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sunspira · 1 year

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Im laying my bets now. the entire idea that autism (and adhd) is more common in men and boys is pure myth created by poor science, backwards statistics and faulty parameters of the condition itself. in another 50 years we will understand it was never a gendered condition. just a highly gendered and biased measurement system. i'm absurdly confident on that

the rates of autism in girls is "rising" exponentially. it is rising even more exponentially in girls than in boys. not because girls are becoming more autistic. but because the "science" is just getting better at measuring and accurately acknowledging autism in girls.

autism often does present differently in girls, due to how girls are raised or personality differences. the literature and criteria was based on boy sample groups. the entire research data was done on white men as if that is a standard default person and control group.

not only that, doctors and teachers and parents literally were not looking for it in girls under the false widely propagated belief it was rare in women in girls. it is a self fulfilling prophecy. that's not science.

we will soon have to reckon with the lost generations of autistic girls and women and children assigned female at birth* who never got diagnosis and early intervention. we should be forcing the world to reckon with it right now. a great deal of autistic millennial women are brilliant minds who dropped out of STEM and the workforce due to their untreated and misidentified disability overtaking their life. the impact of never Knowing you or your child is autistic or adhd is difficult to comprehend for autistic and adhd people who did get diagnosed as children. even when the awareness and interventions were unhelpful or harmful. the harm of not knowing means the child trying even harder to become neurotypical and a level of autistic burnout few others on the spectrum can comprehend, often taking place after the woman is a legal adult, and there are no legal protections in place for this disabled person.

the unmitigated stress of being developmentally delayed and never knowing it, simply hating and blaming yourself and fighting day in and out past your limits to become neurotypical, limits your don't know you should have because you have never been so much as briefed on what adhd or autism can feel like. you don't know the distres and tiredness you're feeling is "dysregulation". this is why we see women in nervous breakdowns. psychiatric wards. treatment resistant depression. electric shock therapy. hard drug addiction. cutting. homelessness. personality disorders. dissociation. psychosis. early death by accident or suicide. (obviously people who are not autistic or adhd have these illnesses but my point is untold and disproportionate numbers of them are undiagnosed neurodivergent with unprocessed trauma. i'm telling you. more than you think).

it's why we see young people on tiktok not faking DID per say, but describing a dissociated experiences and fractured sense of self and escapist alternate personalities, a mental illness that has much less in common with traditional DID, but has much in common with struggling and under-treated autistic people. DID is a very rare condition. autism is very common. autism can create out of body experiences and self protective blurring of reality and fantasy so extreme, no person can be expected to understand it is autism if they never been advised about their own disability and the knowledge that should he available to them. it's no wonder we have people with mislabeled rare disorders like DID who are clearly very sick but instead of showing real DID signs, are sick with all the signs of severe unassisted autism they have been completely barred from understanding or coping with in any other way. for those lucky enough, we see unemployed young women with severe chronic pain in their 20s and 30s who look and feel like they're elderly and gave up their dreams when they hit 21 or 25 and their brains stopped working and their bodies shut down. now they mostly scroll tumblr and tiktok and try to remember to open the blinds. they have a roof but people scorn them for entitled laziness and worst of all derided for "self diagnosing".

again i'm asking why CFS chronic fatigue syndrome is so responsive to adderall. i'm asking why professionals are reluctant to test women for adhd if she does well in school because she is very bookish and why experts in the field are openly amused and doubtful to test a woman for autism if she has a long term boyfriend. why is ability to mask or function a disqualification. why is inability to function in women, who later turn out to be autistic or adhd, so aggressively mischaracterized as BPD, bipolar, depression, OCD, schizophrenia. why is autism and adhd clinically diagnosed and defined by distress and dysfunction and not by intrinsic traits and qualities that present while still functional for preventative care. why are all people, men and women forced to wait until their lives and minds are deteriorating and they have experienced some irreversible disasters and pain before they can be diagnosed. why must girls and boys wait until their daily life as children have become unbearable hell for them before their disability can be treated and acknowledged. and if these policies are changing now, why are doctors and psychiatrists not eagerly and urgently reaching out to find the vulnerable adults they missed during more archaic screening methods. we aren't rising in adhd diagnosis because of tiktok you assholes. adult onset adhd and autism don't exist. those people were always adhd. adult onset skill regression and increase in severity due to stress DOES happen in adulthood. modern day stresses like loss of structure during the pandemic and social media is advancing to become more attention span draining. everyone is feeling the effects but these are causing adhd and autistic people to cope less and mask less effectively so they are running into significant problems, their loved ones are noticing, they are getting referrals and suddenly forced to google their rapidly worsening mental issues for the first time and seeing they line up with a known neurological condition . this is obvious. doctors blaming it on some sort of trend are being willfully clueless

*because autism especially is screened identified diagnosed and first intervened ages 2-5, before a child has an internal concept of self or gender and above all before they can express their gender, diagnostic practices and criteria are based on how adults perceive a child via birth assignments. and the studies are overwhelmingly beholden to data only on children assigned male at birth, rarely accounting for their actual future gender either. as part of the warped science insisting that autism is as if somehow linked to the y chromosome and not a universally likely human quality, you see amab kids laser focused on as candidates and afab kids fucked over most of all. all children assigned female have the worst chances of their developmental disability being identified and acknowledged in a timely manner and disproportionately experience late diagnosis in later adolescence or adulthood. tho i wouldn't be surprised if trans womens rates of accurate diagnosis is lower than cis men. as trans girls may present autism differently and characteristic of girls autism, even while still in the closet or before she knows she is trans. regardless adults are very vigilant for signs of autism, even atypical ones, in any child they perceive as a boy. so any millennial or gen z child identified female at birth had significantly worse chance at receiving autistic support compared to peers

in particular women assigned male at birth might have a better chance at being identified for types of autism that are often labeled "high functioning", involves high masking, and often receives few services. these more invisible types of autism often need to be diagnosed before age 5 in order to qualify under the criteria at all. and so in the days where autism was believed to be 20x more common in the genetics of xy children, any chance of being considered and diagnosed would come down to almost purely birth assignment dependent. with the less outwardly visible types of autism, a person who misses this window will remain autistic all their life but once they learn a certain level of skills and masking, no matter how late they learn these, the person will no longer qualify for diagnosis, either not until they have a nervous breakdown or possibly not ever qualify. it's this type of more hidden autism we see struggling across the board as undiagnosed adults including both trans and cis women especially, tho we are seeing it disproportionately even more so in undiagnosed afabs of any gender. who are dropping out of schooling and work and succumbing to severe mental illnesses during what should be the prime of their lives. overall tho birth assignment is not everything this is an issue that disproportionately impacts cis women. trans women. trans men. non-binary people. likely doubling for those that are afab. and then tripling and quadrupling for children who are not white.

bit of an understatement in that last part there. gender likely isn't even the biggest barrier to proper diagnosis and treatment. probably race is even more so. but since gender is such a big disparity in itself across race and one i relate to and can speak on from experience ive focused on it here. a more in-depth look is needed on the neglect of adhd and autistic children of color especially black native and latino kids. but for now do keep in mind the points i'm making increase exponentially for kids who aren't white across all genders including cis boys

#this is dramatic and long but it's a dramatic situation that is completely slept on in the public eye #it's not just about me this is about people who had it so much worse. tho my insider experience obviously brought it to my attention #i'm pretty sure i'm not autistic im adhd but the reality of adhd is a lot more like autism than we are acknowledging #a topic for another day #autism in women #adhd in women #atypical autism #adhd inattentive #undiagnosed autistic #undiagnosed neurodivergent #undiagnosed autism #undiagnosed adhd

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subingression · 2 years

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Feb. 28, 2023

its 2:53AM on a miserably cold February weekday. broken skin under three hydrocolloid bandaids plastered over my face itches terribly. i picked one spot on my cheek so badly i’m afraid to see what it looks like.

