#some hw negativity I guess?

[dumpy-dump]

losing a long time interest, falling out of love with something thats meant so much to you for so long, hurts so bad

. . .

i wish i still liked ffxiv :( :( :(

i havent touched the game since finishing endwalker msq bc it disappointed me so much

even then i tried watching videos of the 6.x stuff and i just could not get myself to care and that makes me so sad

and now my old friends are playing dawntrail and getting into arguments about whether it sucks or not (that i cant really comment on myself, obvi)

and idk im just feeling unhappy about the whole thing all over again

[ofdarklands]

like @elizabethrobertajones said, everyone is tagged if they want to

B A S I C S

Name: Mitr'a Alywd

Nicknames: none he allows

Age: 36-40 (ARR-EW)

Nameday: 31st sun of the 5th umbral moon

Guardian: Nymeia

Race: keeper of the moon

Gender: man

Sexuality: he would not understand the question. not lalafells, he guesses?

Profession: botany and crafting. also male keeper duties. he takes it very seriously

P H Y S I C A L     A S P E C T S

Hair: off white, fur-like

Eyes: one purple, one white

Skin: brown, freckled white

Tattoos/scars: many work scars in his hands and arms, some bigger ones from fights over the years on various parts of his body, some of them ifrit burns since there weren't any good healers immediately available after, but from hw on when he got the whm stone he hasn't really gotten any new ones. he tends to keep regen going; being a bard and dragoon is hard on the knees

F A M I L Y

Parents: a mother, as normal. as you might guess her name is Mitr

Siblings: one female twin (Varuna) with her 2 kids, and 3 quite a few years younger sisters he's not as close to. i have not picked their names

Grandparents: a grandmother :) she's the clan boss. very cool

In-laws and other: an aunt and her 2 daughters, general big extended family. he's not aware what an in-law is, but he considers the twins his children. as far as we know g'raha doesn't have any living family and feo ul is a fae so...

Pets: not really. his chocobo Robin is his partner, the palico seems to thinks it's his employee(?), the spirit eagle is a friend and most of the minions are not canon or just temporary charges for him. and midgardsormr is our dad

S K I L L S

Abilities: general wol stuff like very good senses, obscene amounts of aether and control of it, body control and so on. only reason he has not levelled every class is personality reasons. good at languages, and prefers not to rely on the echo. excellent memory as long as he cares about the topic

Hobbies: high adrenaline: being the wol. low adrenaline: fishing, napping, composing music. all things botany related as well

T R A I T S

Most positive trait: fearless, will not stop. loves to meddle even if he won't say it out loud. loving

Most negative trait: fearless, will not stop. also will appear and disappear on you with no warning and give you heart attacks. will not change on this point

L I K E S

Colors: blues, greens. generally anything not unnaturally bright

Smells: most natural smells even if they are pungent. reminds him of home. hates perfumes and incenses. can't things smell like what they are now?

Textures: enjoys them, generally. touch is one of his favourite senses

Drinks: usually just water, but has a bunch of different juices and tea recipes he goes through when he craves something specific. nothing very sweet though. i beileve the english word would be smoothies...?

O T H E R    D E T A I L S

Smokes: unpleasantly smelly. no. the only thing he's smoking is his food for storage

Drinks: traditional keeper beer (hard to find, dense), mildly sweet or fresh drinks. won't drink anything handed to him though

Drugs: the list of plants with interesting effects he knows of could get him an archon mark if he cared about sharlayan's opinion. nothing he uses regularly, though he keeps a little satchel stocked for eventualities

Mount Issuance: what's that

Been Arrested: not that he has noticed

[smallpapers]

Updated profile pic!

Thanks to everyone for your support through the past year <3 I can't believe TOH has ended...

Some updates/ personal notes under the cut!! Like, its really personal its almost narcissistic!

PRONOUNS: I go by she/they now!!! I've always had a lowkey gender crisis (fueled by an existential crisis really) so I am FINALLY trying this out. Feel free to refer to me with they/them pronouns :) (I guess I should have seen something coming when I made my first proper OC over a decade ago as an aro ace agender lol)

TOH ENDING: I'm really sad that the owl house is over...but I'm so glad I got to meet so many cool people in the TOH fandom!!! I even had the pleasure of sending a few friends stickers as a small token of appreciation. I'm like super grateful for all the encouragement and notes! I don't talk much here but I do read the reblog tags :) The brainrot was so serious that it made me draw basically everyday the past year (even if its a small doodle) and i really feel like i grew as an artist, and I honed my skills although I still have a long way to go! I can see improvement in my framing and colouring skills :) I think I might do some funny compilation video in the near future...

