#that wasn't altogether positive or encouraging of the school

[supercantaloupe]

i had a meeting to discuss the grad fellowship job and while it was overwhelmingly positive and both myself and the professor/faculty are happy and excited for me to take the job my stupid fucking brain can't stop turning over the one (1) slightly negative comment i got regarding my candidacy/qualification like shawarma

[sixty-silver-wishes]

Florida, politics, and why I cried watching Wicked today

So, I just got back from a performance of the musical Wicked today in Orlando. This was a show I was already quite familiar with, having seen it once before as a kid and having listened to the soundtrack dozens of times over the years. I have fond memories of belting "Defying Gravity" with my friends at sleepovers, or even acting out the entire script twice with one of them; I'd always be Elphaba, and my friend would always be Glinda. (My mom bought my sister and I the special-edition "Grimmerie" book, which included the full play script, interviews, and behind-the-scenes details.) Needless to say, Wicked is and has always been a nostalgic show for me, and that's what I expected when I went to see it today- familiar songs and characters, a heartwarming and oft-praised story about female friendship, and dazzling musical numbers that have since become iconic, almost to the point of cliche among theatre fans. If I was going to cry during Wicked, I thought, it would be solely because of this nostalgia. It turns out, I cried twice. Not just a teary eye or two, but full-on, ugly sobbing.

It turns out, Wicked is a very political show.

For as loud as Wicked is about its politics, surprisingly, that's not an element I see talked about much. Often times, when I see people talking about Wicked, it's usually the spectacle of "Defying Gravity" or the themes of friendship (and maybe even queer romance) between the two leads, or whether or not people who like this show are "real musical theatre fans" on account of how popular it is. And if you want to talk about those aspects of Wicked, go ahead; I'm not stopping you. But the themes of politics and activism motivate the entire plot, fuel the fluidity of "good" and "wicked" that is such a central theme of the show, and are responsible for all of the major character arcs. By the logic of Wicked, to be truly good is to be an activist, an advocate for the marginalized and to encourage others to do the same.

Whenever my sister and I would listen to Wicked's soundtrack as kids, we would usually skip over "Something Bad," a short but plot-important number that serves a number of functions. It wasn't as fun to sing along to as "Popular" or as energetic as "One Short Day," so we usually ended up not listening to it at all. "Something Bad" is sung by Doctor Dillamond, the history teacher at Shiz, a high-class academy in Oz which the main characters attend. Dillamond, an anthropomorphic goat, is the only animal teacher at Shiz, and while he cares for his students and his job, he is threatened with losing his position, both because he's physically losing his ability to speak, and because animals are being persecuted by Oz's human residents. "Something Bad" gives us this exposition, and demonstrates a show of solidarity between Dillamond and Elphaba, who is shunned and ridiculed by the other students due to her green skin. Dillamond also explains in a monologue that animal persecution has been going on for a long time in Oz (to which Glinda ignorantly states something along the lines of "why keep talking about the past instead of teaching us history?"), and that animals who lose their ability to speak do so because they have been made so afraid to that they forget how altogether.

Despite being a clear advocate for animal equality in Oz, Dillamond himself sometimes lapses into goat noises instead of speech, implying that this fear is getting to him as well. After all, his job is in a precarious position (he is later fired and forcibly removed from the classroom), he's the only animal teacher at the school, and the only person who takes him seriously is Elphaba, who herself is also a subject of ridicule. Even Dillamond's own classroom is no longer safe for him, as it has been vandalized with a message reading, "animals should be seen and not heard." And when Elphaba is made aware of what is happening to the animals, she sings the last line of "Something Bad"- "It couldn't happen here in Oz." And why should it happen in Oz? After all, Oz is a colorful, quirky place full of magic and silly expressions, and different kinds of people and creatures who seem to coexist. But it is happening in Oz, and Elphaba, as a victim of baseless discrimination, already knows that Oz is not the free-spirited, fantasy utopia it appears to be.