nevertheless, i smoke white mo and listen to tarot asmr and feel the heaviness of my body. i am water while my jaw is tar. it aches tonight.

while the last year of my life has been filled with autistic epiphanies, i’ve recently reached a plateau of progress. the weather gets colder, i isolate (is it the fatigue? the fear of intimacy?) for just about any reason, i regress and i cope.

when i reached out to you, i had one of those epiphanies. but softer. when i was younger and i imagined my life as an adult, i always pictured myself having an entire cabinet filled with tea. just about every kind you can think of. think Ramona. i usually go with green.

and i realized that i made that a reality. i do have an entire cabinet filled with different teas. i have a bamboo organizer and an electric teapot that lets you specify temperature and steep time. if this is what they mean when they say manifest, i think i get it.

slowly over time i delve deeper into the things i love and before i even know it, i’m onto the next one. always wanting. never content. no, its, “once i get my act together i’m gonna have it so good.” living my life passively. i’m a fucking NPC. things happen to me, i don’t seek them out. and then i proceed to waste years and dollars on opportunities i was too scared to take. at the same time, i feel like nobody can even compete with me. i’m different. i feel like i’ve earned it. earned something other than this endless silver lining.

this is turning out a bit more depressing than i would have liked but, hey, you don’t stop the flow of creativity when it hits, right?

a few months after our talk i had another soft epiphany. i’ve been trying so hard to be present and honest with myself. i cut off contact with my dad. i broke up with a toxic best friend. i sang at my sisters wedding. i felt the sting of the ocean again. i reached out to you.

i think being chronically ill has changed the way i interact with people and the world. once you’re aware of every arbitrary artillery built to indirectly damage your quality of life, it changes the way you talk about things. there has to be this constant recognition of the circumstance. a lot of people aren’t ready to have a conversation, and every time i hear an elderly relative say something transphobic i get this sting in my heart and a rush of adrenaline because i’m not going to be the person that doesn’t say anything. i have always been that person and hated myself for it. i don’t want to live passively anymore.

the only thing about that is that i have no idea how to start. if you were here, what would i do? who would we be? i debate between letting us sit in silence forever, or sending a very heavy handed message where i tell you that i think about you every day. i’ve thought about you so much you’ve become a figment. i feel your presence in my room, in a bed you’ve never slept in, when i’m walking down the produce aisle, when i brew my coffee in the morning. all i’ve got now is a shitty love song i wrote after you pulled me back in and made me feel. like magic or electricity or love. i have so much to tell you. if you want me, i’m yours.

and then i think that’s fucking insane and i would never do that. and then i think, its so easy to say it to a crowd, but its so hard, my love, to say it to you alone.

and i’ll put the song on the album because its a damn good shitty love song and our history is art, it’s beautiful to me, but for now its February and all i can do is wait for you. what are you thinking when you don’t respond? are you nervous about saying the wrong thing like i am? or do you just not care?

i know you. i wish i knew you.

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mostlyonthefloor · 2 years

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Edvin for the character ask game?

Hello! Thanks for the ask :) I had to go through my posts because I forgot about the character ask lol. That being said I am very happy you've asked about Edvin. I love him

Sexuality hc: ace/aro I think. Also has significant he/him nonbinary vibes. I think he just doesn't really care about gender he's fine being a guy but he'd also be fine as anything else. He just doesn't care.

Family hc: I think he's the only child of elderly parents. He loves them and they love him and they were his best friends as a kid. Now Edvin's in his twenties and they're getting frail fast, and he doesn't want to think about the probability that he will be the first of the boys to lose his parents.

Item of clothing I associate with them: I feel like it's cheating to say the cap but I also have to say the cap. It's just too iconic. I've been thinking I might make one if I get around to it.

Season/weather I associate with them: I'm not really sure. Maybe like cool weather, it's raining a little bit, a little bit misty in the mornings.

OTP: Edvin x sleep. Edvin x friends. If I had to ship him with someone I feel like it would be Stef, Jesper, or one of the twins.

NOTP: Bro I have no idea. Tursgurd or someone?

Animal I like to use for symbolism: Something small and furry. A ferret maybe I feel like he has ferret vibes.

Random hc: Autistic Edvin autistic Edvin autistic Edvin. Specifically, the reason he's so quiet and blends in so well is that he watches what other people do in social situations and copies that.

Quick sketch: Sorry I cannot draw to save my life. Instead have a picture of a ferret that reminds me of him.

10. AU: I feel like he has achieved peak existence in his current timeline. Instead of an AU I think I will talk about the future I have mapped out for him where he gets a house that he lives in on his own with a big vegetable garden and two cats and he knits himself a yellow jumper that he wears everywhere and he makes friends with all the kids who live on the streets by giving them food and letting them in his house when it's cold and they look after his vegetable garden when he's not there and he is like a parent to them and it's cute

11. Underrated friendship: I feel like he and Hal are a bit of a dynamic duo. We see a little bit of them in the first book and I want more

12. Associated colour: I'm not sure actually... Like a deep green?

#brotherband #edvin #thanks for leaving the ask!! i appreciate it!

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motsimages · 2 years

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I wanted to write a post about how to be weirder for a mutual who made a comment on a post about accommodating your life even if you don't have a diagnosis. But it all feels easier said than done.

What I will do instead is list some of the weird things I do.

As far as I know I am neurotypical. I am very sensitive, which may be the only thing relatively closer to some neurodivergent experiences I have. I do see myself as partially disabled because of my back pains. I don't have a diagnosis for that though and even if I did, it wouldn't be enough to get an official disability file, so it is more my personal understanding of my self than the social/legal side of it.

But here are some things I have done all my life since I was a teenager and some I picked up. I guess many of these things can be consider stimming:

I speak A LOT when I feel like I'm alone. This means that if I'm in another room of the house, I speak. If I am walking alone on the street (even a crowded street), I feel alone so I speak, sometimes loudly. Sometimes I also sing. But only when I feel like I'm alone, which ironically is only a feeling because I have done it in front of people unaware that they could be listening. A friend of mine once asked me who was I speaking to (I thought he was asleep so I just had a massive long rant while basically sharing the same bed) and I said I was speaking in my sleep, which I don't. In my whole life, only another person asked me what I was doing. This was when I was 15 or so. I said I was singing. They probably didn't buy it. I didn't care. I just cannot stop talking when I feel I'm alone, I have to concentrate and make a conscious decision not to do it.

I write things in the air with my finger. This is also a habit I picked up from my teenage years (I am now in my 30s). I used to paint in the air the silhouette of people but that was more complicated and felt more intrusive. Instead, I write words or pieces of conversations. Sometimes I don't even notice I'm doing it. Sometimes I do it in purpose. Only one person has noticed without me telling them and they only thought it was curious.

Touching my hair and my face. I touch my hair so much that I usually just braid it or put it in a bun because it stresses me if I do it too often (my mom also gets nervous if I do it next to her, which I understand because it makes ME nervous too). But sometimes it is relaxing, when I'm watching a movie or something. I think working with wool also helps me because is is also hair and manual occupation.

I use a stool for cooking and doing the dishes and another one for showering. Because of my back problems, I can't stand on my two feet for more than a minute or two, so I just sit down for these tasks. A life saver, let me tell you.

I bought a stool-cane. This has been a success. Not only it has given me autonomy and reduced my back pain a lot, but people congratulate me and envy me. Several people (like once every two weeks or so) in less than 3 months has said what a good idea it is and that they will be buying one for an elderly relative, even asking where I got mine. Another good bunch of people has just nod in awe, said that it was an excellent idea and other great celebrations of this.

I dress with comfortable and practical clothes. Lately, some of that dressing may also include corsets because of my back pain, that I paid to make bespoke with different designs so I can show it off. I can be the most elegant person you've met or just the kitchest comfiest piece of furniture you've ever seen. We'll never know. I really should post my looks somewhere to give you an idea but many of my looks have names like "19th Century painter" or "Children cartoons detective".