A BREAK/MINI-HIATUS: I am considering taking a small break from fandom. It might be a few weeks or maybe less, depending on how quickly I get out of this slump. I am guessing its a burn out from all the negative news regarding AI 'art' and being tussled round by the twitter algorithms. Also maybe because i did two epic pieces back to back... I have a lot of ideas and I really don't want to stop posting art online! I want to do sort of a post-WAD/pre-epilogue HW comic series, as well as a grom animatic :)

THANK YOU HUNTLOW ugh they mean so much to me... I know its silly because its a silly little fictional ship. But its really unlocked some creativity in me that I lost? Along with such a lovely community, it has really inspired me to keep drawing! Maybe its a right place at a right time thing, but after watching ASiaS, it gave me brainrot so much that it kicked my other bad habits out the window! I got to do so much cool stuff i always wanted to do including making an animatic, comics, being in a fan zine, epic pieces, making stickers... I can't believe they are canon now its been such a journey to watch this ship and the shippers blossom :)

THANK YOU!!!! If you've ever liked or reblogged any of my drawings, especially leaving funny tags, I just really want to say thank you <3 I really do cherish all the comments I get!!!! and if you've read this far, I'm super impressed!

That's all from me for now!!

<3 papers

[fever-project]

Any like. Special sexuality headcanons for the crew? (I am running out of questions here help)

Personally I hc Rav as bi

Tbh, for most of them I don’t lol. So I’ll be thinking up of some right now for the others

Ravio - He’s also bi to me, and I also hc him as Acespec. Tbh it’s mostly because the flag’s purple and he’s purple. Purple’s my favorite color.

Tetra - Uhhh she’s either straight or a lesbian based on how I feel that day. Honestly it’s a coin flip, I can’t choose lol. Biflux. Pretty sure that’s a term

HW/Captain Link - He’s somewhere on the aro spectrum, maybe he’s akoiromantic. Which is when you feel romantic feelings for someone until it’s reciprocated, then those feelings basically vanish. But I’ll just say he’s arospec, because the flag is green and he’s green. I’m very creative.

Wind/Tune - Blue.

Spirit - Yeah he’s straight.

Time/Mask - Duraromantic pansexual. Duraromantic means that someone rarely experiences romantic feelings, but when they do it lasts for a long time. He had a crush on his Zelda for far longer than he liked lamo.

HW Zelda - Bisexual. You see, the flag has both blue and pink, like how as Sheik she’s blue and as Zelda she’s pink and-

ST Zelda/Phantom - Straight, just like her Link. You see the straight slag is both blue and pink like how Spirit is blue and Phantom is pink and-

Impa - uhhh aroace. Yeah. Maybe a lesbian. Both.

Marin - Pansexual. I think. Anyways the flag is pink, yellow, and blue, and she’s-

Medli - idk. Bird ig

Ruto - I don’t think she even knows what romance is, or at least never truly felt any romantic feelings towards Time. But she clearly does want to have a romantic relationship, so I guess she’s cupioromantic now. So uh, here’s a version of the flag that’s color picked from her Great Sea’s outfit

Lana(and Cia ig) - Forgot about her for a moment ha. She’s bisexual but mostly has a preference for men.

Linkle - Aromantic lesbian. She’s green and orange. Do you know what flag has orange in it

Agitha - idk she’s 10. I had barely any idea what I was when I was that age, nor did I really care ngl, so yeah. Idk, and neither does she.

Darunia - I feel sad that I have no thoughts about him. He’s just some guy, so I guess he’s straight? No thoughts.

Minda - Bisexual.

King Daphnes - Realistically, he’s straight. But I think it would be funny if he was a raging homosexual. Oh, and there’s this drag feather pride flag, created in 1999, and idk, the vibes fit. Also it’s red and gold and you know

Skull Kid - uh. Idk that’s a creature(positive) he can be anything. Be free king 👑

Wizzaro - Creature(negative).

Volga - Homosexual.

Ganondorf - Apothisexual(and apothiromantic). Basically it’s someone who is asexual(and also aromantic in his case) and is repulsed by sex(and also romance in his case). The apothisexual flag has red and black

Yuga - I’d say he’s pansexual ig. I support pan rights and wrongs. But not his

Fi + Ghirahim - They are definitely asexual. Aromantic? Maybe.