So, in case I haven't made it excruciatingly obvious, "Something Bad" took on an entirely new significance when I watched it performed today. Dillamond is an educator, specifically a history teacher, who attempts to teach his students about the injustices against people (or in his case, animals) like him that have persisted for a long time, and he recognizes that these problems are only building and getting worse. In short, animal discrimination in Wicked's Oz is systemic, and didn't come out of nowhere. Animals are not just being forced from respected and influential positions in society, but also being limited from speaking altogether, specifically through the usage of fear and suppression. After Dillamond is fired, a man in a stark outfit bringing to mind the aesthetics of Nazi Germany enters the classroom, holding a cage with a young Cowardly Lion inside. He's also there to teach about animal speech in Oz, except this time, he shows off the caged lion cub and explains that animals should be silenced from birth, because the ability to speak against their own oppression makes them a threat.

Living in Florida, this scene, along with "Something Bad," hit me like a ton of bricks. Over the past few years, in my own state, I have been seeing the rise in discrimination against POC and LGBT+ people, specifically by the state government to target schools and educators, particularly history teachers like Dillamond. Teaching history and its systemic injustices is seen as a threat to right-wing power, and as education is targeted, people grow afraid to advocate for their own rights and grow disillusioned with the prospect of fighting for them, similar to how the animals in Wicked forget how to speak altogether after keeping silent to survive for so long. Like the lion cub, young people especially are targeted, with the school system and trans healthcare for minors being restricted, as to discourage those who are young and societally marginalized from advocating for themselves. Even after Elphaba and Fiyero free the lion, he remains "cowardly," because he has likely been traumatized from a young age.

"It couldn't happen here in Oz" chillingly mirrored the sentiments I had been feeling when I saw footage of a neo-Nazi rally in 2022 about five minutes away from where I went to university, the list of banned books from schools, a governor who has been endangering lives and acting like a dictator, and yet won re-election by a large margin... it couldn't happen here in Florida, where I've lived all my life, and yet it has been happening for a long time, or else how would we get to this point in the first place? And for those who live outside of Florida and disdainfully act like what's happening here could never happen in their state or country, it could happen there too. It could happen anywhere, and the only way to resist it is to confront it.

The number that follows "Something Bad" is "Dancing Through Life," where Fiyero is introduced as a happy-go-lucky himbo prince, easily seducing the entire school (sans Elphaba) by sharing his philosophy with them- that "life is painless/for the brainless/why think so hard/when it's so soothing/dancing through life." The student body all goes along with this, but Elphaba can't "dance through life;" she's shunned and bullied by her peers for something she can't change. She studies magic as a means to escape her social situation, hoping to become exceptional and work with the Wizard to gain respect and admiration. Doctor Dillamond and the animals, as we saw from the previous scene, can't "dance through life;" their rights are being taken away and they struggle to survive. Nessa and Boq want to "dance through life" in their own ways, but are taken advantage of by Glinda and Fieyero. "Dancing through life" is a privilege that only those who don't have to think can afford, and of course, Glinda is swept into the idea immediately. Everyone else must work and think tirelessly to survive, and it's not until both Glinda and Fiyero recognize this that Elphaba softens towards them. The idea of "dancing through life" is indirectly brought up later, when the Wizard tries to persuade Elphaba to work with him, and suggests that after taking care of her sister all her life and being discriminated against, she deserves someone to take care of her, giving her this opportunity to "dance through life" if she assists him in oppressing the animals with her magic. Elphaba refuses, but the Wizard knows this idea appeals to her; after all, her striving to "make good" and be a powerful sorcerer stems from a need to be accepted.

After Elphaba and Glinda become friends, they go to the Emerald City, where Elphaba hopes to speak to the Wizard about the animals losing their ability to speak, still trusting this mysterious authority figure to have his citizens' best interests at heart ("if something bad is happening to the animals, we need to tell the Wizard; that's why we have a Wizard!"). However, when the Wizard tricks her into giving a monkey, Chistery, wings through a painful spell, Elphaba realizes that the Wizard and Madame Morrible (the Shiz headmistress and the Wizard's press secretary) have enslaved multiple monkeys. After Elphaba's spell gave them all wings, the Wizard and Morrible are planning to use them as spies to further oppress the animals. When she tries to protest, resulting in a magic outburst, the guards chase her and Glinda down, where they barricade themselves into a room and the sequence of "Defying Gravity" occurs. "Defying Gravity" is Wicked's showstopping central piece. It's spectacular, the number is climactic and beautiful, and it's a great ending to the first act. But at the beginning of the number, we see an interesting conflict between Glinda and Elphaba that highlights their political positions, shaped by their differing access to privilege. Glinda accuses Elphaba of "flying off the handle" (broomstick pun?) for becoming enraged at seeing the enslaved flying monkeys and how she was tricked into casting a spell that hurt them, and advises her to just apologize to the Wizard, as she does not have the empathy for the animals and understanding that Elphaba has. However, Elphaba no longer wants to work with him after seeing the injustices he and Morrible are responsible for- and it's not just that, she "can't want it anymore." It's "too late for second guesses, too late to go back to sleep," as she's now aware of what the Wizard is up to.