I am looking forward to buy a massage ring. I tried one years ago from a friend who is a climber but I've seen similar things in shops for autistic people. Just thinking of it makes me need a finger massage lol. I don't have a hundred already because I keep forgetting to look for one.

My house is a mess. Wherever I go, it explodes. I can be tidy and I can clean but it lasts like half an hour. I am more organised than tidy or even clean, I've just surrendered to this. It sometimes surprises people because I'm really a fucking mess. I do like to have my bed done though, and sometimes I need to clean my desk and put it in perfect tidy order before I can work. But I cannot, for the life of me, clean as I go. If I cook, I cook and the kitchen will explode. And cleaning will come after lunch or whenever (in the same day, I have a limit).

I like to anticipate things. I don't need it and it doesn't bother me to change plans or improvise, but I already have a job who forces me to improvise all the fucking time. My anxiety during the pandemic has made me even more sensitive and my back pain forces me to take things with a different pace, so I like to know things with some advance whenever possible. My mother knows this, she realised years ago that I am like this, and gives me all the heads up she can (given that the rest of my family is The Improvisation and Changing Plans team).

These are some of the ones from the top of my head. There are probably more. But this is to give you an idea of what a 30 year old with a job and a partner and friends and a family who loves her can be like.

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empress-hancock · 1 year

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(anon with the creep dad) to clarify; my mother actually passed away in 2016, admitted she knew he was abusive before he died "but what do you expect me to do?! divorce him?!" (Yea you should've fucking done that, instead of slandering and smearing me as autistic in response to me living in fear?!) Mormon family system and she would flat out say he was not abusive or being inappropriate.

She's evil and I'm glad she's dead, but wish he had dropped dead too, or even better, he died, and she lived; she dropped out of college, and stopped working to be a stay at home mom. Had he died, she would've been alone and I would not have helped her. And she'd have to live with the guilt for the rest of her life.

Honestly I don't think she completely saw me as a rival, it was more that she chose to be a brainwashed sheep, she said "religion before family, the husband before the children" she lacked integrity and moral courage.

But yea I do think she also saw ME as disgusting, instead of him, even though I was a damn child. I am really glad she is dead, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to get away; my disability benefit went into her bank account, its like she was my pimp. She was a cool gal htm, basically, unlike other women, blatantly misogynistic shit like him finding other women attractive, didn't offend her. She was a ragoholic, she'd rage at me and tell me to forgive him for things, like leering at my ass.

I'm a teacher now, and working with kids, I understand her even less, because I feel protective of kids that aren't even mine, and if i saw any red flags for sexual abuse on a child, i'd report it so fast

It does seriously perplex me how so many people have no understanding that children are vulnerable and adults should protect them. Even if someone doesn’t like children and doesn’t want to directly participate in their upbringing I still see people say things that no one should say about a child. Religion definitely brainwashes people into tolerating a lot of things that they absolutely should not, but I think it’s deeper than that too. There are people who are not religious or who are but only casually and don’t let their religion inform most of their choices who still behave this way, so there has to be, in those cases, something else at play. I think it’s likely that the desire for male validation, because women, separate from religious teachings, are told our value is based on how well we please men. So when that idea is combined with the teachings of religion, it exacerbates the problem.

I think people have long forgotten that, for a society to function properly, we do have to lend a hand to those who are most vulnerable in our communities. People are so obsessed with the individual and culling the weak or whatever but that’s not how humans have operated. We find skeletons of people with disabilities who lived a long time because those around them cared for them. Caring for children, the elderly, and the injured and sick is how humans persisted, but now we have people talking about how kids are “seducing” adults or how babies “manipulate” parents by crying so you should just leave them to cry it out because they don’t get that kids are usually not cold and calculated con artists, but rather developing beings still learning about their environment and need the guidance of more experienced members of the community in order to learn.

Personally I wouldn’t have kids because I don’t want to have that responsibility long term but I don’t hate them. I would never overlook harm being done to a child just because I get a bit overwhelmed after spending more than 5 hours with them. I’m not about to make that their problem because they’re kids and kids are rowdy and energetic and talk a lot and it’s simply their nature because they’re experiencing so many new things every day. It’s awful that for some of them, those “new things” are pain and abuse. No one should turn a blind eye to that. So what if the family falls apart, the kid deserves to be safe.

Just out of curiosity, also, what age range do you teach?

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space-city-traffic · 3 years

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yet again im back on my bullshit so... (gazes with mixed feelings at the TV show Firefly) i could fix him.

my extremely long thoughts about my Own Personal Good Version of Firefly (with plenty of spoilers for the show and the movie) under the cut:

things that are getting axed first thing no question:

out with the whole “let’s add in a thin veneer of Chinese cultural aesthetics out of context for ~flavor~” deal. just no.

instead, let’s hire some actors from a bunch of different cultures and work with them to figure out how their characters would bring those cultures into space with them!! and also hopefully bring some experiences with immigration/alienation/travel into it, since the Whole Core of Firefly is about how humanity always brings our doomed and silly and stubborn and unique warmth with us even into the cold void where nothing is familiar or homey in the slightest.

let’s respect our sex worker character shall we?

i do appreciate that Inara’s work as a companion is described as legitimate and well respected in the show. however please stop having your captain and hero call her a wh*re every five seconds against her clearly expressed wishes and portraying this as just a totally acceptable thing

let’s be more respectful of our characters of color and also have some more diversity, shall we?

others have put it better than me but yeah, the way Zoe and Book are treated is very uncomfy, and the rest of the show is depressingly monochromatic. come on let’s do better.

stop the weird confederacy hat tips

again others have pointed these out with much more thoroughness than I could, but the names of some characters and locations, as well as some of the language used to describe the browncoats, has uncomfortably confederate vibes. instead i propose we very Clearly tip our hats to the Alliance equaling space capitalism instead! you can’t go wrong with space capitalism as a villain.

don’t! make! the! psychotic! character! violent!

listen i love River Tam with my whole heart. but you should absolutely not portray your only character with psychosis as violent because of that psychosis!!!!!!! and yeah, a huge part of her character is that her brain got fucked up by the alliance and so she hallucinates and is also a super ninja. but like. she doesn’t need to be a super ninja for her character to work, okay? the crew does not need to be scared of her for her character to work, okay??? more on this later bc it would take a lot of care and nuance to make her character work but i really think it can be done

things we are absolutely keeping:

found family tropes my fucking beloved

this should be self evident. this is why the show is as appealing as it is despite its flaws, at least in my eyes.

malcolm reynolds, the knight in dusty armor

there’s something so appealing to me about what Mal stands for. because at his core is this ridiculous, silly, stubborn, doomed devotion to what he thinks is important and right, a romantic idealism thinly covered by cynical cowboy platitudes that he thinks make his bleeding heart totally invisible. and he is so obvious and entirely incorrect. bless. this is a man who will do anything for his family, who charges into swordfights to defend his friend from a man who wants to turn her into an object despite having no clue how to hold a sword. at his worst, he starts brawls in bars just for the martyr’s thrill of being persecuted for supporting the right; at his best, he inspires downright religious belief from his crew because he represents a romantic and chivalrous and doomed dedication to the right thing over any practical concerns. and then he throws a “selfish” quip over it with 100% confidence that everyone fell for his clever distraction and believes him to be a dirtbag. he’s oblivious and ridiculous and god he makes me want to be a better person because he’s just so goddamned sincere. stupid, but sincere. 10/10 himbo. <3

Mal and Inara ultraslowburn friends to enemies to friends to lovers to enemies to friends to lovers to friends to...

there’s nothing i love more than a ship that’s just two people who know each other way too well, and they’re each the only one who knows the other well enough to call them out on their bullshit. the way Mal and Inara interact in the show sometimes makes me uncomfy but like. the core of their relationship has to stay.