And that’s it! Boy was that a lot of guys. I sure hope I didn’t miss anybody-

I SAID I SURE HOPE I DIDNT’ MISS ANYBODY-

((((；ﾟДﾟ)))))))

Tingle - Creature(creepy and unnerving)

[coconox]

random ramble since i’ve been thinkin a lot lately instead of doing hw but ermmm anyways

i guess for some lore about myself i was a lurker on pgrtwt starting late 2021? then august 2022 was when i started posting there (basically around the time of pgr’s 1st anni art contest). anyways i’ve been playing the game ever since day 1 of its global release and it took me a while to get out of my comfort zone to interact with people cause my social skill levels are in the negatives lol

from my swiss cheese memory i’d say my experience was relatively ok in terms of interacting with the fandom at first. i’ve made so many friends whom i still talk to to this day and i honestly love and appreciate them with all my heart. and as much as i wanna shine on the positives i remember, there’s definitely been more memorable negatives that i want to let off my chest after idk how many years at this point.

to not turn this into a giant essay i’ll just say it upfront here: i left pgrtwt and ultimately twt as a whole last year because it's simply just not for me. these past few days/weeks from what my friends had been showing me really shed light on my experiences in the past, how a lot of the fandom just doesn’t appreciate artists/creatives, even months ago saying ai images are better which is fucking absurd and i will never, EVER tolerate that.

i loved the game so much, hell, i still want to love this game and as much as i want to, a huge part of my thoughts/feelings towards the game are also dependent on fandom interactions/experiences, and majority of that has been fairly negative whether that had been through twt or guild-related discord servers.

i’ve rarely ever felt like i was respected during my times of interacting in those servers, i have friends who felt/are feeling like they aren’t being respected on either twt or certain discord servers, and i’ve gotten tired of everything that has happened with this fandom. 

i’ll be announcing here that i’ll no longer be making any pgr fanart. my love for the game has been slowly dying out too, as personally future patches after vera’s gacha coating story just don’t interest me. i pretty much have it set in stone that i’m quitting gacha games altogether by the end of this year anyways. i'm still in school so the process of changing aesthetics and whatnot have been rather slow, but i have been moving on to other games/projects i've been wanting to work on

[coinandcandle]

I guess concerning witchcraft questions... hm. Do you have any sources for spirit work? After seeing the conversation about deities it had me feel a bit foolish for not asking if I was getting assistance from Athena. I'm a new witch and I didn't get to use my pendulum to dowse or ask for a sign. I assumed after giving offerings I just felt up and ready to get help with my hw. Silly and small thing, I know, but I also assumed because I do dragon work and my co-magician and guardian dragons didn't really have a negative reaction when I called Athena. I know it wasn't spell work but I've never worked with other deities. I've only recently come out as a Catholic witch/Christopagan so I just wanna make sure my deity and spirit work is done correctly. A friend told me that trickster spirits are the reason some ex-witches convert to Christianity because trickster spirits disguised themselves as helpful spirits and scared these witches Christian. (For context before I decided to practice the craft I had concerns about witches who wanted to try God and their spirit guides turned on them like demons so this was what I was told)

First I'll say that I'm happy to hear that you're questioning! I know it sucks to feel insecure in your religion or spiritual beliefs but please know that it's always healthy to be a bit of a skeptic!

I don't think it'd be a bad idea to ask for a specific sign from Athena to make sure you're working with her.

If you find that you're not actually working with Athena don't freak out! The spirit might not be trying to trick you. If they have been helpful and the relationship is founded on healthy boundaries then there's no reason to stop interacting with them.

It may be that the entity just didn't care what you called them, not that they're trying to pretend to be her. Ask some clarifying questions if you feel like the relationship is good and safe.

For references I'll scoot you toward @windvexer and @crazycatsiren on the matter:

Windvexer's Masterpost

Cat's Grimoire Page

As for witches being scared into Christianity: People are a lot more scared of spirits than they should be due to media portrayals of them. I'm not saying they can't be scary, but humans can be pretty scary too! So treat any interaction with the same energy and respect you'd treat an interaction with a human.

People come and go from religions for many different things.

I think a good number of people being "scared out of witchcraft" is probably due to the MANY hyperbolized warnings that circulate in the community.

