not factor into this equation. Unless you want to show me yours.”

You and Natasha exchanged looks. “I’m going to become a lesbian,” you stated.

“Me too,” Natasha responded.

~~~

You and Peter tried to civilly work near each other in the Pit. As you filed away some patient paperwork, you glanced over at the waiting room. You did a double take after seeing your patient from yesterday, Hunter, waiting.

“What’s Hunter doing here?” You asked.

Peter glanced up at the waiting room before going back to what he was working on. “Probably crashed his bike,” he answered. “Again.”

“How long has he been waiting?”

"Don't know, I'm busy on real cases. He's all yours.”

You walked over to him. “Hunter? Hunter?” You noticed that he was holding his side, the injured side, as you came closer. He didn’t look at you as he started to cough. “Are you okay?” He tried to get up and you ran the rest of the way to him. Hunter fell, unconscious as blood came from his mouth. “Hunter!”

You got down next to him, lifting up his shirt. The stitches you did yesterday were ripped open and the area around them had swelled up. You quickly called for help, other nurses and doctors quickly came with a gurney. They helped lift Hunter on with you jumping on to sit on top of him. You tried to hold his wound closed as you turned at talked to a nurse.

“Call up to the OR and tell them we’re coming,” you ordered. “And page Dr. Gamora.”

“Right away,” the nurse replied, rushing off.

You noticed Peter staring at Hunter, a bit stunned. “Peter! Push the dam gurney.”

Peter quickly rushed into action.

“Clear the way!” The nurse with the two of you called. “Coming through!”

“Somebody get the elevator!” Peter yelled.

“Hurry,” you said. “I don't know how long I can keep this wound closed.”

The gurney is pushed into the elevator. You watched as the doors seem to slowly close. You and Peter watch as the level numbers light up.

“Move faster, damn it,” you muttered.

Finally, the doors reopened and the gurney was quickly taken into the OR.

“Well, this is a new one,” Gamora commented, ready and waiting in the OR. “Somebody get her off my patient.” A nurse helped you climb down. “Y/N, go get cleaned up and scrub in, Peter, get back downstairs.”

“Yeah, but I helped,” Peter defended.

“Helped! They tell me down in the Pit that you only want to take the hot cases. In every pack of interns there's always one fool that's running around trying to show off, and Peter, this time that fool is you. Get out.” 

With an angry sigh, he left the OR. You quickly left after, going to clean up and scrub in.

~~~

After the surgery, you and Gamora were informed that Viper had friends waiting in the lobby for him. You two went out to talk to them.

“This lovely group's his friends. Uh, you all belong to—“ Gamora looked at you. “What’s his name?”

“Hunter” you answered.

“Hunter?”

“Yeah,” a man replied. “We were in the race.”

“How is he?” A woman stepped up. “Is he okay?”

“Is he okay?” Gamora repeated. “No. No, he is not okay, at all. He hurled his body down a concrete mountain at full speed for no good reason. Yeah, I know you all pierce yourselves and smoke up and generally treat your bodies like your grungy asses can't break down to A, you want to kill yourselves, flying down a concrete mountain, go to it, but there are other people walking, people driving, people trying live their lives on that concrete mountain, and one of them got his brains scrambled today because one of you little sniffling no-good snot-rag—“

“Doctor Gamora—“ you tried to stop her.

“Yeah, yeah so no, your friend Hunter, as far as I'm concerned, is not okay.” Gamora stalked off.

“She's, um, really tired, but, uh, Hunter's going to make it,” you said. “He’s gonna live.”

A chorus of “cools” and “thanks” were heard from he group. You stood there, awkwardly nodding for a few seconds too long before hurrying away.

~~~

At the end of the day, Steve found you in the locker room, alone. He came in, shutting the door behind him.

“It’s not the chase,” Steve stated, catching your attention.

“What?”

“You and me. It is not the thrill of the chase. It's not a game. It’s... it's your tiny ineffectual fists. And your hair.”

“My hair?”

“Smells good. And you're very, very bossy. Keeps me in line.”

“I’m still not going out with you.”

Steve smirked, opening the door back up. “You say that now.” 

He leaned over and kissed your cheek, then he left. That man was for sure going to be the death of you. You could feel it.

~~~

When you arrived home, Val, Scott, Natasha, and Clint were in the living room, eating pizza, drinking, and watching a surgical tape.

"Okay, this is the best part, watch, this is where they pulls a block of skin down over the face,” Val said. 

You cleared your throat. “Hi,” you said as they looked at you.

“We were— uh, we were just,” Scott stuttered.

“Natasha made us!” Clint quickly said.

“What are we watching?” You asked, coming into the room more. “Ooh.” You sat down and took some pizza. “This is the one where my mother—“

“Literally pulls this guy’s face off!” Val interrupted.

“Yeah.”

You nodded, looking around at your friends. There might be a small chance that you could get used to this.

next chapter >

NOTES: from now on the taglist when be added by a reblog. I will reblog it using my second account, @just-dreaming-marvel-2​​. Just so that my main page doesn’t get too cluttered.

If you want to be added to the tag list, please dm me or send in an ask.

[storiesbybea]

Toil and Trouble (wlw Wandavision smut)

Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x Agatha Harkness

Words: 2.4k

Warnings: Smut (oral sex, fingering, kissing) & possible Wandavision spoilers (if you haven’t gotten past s1 ep6)

Summary: After Agatha’s secret witch lair collapses on them, Wanda tries to use mind control to convince her they are friends who need to work together to escape. But when Wanda accidentally triggers the wrong hormone in her brain, Agatha thinks they are a little more than friends.

A/N: I know it sounds sketchy with mind control elements, but everything in this is completely consensual! This is my first fanfiction - but not my first erotica ;)

Agatha finally had Wanda Maximoff exactly where she wanted her - tied up in her secret witch’s lair. She had been preparing for this moment for weeks: collecting the fake screams of Wanda’s children to lure her down here, casting the sound-proofing spell Wanda had activated by crossing the threshold, and preparing the runes that prevented Wanda from accessing her magic. All meticulously planned with no way of going wrong. 

“Just admit it, Wanda. I got you this time.”

Wanda spit a stray piece of hair out of her mouth and stared daggers into Agatha. 

“Never.”

“I was hoping you would say that.” Agatha cackled as dark magic collected around her hands. She waved her hands, pulled Wanda’s hands behind her back and magically restrained her. Wanda let out a cry. “Scream as much as you want,” Agatha said, “no one is going to hear you.”

“Just give me back my children,” Wanda said through gritted teeth. Agatha cackled again, louder this time. 

“Your kids aren’t here, Wanda. I collected those screams a week ago.”

“Then where are they?” 

“How should I know? I thought mothers were supposed to keep track of their children. You’re not a very good mom, are you?” 

Wanda thrashed against her restraints and shouted obscenities at Agatha, who merely smiled. 

“Someone’s a little sensitive towards other people’s perceptions of their parenting style,” Agatha quipped, “Let me help with that.” She flicked her wrist and threw Wanda against the wall. Wanda cried out in pain, then was violently dropped to the ground.

“Bet you regret mind-controlling a town with a witch like me in it, don’t you?”

Wanda regained her composure and looked directly at her captor. “My only regret is not changing your hair while you were under my control. Those highlights are atrocious.”

Agatha narrowed her eyes and levitated Wanda off the ground.