space western aesthetic

i need the cows on a spaceship scene to stay like i need air okay

that sweet sweet religious shit

mal, who lost his faith in gd and a whole lot else during the war. who lost his faith in himself, and now feels he has to hide the part of him that still wants to be good, because he knows he can’t be anymore, and he feels like it’s embarrassing for a guy like him to want something so unattainable. who takes a preacher on board, and the preacher has lost something, too. the preacher has his own past, and his own questions. but not questions like the observant neurodivergent girl, the one who wants to interact with and understand this thing that’s so important to him, but it just doesn’t click with how her brain works and she feels like something needs to be fixed, either the Bible or herself. and Mal takes care of them all, and slowly, he begins to find gd again, not in a prayer but in humanity. humanity doesn’t need to be fixed, like the alliance thinks. the shining imperfect strawberry sweetness of it in his family’s smiles is something to be worshiped and served and devoted to. and he finds he has something to believe in again. (and his crew find that he’s given them someone to believe in, too. and maybe suddenly he’s a saint.)

and finally, my brilliant ideas as to what i would like to add:

TRANS WOMAN KAYLEE RIGHTS

listen her femininity is so important to me okay? it’s so thrilled about everything that’s pretty, from dresses to the spaceship’s electric innards, and it’s so non-traditional and grease stained until it’s not and it’s pink and ruffly and twirly, and she never sees any of it as a contradiction, because none of it contradicts, it’s all just her! her gender is warmth and love and prettiness, feeling pretty and appreciating the pretty and making her friends’ days pretty too.

i want us to find out she’s trans in that episode with the ball, and i want us to find out alongside Mal who just never asked or never realized. Kaylee gasps and squeals at the dress in the shop window and Mal makes an off handed, ill considered comment, and then... someone yanks him aside and hisses a few very significant words in his ear. and suddenly he remembers what the blue white and pink she painted all over the engine room means, and he knows he has something to make right. so he buys her that dress himself and lets her know just how pretty she looks, and when he walks into that ball with her displayed on his arm like something precious, he looks the proudest out of any man there. and she notices. for a few seconds, of course, until there’s chocolate, and ‘nara, and a chandelier—and some horrible girls, but she’s used to that, until—suddenly, she finds her people. a group of old men who light up when she jokes about compression coils and whack presumptuous boys who ask her to dance. they adopt her as a treasured granddaughter, and Mal is beaming at her like a proud dad, and she finds that one of her new elderly friends gazes a little too long at her bracelet, and so she gives it to xem and teaches xem a few new words, and... it’s a good day, huh? it’s a really good day. (of course, then the captain has to go and punch somebody in the face, but it was a real nice party up until then.)

also she and Simon are both transhet t4t im correct and you know it

time for a better River Tam

the first thing we’ve established is that this version of her is not unpredictably violent and the crew is not scared of her!!!! it makes no sense to take a kid who’s primarily brilliant, experiment on her brain, give her telepathic powers....... and tack on the fact that she also has super strength and speed and dexterity and what not, AND say that they programmed her to be super violent. no! no. not only is that extremely harmful rep, that’s also just stupid.

instead!! my version of River is in fact not terrifying to the crew, but is actually the one they feel safest around. River has always been totally blunt, she was one of those kids you could tell realllllly early was autistic, and she doesn’t like being disengenous at all. so you can always trust her to tell the truth and not play weird passive aggressive games or have any hidden agenda, which makes her just a really chill person to be around. also, one of her longtime special interests is music and dance, so whether or not she’s nonverbal on a given day, there will always be some sort of beautiful sound when she’s around. she does have the singing voice of a dying crow unfortunately but that’s ok bc Simon’s is even worse and they’re both incredibly competitive so you’ll at least get free entertainment out of the affair.

my version of River does have psychosis and hallucinations because of the trauma of the experiments, and they are really troubling to her. she and Simon work together to find ways to cope and meds that help, and it’s a process, but there are some things that help.

the only thing she gained from the academy was the ability to hear people’s thoughts and sense the future a little bit. and yeah, that led to her picking up a few spooky secrets at the beginning, which, yikes. and for a while, it was hard to figure out which voices were real and which were hallucinations. but around her friends, she always feels safe to ask “did you just think about triple cheese burritos or was that just a me thing?”, and they’ll always tell her the truth no matter how embarrassing their thoughts are, bc it’s important to all of them to respect her and help her sort accurately through what’s reality and what’s not. and bit by bit, she gets better and better at figuring out what kinds of things tend to be telepathy and what kinds of things tend to be psychosis, and that each one feels a little different. and because of the trust and respect and support of her found family she’s able to do that in a safe environment!!!

trans man Simon rights

listen i wanted to keep him as just a side note on Kaylee’s list but he is my son and he’s important to my heart so here goes

out on the outer rim where Kaylee’s from, gender ain’t much of a big deal, there’s an individualistic quality to life out there, and so if the trail you blaze is the trail of a woman or a man or neither or both, that’s respected even in the rare cases where it’s not outright encouraged. but in the inner planets, where competition and connections and public faces and family names are everything, you have to be what’s expected of you to survive. you can’t change your brand, you can’t be anything other than what your family planned for you since before you were born, it’s incredibly hard to survive in such a hyper competitive environment, and so your very identity becomes just a tool in how to market yourself for better success.

needless to say Simon (just as autistic as his little sister and also very trans) fuckin hated it there. but he was very good at it. correction: he was very good at his very specific field of STEM, good enough to where people stopped talking about how cute he looked in bows and started talking about how impressive his work was from a very young age. and his work had no gender. he could be whatever he wanted to in equations. so that was where he could express himself, and gd, he got so much praise for it, he never wanted to stop.

not until he discovered that his sister needed him, and ran away, and needed a disguise, and realized... suddenly, every stifling rule and prying eye was a million miles away. he was freefloating, freefalling, with none of the charted paths he’d been following all his life... so you know what? fuck it. he’s always enjoyed the name Simon. and since it’s not on any legal records, it’ll make him just that much more untraceable.

and on Serenity, starting over with new people who never knew him before his transition feels like an unbelievable blessing that just dropped right into his lap. he has to keep up the secrecy, he has to make sure they never find out who he used to be, because gd, it’s so nice when they look at him and say his name right, and he doesn’t know if he can handle losing that, not when it’s so new and so important to the person he’s finally becoming. but then one day, the unthinkable happens, the wanted posters for his arrest have an old name on them, they’re looking for the Tam sisters, and... nothing changes. the crew of Serenity could not give even a tenth of a percent of a fuck, and it doesn’t seem like they even know they’re supposed to. huh. that’s new. Simon could get used to that, he thinks.

i’m sure there’s more i could add, but it’s 4:30 in the morning now, so if more occurs to me, ill simply add it in a reblog tomorrow. if you’ve read down this far, i am in love with you. please let me know your Better Firefly ideas, too, bc im always down to yell about this show!!!

#firefly #Serenity #in which i choke out joss whedon with my bare hands and rescue his characters and give them better homes #ollies fix it series #malcolm reynolds #ollies personal good firefly canon

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llycaons · 2 years

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what if the swords were people? and other speculation: collab between me and jae @dragonji

Based on appearance only I think bichen (trans lesbian) is a very well-dressed little lady..she has short person energy. She likes fashion and is always dressed in heavy winter robes. She may be a little vain but she has a good heart and thinks it's fun to vanquish evil.

Suibian (masc lesbian) is tall and stoic and works out a lot. She has a little fang and she likes outdoorsy stuff like hiking. She's also very handy and likes to craft things out of wood. She is very deeply loyal.

Sandu is obsessed with reptiles/amphibians. Swamp lady! a bit creepy and wet but contrasts w Zidian in that shes really attached to her home and anyone who lives there and she might not say it outright but she's constantly doing little things for even random ppl she barely knows if they come from Yunmeng.