[nikatinencaffeine]

Friday morning is weigh day:

-11.4lbs! I've been angry and depressed for not losing more than a pound or two, so it's been like 2 weeks since I've weighed in. It was a nice surprise and gives me the motivation to keep restricting...but I have a loooooong way to go. I'm morbidly obese and it's disgusting. I have always struggled. Does anybody else feel like they have imposter syndrome? I'm a full-grown adult! I'm not young and skinny enough to take seriously in the 'local' 3d community, but I'm not happy identifying with the people who glorify unhealthy behavior. I go out and I'm just some f4t lady. Don't get me wrong, I believe in loving yourself above everything else, but that means I go to extra lengths to keep my struggling private because I can't practice what I preach. I'm a single mom with an impressionable young daughter that I want to protect from all of this and shield her from the negativity. I feel like a hypocrite sometimes. What motivated me to even lose in the first place was that I could not fit down the slides at the playground with her when she was a toddler. I guess that's the only good thing about being too overweight for my struggles to really show, but then neither do my small successes. Right now, I'm just showing her that I'm getting healthy, but I also make sure to tell her how beautiful and capable she is. I don't ever want her to feel the way I do and suffer the way I do. I've never been at my gw, I've struggled since puberty to be skinny. I was doing so well, but trauma happened and I ate my feelings. A year of hard work, dropping 130lbs, and I gained 50 back.

Now: 500-800kcal a day | 30minutes cardio at the very least a day | 10k+ steps per day

I also try to eat keto in those kcals because that's how I went from 300 to 170 in a year.

Hw: 300

Lw: 170

Cw: 214

Gw: 130

Ugw: 115

Here's to another day. Drink your water, take your vitamins, go take a walk, eat your kcals.

[littlemissidontcare]

I think a lot of fans are getting bored with Sebastian. He didn’t get cast for a new role, he’s choice of leaving social media really hurt the promotions of the Sharper. He doesn’t allow his friends and girlfriend to post him. Sebastian needs to improve his personal life, if it’s real with Annabelle than show it to his fans, don’t keep them guessing. / While I agree that especially since award season ended Seb hasn't been very visible but I'm not sure he needs to improve his personal life as much as he needs to up his PR game. His fans want to see him and he needs to keep people in HW thinking about him. He's had a year with AW and whatever the nature of their relationship, real or PR or who knows, they are not using it for the maximum attention they could if they choose to. He does need to do PR but my preference would be solo pap walks, charity event, photo shoot, a gym photo, plenty of ways to do PR. Doing PR with AW brings negative attention from some which he could avoid if he does solo PR. Anon I hope this doesn't come out bad but I'm uncomfortable with the idea that Seb needs to show fans what the nature of his relationship is, to not leave them guessing. Honestly as much as I enjoy discussing him and yes even his private life, the nature of his relationship is no one's business but his. There is no reason he should share that with the public. Not even if they are dying to know what's going on.

[glazedvsion]

why do i tell my dad literally anythingggg im telling him about my econ class and everything is usually due on sunday nights but today my friend was like dude i checked its due tonight this time and im like ughdhhdhhh but i still did it because whatever and im like "well i guess the professor expected us to know when it was due because the due dates for the whole semester have always been available but when the norm for the entire semester is hw due on sundays you dont really think to check anymore and a heads up would have been nice but whatever" but then tonight at 9:24pm the professor sends an announcement "ALL HW FOR THIS UNIT DUE TONIGHT" and im like is she serious thats something u send in the morning or even like extend the date bc two and a half hours before midnight ur serious? and im telling this to my dad and i know half of the class is like working adults so they probably dont even have the time tonight and its not fair to them. and what does he have to say abt it. "well you should stop being lazy and actually do your work". where in all of that did you get that. is insulting me the only fucking thing you know how to say. can i get some indignation on my behalf. why is every time your daughter comes to you with any type of problem your first and only reaction is to blame me for whatever negative experience i have. how the fuck is this even close to my fault????

[issom-har]

Under cut for Stormblood talk and general personal rambling.

I don’t know what it was about Heavensward, but I logged in the night it went live, got as far as Ishgard, and then just...logged out. For about three months. I only logged back in as often as was necessary to make sure I still had my house. And then I played sporadically--sometimes not for months at a time--for something like a year.

I wanted to love Heavensward so badly, I was excited for it when it was first announced, and then something about it didn’t grab me. At all. I had to force myself not to skip dialogue and cutscenes. I never do that. I have never lost interest in something I loved like that under circumstances that were no fault of the game itself, and I was honestly pretty devastated. I lost all confidence in my ability to RP, because I was having such non-feelings toward the expac content that it manifested as total apathy toward my character. What could have caused it? Did I not have the attention span to read quest dialogue suddenly? Was I just utterly bored with my main? Had the pleasure and reward centers of my brain been infested by Depression Silverfish and finally destroyed? I had some theories, but none of them could fully explain it. 