“You’re about to have one more regret,” she said. Then, she pulled Wanda toward her so forcefully that she crashed through a load-bearing pillar. In an instant, the entire cave collapsed around them. 

Wanda coughed and rubbed the dirt from her eyes. Her magical restraints were gone. Perhaps the runes had been damaged by the falling rubble as well? She decided to give it a test, focusing her energy on her right hand. A tiny circle of magic emitted from her palm. She smiled, but this was still a mere fraction of what she was normally capable of. Then, she noticed Agatha lying next to her, unconscious. There was no way out of the wreckage alone, not with her magic still mostly suppressed. But if Agatha woke up, she would undoubtedly try to destroy her again. If only Agatha didn’t know they were enemies...

Suddenly, Wanda got an idea. She gently laid her hands on Agatha’s head and focused as hard as she could. Though the connection was weak, she could feel Agatha’s brain waves shifting. Wanda found all of Agatha’s memories and went to work erasing the ones indicating they were anything less than chums. She also decided to give her an extra shot of dopamine, for good measure. Then, she gently shook Agatha’s shoulders and whispered for her to wake up.

Agatha opened her foggy eyes and turned to Wanda. 

“What happened?” she asked.

“Your lair collapsed on us.”

“What? How?” Agatha asked. Wanda bit her lip. 

“Uh, there was a big earthquake.”

Agatha scoffed and put her hand on Wanda’s forearm. “This is New Jersey, dummy. There are no huge earthquakes here!”

“That’s what I thought, too. But then one happened and now we’re stuck here.” 

Agatha sat up and looked deeply into Wanda’s eyes. “Well, there’s no one I’d rather be stuck here with,” she said tenderly. Then, she leaned in and kissed Wanda on the lips. Wanda froze, but accepted the kiss. She had stimulated her dopamine receptor, right? Agatha pulled back and smiled. “I’ll never get over how good your lips taste.”

Wanda had to consciously keep her jaw from dropping to the floor. That definitely was not her dopamine receptor. Agatha traced her fingers down Wanda’s arm and she shivered from the contact. She had to tell Agatha what happened. 

But Wanda stopped herself. There was no way Agatha would react kindly to a botched mind control attempt from her nemesis. And right now, Agatha was the only one with enough power to get them out of here. 

Wanda took Agatha’s hand and kissed it. “I feel exactly the same,” she said, “But we should probably try to get out of here.”

“In case there’s an aftershock!”

“Exactly, in case there’s an aftershock. Why don’t you try using your magic to move the rubble?”

Agatha booped Wanda on the nose, “You are definitely the smart one in this relationship.” Wanda had to restrain herself from laughing. 

Agatha took a moment to focus herself, then threw her arms out dramatically. Nothing happened. She tried again. Nothing still. One more attempt, even more forceful than the others. Nothing. Agatha frowned. 

“I guess my magic doesn;t work anymore.”

Wanda nervously laughed and shook Agatha by the shoulders. 

“No, they have to work. Because otherwise we’ll never get out of here!”

“Can’t we just scream and wait for the first responders to dig us out?” Agatha said. 

“That’s a great idea. Unfortunately, you hexed your lair and now it’s sound-proof.” Wanda slid her face into her hands. 

“Why did I sound-proof the lair?” Agatha asked. Wanda popped her head up.

“Uh, you mean you don’t remember?” Wanda asked. Agatha shook her head. “We were, uh, going to celebrate our anniversary? So you, uh, sound-proofed the lair because we were gonna, uh...”

“Oh! We were gonna--” Agatha rubbed her hands together suggestively and winked. Wanda nodded her head.

“Exactly, we were gonna do that and you were worried about the neighbors.”

“You are quite a screamer,” Agatha said as she patted Wanda’s thigh. 

“Uh, yeah.” 

It was at this moment that Wanda realized Agatha was shivering.

“Are you ok?”

“It’s so cold,” Agatha replied through chattering teeth. Wanda realized she was shivering as well. 

“How is it so cold? It’s July.”

Agatha gasped. “The collapse must have triggered the frost hex.”

“F-Frost hex?” Wanda shouted.

“Yeah, I put it in after some of the neighborhood kids tried to break in here. If only my magic was functional, I could reverse it.” Agatha looked to her expectantly, but Wanda didn’t notice. The cold was getting to her. She could feel it in her bones; her teeth were chattering so loud that it made her head pound. She had experienced some brutal winters in Sokovia, but nothing like this. 

“We should hold each other,” said Agatha, “For warmth.” 

Wanda put her arms around Agatha and held her close. She smelled like witch hazel, which Wanda found funny and a bit on-the-nose. But it smelled really good. Agatha’s hair was long and warm. Wanda buried her face in it. The immediate warmth felt incredible on her shaking lips. 

Despite the frigid cold, both Wanda and Agatha felt a considerable amount of heat between their bodies. They pulled each other as close as they could, each desiring to consume the other’s warmth. Wanda nuzzled further into Agatha’s soft hair, and Agatha took her freezing hands and slid them down the back of Wanda’s shirt. Her back was burning hot, and Agatha dug her fingers into Wanda’s warm skin. Somehow they both managed to fall asleep, huddled together through the frosty night.

Agatha was the first to wake. Wanda was nuzzled against her neck. She was still shivering. Agatha slowly removed her hand from Wanda’s shirt and flicked her wrist to remove the frost hex. The room got warmer immediately. Agatha looked down at Wanda, whose head had shifted and fallen to Agatha’s chest. A small ray of light was shining through the rubble, and it spread across Wanda’s face. She had to admit that Wanda looked angelic, even though she was her nemesis and had tried to mind control her into some disturbing romance. Agatha took her free hand and gently stroked Wanda’s head. There just was something fantastical about Wanda Maximoff. If anyone else had tried to mind control her into romance, she would have annihilated them on the spot. But when Wanda did it, there was something endearing about it all. She really thought she could best her? It was adorable. Wanda was adorable.

While Agatha was looking at her, Wanda woke up. Still a little groggy, she sat up and rubbed her eyes. 

“Why were you staring at me?” she asked. 

“You had a bug on you and I thought it was funny,” Agatha lied. Wanda chuckled.

“And you just let it stay on my face? What if it was poisonous?”

“The only thing poisonous here is your failed attempts at mind control.”

Wanda perked up. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t lie,” Agatha said, rolling her eyes, “I know you tried to take advantage of me with some weird love hex, but my runes limited your magic too much for you to be successful.”

“How did you know?” Wanda asked. 

“You really think I can’t feel intrusions into my own mind?”

“But you were passed out!”

“Yeah, so I was literally trapped in my own mind. That’s like the worst time to try and mind-control someone. Anyone with a basic knowledge of magical theory should know that.”

Wanda gulped. “So what are you gonna do to me?”

Agatha cackled. “Do to you? What do you think this is, a prison?”

“Uh, this all started when you lured me down here and magically restrained me against my will. That’s the definition of a prison.”

“So you think you deserve some kind of punishment?” Agatha asked. Wanda nodded. Agatha sighed and conjured her magical glowing hands. She whipped out her hands and the rocks around her began to shake. Then, with another wave of her wrist, the room was restored to its original formation. 

“Why did you do that?” Wanda asked.

“Well, I was planning on betraying you and locking you in here for all eternity, but I decided against that. You’re free to go.”