She can be offputting when she wants but mostly she just does outdoorsy stuff (gets along w Suibian before the whole brother breakdown wwx n jc go thru- or still gets along well just doesn't have much opportunity postcanon?)

ALSO she is a good cook. Spiciest and maybe strange ingredient choices but a good cook nonetheless. She shld be younger/middle aged at most as another point to constrast Zidian... Rly think shes secretly a huge softie tho she just has to trust you enough to show it.

She's a young person who has an old soul...she barely gets used in the show so it probably makes her sad. in her old age like jc I feel she's gotten more jaded and lonely as everyone left or died. She and suibian used to be close before suibian's fierce loyalty to wwx shut her away from the world.

Meanwhile Baxia is six and half feet tall and beefy as hell. Also a lesbian AND autistic. While she may seem intimidating, she has a huge soft spot for young children and is a great caretaker. Like Bichen she thinks vanquishing evil rules and like Suibian she loves to work out.

Suihua is an elderly and dignified butler. She was loyal to the father and she is loyal to the son as well. She has expensive tastes and likes sweets.

XY's sword jiangzai is an tumblr witch/egirl. Bit unhinged.

Hensheng is a contortionist who sometimes freaks out people by bending into shapes randomly. She'd be one of those people who makes herself very forgettable and doesn't stand out but Knows all the gossip bc ppl just forget to be on guard around her.

Another idea for Hensheng i think she Would be a like. Psychology + body language fanatic like constantly analyzing ppl and using that to determine how to interact but not always in a bad way at least at first i think its well meaning and comes from insecurity but gets to the point where she has all these preconcieved notions abt ppl and acts accordingly around them. She wouldnt share any of this with others either and she is really observant so it typically ends up being at least somewhat correct.

Fuxue (femme) and Shuanghu (butch) are old married social worker lesbians.

They have an opposite dynamic of xxc and sl's, where Shuanghua is a little blunt and can come off as p cold despite caring a lot (also autistic btw<3) and Fuxue is really easygoing and the socializer of the two.

Fuxue means "brushing away snow" and I just think she would be really motivated by making ppl's lives better and also very very sweet to her wife.

Shuanghua is a botanist who studies medicinal herbs but is also a gardener who just grows a ton of flowers for the hell of it.

And now...the others

Chenqing is a very pale and eerie-looking little girl who can't speak, only sing or scream. She often hides behind wwx's robes until she is called forward. Postres after reuniting with wwx she's more relaxed and friendly, able to find joy in the world rather than just controlling the dead. She loves to sing.

Wangji is a tall woman with a strong presence and a beautiful voice. I see her as very motherly and kind…she wears lovely golden and white robes. Also, bisexual.

Zidian is a seasoned older bodyguard. She is deeply loyal to the Jiangs but also rather ruthless and doesn't care about who she hurts. She has her job and she does it

Nhs's fan is a very well-educated and mischievous lady who likes to eavesdrop.

#feel free to add on...or ask for requests #these aren't meant to be accurate or anything #just for fun!#thanks again to jae for contributing so much!! all of sandu hensheng and most of fuxue and shuanghua #cql txp

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clatterbane · 3 years

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Oh yes, in rather unexpected news when Mr. C and I were discussing travel plans earlier? Apparently, not only is the temporary apartment now ready for us to move in at any time, our new landlord (who owns the condo and just finished moving out) also volunteered to pick us up from the airport with the kitties!

As it turns out, though, that would mean more of a drive than he was probably bargaining for. 🙃

But, oddly enough? New Landlord still said he would be fine with that!

Originally, the idea was for both of us to head for Malmö so that I could start settling in, while Mr. C came back here after a day or two to get the cats for a direct flight. With probably a third trip back to get the movers sorted out, and the place handed over to real estate people. (If not directly to a couple we know who have apparently started a sideline in fixing up/flipping houses.)

It was looking like Sweden wasn't letting anybody in directly from Plague Island except citizens/permanent residents, so I would need to fly in via some other EU country which would allow me through for a connecting flight. (Hopefully directly to Malmö or neighboring Copenhagen, if Denmark would let me in by that point.)

So, in that case he figured it would be better for him to return to Plague Island so he could bring those poor elderly cats directly. 😿 Reduce SOME stress on them, at least. And the only airport in the country with personnel to handle international animal arrivals is Arlanda! So, he was expecting a long train ride with them afterwards.

But, now it turns out that family members of citizens/likely permanent residents are also being allowed in straight from here. And he will be required to self-isolate for 5-10 days and then do more COVID testing as soon as he sets foot back on British soil, before he's allowed to travel again. 🙄

So yeah, it's currently looking like one trip into Stockholm for the whole family together! And then he'd head back here to deal with the movers and the house, with less of a hurry.

No doubt everyone will need a rest at that point--including New Landlord, if he's driving the whole gang including Feist The Yowler plus my stressed autistic ass that distance! 😑

Still kinda amazed the guy is apparently willing to help out that far. Maybe especially since he's essentially a stranger, not somebody Mr. C already knew. And appreciative, of course.

#long post #personal #boring as hell #sweden bound #plague time #plague madness

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drummergirl231-2 · 4 years

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I don’t even know what to title this.

I’ve been trying to come up with a title for I don’t know how long and now I’m legit crying because I can’t even figure out how to start this post... so this will have to do.

I’m not okay. I can’t keep up with all this and everything going on in my life. I feel like I’m strapped into a car on a collision course for a brick wall and I’m just frozen in fear anticipating the impact.

Everything has kind of been spiraling out of control in my personal life (if you want you can skip to the bolded headings for what’s relevant to this blog).

My parents - whom a lot of you know about from my GoFundMe - are moving from California to Tennessee. I can’t afford to stay in California so I have to go with them (though they insist my going with them is my choice and that I totally have other options... but whatever. At least I’ll be out of California).

If my job can’t transfer me, I’ll lose it just when I was going to get the most hours (and therefore money) of the year, but my parents refuse to wait until after Christmas to sell.

My grandma recently died and even though my grandpa (step-grandfather) invited us up to the house at one point, his horrible son met us on the porch and rudely refused to let us in, telling us his father wasn’t seeing anyone. Now that his horrible son has left, grandpa invited my uncle and aunt up, but not my parents or me, and my uncle said he’s going to do what he can to bring us what we want of grandma’s. I didn’t get to say goodbye to my grandma because her death was sudden, and now I’m scared I won’t get to say goodbye to the only grandpa I’ve ever known, either, because I’m moving to Tennessee and he’s 89 and has heart problems and I’m scared he’ll die of a broken heart in every sense. I’d have liked to say goodbye to the house, too. My grandma didn’t want a funeral. She was one of those “Don’t fuss over me,” types who fussed over all of us. I have zero closure in this situation.

I have to get ready to move but have no idea how/when/where to start. I’m terrified of the 4 day journey to Tennessee, trapped in an SUV with my parents and five animals, including my poor elderly cat, Kira, whose anxiety makes mine look mild. I have Misophonia and so many food allergies I can’t eat out so I don’t know how I’ll do food for four days. My parents say they won’t bring the camping stove for me to warm up my lunches. It’s like they never raised an autistic child.

Things have been crazy for “Kristen,” me, but losing my grandparents, my home, possibly my job, and moving far from any family or friends I trust aside... things haven’t been easy for “DG,” me, either.

As badly as I want to start a youtube channel about Autism, Misophonia, food allergies, gut health, emotional abuse, etc., I cannot find the answers no matter how much I google when it comes to the tech problems I’ve faced. And I’m not even sure when I’d be able to record these videos because my parents are almost never gone. And when they are it’s not for long, and I just want to relax, and breathe, and be in the living room, and talk and sing out loud, and do all the things I don’t get to do when they’re here for just a little bit. I stay in my room so much I feel like I’m a diver holding my breath and as soon as they leave I can surface and gasp for air.