Some of the things that might have contributed to my pile of blah:

Janvier had no personal stake in the storyline of HW at all. Canonically, he went to Ishgard at the start of the expansion exactly once, at which point he offered to let Saint dunk him off a cliff into the Sea of Clouds for being a lying sack of shit. Realistically, he would have immediately realized he couldn’t handle being that close to a war zone and gone home to get his head screwed on straight and refocus on his priorities. It really didn’t make sense for him to involve himself in a war before outright conflict with the Garleans became unavoidable.

The zone design immediately turned me off. Sea of Clouds was beautiful, but the story was so on rails that I felt like I was actually being punished for exploring before I was done with the MSQ. I was used to stopping and hanging out in places for a while before moving on with the story, but there was limited stuff to do in many places pre-flying. You were supposed to get that, then come back.

Crafting and gathering, my eternal relaxation activities, seemed to get way more complicated. Beyond the collectable system, node clusters were placed to encourage the use of flying mounts (and discourage gathering pre-flying). Lots more stuff on timed nodes. HW crafts were more complicated and required a lot of cross-class stuff, and even some basic mats (cured leather, thread, etc) took either timed resources or random amounts of pre-HW materials. 

It was difficult for me to be invested in the antagonists. The Heavens’ Ward themselves I mostly care about because my friends (one in particular) have fleshed them out in headcanons and fic, but in the story itself they’re basically exactly what they are in the end: extensions of Thordan. Thordan was interesting, but he himself was a personification of the attitudes that made Ishgard a hellhole more than a compelling person.

Ishgard was a hellhole, albeit a very pretty, snowy one. There were no places I wanted to sit and hang out, nothing that looked particularly inviting. Big monolith buildings and imposing wide walkways would have drawn me in if it had been a friendlier city, like Jeuno maybe? I could go to the Brume or the Foundations to see people in abject misery, or go up top to watch the nobility glide across beautiful, empty streets. All of it left me with the appropriate uncomfortable feeling, but I didn’t want to set a home point there, if you catch me.

There were a lot of missed opportunities everywhere. After a start in which it seemed like she’d get NPC main character status, Ysayle was criminally misused. The explosive end to the 2.x series--so important it was referenced in the CGI opening for HW--amounted to very little. Midgardsormr, also set up to be a major player, rarely appeared. Those amounted to most of the things I went in very interested in. The Churning Mists, a beautiful zone filled with mysterious ruins and evidence of human/dragon cooperation, is entirely taken up by a sprawling web of quests about running mundane chores for throw pillows with wings.  

Entirely on me: I created Janvier with RDM in mind for him and misjudged how difficult it would be to play him as something else for years and years. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense for him to travel as a conjurer. Having him go back to MNK felt slightly off, like negative character development. RDM hit and it was perfect for him and I instantly enjoyed playing him again. It was wild.

In the end I think the problem was that it discouraged playing with the things that usually keep me busy (exploring, crafting, and gathering) out of the gate, while just not appealing enough to me on a personal level to keep me interested. 

To say that I’m relieved by being blown away by Stormblood is putting it super mildly. I had to force myself to log off tonight. I’m really, really happy to have confirmation that it was a case of incompatibility with HW and not a 95% reduction in my ability to experience joy. That said, I feel pretty weird that I so firmly disliked an expac that most of my friends loved that I probably would have quit altogether if not for Palace of the Dead. Especially since there wasn’t anything wrong with HW! It was a good expansion! I actually quite liked the dungeon design, and exploring the zones once I had flying, Churning Mists in particular! I think it’s just me.

[mynameisbillandimaheadcase]

'

[lilac-melody]

Okay so I’m extremely late to this, but do you know what happened to ASCANA?

It's all good! Are you referring to in general, or in the anime?

To answer both, Johnny's Project, who owns Ascana, has finished making Ascana videos. They had their last stream some months back, which is where their final song Step x Smile x Step came from!

Since they're done with their streams and stuff, I'm assuming that JP doesn't want them active anymore, so it's unlikely they'll be able to be in anymore Honeyworks MVs.

As for the anime...probably because they're discontinued they're not allowed to be in the anime.