“Why are you letting me go?” Wanda asked, even more surprised.

“Why did you try to put a romance hex on me?”

“I didn’t do that! I was trying to make you think we were friends, not lovers!”

Agatha blushed furiously and Wanda almost wished she hadn’t said anything. She grabbed Agatha’s hand. 

“Why did you kiss me yesterday?” Wanda asked. Agatha blushed even more.

“I was playing the part.”

“Yeah, well you could have played the part without kissing me,” Wanda said shyly. Agatha looked intently at the ground.

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to kiss you,” she admitted. Wanda tilted her chin towards her. 

“Then what are you waiting for?”

“What?”

“What are you waiting for? Do it again.”

Agatha wasted no time in pressing her lips to Wanda’s. They were soft and full; it was like kissing her rabbit’s fluff. She pulled Wanda close to her and felt her breasts press against her chest. Wanda took her tongue into Agatha’s mouth and they wrestled each other for control of the kiss. After a few minutes of passionate tongue fighting, Agatha finally won, just barely. 

“I want to taste you,” she whispered into Wanda’s mouth. Slowly, she pushed Wanda backwards and leaned her against her large cauldron. Agatha began tenderly kissing and sucking along Wanda’s neck, then down her chest, in between her breasts, and down the center of her stomach. Wanda eagerly unbuttoned her pants and Agatha slid them to the ground. 

Agatha placed her palm on Wanda’s mound and moved it up and down. Wanda leaned her head back in pleasure and spread her legs further apart, begging Agatha to go further. Agatha separated Wanda’s lips with her fingers. She had the tiniest clit she had ever seen. Then, she took two fingers and tried to slide them into Wanda, but she wasn’t wet enough yet. 

“I have just the thing,” Agatha said as she popped up and ran to her potions table. She threw some ingredients into a small wooden bowl; there was a loud pop and a cloud of purple smoke. She rushed back to Wanda and dipped her fingers in the potion.

“What is that?” Wanda asked. 

“It’s a lubrication spell. I’ve never had to use it before. But there’s a first time for everything,” she said with a wink. Then, she spread Wanda’s legs and entered her with her slippery fingers. Wanda immediately threw her head back.

“Oh my god!” she exclaimed. Agatha smirked and slowly slid her fingers in and out of her while Wanda squirmed and squealed. As Agatha picked up the tempo, she brought her mouth to Wanda’s clit and engulfed it with her tongue. Wanda nearly screamed. 

“You’re really good at this,” Wanda said between gasps. Agatha looked up at her.

“Well, when you’ve been alive for over 300 years, you learn a thing or two,” Agatha said before she forcefully flicked Wanda’s clit with her tongue. 

Wanda felt the pleasure building up inside of her. She tried to hold it back, but it was too powerful. She was helpless against the force of her own climax. When it finally overcame her, she exploded. As the waves of ecstasy passed over her, she felt restored.

When she had regained herself, Wanda picked her pants up from the floor and slid them back on. She looked down at Agatha, who was still on her knees. 

“Your turn.” 

Then, she pulled Agatha up, kissed her passionately, grabbed her hands, and held them behind her back. Agatha pulled away from their kiss. 

“What are you doing?” she asked, suspicion and intrigue coating her voice. Wanda gave her a devilish grin and tried casting a restraint spell. To her surprise, it actually worked. 

“I see you’ve cancelled the runes. That was a mistake,” Wanda said. She used her magic to pull Agatha up into the air. “Oh, and I hope you like the cold,” she said before she reactivated the frost hex. 

“I thought we were ok now!” shouted Agatha. Wanda cackled. 

“I will never be ok with someone who collected my childrens’ screams.”

And with that, Wanda turned to the exit and left Agatha to her fate.

[life-rewritten]

Color Rush- Crushes and Obstacles (Ep 5-6)

So I already analysed episode 5 of Color rush with the question focusing on the nature vs nurture of monos and probes. We basically have a show that keeps reminding us about the world and stigma of being a mono, the psychological regression, issues and lack of control that occurs once a  mono meets their fated probe. Because of this ideology, our main character finds himself being forced to make a choice of if he should embrace becoming a monster to keep his probe by his side or if he should be alone forever stuck in a depressive state, empty and lifeless. The issue with this way of thought is that apart from maybe the media showing him clues about how monos react when they meet their probes, there's not enough evidence in my opinion that this is the only choice/way for a mono and probe to end up. Especially since our mono had seen a relationship where it was more or less successful before the mono maybe lost control once the probe died, that's his mum and dad. So this analysis focuses more on that same question is it really the only ending for a mono and probe relationship; to end with chaos, and pain, and obsession, kidnaps, crimes etc., or is this just all a placebo effect that has been embedded into the minds of monos to be this way.

Monos and Their Probes

Let's look at the details of episode 5 and 6. Yeonwoo and Yoohan's relationship evolves as they both start to fall more and more for each other. For Yeonwoo, this is hard because he's never known what that feels like, and his crush and attraction to Yeonwoo is even more enhanced in his mind because of the connection and link to Yoohan being his probe. But if we don't focus on the fact that Yoohan and Yeonwoo are probes and monos and just see them as two high school boys who have feelings for each other who went on a date, went home after and chilled, their relationship becomes like every other normal relationship, no danger, no questions of obsession and addiction. Pause.

Devotion vs Obsession

When we have feelings for people we tend to become obsessed and addicted to their presence just a bit, it's because of the serotonin, and dopamine released when we have a puppy love, a crush or even when we start to fall even more deeply for someone. It's feelings of happiness, of euphoria, excitement, and more. So Yeonwoo and Yoohan just like every other couple are going through phases of these euphoric feelings, wanting to spend as much time with each other as possible, wanting to touch each other, wanting to stay together every single time. It's what happens in a honeymoon phase of a relationship. You can't let go of the other person. Now this doesn't mean for us we want to go kidnap and commit crimes to keep our crush next to us, we may miss them, and want to keep talking to them but it doesn't mean we're insane, addicted or obsessed. Do you see my point?

I think Yeonwoo truly has exaggerated his feelings of a crush on Yoohan. He's made it so much more worse than it has to be because he's been fearmongered by the media into thinking just because he doesn't want Yoohan to leave it means he's turning into a monster when really he's just liking and crushing on his new crush. He didn't have to make the decision to go buy these kidnapping tools and to think of ways to make himself a monster, since that's the only choice he believes he's left with. No, he could have like every other normal person just missed him. So why is Yeonwoo letting himself go deeper into obsession and addiction and letting himself think he is a monster? In order to really look deeper to see if it's truly the only end for a mono, or if it's the environment that is making them this way; we have to analyse the psychological mindset of monos when they meet with their probes

Monos: The world of Lonliness and Depression 

The metaphor already for monos is lack; they lack color, lack brightness, lack vibrancy in their lives. They've been forced since birth to see the world in such a dark and oblique way. And as they find out about their condition, they are seen as monsters from the get-go, forced to be alone to avoid people in case they bump into their fated probes. The loneliness and the forced mindset of a mono to stay in this lifeless energy is really psychologically depressing and tiring. And it's when they get a glimpse of hope, of companionship, love, colour, and more with their probes that Monos start to feel happy and joyful. Now it doesn't have to be this way, Monos could end up feeling comfortable with their condition if they were just treated equally and right, but no they're prejudiced, pushed away and bullied horribly once it's discovered that this is what they are.