Also, I’m getting more and more self-conscious about my acne and this one tooth I have that’s crooked because my mom has enjoyed commenting on them lately and it makes me kind of scared to share my face with the internet and last night I legit had a dream about trying to get these things fixed with more braces and foundation. Like what even I literally don’t care about this stuff when people don’t comment on it. Why do I have to be so sensitive?

Problem is, I am figuring out why. I’ve been doing so much research on Narcissistic Personality Disorder and narcissistic abuse to try to understand my parents and childhood and young adult years, that not only have I been able to identify it in my abusers, but I’ve found some traits in myself. And I’ve searched and studied and tried to see if I have it and after this inward witch hunt I have to conclude I don’t have Narcissistic Personality Disorder, but I have a few signs of vulnerable narcissism. Even if they’re not enough for a label, they’re definitely things I need to work on (things like hypersensitivity, victim mentality, sulking and shut down, self-sabotage, things like that... and now apparently vanity, but only when people frequently give me flack about my face). Trouble is I don’t know how to work on these because I have no mentor, no counselor/therapist, no pastor, nothin’. And most of the videos about Narcissism are about identifying it or surviving it as the victim, not growing past the traits, because full-blown narcissists generally don’t acknowledge their flaws and try to fix them. So I’m at this annoying and fruitless phase of “self-improvement” where I just frequently scold myself for my thoughts.

YouTube ambitions and flaws aside, I have people waiting for the next chapter of my fanfic, and no one’s been pushy or anything, but there’s this huge weight on me to write, write, write, but with everything else going on in my life I just feel stuck. Like my brain is just “NERP.” And I feel guilty, like I’m the biggest disappointment to people.

And then there’s this blog itself.

It’s begun to feel more like an obligation for me rather than recreation. Every week I dread the time after a new episode airs. I want to make posts at my pace, about what I want to talk about, like what I used to do.

But sometimes the link I get has a weird video player window that I can’t make the right size to make decent gifs, and sometimes I can’t even take screenshots because when I pause it it’ll have the play triangle in the middle of the screen and the bottom of the screen will get dark, or sometimes the link just stops working. So I wait for the episode to go up on watchcartoononline because that’s where it works best for me but in the meantime I’m missing out on the fandom being online and by the time the episode goes up I’m just like, “What if the post I make of this moment gets like zero notes because it’s already been giffed and talked about a million times and I’m late to the party? What if I’m disappointing everyone?”

I try to not post anything until I can post about the episode properly, and I’ve asked people not to send me asks or messages with episode spoilers until they’ve seen proof on my blog that I’ve seen the episode, but that hasn’t stopped them. I get spoilery asks anyway.

I get a link relatively quickly but mainly I ask for people to wait for proof I’ve seen the episode because I want a chance to get my own thoughts on the episode out first before people ask me about specific things or straight up demand I talk about what they want me to talk about on my blog.

For a couple weeks I even made all my posts and saved them as drafts first so real quick I could just post ‘em all in a row and get ‘em out, because I know the second I post one thing I’ll have everyone going “OMIGOSH SHE’S ONLINE,” and trying to send me asks and messages and I’ll be trying to juggle them all while trying to make more posts about what I want to talk about. I feel like I have to reply to those messages because if I don’t I’m scared they’ll see me make another post after they’ve sent their message and be like, “What the heck she’s online why won’t she reply to me?” So sometimes I’ll just stop posting and hope and pray they think they just missed me or something, which isn’t fair to them.

But then I’ll see something new on my dash - art from khionyohann, new screencaps for the upcoming episode that DuckTalks shared - and I’ll want to reblog it, but then I’ll think: “I can’t reblog anything... people will know I’m online then. And I still haven’t posted about the episode. I can’t do things out of order. They’ll think, ‘Why isn’t she talking about the new episode? Why isn’t she answering my asks? Why isn’t she replying to me?”

And by the time the episode gets posted on watchcartoononline (and as long as I don’t have a migraine and I’m not paralyzed with fear), I make my posts, but by then I feel like I’m super late and I don’t even know what the point is of me reblogging things anymore, if I even remember there were things I wanted to reblog.

My time here has become nothing but me trying to please people while simultaneously trying to hide from them.

So... blarg. All that to say, I’m closing my ask box for a while. And I’m sorry to disappoint people. I’m just so overwhelmed by everything right now. Extroverted thinking isn’t even a cognitive function that comes naturally to an INFJ! It’s utterly exhausting.

And while I do still want to do more posts about the latest episode, I hope you’ll understand that things are just crazy for me right now and I’m not in a good place. I’m trying to be okay and I’m trying to be so excited about an episode that I get motivated enough find ways to blog about it no matter what but I don’t have the energy. I want to reblog stuff, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I want to interact.

And for the few I consider true friends on here, please know I’m not asking you to leave me alone or anything. Just know I might not respond as soon as you message me... which, honestly, you’re probably all used to by now, but I still feel super guilty about it.

I just need to simplify my time on here a little bit because I’m not okay.

#personal post #probably the longest i'm-closing-my-ask-box announcement ever #is ask box one word or two when it's referring to tumblr?

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rock-speaks · 4 years

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OKAY OKAY RANDOM HEADCANON TIME!!!

Louie

- autistic with ADHD overlap

- Inattentive

- the longest he’s slept for was 25 hours

- Deep as hell sleeper takes him at least and hour or two to come to full control

- Has 0 filter will literally say whatever comes to his mind regardless of how mean it may be or how crazy it might sound

- Talks to himself a crazy amount

- Louie has a banging TikTok where he just flexes and makes fun of Scrooge

- Louie has a huge social media presence in general he keeps it on the down low nobody knows about it and Louie would like to keep it that way

- Louie is a picky eater but eats all the time constantly snacking if the pantry is empty it was probably Louies doing

- He probably watches shitty movies and claims it’s too make fun of them but he really just likes them

- Probably really good at impressions his favorite person too make fun of is Huey

- Definitely needs therapy

- Secretly a big sap for romance those cliche movies where lovers embrace in the rain? Louies weakness

- Him and Lena are definitely super close not as close as Lena is too Webby but they’re still besties

- Prank king

- Sometimes just too “see what will happen” he tells people fake facts they almost always believe him (except for Huey) because why would they not? He has no idea why he does this but he hasn’t shown any signs of stopping

- Whenever he’s alone with Scrooge he says oddly cryptic and strange things no body knows why, sometimes not even Louie

- I imagine all the nephews have really curly hair Louies the only one who doesn’t straighten his hair

- Excellent judge of character

- Wise ass

Huey

- autistic!!!

- Will bring up the fact that he’s the oldest sibling in conversations that have nothing to do with it

- He’s probably a big saver and is definitely a person who has a penny collection

- Big collector!!! I swear he probably uses one of Scrooge’s unused rooms too keep foliage and rocks that he found

- He’s definitely got great posture

- Huey will randomly bring up a random memory if it somehow resurfaces to his mind no one knows how he remembers half this stuff and sometimes he brings up stuff they’d wish he’d forgotten

- Has definitely never said anything he didn’t mean

- Never says “I promise” if he knows he can’t do it

- Huey really just wants to be good at everything he tries so when he isn’t he just kinda gives up on it

- So obviously Huey isn’t a “practice makes perfect” kind of kid he’s more the “if it’s not right the first time scrap it and never try again”

- Huey probably holds himself to such a high standard and puts so much stress on himself to always be perfect

- Loyalty to the fuckin end

- Him and Lena get into “fights” all the time Lena is constantly trying to fuck with Huey and he’s just not here for it (yet another reason why her and Louie make such an insufferable team)

- Bad at video games

- Definitely takes the most after Donald in the sense that he’s so fucking rage full and I mean full Donald rage like fists flying in the air shouting with a red face type angry

- Needs fucking therapy and definitely has anxiety

- Has a bad sense of humor and laughs at everything part of the reason Dewey and Louie think they’re so funny

- Only has his one iPad and really only uses it for planning and other nerd stuff

- All fruits are Hueys favorite fruits but his favorites are blue berries

- Has a celebrity crush on Gizmoduck

Dewey

- This was pretty much confirmed murder on killmotor hill but he’s bisexual

- Long Huey shows up in his nightmares

- Always the first to start a pillow fight

- Has abandonment issues needs therapy

- Secretly listens to punk music and only Donald knows and he couldn’t be more proud (I wrote this before Louies eleven came out!! Lmao canon!!!)