Also, JP fans of Ascana were quite angry that they were in the LIPxLIP movie. I guess it's because HW doesn't own them? I don't know, that bit still blows my mind tbh. So due to the negative reception, Ascana may not show up in Herotaru at all.

Hope this helped~

[ask-badlydrawn-mercosur]

To mun: what do you think of hetalia's return? It feels so weird seeing something I watched years ago come back tbh dkndkdn

// I'm really happy that we’re getting more animated content, since its been a while; but I’m ngl... I'm way more excited about the World Stars manga resuming...

[more thoughts under the cut]

Don't get me wrong - I'm happy we're getting another season and how lively the fandom will get because of it; I love the japanese voice cast (Romi Park, Eriko Nakamura and Rie Kugimiya are personal faves who happen to voice some of my personal fave nation-tans ); and I’m truly am glad that we finally reached World Stars in the animated continuity; since its been a while that the series rebranded from the Axis Powers and shifted the focus from WWII, which was a MUCH NEEDED change... Now both Manga and the Anime can be referred as HWS. I am also excited to see the debuts of Czech, Slovakia and, specially Portugal.

However, and I hope people don’t take this personally, as much as I love the series ( and I've been following aph for almost a decade now) it does kinda bothers me how... white and eurocentric aph is sometimes... and like I get it, the main characters are Italy and the World8 bunch, I am fully aware that aph is a SEINEN and it was made by a japanese individual and for a japanese audience, and that the characters that are featured often most likely reflect the personal interests of its target audience... I know it was just the FIRST episode, but as the only two non white main characters, Japan only got a few lines and China showed up a few times in the ending... and while a few other characters made small cameos (Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey), considering the seiyuu info that has been confirmed so far... I feel like the only characters that will be getting speaking roles will be the ones featured in the final shot of the ending with the chibi heads...

And this is why I’m way more excited about the manga coming back because who knows what Himaruya has in store for us...

I'm really hopeful to see content that doesn't focus too much on World8, like... I want to see Macau, Taiwan, Vietnam, India, Thailand, Seychelles, Cuba, Cameroon and Egypt get their time in the spotlight too! And like... will we get new characters this time? Hima has been teasing us Ecuador since 2013 but has yet to formally introduce him (he just showed up in the background of a WS strip, in a blink and you’ll miss moment), and I bet everyone is excited about Philippines debut too!

Just so to not end this in a negative note, credit where its due... I do appreciate the extra Seychelles scenes VERY MUCH thank you DEEN!

And I guess... these are my feelings lol... I’m excited for Hetalia’s return and especially hopeful for the manga.

This got longer than I intended but if you made it this far... thanks for reading!9

[mrchalamet-mrstyles]

I guess I’m the only one that thinks that the recent pap shots probably were arranged by his team (not him directly), but that it’s not that big of a deal? Every celeb has to deal with the “promo” (for lack of a better term) side of their job and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. I personally believe that his team probably said something along the lines of, “you’re going to have to go public with your rs at some point, so let’s get it out of the way before you start filming on your next movie”. Doing it right before Lily’s next movie is released also makes sense. I feel like Charmie loons have taken control of the “PR” narrative in that now, we ALL feel like any “PR” is negative, but it shouldn’t be—it’s NORMAL. PR does not equal FAKE.

I could maybe agree with you if we were actually getting photos of them together but...we're all still waiting.

I don't necessarily agree either that he is in need of this sort of promo since his films to come will keep him in all the spotlight he will need? No one in HW is gonna see him walking down 5th Ave with a coffee in his hand and *light bulb* I NEED HIM IN THIS FILM STAT! He has legions of fans, his ig numbers rising steadily even when we never see him. So yeah. I'm never gonna believe he is doing these walks for pure publicity. He lives in a thriving city that is reopening and being out more and finding him isn't hard. Everyone knows where he lives, where he likes to spend time. It isn't rocket science that he is being hounded because he gets clicks and people want to see him. That's it. Anyone making it some master scheme on his behalf is being ridiculous.

[fencesandfrogs]

a follow up from this post where i talk about math and me as a kid.