From a young age, monos are told that they are going to be monsters, they are going to hurt people, they are going to lose their minds one day. And this is just exacerbated in the media with fears and warnings of how monos interact with their probes. If from a young age, a mono is repeatedly told, this is who they are, then it forms a placebo belief and effect, and brainwash that this is the only way they can be. Mono's don't see any other way out, or a chance to be different because everyone feeds to them the same narrative of pain, despair and obsession. And it sucks. Look at how immediately Yeonwoo's aunt reacts when she notices Yeonwoo and Yoohan have found each other, she immediately scolds him and tells him he has to move, so he doesn't break and lose his sanity. She doesn't give it the benefit of the doubt, or ask questions; she resorts immediately into trying to push them away from each other.

Now, this makes sense because she has lost her sister who was a mono who probably lost her mind once her probe died. And then went missing/ taken by maybe another mono (that's what it seems Yeonwoo and his aunt believe happened). Because of this, there is a negative stigma with the aunt on how monos can behave, she has already lost so much because of monos, and so she doesn't want Yeonwoo to be the same. The aunt is like everybody else in this world, whose first reaction to monos is to push away and to avoid, this world isolates and distances monos away from a chance to be happy, and live freely because of their condition.

The Psychological Implications of Being a Mono

The psychological implications of being a mono are so fascinating to me. It's like a psychological disorder (despite it not being that way) are all psychopaths forced to hurt and become serial killers? Are all sociopaths meant to avoid people just because there's a higher tendency that people could get hurt if it goes awry? No. Because just because you have a gene or a link to a family member that went crazy and started hurting people, it doesn't mean you would make the same choice and do the same thing. Not everyone is the same just because they have the same disorder or mindset. And that's the same for monos, monos don't have to go crazy and hurt their probes. The separation from their probes obviously enhances anxiety and fear of going back into this lifeless, darkness that they finally found a way out of; this is what drives their actions. It's just enhanced emotions and enhanced fears, but they don't have to act on it, the people who do act on it are people who were weak or predisposed to other factors that make them want to be violent. Yeonwoo doesn't have to plan ways to kidnap or take Yoohan when Yoohan would gladly stay by his side. He doesn't have to be this broken or fearful of becoming a monster; he's making these choices because he has a placebo mindset that this is who he should become. And it's heartbreaking.

The thing is we see  Yoohan and Yeonwoo having a great time together, being happy and liking each others company without the color rush having to be the only focus of why they're interacting. We do get to see Yeonwoo panic because of decolouring, and he enhances those emotions because of his already ingrained anxiety about what it means to want to keep Yoohan by his side. The way I see it, Yeonwoo has formed an anxiety about who he is because of how the world treats him and other monos, and because he has that issue with stress coupled with physical evidence that he's losing colour, it drives him to think it's a sign he's becoming a monster. It's not.

First of all, of course, he becomes worried and scared about losing colours, the decolouring effect is like going from a high to a low, when colour rush happens to monos it's a euphoric effect, it doesn't last, but like a drug it can lead to a crash and a hangover, so of course immediately Yoohan leaves Yeonwoo starts to crash and regress back into seeing the world as grey, and that makes his mindset also feel depressed coupled with the fact he does not want Yoohan to go because of his crush (not dependency). So Yeonwoo misunderstands his reactions when Yoohan leaves as him becoming addicted and obsessed with Yoohan with no point of return when really he's just moody because his high is gone and he misses Yoo Han as a normal person does with their crush. So he's talking himself into thinking the only explanation is his dependency on Yoohan for color and his obsession as a mono growing. And it's sad, monos have been forced to feel this way, that they're predatory, horrifying and cruel in their love when really they've just met the one, and they wish to be happy.

Society vs Monos

It's his aunty who triggers this emotion, her conversation with him made him think there's no other way out of becoming this monster because she put that fear that he may be forced to separate from Yoohan. And this is really where I think Monos become the versions they are shown (crazy, obsessed, crimes) in the news because not every mono and probe is going to be in love, not every probe may want to be with their monos, everyone has a different circumstance and that fear of losing colors, may drive a mono to doing things. However, I don't think it's natural for them to become so obsessed and so desperate to live with colors so much that they hunt down their probes and hurt others. That's a specific few, ones that had those warped mindsets, or a more problematic background or a harsher philosophy. Not everyone becomes violent, some monos probably retreat from their probes and stay depressed, some fall in love with someone who isn't a probe, there are so many different ways it could go, the thing is monos are only shown in one light, and that's the people who chose to go far to keep their probes by their side through fear.

This self-hate and deprecation Yeonwoo has of who he is naturally reminds me so much of internalised homophobia, hating who you are naturally and thinking you're wrong because of how society has made you see yourself. It's the same feelings; the disgust, the anxiety, the repression etc. And we've already mentioned how monos and probes are probably metaphors of LGBTQ+ struggle, society making monos think it's wrong to be with the people who love them and they love. This self-hate will make Yeonwoo feel he has no other option but to check himself into a hospital or institution or to (trigger warning)  end his life. And that's just so messed up. I've seen many people question his mindset because from what we're seeing his mother seems like she had a happy marriage with his father, shouldn't she be proof that monos and probes can be healthy? But I think we're forgetting that his father died, and from knowing how monos react to missing their probes, I'm guessing his mum couldn't take it and also lost some of her sanity or she fell into depression and couldn't get out of that. Also as mentioned, I think Yeonwoo thinks it's a mono that kidnapped his mum, and so that also maybe gives him more resentment towards who he is, and again makes him think monos only end up committing crimes and hurt people they love.

But we need to know more about why he thinks this way and what other evidence they have about his mother's missing case. Plus his mother has not been by his side for four years, and in those four years he's been bullied, mistreated, have to move schools each time his condition is found out, so it's been a long time of society again making him think he's a monster, and without his mum there to help him see different, he just follows that mindset, unfortunately.

Yeonwoo and Yoohan; Just a crush

For Yeonwoo and Yoohan, their relationship is not just based on dependence, Yeonwoo thinks it's the colours, and he does not understand it's just feelings and him liking Yoohan since he first met him. Yeonwoo has had to push people away, and find excuses not to have friends, and Yoohan barged into his life without warning, both have been attracted and wanting each other from the start. Yeonwoo struggled with this information and rationalised it into thinking it's because he wants the colour rush, but it isn't that, it's more than that, he just wants to be happy, in love and with Yoohan. Yoohan is the same as Yeonwoo, he's also had to push people away, and alienate himself, and not care about the world or society because of his own condition, seeing Yeonwoo made him want to do more, he liked what Yeonwoo was to him, he liked having a crush on Yeonwoo, and so he also found himself wanting to stay with Yeonwoo for as long as he can. For a long time I've also been thinking he was just as obsessed and addicted to Yeonwoo like monos are to their probes, but no, he's a teenage boy with a crush, and so is Yeonwoo. We also let the media and how society views mono make us feel worried and scared about these two's relationship forming and whilst it was thrilling to think it could be more dangerous than it is, it's really just two people falling in love with each other, and one psychologically scarred and brainwashed into thinking there's something wrong with who he is naturally. And that's just painful.