Her decision to "defy gravity" is not just literally to fly away on a broom and escape, but to become an activist. She's endured discrimination all her life, and previously, the only way to escape that was to work with the Wizard. But now, she can't work with the Wizard, so instead she must do something else. She has an immense magical power and a desire to do good, so in order to truly do good, she must accept herself and her own morals. However, because she is considered an outsider and a threat by the Wizard (who has no real power of his own), in order to do good, she must become the "witch"- unaccepted by society, but in control of her power and motivated to use it. This is further symbolized by the costume and props she accumulates during this scene; she finds a broom, which she uses to escape, and Glinda gives her a shawl in addition to the pointy hat she gave her earlier as a cruel joke at the school dance. Even after finding out why Glinda gave it to her, Elphaba still wears the hat, reclaiming it as part of her iconic Witch outfit. She is now recognizably the Wicked Witch of the West, and this is how she "defies gravity"- by deciding not to sacrifice her morals, accept herself, and embrace her power- which the Wizard and Morrible do not have. Glinda decides to join her, and although both characters' moral alignments seem to fluctuate throughout the show as "good" and "evil" are shown to not be binary concepts in Wicked, it's this solidarity that gives them power.

This is why I was crying during "Defying Gravity"- not because of the vocals and visuals, or even my nostalgia, but because of its political relevancy and statement on solidarity and activism. In this scene, Elphaba is shown to be more powerful than her oppressors, and attains this power through unapologetically embracing herself. She is hunted and feared, but she refuses to take part in the Wizard's regime. And because of this refusal and desire to advocate for the oppressed, she is good. These days, here in Florida, "defying gravity" seems impossible. I constantly hear people, both my peers and left-leaning state officials in the news, say that things are hopeless, the political situation will only get worse, and more people will inevitably be harmed by consequence. And yet, "Defying Gravity" offers hope, showing that there's always a way to fight back, even if it seems impossible. As a consequence for her resistance and acceptance of herself, Elphaba is scapegoated as the "wicked witch," but she isn't backing down or, as Glinda suggested, apologizing to the Wizard for standing by her morals. She's no longer seeking respect from the people who discriminated against her, but rather to ally herself with a worthier cause- helping others who are oppressed. She has a power all her own, and she intends to use it.

Following "Defying Gravity," the way Morrible spreads rumours about Elphaba really reminds me of how right-wing conspiracies and fearmongering spread today. Such rumours are baseless (for instance, the idea that Elphaba would melt if doused with water), but as the general population are afraid of her, they latch onto them because it gives them hope that she could be defeated. Despite tricking Elphaba into giving the monkeys wings, Morrible claims (in a scene that also relies on fascism-related imagery with her screaming at a podium) that Elphaba "mutilated the innocent monkeys," instantly bringing to mind for me how modern anti-trans rhetoric is spread. While obviously, the scenario differs in that trans people who seek healthcare do so willingly, trans healthcare, especially for minors, is often similarly mischaracterized by the right as "mutilation of innocent children," with children commonly used as a talking point since it is much more difficult for them to advocate for themselves in the adult world of politics, similarly to how the animals in Wicked are forced to forget how to speak. Furthermore, Morrible spreads rumours in the same way that real-life conspiracies are spread, by taking a small bit of believable truth (Elphaba gave the monkeys wings) and distorting it into something widely seen as morally wrong (Elphaba intended to cause harm to the monkeys).