Wait you have dyscalculia but are a math major? Wow I have dyscalculia but I like the philosophy of math I guess like I sorta forced myself to get into it to learn, I feel I can do basic so for me it's mainly the math anxiety

@totallysweetheart​

tl/dr: the part of my brain that deals with abstract/tangible is, i think, broken, because i can’t deal with numbers as real things, but i can do that with polynomials or w/e.

so to summarize, based on wikipedia’s list of dyscalculia symptoms, here is me:

analog clocks: i’m fine to 15min in real life where i know the time of day, but in a vacuum, most real clocks r tricky. doesn’t come up. the teaching clocks i’m usually fine with because the minute hour hands are really distinct.

larger numbers: depends on presentation. purely verbally? no. visually? depends. if they both start with the same number it’s harder.

sequencing issues: not really.

financial planning: bank accounts are black magic and my mom still manages mine. i err on the side of frugal, which lead me with like 50% of my college meal plan unspent last semester.

visualizing numbers: no. nope. can’t do. not at all. numbers r fake. 

arithmetic: it sucks, a lot. i’m better at multiplying and adding, and it’s gotten better because i did a lot of practice a few years ago, but i still prefer calculators. 

number writing difficulties: yeah? hard to say i’ve been doing algebraic stuff for a long time and that really cuts down on the number of places to make those kinds of mistakes.

concepts and practice: this is where i’m strongest. my math conceptual game is strong as hell, and i don’t usually struggle with putting it into practice. even word problems i’m pretty strong at because like. it’s just math.

names of numbers: not really an issue.

left/right: also not really an issue. although it takes me a second.

spatial awareness: doesn’t exist. just. doesn’t. people don’t believe me then they ask me how long something is and i say like three feet and they’re like “it’s taller than you” and i’m like “oh really? huh the more you know”

time: im timeblind af. also adhd tho so that doesn’t help.

maps: ehhhhh. hard to say. I’m okay with some parts of maps but not others. this has definitely improved since school.

working backwards in time: i have an app for that its beautiful and i love it

music: i am good at music notation. not great at rhythm but i’m good at music in general.

dance: i did 12 years of dance. i’m not amazing, but it was a nonissue.

estimation: see: time, spatial awareness (the answer is i cannot)

remembering formulas, etc: i’m usually good at remembering this stuff.

concentration: adhd already so? maybe?

faces, names: i do not do very well here.

so like. i basically have the best possible set of symptoms to become a math major. i kind of skirted attention as a kid because i could get around a lot of my difficulties and didn’t really have anything to do but use brute force to cram multiplication facts into my head.

and because i had this really strong conceptual understanding, i just sort of survived until algebra. at which point i was very happy.

because basically most of my dyscalculia issues revolve around numbers and the real world. i can’t do time, i can’t estimate, i can’t really work with numbers. but i can work with algebra because the concepts were fine. there was just a road block.

for me, it’s kind of like having a major speech disorder in your native language. speech in the your mouth doesn’t work, not the language issues. as a kid i loved writing because the words came out the way they were in my head. they didn’t get shuffled and mangled. and that’s also how i felt about algebra. like, look! you don’t have to worry about getting the numbers right if you can move the variables around,

and obviously it’s not that complicated because i’m skipping basically from fifth grade to my junior year of high school, but even though it was a constant friction between me and everyone about why i kept making careless mistakes, even after other adhd stuff got treatment, it was generally acknowledged that i knew what i was doing, so i never really developed math anxiety. 

and as a math major, like, numbers are not a very large part of what you do. i use wolfram alpha a lot for solving that sort of thing. i do stuff that’s more about the logic parts of math. lil puzzles waiting to be solved.

it really does feel kind of like the abstract and tangible parts of my brain were swapped. because numbers really do feel abstract, but figuring out the equations of a graph is a fun game to play with friends. i usually get the constants wrong, but that’s besides the point.

i’m not entirely sure if this was helpful and/or clarifying in any way. if asked, i will usually not mention dyscalculia because? it just doesn’t feel very relevant/serious. because my management strategy is: don’t do anything with numbers and estimation ever. and then that works, because i don’t have to. it’s only really relevant in the context of me, a child, very confused about why those centimeter cubes exist, etc. 

and also, as i got older, i dug more and more into theory and proofs. learning about numbers as entities that follow rules was a really useful thing for me. learning about negative numbers made subtraction easier for me because it wasn’t addition in reverse, it was addition of a negative number. which made more sense to me.

i struggled in high school geometry because of all of the numbers and angles (i have a shirt somewhere that says “all i learned in geometry is that you can’t measure shapes”) and every time someone pointed out applications to me i kind of just went “okay but there are rulers for that”

and i do like geometry! i like how we can build properties out of simple rules and how shapes behave and its really cool you only need like 5 postulates to build a lot of geometry but if you make me deal with too many angles and i want to cry

so yeah. uh. i’m a math major & it works because when we deal with numbers, they’re almost variables in themselves? like okay we’re going to use 0 and 1 here to apply this theorem but the numbers themselves aren’t relevant.