So yeah Color Rush; a look into psychological mindsets, nature vs nurture, the addictive feeling of what love is, and more, this show is so fun to watch and analyse and see how it's going to turn out, but there are moments where it hurts and makes you think and question how society and media play a role in showing minorities, how they control the narrative about certain things and if that's right. Fearmongering, prejudiced mindsets and more isn't cool, but the world has always been led by these ignorant ideas without education and open mindsets, and it sucks. So watching color rush is an interesting metaphor and symbolism for the struggles some people have because of stigmas associated with conditions they have from birth, or just ideologies formed that isn't necessarily true about who they are as a person, it only leads to self-hate, depression, anxiety, self-harm just to fit into society's narrative and it sucks. Let's hope Yoohan shows Yeonwoo he's not a monster, and he's okay being himself and loving Yoohan. he doesn't have to hurt or go insane and do crimes because he's a mono. He'll be fine.  

[caustic-light]

Random anon here

“The was most other social media is set up ties all interaction you get to whenever you post something new and very quickly buries said post which translates into giving you sudden spikes of dopamine that crash very quickly which is a lot more similar to taking stimulant drugs than to other activities that might be highly rewarding but in a way our brains are better equipped to deal with.”

I wanted to say that the idea that dopamine spikes are similar to taking stimulant drugs is frequently used to control people - like banning all sugar consumption because it’s perceived as inherently addictive for an example. I feel like it’s important to acknowledge how this sort of ‘behavioural addiction’ is frequently used to just outright deny coping mechanisms to people (meaning if social media is a much easier way to communicate, it can be interpreted as ‘they’re addicted to social media,’ and banned). I can’t in good conscience say that these sorts of behavioural addictions exist when I’ve only seen them be used to punish people. But I also know that not everyone has that perspective.

Sugar is a stimulant drug. That doesn’t make sugar bad. It does however make it so when soda contains ungodly amounts of sugar, way past what you could actually justify for a sweetening purpose, it does make it more addictive to a point where when you have a habit with soda and you stop you are pretty likely to experience some crashes and those can be really fucking heavy, especially when you combine the sugar with caffeine. My own experience is skewed obviously bc I have adhd, but sugar plus caffeine is a withdrawl that for me personally feels a lot heavier than actual amphetamine taken for a month every day. (Meds are kinda wild btw.)

Sugar is also an essential nutrient and knowing that it can fuck with you is not a reason to try to scrub it from your diet. It does however help you understand why you might feel like shit after going from a week where you drank a bottle of coke every day to just water if you know what it can do to you.

Likewise dopamine spikes are not bad by default. They’re actually pretty essential to our internal reward mechanisms. But the way our brain is used to handling dopamine is in a more or less steady supply with some peaks here and there that gradually smooth out back into the normal level. When you take stimulant drugs (for the purpose of this conversation I’ll act like dopamine is the only reward chemical in your brain and stimulants don’t affect other neurotransmitters) to the point of a high, you have suddenly a lot more dopamine than your brain knows what to do with, so it get this intense euphoria (usually). Following that, you crash though, because your brain is overwhelmed and going past what it expects to have to deal with disrupts your normal balance. It takes a bit for your brain to recover. And if you keep doing it, you are more and more likely for that recovery to be longer and longer.

None of that means you shouldn’t do drugs, though. You might feel that the benefits outweigh the risks. You might have experimented and figured out that some things work better for you than others and you don’t really feel the downsides.

Risk awareness is important. It makes the difference between you jumping into cold water you have no idea of what lies below the surface and you being able to make an informed decision on what risks you are willing to take.

Idk if you’ve ever seen people who have a lot of experience with what we consider heavy drugs talk about addictive things, but a fuck ton of things we consider benign are up there with the worst of them. You have plenty of people who know what heroin, or meth addiction is like for example also consider alcohol one of the hardest things they ever touched. And social media is also up there for a lot of people. That is something that to develop a healthy relationship with social media we have to understand. And it’s something that we arguably have a moral obligation to acknowledge, because the way social media operates is specifically hurting us for their profit. That includes children and teenagers.

That does not mean that children and teenagers should be barred from social media. Social media can be valuable and important. It can be good. But it means that we have to educate and normalise risk awareness. And we have to do it without fear mongering. We can not hope for coming generations to use social media in ways that don’t hurt them when we demonise social media. But we can’t ignore it’s dangers and methods either. These are serious issues we are dealing with and we can not afford to disregard them out of fear of bad faith readers using the information to try to preserve their own power over children. They will do that anyway. They do not need to know about dopamine to do it. Parents will always find ways to fuck up and isolate their children. You can not prevent that by fear mongering in return against education and knowledge. But you can help the coming generations by showing them both the good and the bad of the spaces they inhabit and by showing them who is responsible for making them hostile against them and why they’re doing so.

The same way you can not fear monger against drugs and expect that to protect children from their risks, but you can’t just ignore their risks either. The more education is available and the easier it is available, the more likely the people who need it will be able to find it.

[paigiepixels]

I Bet on Losing Dogs - Lip Gallagher x Reader

You + Me - The Prince of the South Side, Lip Gallagher, falls in love with his best friend. This is their happy ever after. Chapter title is based on Mitski’s I Bet on Losing Dogs.

previous chapter ● also on wattpad

++++++++++

“I feel really shitty about earlier,” Lip mumbled into my hair as we walked to his dorm.

“Don’t worry,” I shook my head, “I’ve all but forgotten about it, honestly. Watching someone get interrogated on drug charges will do that to you, I guess.”

“Please, stay tonight?” he asked as we reached his building.

A tiny chuckle left my lips, “Why the hell did you think I left the car? Your campus isn’t in the safest neighborhood but I know you can defend yourself, you don’t need me and my pepper spray walking you to your door like it’s the 1950’s and we just shared a milkshake at the diner.”

He opened the door for me as he shook his head. “Okay, okay.”

“What’s next, are you gonna wear my letterman jacket? Want me to take you to the point overlooking a small suburban town to make out in my dad’s car? Can I grope your A-cups over your cheerleading uniform while we kiss with no tongue? What’s that sound outside? Could it be an escapee from the local prison that lost his hand in that accident where they replaced it with a hook?”

“Alright, you got that out of your system yet or are you still workshopping your tight five?” Lip threw an arm around me in as the elevator doors closed.

“I could go a little longer.” I shrugged. “Baby boomers paid twelve dollars for their houses then ruined the economy for the rest of us, they deserve to be made fun of.” Lip just shook his head as he unlocked his dorm door.

I shrugged out of the large shirt I slipped on earlier that evening and shimmied out of my leggings.

“You know,” Lip eyed me up and down like I was a bottle of water in the middle of the desert, “it’s been well over twenty-four hours since we last had sex.” He quickly undressed.

Placing my hands on my hips, I played along, “Hm, I guess it has been.”

He wiggled his eyebrows and made his way over, placing his hands over mine. “Maybe we should, I don’t know, have some sex?”

“The beast with two backs?” I countered.

“Take a trip to pound town?”

“Butter my biscuit.”

“Mmmm, exactly,” he mumbled with a lick to his lips as he leaned into towards me.