A mob against Elphaba grows, fueled by morality-related concerns- "Wickedness must be punished/for good." Here, "for good" takes on a double meaning- both to mean "permanently," and that the mob believes themselves to be fighting for the concept of "good." (We see expressions using the word "good" in multiple ways used throughout the show- "goodness knows the wicked's lives are lonely," "I have been changed for good," etc.) The parallels to conservative morality crises are obvious; the mob has been misinformed about something they don't understand, fear has been spread among them because they feel that "goodness" is under attack, and due to this fear, they want to fight anything that's different. During the mob scene, we see the Tin Man (formerly Boq) and the Cowardly Lion, two characters Elphaba tried to save, but have turned against her due to receiving this misinformation, as all of Elphaba's attempts to "make good" have only seemed to backfire.

Glinda, now officially "Glinda the Good," is in a complex position where she wants to help Elphaba, but plays the role of a public figure in order to console the people of Oz. Like when she was at school, she is addicted to their admiration, even at the expense of her friend's safety. Despite her moral struggles, Glinda ultimately wants to stay in a position of privilege instead of resisting the system oppressing Elphaba and the animals- she becomes "Glinda the Good" for the same reason she suggests Elphaba apologize to the Wizard before "Defying Gravity"- to maintain her position within the status quo, even though she now knows how damaging it is. Fiyero, however, is now aware of the system he's been contributing to, and dedicates himself to helping Elphaba, and its because he cares that she falls in love with him.

I want to talk a lot about the Wizard, because he and his song "Wonderful" are the largest and most obvious critique of using oppression to maintain the status quo. He even says something along the lines of (paraphrased) "where I'm from, people are only able to unite if it's against a common enemy." Where is the Wizard from? Kansas. In America. "Wonderful" is all about how he maintains power, and is positively dripping with political satire, specifically in how manipulating the historical narrative is used to control people. ("Where I'm from, people believe all sorts of things that aren't true! We call it history.") According to the Wizard, "A man's called a traitor/or liberator/a rich man's a thief/or philanthropist/is one a crusader, or ruthless invader?/it's all in which the label that is able to persist./Then there's precious few at ease/with moral ambiguities/so we act as though they don't exist!" He tells Elphaba that "the most celebrated/are the rehabilitated," suggesting that if she becomes complicit, she will win fame and admiration. Elphaba initially agrees on the condition that the Wizard frees the monkeys, but discovers Doctor Dillamond has been captured for protesting for animal rights and is now unable to speak, causing her to free the monkeys herself and putting herself further at odds with the Wizard.

For the Wizard, history is presented as strictly black and white, "good" and "evil," in order to create an easily-digestible narrative that influences people's morality and image of historical figures and systems. The complications and humanity of history are ignored, in favor of telling a narrative that benefits the "wonderful" Wizard, which is why Dillamond, who challenges this narrative and is, once again, a history teacher, is targeted. The Wizard says that he aims to make people happy and give them what they want to hear, but not people like Elphaba, the animals, or other oppressed groups in Oz like the Munchkins. People, to the Wizard, are those at the top of the social hierarchy, who conform to his standard of acceptability. It's these people who he wants to comfort, by suppressing the narratives of others. Similarly, in Florida, "Critical Race Theory" has been mischaracterized and painted as a threat to white comfort. While CRT is not taught in grade school and is only taught in certain college classes, the Florida government portrays anything that teaches about systemic racism and injustice to be a threat to white security. Controlling the historical narrative, particularly in schools, is an attempt to secure power and prevent people from being educated on historical nuance, especially as this nuance becomes more and more publicly relevant. By presenting an uncomplicated narrative in which he is the hero and people don't have to confront their complicity, Wicked's Wizard is "wonderful," deified and respected by those whose ignorance leads them to want to persecute anyone different.

"No Good Deed" is an interesting number, because it's here that we see Elphaba's morality challenged. She has been trying to be "good" all her life, but every instance of her trying to help people leads her further and further into persecution. It's here that she begins to conform to society's view of her as the "wicked witch," and in a way, we see parallels to her and Doctor Dillamond being silenced. By becoming "wicked," Elphaba becomes what society expects from her, because "wicked witch" is the only role acceptable for her in Oz. She has an interesting line in this song- "was I really seeking good/or just seeking attention?/if that's all good deeds are when looked at with an ice-cold eye(...)/maybe that's the reason why/no good deed goes unpunished." This line shatters whatever illusion Elphaba had as to the binary of "good" and "evil," as she doubts the motivations behind her attempts at goodness. She confronts an uncomfortable dilemma about her activism, the possibility that it could have all been to raise her image in the eyes of the public and uplift only herself, making her complicit in the system she has been trying to fight against by looking for the appeasement of Oz's society, now attempting to satisfy their expectations by becoming the Witch. Personally, I think that while Elphaba's activism and desire to "do good" may have stemmed from a desire to uplift herself, much of the time, it put her at odds with society, especially when it comes to helping the animals. Elphaba is seeking good, but her idea of "good" challenges the social hierarchy, leading her to be antagonized.