here is a screenshot from my calc textbook, if this helps make my point. most of these concepts are things i can just. put in my head and hold the way people who can think about numbers describe numbers to me. 

i have no idea where u are in ur life but if u like math from the logic side, then pure math exists and its p cool. usually you gotta get thru calculus, and then take a course in proof writing (at my uni it’s called “transition to advanced math”) at which point everything turns into theorems and proofs and the most number intensive course is probability. i don’t even need statistics credits to graduate.

this was a lot and i tried to wrap it up like 3 times and then i had more to say because i think a lot abt math and the fact that i was lucky to have the right opportunities to not entirely chase myself away from the field (which is a lot more words and i should probably work on my hw) but if u have more questions lemme know bc! i am very dedicated to exposing people to math and why i love it.

[mysticalmusicwhispers]

WSKFJEKGJ indus Not Approving of yao is BRILLIANT also i am not a dog person but also not a being mean to animals person so i am not sure how to feel about the poor dog... still it is exactly what they would do (and then poor indus has to deal with yao being invited over repeatedly after this visit. f. if they do something too stupid he's going to be banned and there will be the additional chaos of sneaking him in.... )

YEP i don't think baby yao has much pity for anyone let alone himself and he also doesn't know what fear means. also OH NO NYO CHINA AS HIS GUARDIAN. OH N O the thing is that nyo china is probably working/worked either in finance or as some sort of private tutor for like 25 subjects for students over the world because she's brilliant... but that means like long or irregular hours and probably a lot of time out of the country... which means that yao has so much time (and money, via a fat allowance) to go F E R A L. also you KNOW she wouldn't discipline him even if she had the time. she'd just be like go baby! kids will be kids! i'll use my money to scrub your bullshit from your records! as long as you get good grades and keep yourself fed you are a-OK! she also has the moral backbone of a chocolate éclair and negative 10 parenting skills. and yao obviously follows this example of "if you have enough money/power you are Above The Law, you can ignore any laws you think are stupid". which uhh cultivates his ambition and discipline in academics, so i guess at least she didn't fail there??? she would be such a terrible parent/guardian omg i think both 2p and 2p nyo china are better parents/guardians who can actually instill but NO of course it HAD to be her

also thank you for the book rec when i get back home i'll read it!

SNEAKING HIM IN AKSJDKS also yeah india is like “haha you suggested I invite him now he’s Excited!! I have to keep inviting him, or else I’ll lose my friend!” *puppy dog eyes*. F in the chat for Indus. Also lol yeah I’m not a dog person either but I think it would be one of those small yappy dogs because they are not very intimidating but very annoying. Yao dislikes it for whatever mysterious reason and they somehow manage to get it to wash itself in a bucket of water with pink hair dye, and then lock itself outside the neighbor’s house. Unfortunately the neighbor has a security camera and things get out of hand from there. Idk what would get him banned but I honestly don’t think it would take much lmao, Indus is already at her limit with the first stunt...

Also YES to finance/tutor nyo China! I love that she travels a lot and is just that sort of absent but also pretty cool guardian who facetimes her ward (or whatever) and says “Ill bring you (insert souvenir/traditional snacks) from (insert country here) when I get back. Did you do all your homework? What have you been eating? Mhmm.... ok! You seem to be holding up fine, I have a call from a client right now so I have to hang up.” (Yao usually has his hw done and even if he answers he just ate snacks and like 1 proper meal at a friend’s house it’ll probably satisfy nyo china). YES TO THE FAT ALLOWANCE and the too-much leniency.... FFFFFFFFFF in the chat for every single classmate of Yao’s and their parents. IMAGINE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN SHE GOES TO MEET THE TEACHER ON TEACHER PARENT NIGHT lmaooo all Yao’s classmates are scared of her but all his classmates’ parents are giving nyo China the evil eye (but simultaneously being a little bit scared of this woman who has ended up raising a feral child) sksksksks kinda hilarious. Yao and nyo China are just in their own little familial dynamic while everyone else is trying to stay as far away as possible from them lol. And yeah lol, I was gonna have her either be Yao’s adult cousin or aunt (like idk mid 20s (23 would probably be the youngest) to early 30s or something) so she’s just vibing by herself and then gets a child, says “oh well, I guess I can take him” and literally is just his provider of food and shelter but not much else. Yao is fine with that though because his Independence is strong lol