- Loves to draw even though he probably sucks at it

- Dewey is totally the kid that will literally do anything for validation jump off the roof too seem cool? He’d do it in a heart beat

- Pretends not too care but he totally does

- Dewey is ADHD personalized never stops moving never stops talking something is seriously wrong when he’s quiet

- This is technically canon but he’s so petty

- Dewey is the type of guy who would NEVER ask for directions no matter how lost

- Speaking of he was probably the triplet to get lost the most

- Dewey loves robots like loves loves LOVES robots his dream is to learn to code and learn mechanics and build one him and Huey and him used to do those little “build your own robot kits” when they were younger

- Dewey has like 50 different dream jobs

- Launchpad has turned him into a hardcore darkwing duck fan

- THEATER KID

- Sort of forces himself to be an extrovert

Webby

- Webby loves to draw

- Has definitely cosplayed

- Knows about Louies secret social media accounts but he doesn’t need to know that

- You’re trying to keep something from Webby? What a joke

- Webby knows pretty much every ancient language

- Webby doesn’t know what a joke is and takes everything literally

- Definitely writes fan fictions

- Autistic

- Stims with her whole body excited jumping and screaming constantly

- Probably orally fixated out everything in her mouth

- Sometimes forgets things she literally just did or said often she asks “wait what did I just say?”

- Favorite movie? Men in black for sure

- Has always secretly wanted to be in a play

- If Scrooge says anything nice to her she thinks about it weeks after even if it’s something as small as “thank you”

- Feels really bad for glomgold and just really wants him to be happy

- Webby is cuddle central doesn’t matter when or where or who

- It kind of bothers her that Lena seems to always take Louies side

- HATES CONFRONTATION will console a friend in a heart beat but never NEVER EVER wants to fight

- Bad with social cues due to her ASD luckily she has the triplets and Lena and Violet to help her out in bad situations

- If no one stops her will talk about one thing for hours Lena always lets her

- Probably knows how to play like a shit ton of instruments

- Really likes cooking but she sucks at it Scrooge ate her cooking once to make her happy but promptly through it up when she left

- Was definitely a lego kid

Lena

- If any elderly woman tries to touch her she flips due to magicas abuse good thing she’s got two gay dads now

- Loves Violet so much and thanks her every night before bed

- After extensive therapy that was suggested by Violet had the rest of her friends she’s able to look at her own shadow again even if sometimes it really freaks her out

- Lena is a lesbian 100% open about it

- Wishes she were a vampire and definitely reads those dumb vampire/werewolf stories

- Really likes that she’s taller than all her friends uses that against her Huey fucking hates her for it

- Her favorite crime is arson

- Because she’s a rebellious teen her and officer M’ma have had a few run ins

- Shes probably never actually been to Paris but rather said that to impress Webby

- Lenas the type of emo to cover her face in every picture of her

- Has always cut her hair herself and when her friends talk about wanting to cut their hair she does it for them trying to convince them to let her dye it the whole time

- Lenas is responsible for most of the graffiti in duckburg

- Loves Launchpad she thinks it’s really fun to tell him stuff that isn’t true and he’s cool when she tells him she was just joking

- Has always secretly wanted to be a florist

- Loves licorice

- Magica probably didn’t intend for her to have a personality or a life at all really so Lena definitely picked the name herself

- Magicas not really controlling her nightmares anymore but she’s still very much in them they’ve gotten better but they still happen every so often

- Sometimes if she’s sitting on the couch and someone’s sitting right in front of her she kicks them in the head not hard but enough to bother them

- Probably can’t read

- She probably doesn’t have an official birthday so she doesn’t really understand the celebration of one one day Webby the triplets and Violet surprised her with a birthday

Violet

- in my head Duckula and Von goosewing will always be her parents

- Violets favorite thing to research is definitely trees

- Weak ass immune system probably gets sick all the time

- Definitely dresses however see feels on her off days she throws people off when she shows up ripped jeans and leather jackets

- Her biggest pet peeve is when anyone does anything loud

- Violet has been teaching things that Lena wasn’t taught since she never got a traditional education

- Violet is still a hard core skeptic despite having a sister made of shadows and a father who is a vampire

- Her hair is always a frizzy mess so she chooses never to do anything with it and just keeps it in a bun

- Really doesn’t get any memes ever

- Violet is probably a very low key germaphobe

- Pokemon is her favorite game and she knows all the originals and is a pro at all the games

-Huey and her do that thing we’re neither of you are fighting but rather both talking loudly that makes people think “oh it’s getting pretty heated over there”

#ducktales #headcanon #ducktales headcanons #dt headcanon #autistic headcanon #autistic characters #adhd headcanon #adhd character #dt 17 #ducktales 17 #drabble #add more if you want #i love headcanons!!

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acrosstheskyandstars · 4 years

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Book Review: Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

Where to start with this book. I was definitely not a fan. This book was recommended to me by my best friend and my favorite Youtuber. I was convinced that I, too, would love this book. Unfortunately, this book did not live up to my expectations.

The premise of this book is that Eleanor is a 30 year old administrative assistant who lives the most basic boring life in existence. She eats the same thing for dinner every day (cold pasta with pesto), has the same weekly commute (stopping by Tesco every Friday to buy vodka), and doesn’t understand any attempt at non-literal speech. You may, at this point, be wondering if Eleanor was written to be some sort of neuroatypical representation. I certainly was. I paused reading to google it, only to find out that the author did not intend Eleanor to be neuroatypical at all. She has explicitly rejected the idea that Eleanor was written to be autistic. So now we’re left with a main character who is confusing and we have no reason for it. Yes, Eleanor has experienced childhood trauma (SPOILER: her mother set fire to the house killing herself and Eleanor’s sister when Eleanor was only 10), however her behavior seems unexplained by that. I can excuse the trauma blocking of her sister and the fact that she doesn’t remember that her mother is dead. Her depressive episode and suicidal ideation certainly make sense with a traumatic childhood. Trauma can do some very odd things to the brain. However, trauma does not make a previously neurotypical person behave as though they are autistic (the condition that is most speculated about in relation to Eleanor). If the author intended Eleanor to have some sort of mental health condition, like PTSD, she did not convey this through her writing. In fact, Eleanor seems to become pretty “normal” by the end of the book. Suddenly her coworkers care about her, she has friends, and she is mentally healthy. While these are all good things, the process of how one begins to unpack and process their trauma isn’t shown in very much detail. This leaves the reader with the impression that Eleanor was able to work through her issues on her own the whole time. She quits drinking after roughly one therapy session. The woman was binging 2 bottles of vodka by herself every weekend and admits that she was not sober at all from Friday evening to Monday morning for the past decade.