The second time I cried watching Wicked was during "For Good." Elphaba is being hunted down by a mob, and Glinda, feeling truly guilty for her actions, comes to apologize. Elphaba feels that all her attempts of "making good" have been fruitless, but Glinda, remorseful and now wiser, is committed to helping realize Elphaba's visions. As Elphaba, in a demonized position, cannot realize the social change she seeks to accomplish, she gives the Grimmerie to Glinda, saying she'll have to learn to read it. Both friends confess that they have been "changed for good" due to the other's influence, "for good" having another double meaning here.

Everything Elphaba has strived for has seemed fruitless, but now with Glinda's help, she can finally accomplish her goals. Her activism may not have been able to sway the public's opinion, but it has been able to influence Glinda, a powerful public figure adored by Oz. Despite everything, being a friend to Glinda was enough to make a difference. Elphaba will never receive recognition for what she did, but her actions still made a positive change.

This is what got to me- the idea that being compassionate and a supportive friend still has the ability to influence people "for good." When I saw this being sung on stage, I was reminded of how, like Elphaba, I often felt "limited" in what I want to see accomplished, and can't do on my own. But also like Elphaba, I recognized that just by being a friend and committed to my morals, I have done my best to be encouraging to people who need it, provided a safe space for people seeking acceptance, challenged harmful systems through confronting them and having conversations, and ultimately have been changed myself for the better. What you do matters, even if it seems insignificant. You may never know how many lives you'll touch in your lifetime, how many people who you'll change by being compassionate, to what lengths your efforts will go. Just by being kind and accepting, you have power to challenge ignorance and hatred, and to improve people's lives. When Elphaba and Fiyero flee Oz at the end of Wicked, they'll never get to see Glinda's committal to truly "making good," and Elphaba is still considered a villain, but now with Glinda's help, her actions weren't in vain. And through learning to read the Grimmerie, Glinda rejects "dancing through life" and must take on self-education in order to be a true force for good. And when she does, Chistery, the flying monkey Elphaba saved, speaks to her. He doesn't say much, but this moment is still significant- with Glinda's committal to Elphaba's causes, animals no longer have to be afraid to speak in Oz.

The powerlessness I have felt, and still often feel, as everything gets worse and worse in Florida is discouraging. Making a positive social change in a place where, like in Wicked, education, historical truth, and marginalized people are all under attack feels impossible, and yet Wicked shows us that whatever you do, whatever I have done, to "make good" still matters. I may not be able to undo everything that's happening on my own, and even though I may be "limited," I'm not powerless.

While we might not be magical witches, none of us are powerless. We all have the ability to change for good, and to change others for good, even if we may not recognize it happening. Your actions do matter, and "making good" will always be worth it.

[friendofflowersandfrogs]

Hello again! I know you just came out with a Sashannarcy wedding fic of your own (loved it, by the way), but I have my own head canons I wanted to share with you because I'd like to hear your thoughts on them. (Part 1 of 2.) (Also, fair warning: several walls of text incoming. XD)

In the immediate aftermath of Amphibia, the girls all stayed at Anne's for a good month or so, trying to process everything that happened and everything they'd said and done. During this time, the first symptoms of trauma and PTSD/CPTSD began to manifest themselves among the girls, especially poor Marcy. Such trauma usually manifested itself in horrible nightmares for the girls of all their death, near-death, and murder-attempt experiences and their worst possible outcomes, which quickly resulted in their collective sleep schedules going to shit in record time, as well as big-time, short-term struggles with St. James schoolwork. At the same time, it gave the three of them an opportunity to unload their collective emotional baggage with each other (Anne and Sasha in particular) and not only finally begin to get a grasp on their deeply confused feelings for each other, but also a very quick education on how to handle everybody's traumas, triggers, and newly-established boundaries. The three remain quite physically close to each other during this period, and all three share Anne's bed for comfort and refuge from their psychological and emotional pain.