I gripped my fingers into his curls and let his tongue explore the confines of my mouth while I leaned back onto the bed. One of Lip’s arms groped my ass while the other steadied him on the mattress. I pretzeled my legs around his waist, his mouth wandered from my own, to my neck, down to my décolletage and breasts, placing kisses along every inch he could. I mumbled some profanities as he slipped a hand under me to unhook my bra, I toed at his boxers, giving him the hint to even the playfield. Rapidly, he took off whatever remainders of clothes we both had on and reached into the nightstand for a condom. Before I knew it I was practically impaled by him, a gasp getting stuck in the very back of my throat. My eyes squeezed shut and my hands grasped at the skin on his back, surely leaving marks and scratches from my nails. The pace was steady tonight, not too fast nor too slow. He rocked back and forth into me in long, firm thrusts, satisfying his need to just be close to me.

I could tell by his mood tonight that this wasn’t just to get off, this was emotional, it was coming from somewhere deep down within him. Not like I could blame him, it’s been a rough few weeks. The way he buried his head into the crook of my neck, nuzzling into my hair and taking a long whiff. Sex was always personal for us, even a quickie with little to no eye contact was filled with emotion, but times like this were different, like everyone else on the planet had disappeared and the only reason we were still breathing was to have another second to be together.

Lip was hastily becoming undone, his breaths becoming sharper. He rubbed my clit with gentle force as I squeezed my eyes shut, he was trying to get us off at the same time. I bit my lower lip with a sharp canine and curled my toes as the dopamine exploded in my brain. He groaned and shuddered before collapsing onto me, placing kisses on my exposed neck.

“Fuck,” he mumbled while rolling over and removing the condom with a snap.

“When was the last time we went that long without fucking?” I wondered out loud.

“Can’t remember, my brain is goo,” he chuckled.

++++++++++

I saw a half-naked Lip, town slung around his hips, walking down the hallway from the opposite end as I reached his door. A tall man in a hoodie was behind him, it took me a few seconds to realize it was Kevin.

“Hey, you two,” I shifted onto the balls of my feet as Lip unlocked his room.

“Uh, hi,” Lip said, tugging the towel around his waist a little tighter. Kev followed him inside, I blinked twice, wondering why he was here. “What’re you doing here?”

“I’m here to take you to Carl’s court thing, what is he doing here? Kev?”

“Uh, just crashing in an empty dorm while V stays at the house with the girls.”

“Huh,” I nodded. “No comment, I guess.”

“What about V?” Lip asked as he walked around the room getting ready.

“What about V?” Kev repeated. “I can’t think about that right now. She’s doing her thing, I’m doing my thing, it was her decision.”

I dropped my bag onto Lip’s unmade bed and sat next to it. “Don’t you think it’s worth it to give it another shot? You have kids, you’ve gotta at least try to work it out.”

Kev sighed and leaned his head against the wall, “I don’t know anymore, V was the one who started this whole mess and now she’s stopped talking to me about anything that isn’t baby.” His sentence stopped when he answered his ringing phone. “Well, duty calls. Rape Walker, at your service.”

I pursed my lips and widened my eyes at Lip, who mouthed Long story.

“I was gonna just take the L, you know,” Lip said as we walked hand-in-hand to the parking lot.

My shoulders shrugged, “I don’t mind taking you, I want to be there for Carl and Fiona. Mostly Fiona,” I chucked. “She’s gonna need it.”

“Can you actually imagine Carl getting in front of a judge and not incriminating himself for like, fourteen things he did this morning alone?”

“Your Honor,” I imitated the young teenager by putting on a lazy voice, “I swear the bailiff stuck that joint in my mouth before I got in here. That’s not mine-” I was stopped in my tracks by getting walked into by what felt like a brick wall wrapped in wool.

“I’m sorry-” Her face changed from an indifferent position when she looked up from the Blackberry in her hands. “Phillip, I’m sorry, I wasn’t quite looking where I was going,” she tucked her cellphone into the pocket of her expensive-looking jacket. “Have you spoken with Mr. Lorenzo from Financial Aid yet?”

“Uh, no, not yet,” Lip replied before gesturing at me with his free hand. “Professor Runyon, this is my girlfriend y/n. Professor Runyon teaches Critical Theory.”

“Nice to meet you,” I reached out and was met by a cashmere-covered hand to shake while staring at her striking face.

“Likewise,” her hand lingered after the shake, I pulled away. “Well, I have a class to get to, very nice to meet you, y/n. Phillip,” she nodded and continued to walk in the direction we were coming from.

“She seems nice, if not overly-perfumed,” I shrugged.

“Yeah, she hit on me yesterday,” Lip sighed as he grasped a hand firmly around my waist and ushered me to my car as quickly as possible.

“What?!”

“So, you’re dropping that class, right?” I all-but stated as we got in the car.

Lip shook his head, “I can’t. It’s the only one left and I need a full load.”

I squinted at him, “I don’t know, I’d say you were already full of something if you asked me.”

He blinked before replying, “I can’t compete with that, it’s a good one.”

Resting my forehead on the steering wheel, “I don’t want to be this demanding, controlling girlfriend. You know I hate that. I trust you, but,” I picked my head up and took a breath, Lip pushed a strewn hair off of my face, “I don’t trust other people. It’s a lot for me.”

“Hey, look at me…” he grasped my face between his hands as much as he could with the console between us. “Trust me, only me. That’s all there is to it. Believe me, I won’t do anything for you to worry about, ever. Alright?” I nodded. “Nope, not good enough for me. Gotta hear you say it.”

“Alright.”

“Okay, good.” He pulled my face closer with his hands still holding on and kissed the top of my head for at least a three-count. “Now, let’s get going to this damn hearing already.”

++++++++++

We shuffled into the small courtroom and into stiff chairs with itchy upholstery. I settled in with Lip on my left, he leaned in towards V and muttered, “V, this thing with you and Kev, is it temporary?”

“What did he say when you asked him?”

“Uh, nothing,” Lip broke eye contact and looked towards the ground, feigning innocence and ending the conversation.

“All rise,” the bailiff announced. “The Circuit Court of Cook County is now in session. The honorable Judge Rita Gaither is presiding.”

Chuckie was up first, Sammi was sitting in the front row with bruises littering her face. His lawyer’s defense was that Chuckie is of barely functioning intellect, it was a miracle he could wipe his ass, et cetera. Of course, Sammi stood up and testified towards her son, calling Lip’s family “a den of wolves.”

I hardly recognized Carl when he came in after Chuckie’s sentencing. Fiona had dressed him to play the part - an old button-up of Lip’s, hand-me-down khakis, all topped off with a neatly combed head of hair and glasses from Patsy’s lost and found.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he’s an upstanding young man,” Lip whispered.

V leaned in, resting her chin on a well-manicured hand, “Just like Ted Bundy.”

“Do you regret what you’ve done, Carl?”

“I did something really dumb that I shouldn’t have.” Fiona nodded along with his answer. “I trusted a fucking retard with a man’s job.” Uh oh. “Next time I move a bunch of drugs, I’ll be smarter.”

“If you want to go into my chambers and speak to me off the record, now is the time. Otherwise, you will end up in juvenile prison. Is that what you want?”

“Yes, please.” I could practically see the explosion going on inside Fiona’s head.

The judge sighed, “That’s not what I was hoping to hear.”

“I know what you were hoping to hear. If Your Honor would lose 20 pounds, I would consider tapping that.” Lip laughed into his shoulder, trying to hide his amusement.

“I think I've heard enough. I sentence you to the maximum of one year at the Illinois Department of Corrections Juvenile Justice Division. You're remanded to the custody of the Sheriff. This court is in recess.”