Mr. and Mrs. Boonchuy, meanwhile, are more than understanding of everything that's happened, and do all they can to give the girls the space they need while also providing nourishment and advice whenever they can; they're the ones who actively encourage each of them to seek out therapists, and--thanks to how much of a help they were during Frogvasion--are able to enlist Mr. X's help in both finding the right ones and managing any confidential information that they may need for their sessions. The girls are, understandably, skittish about the process at first (especially Sasha), but each of them warm up to the idea over time and are able to begin getting the help they need to walk through their thoughts and feelings about everything that's happened. This has results both positive and negative.

After a brief deeper dive underwater as far as her grades go, Anne finds the motivation to get back in the academic saddle once she realizes that she doesn't have to leave Amphibia and the Plantars completely behind, but can instead use it as inspiration to care for and preserve Earth frogs once she learns about the existence of herpetology. As a result, she's able not just to improve her grades enough to graduate St. James in the nick of time, but to become a model straight-A student in high school and college afterward.

Sasha, meanwhile, becomes fascinated with the subject of psychology thanks to the long and winding journey into her own psyche that her own therapist guided her on and her subsequent desire to better understand herself and what she was going through; combined with the realization of both her own innate protective nature and her desire to help prevent people from becoming like she'd been pre-Amphibia, she decides to also work to improve her grades and becomes a hard-working student in her own right, oftentimes working with Anne well into the night to relearn things both had either not paid attention to or skipped out on altogether.

By contrast, Marcy's grades took a considerable dip from her previous straight-A status not just from all the time missed in Amphibia, but her wrecked state of mind as well; unlike Anne and Sasha, she wasn't quite able to get back to the level she'd once been at, though she still did well enough to pass all her classes. In fact, because of how screwed-up her attendance record and grades were from the whole affair, it was agreed by all concerned that it would be best for Marcy to move back in with her parents and move to her new school as originally planned as soon as the school year was over, though Anne and Sasha did have one last opportunity for a tearful, heartfelt goodbye before she left, with the promise that she could ALWAYS reach out to them if she needed comfort or advice about anything.

Meanwhile, the girls tried as best they could to iron out all the differences they had with each other as a result of the hurt each of them had put the others through. Though each of them swore never to lay a finger on each other again (a promise they more than made good on, even after they married later in life), many arguments and angry tears were still had between all three, to the point where even sweet, bubbly Marcy lost her temper and screamed at the others on multiple occasions (an enormous shock to Anne and Sasha, as you might imagine), all of which led to a considerable loss of life for Anne's bedroom possessions and furniture. By the time Marcy decided to move back in with her folks, the three had come to the stone-cold realization that, while all of them deeply cared about each other and wanted nothing more than to help each others' recoveries, they also needed time and space away from each other to sort themselves, and their issues, out before establishing any kind of firmer hold on their collective relationship and continuing their healing together.

Thus it was that, though they still talked, kept tabs, and thought about each other as often as they could, the three found much less time for each other as school (and later work) took up more and more of their lives. Though Anne wound up quitting the tennis team and Sasha the cheer squad while each worked to make up for years of lost academic time at St. James, both still remained quite physically active in high school and college, with Anne often jogging and making good use of a membership at a nearby gym and Sasha discovering her new passion/hobby for weightlifting as a result of her time being the Holder Of Strength in Amphibia. The two of them also found new, healthier friend groups thanks to their respective newfound interests in herpetology and psychology, especially as college rolled around. Marcy, meanwhile, coasted throughout the rest of middle school and much of high school with no real clue of what she wanted to do for the rest of her life--until she ran into a couple of people in her new chess club (she dropped out of the one she was in at St. James, but picked it up again in high school at her parents' insistence) who noticed her doodling, complimented it, and encouraged her to do it more. This, combined with her passions for gaming, anime, and fantasy that had continued unabated (though she did become very withdrawn from each of them for a long while after what the Core had tried to do to her), resulted in her getting to know several members of the school's artist and gamer cliques, which in turn got her connected to a wide variety of online communities that helped her improve both her craft and her confidence, especially when she realized just how much comfort and happiness she got out of sketching out her characters, worlds, and stories. Her subsequent decision to enroll in art school riled up her parents a fair bit--until she made a point of showing them the potential for industry contacts she could make in the animation and comic industries that could, if not make her and the family rich, at least give her a steady enough income to live on her own, at which point they left her alone on the subject aside from the occasional well-intentioned, good-natured snark at the dinner table (something that gets under her skin for years afterward, even with continued counsel from her own therapist about how to fix her complicated relationship with her parents).