Fiona grabbed Carl by the arm and asked him what he was thinking, he was excited to go. It didn’t surprise me.

Once we left the building Ian and Lip separated from the group to go smoke, I caught up with them after a quick chat with V about her twins.

“How’s it hanging, boys?” I asked while stuffing my hands into my coat pockets to warm them up.

“Nothing, just bullshitting,” Lip grunted as he stood up from his crouching position next to Ian. He handed me the cigarette he was smoking to share. As I was mumbling a thanks Ian got off the bench and walked away without as much as a goodbye.

“The fuck’s his problem?” I asked, handing the cigarette back.

“He went to the clinic, he’s upset about the medication.”

“Of course he is,” I spat and Lip replied with a confused look. “You think I like taking birth control every day? No! But like clockwork, every morning, I open that little plastic round thingy and pop one, just so you can jizz inside of me.” I patted him on the shoulder for comfort. “Plus I got my anti-depressants and anti-anxieties, but those aren’t as annoying as taking a pill every day purely for sex purposes.”

“Wow, thank you for your sacrifice,” his voice was dripping in sarcasm.

I stole the cigarette back from him and replied after a puff, “You’re damn welcome.”

++++++++++

I was reading on the small bed in Lip’s dorm when he came back from class, resting in just a large t-shirt and my underpants.

“Hey,” he flung his backpack onto the floor. I didn’t bother looking up from my book while I mumbled a greeting back. “You want a beer?”

“Nah, I’m good,” I replied.

Lip made his way over to the mini-fridge and opened it. “Uh, you stock my fridge?”

“Yeah, I got a couple of things while you were in class. Folded your clean laundry, too.”

After grabbing a beer Lip closed the fridge and sat down on the side of the bed. “Hey,” he placed a hand on my bare leg, I almost recoiled, his hand was freezing from being outside. “You don’t have to keep taking me places and getting me stuff.”

I placed my open book down on my chest, “What?”

“I know you’re going through stuff, you don’t have to be spending so much time doin’ shit for me.”

“Well, I like doing stuff for you, okay? It makes me feel like I’m doing something good.”

“Like we’re charity?”

I groaned and sat up onto my knees, “No, like, I love you, and I love your family, and helping you guys, like, makes me feel like I have a purpose. Like I’m part of the big family I always wanted.”

“…You’ve always been part of our family.”

“Do you not like it anymore when I do things for you?” I asked with a raised brow.

“No, no,” he shook his head, “I love that you love my family, but I’m just saying, even if you didn’t do these things, everyone would still love you. You don’t have to buy your way in.”

“Oh, I never bought my way in,” I chuckled, “I sucked my way in, s’more like it.”

Lip rolled his eyes at my corny joke, “You’re so dumb sometimes, you know that?”

“Yeah,” I nodded, pulling on the hem of his shirt. “Now get into bed and show me just how much you appreciate me buying you groceries and changing your sheets.”

++++++++++

Wattpad (where the entire story is posted)

Y+M Playlist

[splitsofseconds]

Being your mirror is my oxygen tank.

It's the intricacy that ignites all the lust in me. All I can think of is the beginning- when all you saw in me was fragile, graceful, and yet so light, the mysterious girl bending over to kiss you. I am pulling the strings, I have you tightened. You are mine, my marionette. I have full control over you. The perfect drama, the subtle cunning, and the perfect chemistry - do not be fooled because I have carefully designed everything to make you fall for me. To make you think of me, to make you come to me. I gaze into your chocolate eyes, and see your pupils dilate. I am in control. I have mesmerised you with my carefully crafted words, every sentence perfectly mirrored to your likings. Your story becomes mine. I sympathise with your losses, your interests. But I also make sure to remain carefree, and you adore this present-like behaviour. I continue emitting everything people are naturally drawn to: happiness, which you want to catch from me, too. I see your gaze following me into the bar where I talk to other men in an unhurried manner but you also have hope from the gentle smile that I gave you, as I left the table. I keep myself very vague to your friends, letting them imagine what they will, and they keep fighting for my interest. But not to you. You are the chosen one, I chose you. From what I gather, your life is stable, too stable. You are bored- let me fill your void. My capacity for strong emotions seem to make my seductive manoeuvres very natural and dynamic. This is probably because I myself, am not aware of the change of character that occurs at this moment. All I can feel is ultimate happiness. Joy available in ubiquitous amount. An omnipresence of dopamine. Nietzsche was right, this is what happiness feels like- the increase in power, a resistance is overcome. I mean something in this world, to somebody. Finally, you have filled my emptiness, and my interest ignites into desire. I want you right now, your lips on mine, your breath on my neck. You tell me about fair treatment, and splitting the bill, and I mirror you this value. I continue indulging you in your wants and moods. You don't know how it has happened, but more and more of your thoughts now revolve around me. The time has come for something stronger, and I lure you in with an irresistible taste of adventurous pleasure. I know you feel oppressed by the role you need to play as a man. I have seen your family structure. You do as you are told, and remain in control, calm, and steady. You long for someone that frees you from your limitations. Let it be me. I can do that. I will give everything to you and be your fascinating but dangerous siren. My presence appears alluring to you because you feel the sexually charged particles, and you can grasp the imminent transcendence into a realm of pure pleasure. I give you the world, where I embody your fantasy.

I mask my persecutions as morality, as an act of genuine interest. As a means of sharing my presence with a like-minded individual. This cannot be farther from the truth. I do not care what you do, I only care about the things that make me feel better, which is your attention. Your lust after me. You serve a purpose. And as time passes, you notice my nobility and refinement are, in fact, a put-on, and seeing you disappointed and alienated crashes me. You have arrived at your final destination. This is how I view myself but at least, I could mirror you a persona I desperately want to be, and want others to solely see me as her. I am the deliverer, but it can only last for so long. At least I can exert the power of this sort of charisma which descends from my expression of dark emotions that have built up over years of oppression. At this moment, I liberate all bottled-up emotions by other people—of the hostility masked by forced politeness and smile. My lesson that I should always help myself, not wait for others to lift me up, meant a great deal because of my years in emotional hostage led me to follow my personal doctrine. That I can only lift myself up from the bottom.

I feel something more deeply than others, and no emotion is more powerful and more capable of creating a charismatic reaction than relieving someone of his own self-hatred, particularly if it comes from deep-rooted feelings of oppression. I express you what you are afraid to express and you see great power in me.

[armandyke]

The link between diet and autism: a critical analysis of the recent Earth Locker episode and a chance for River to relive her lab report title writing days

Link to the original video

So as I already mentioned I’ve seen a few people talking about the recent episode of the Earth Locker (a podcast by Robert Sheehan, Tom Hopper, and Bryon Knight) where they talk with Tom and his wife Laura about their experiences raising their autistic son. I watched the whole episode and while there were a lot of good points made, there was also some misinformation, statements that were poorly explained and could be misinterpreted, and a couple of pretty harmful ideas put across which I’m gonna go into below. 

Disclaimer one: I’m gonna be saying a lot of stuff that I’m not going to be posting sources for. This is because everything I’m saying comes from my experiences as an autistic person, my experiences working as a support worker for adults with autism where I am currently a key worker for two autistic individuals, my work related training on autism, mental health, and diet & nutrition, and my knowledge from my psychology degree in which I also spent a lot of time studying biology and physiology. This is all just stuff that I know, and at some point I might try to add some sources but I’m writing this fresh off watching and making notes on this video so my energy is already running a little low and I’d rather focus on getting my points across instead of having to take time to source every piece of information. 