Even as all this is happening, however, the three of them always shoot messages checking in with each other whenever any of them had a free moment with nothing else to do, the one "drop-everything-and-help" exception being if any of them were experiencing PTSD, CPTSD, and/or anxiety attacks, in which case they would ALWAYS prioritize each other's immediate health, 3 a.m. video calls or awkward excusals from presentations be damned. Sometimes (though it's more the case for Anne and Sasha as time goes on), if any of them can tell one of the others is having a rough time of things, they'll just go over and hug/cuddle them for as long as they need--something that goes a long way towards rebuilding everybody's trust and love for one another--or just ask them to talk about anything they've been into lately (this goes a long way towards helping Marcy in particular) before departing with quiet, grateful thank-yous to each other as they each go about their days again.

.

[lemonboyjosten]

—tw//health deterioration, mva, depression

wow it's been awhile since it posted anything huh, hi i'm alive. i've got so much to say while i was away. personally, this year has been an extreme struggle for me and i can't express how much i needed this platform to confide in you precious beings. i sincerely hope you all have been well, and those of you who usually hang around in my comment section, i havent forgotten the lot of you. you can stick with me on this rant or choose to scroll away. either way i need to get this out of my chest so to those who have wasted your time reading this, thank you, i appreciate it.

if i calculated right, i've been off social media for give or take, 4 months now. this year started off sluggish for me because i got tested positive for covid early march and being immunodeficient really affected my health which pretty much deteriorated since then, not to mention my already suckish lungs were failing on me. hence, i wasn't able to continue with classes so med school was put on hold and then came the early signs of depression knocking on my door as though it was personally invited. i needed some sense of normalcy so i thought i would be healthy enough to get back to the flow of writing and i was, even had my thought process in order and my tiny lungs even started recovering slowly after a month. so i started writing again and even signed up for the aftg exchange and everything with full confidence that i'll be able to deliver and give back to the fandom. i had the whole draft ready to be proof read and posted, with a few other projects i was working waiting to be published but all that went to hell when i was involved in a motor vehicle accident that day which cost me partial function of my leg.

3 months of physiotherapy helped me recover some of my strength but my ambulatory power has reduced for the time being. to add fuel onto the fire, the accident injured my lungs further and i was unstable for quite a period of time. to say i was devastated would be an understatement , i thought of giving up altogether. plus, i lost my scholarship because i wasnt able sit for my exams due to being absent for many classes and that really brought me down. the thought of being a constant dissapoinment and burden to my family members was something i couldn't process the thought of having failed those who've constantly had hopes for me and that hurt even more. i failed to even to contribute in the fandom after receiving my exchange gift made me feel like shit but then i had the best support during these last few months which helped me get back into shape and the right mindset. they even encouraged me to get back on track, start with your close friends circle, family then on my socials and actively engage with others and as cliche as it may sound, it worked wonders, i'm not even joking.

hell, i thought all my socials would've evaporated but based on the number of interaction i've received despite not showing any signs of life made me so happy. (our tiny not so tiny fandom is throving huh) my irls couldnt care less about my absence but the dms that came in through this account asking about my obsession with a stupid sports/mafia series really brought up my spirits and i will to continue my efforts because apprently it's a way to get rid of thoughts of self harm or loneliness; they say it's some kind of positive reinforcement or something like that. so here i am after months of suffering from hell and back. anywho, that's all for my sob story. i didnt want to go detail into some things but if you're interested to know more,feel free to dm me and i'll be more than happy to talk. here's to hoping 2022 would suck less and i'll have the capacity to write more. i miss you guys so much. either way, get ready for more aftg headcanons and fics coming your way. happy new year lovelies! take care and stay safe:)