Disclaimer two: The purpose of this post isn’t to attack or defend any of the people involved in the podcast. This is also in no way a criticism of Tom and Laura’s parenting. This is purely a criticism of the discussion that took place on the podcast, not on any of the choices they’ve made for their son.

Disclaimer three: I’m going to be using the phrase “challenging behaviour” a lot while I’m explaining things as this is the term used in most modern research and is what we use at work. This basically describes any behaviour that causes harm to the individual or to other people around them, or behaviour that is detrimental to the individual’s wellbeing. 

So the main thing I want to go into with this is the misinformation and misinterpretation of information that was central to the discussion in this podcast, and that was around the connection between diet and autism. Most of the things Tom and Laura said about the effects of diet weren’t incorrect, but it wasn’t explained accurately and missed out on some key points so let’s go: 

In terms of whether diet can “cause” autism: no it can’t. There’s absolutely no evidence to suggest it does. It also can’t “worsen” autism because autism isn’t something that can get “worse” or “better”. A person with autism can develop and learn new skills and they can also regress (and diet can influence this, which I’ll go into further on), but an autistic person at a lower stage of development does not have “worse” autism than a person at a higher stage of development. 

Poor diet can have an impact on autistic people in the same way as with neurotypical people. If we eat junk, we tend to feel like junk as a result, and when we feel like junk it can be harder to concentrate and carry out our usual day to day tasks. However, autistic people are also significantly more likely to suffer from digestive problems and food intolerances, and so for a lot of autistic people (or parents of autistic children) diet may be something that requires close attention. So saying that an autistic individual’s challenging behaviour could be a result of their diet isn’t necessarily untrue, but it does massively oversimplify the issue. The challenging behaviour is more likely a response to pain or discomfort, (as well as frustration if they are unable to communicate this), which is caused by a diet unsuitable for this specific individual, which is caused by an intolerance or digestive problem, which they were at greater risk of developing due to their autism. It’s worth mentioning that medical professionals still don’t know why this comorbidity exists. 

So, referring back to Tom and Laura’s experience with their son, they were explaining that their son’s challenging behaviour spiked while he was on a high-sugar diet. Laura also added that he had been suffering from increasingly frequent infections in his ears and throat while eating these foods, which makes sense because high blood sugar levels can weaken the immune system and make us more susceptible to infections. They then explained that these infections stopped following a tonsillectomy and a change to a sugar-free diet, which then also lead to a complete reduction in their son’s challenging behaviours. Again, implying that the reduction in behaviours is a result of cutting out the sugar is oversimplifying. It’s most likely that their son’s challenging behaviours were a response to the pain the infections were causing, which may or may not have been linked to his sugar intake. Either way, autistic people are all individuals and so while a reduction in sugar intake has benefited their son, by no means does that mean that all autistic people should be following a low-sugar diet or that this would be beneficial for them. 

This isn’t entirely on topic but there are two other things I want to address in terms of what Tom and Laura said while talking about their son, the first being when talking about their initial approach to their children's’ diet before they were aware that their son was autistic. Laura essentially said that she wanted their children to be able to try different foods and that the focus would be on education about health and diet rather than cutting “unhealthy” foods out of their diets completely, which I thought was a great way to approach things. However she then added that, had they known about their son’s autism at the time, they may have approached things differently, which I was confused about. I think (and hope) she was just trying to say that if they had known upfront that sugar particularly seemed to be detrimental to their son, they would have reduced that straight away rather than having to use a process of trial and error which makes sense, but just the way it was phrased set off alarm bells because it sounded like she was implying that they would have controlled his diet more strictly if they had known he was autistic. Hopefully this isn’t the case because autistic people don’t need to have their choices limited if there is no detriment to their health or wellbeing. 

Another thing I was confused about, and I’m not sure if this was supposed to be more of a weird analogy rather than factual information, was when Tom started talking about “sensory glands” when talking about their son’s hypersensitivity to sounds. I think his exact words were something along the line of saying that the high sugar levels were causing his “sensory glands” to “swell” which was heightening his sensitivity. And like... unless I missed something there is no such thing as a sensory gland and they certainly don’t swell up when we’re over stimulated or when we have a lot of sugar. Sugar triggers high dopamine responses in our brains which then leads to cravings and can cause spikes and crashes in mood, and it can also cause inflammation, all of which can cause discomfort and in turn could lead to an increase in sensitivity, but as far as I know sugar doesn’t have a direct effect on our senses. 

Now on to the elephant in the room and the two big, glaring no-no's in this podcast, both of which were said by Tom (these are not direct quotes because I didn’t get a chance to jot them down in time so I’m paraphrasing slightly):

“we cannot ignore the correlation between rising autism rates and the increase in fast food consumption” (spoiler alert: yes we can)

“I really want to get to the cause of autism and see if there’s something that can be done to prevent it”

So, first of all, autism isn’t something that needs to be prevented. Autistic people are not a detriment to society. We don’t have an illness, we just experience the world differently and, in some cases, require additional support to live our lives as fully as possible. Obviously it can’t be ruled out that fast food, or anything else, has a part to play in rising rates, but there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that it does and correlation absolutely does not equal causation. Gay representation in the media has also been steadily rising with rates of autism diagnosis. Does this mean that seeing gay people on TV makes people autistic? No. As Laura briefly mentioned, it is far more likely that the rising rates are actually due to an increase in understanding about autism and the accessibility of diagnosis, especially when you consider how many people are still slipping under the radar even with all the knowledge we have today.

I appreciate that most of this podcast is just a conversation between friends about various topics, but when the goal of this podcast is to “raise awareness”, and with the shared platform the people involved have, casual statements like these are incredibly dangerous. With the general implication that if everyone lived a healthy, clean, and organic lifestyle, we could reduce the number of autistic people in our society, this not only puts the “blame” on parents of autistic people, and on the individuals themselves, but is also dipping into eugenics territory. And while I don’t think the intentions behind either statement were malicious, they were incredibly ignorant, and the fact that they went completely unchallenged was concerning and made me pretty uncomfortable. 

There were still a lot of positives in the podcast. I’m really glad Laura was also involved because she definitely came across as being the most educated on the subject of the four of them and did make a point of bringing up issues with diagnosis (particularly among girls with autism), her and Tom’s privilege in terms of being able to work with doctor’s to find out as much as possible about their son’s dietary needs and to then provide him with a tailored diet, and also addressing the issues with “high functioning vs low functioning” when Rob asked about the “severity” of their son’s autism. However there was still an undeniable amount of inaccurate or poorly presented information, as well as some things that were just plain incorrect and offensive. I appreciate that a lot of this was coming from personal experience rather than being generalised information, but I think this could have been communicated a lot more clearly and effectively considering the intention was to spread awareness, and the episode would have massively benefitted from the input of an autistic adult. Rob specifically had a lot of questions about autism in general and I think they would have been much better answered by somebody with autism, rather than a parent giving an outside perspective of their child’s experiences. It’s always a little uncomfortable to watch four neurotypical people discuss autism, regardless of how positive their intentions are, and I don’t think it would have been a great challenge for them to find an autistic person who would have been willing to talk about the topic with them.