The thing that irritated me the most about this book was that every interaction Eleanor has with another character comes off as very stilted and painful. At no point do these interactions become charming, though she does become more tolerable after her mental breakdown. The breakdown in question is of course caused by the fact that she has convinced herself she is in love with a local pub musician that she saw precisely one time. Please note: she has never interacted with this man and he does not know who she is. She decides to get a bikini wax to impress this man that she has never met. Please tell me any other instance of a person doing this. Which brings me to the most painful interaction I’ve witnessed. Apparently some readers find this funny or charming. I found it painful because of how socially unaware she is. The idea that some may find her cluelessness funny is odd to me, particularly if they are reading her character as autistic. I’ll transcribe it here so that you can all feel the pain with me:

“‘Now then,’ she said, ‘what are we doing today?’ ‘As I said, a bikini wax, please.’ She laughed. ‘Yes, sorry, I meant what kind of wax would you like?’I thought about this. ‘Just the usual kind . . . the candle kind?’ I said.‘What shape?’ she said tersely, then noticed my expression. ‘So,’ she said patiently, counting them off on her fingers, ‘you’ve got your French, your Brazilian or your Hollywood.’I pondered. I ran the words through my mind again, over and over, the same technique I used for solving crossword anagrams, waiting for the letters to settle into a pattern. French, Brazilian, Hollywood . . . French, Brazilian, Hollywood . . . ‘Hollywood,’ I said, finally. ‘Holly would, and so would Eleanor,’…‘There,’ she said, removing the gloves and wiping her brow with the back of her hand, ‘now doesn’t that look so much better!’ She passed me a hand mirror so I could look at myself. ‘But I’m completely bare!’ I said, horrified.‘That’s right, a Hollywood,’ she said. ‘That’s what you asked for.’I felt my fists clench tight, and shook my head in disbelief. I had come here to start to become a normal woman, and instead she’d made me look like a child.‘Kayla,’ I said, unable to believe the situation I now found myself in, ‘the man in whom I am interested is a normal adult man. He will enjoy sexual relations with a normal adult woman. Are you trying to imply that he’s some sort of paedophile? How dare you!’She stared at me, horrified. I had had enough of this.‘Please, leave me to get dressed now,’ I said, turning my face to the wall.She left and I climbed down from the couch. I pulled my trousers on, consoled by the thought that the hair would surely grow back before our first intimate encounter. I didn’t tip Kayla on the way out.”

Every time Eleanor interacted with another person, it was this painful. Perhaps the height of her outlandishly bad social awareness was the scene where an old man collapses on the street and her coworker rushes to help. She is taken aback that her coworker wanted to help the elderly man who was unconscious on the sidewalk, and then also is frustrated that calling an ambulance throws off her evening plans (going to Tesco to buy two bottles of vodka to drink herself silly through the weekend).

Eleanor definitely needed help, and I’m glad she got it. Post-breakdown Eleanor was the best she got in the book. My main problem with the book is squarely placed on the character of Eleanor. She is unlikable, unrelatable, and frankly unrealistic. I think the moral of this story is that everyone can have different tastes, given how many people liked this book.

I’d also like to link to a post that goes into a more in-depth discussion of Eleanor’s possible autism and possible mental illnesses: https://penchant.blog/2019/08/19/eleanor-oliphants-story-and-why-it-doesnt-belong-to-the-author-who-wrote-it/

Check out my blog: https://acrosstheskyinstars818513457.wordpress.com

#eleanor oliphant is completely fine #book review #book blog #book #booktube #book tumblr #dislike #female main character

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aroworlds · 4 years

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Those With More, Part Two

When Mara Hill's magic results in her brother's impossible, wondrous transition, of course Suki wants to know how she did it! What if Sirenne's magic workers can help others find euphoria? What if this magic can heal Suki's hands—or at least lessen her pain? But Mara, distrustful of priests after their failure in protecting Esher, won't share her power.

A senior priest must bear responsibility, but Suki suspects her problems lie deeper than lack of oversight, and her reluctance to discuss her aromanticism with a woman who needs support only proves it. Would she have preserved Mara's faith and Esher's health if she hadn't first avoided revealing herself to her aromantic kin? If she'd faced their expectations that she shoulder their pain and grief as well as her own?

Suki has lived her life by the Sojourner's second precept, but how does she serve when she doesn't have more to give—and never will?

Contains: A disabled, non-partnering allo-aro woman struggling with the expectations of her young, fledgling aromantic community; an autistic, aromantic priest reconsidering their expectations of their community's leader; and an allo-aro woman in need of support as she struggles with her non-partnering, aro-ace brother's illness.

Content Advisory: Please expect many references to or depictions of aro antagonism, allo-aro antagonism, amatonormativity, familial abuse, mental illness, suicidal ideation, death, gender dysphoria, chronic pain, ableism and ageism. This piece contains non-detailed, non-specific reference to a character's past suicide attempts. This section includes characters embracing and touching.

Length: 4, 691 words (part two of two).

Note: This is the last story in my Suki mini-series, but it refers to characters introduced in The Sorcerous Compendium of Postmortem Query and is best read following the stand-alone story What Makes Us Human. You can find links to all on my pinned post or on this Tumblr master post.

Some scars are long years in the fading, if at all.

***

She isn’t surprised when Moll strides, their braid and girdle book swinging with each step, down the path to her garden. Sirenne rarely leaves its rules unsaid, an admirable quality to Suki’s way of thinking, but one needn’t long elaborate to impart the expectation that junior priests arrive promptly when summoned. Moll, despite the lifetime of alienation that leads to questioning rules and a habit of interaction best described as “restrained”, hasn’t dawdled upon hearing her request. A problem, that.

She understands, though, in the way of a woman once a girl who couldn’t have understood at all.

Obedience to conformity isn’t something she feels in the heart; Suki responds to being haltered with sharp words and loud arguments. Amadi, knowing this, kept her with em for a year before taking her to Sirenne, a year of learning to accept reasonable restrictions before facing the greater challenge of an acolyte’s service. That bitter, aching, defiant Suki would have scorned Moll’s flushed face and hurried pace, not seeing that she reacted to the same set of weighty, dehumanising beliefs and demands.

Submission and rebellion are just two sides of the same coin.

She doesn’t approve, but she understands.

“Don’t you even think about it,” she says, gleefully irascible, as Moll opens their mouth. “No clucking allowed. Sit down. The food’s safe, but it’s been half an hour. The tea’s probably cold.”

Moll nods and settles themself on Mara’s recently-vacated bench, the tea tray resting between them and Suki’s chair. As always, they move slowly, carefully, cautiously—like a wolfhound sniffing a newborn kitten or a man allowing a butterfly to alight on his finger. Like a tall, broad, boulder-shaped priest attempting to avoid threatening or scaring, however inadvertently, those around them. Like a puppy lying on its back, belly bared and paws tucked under its chin, its defencelessness a performance made before all would-be predators.

I won’t hurt you, so don’t hurt me.

They look more like a fig tree towering over the world’s seedlings than a puppy, but while a fig possesses an ancient, confident majesty in its quest to subsume another life in its great roots, Moll is … Moll. Shy, awkward, hesitant, uncertain. Rarely does she see them widen their arms or roll their hips, as if forever working to make their immense body appear smaller, softer, lighter. Just as a fig, for all its grandeur, lies vulnerable to any woman wielding an axe, Moll lies vulnerable to the wounds wrought by tongue, expression and gesture.

She wants to, simultaneously, swathe that nervous puppy in a warm blanket while taking a sharp blade to that fig’s trunk and daring Moll to defend themself.

Some scars are long years in the fading, if at all.

“Do you … mind, if I heat the tea?”

“Clucking,” she says, fighting to bite back her impatience. She doesn’t want to be the kind of old woman who moans about the young’s blathering, but sometimes they make her silence difficult! “If I objected, couldn’t you cool it down? Or tell me to pour a cup and let time have its way? I’d tell me, personally, to stick my head where the sun never shines. Try, if you want.”

Moll’s deep-set brown eyes put her in mind of shadowed pools—their fathomless serenity now disturbed by a crotchety priest’s thrown rock. Wordlessly, they pour a small amount of tea into a saucer before resting one hand on the teapot’s handle. The other guides a finger to the saucer, dampens a fingertip and traces, with careful delicacy, evaporating glyphs atop the tan glaze.

Many magicians speak loudly or write in great looping script, their magic become another performance of wordplay and artistry—as if, Suki always thinks, they find adoration for their art more useful than magic itself. Moll works in gestures and murmurs, collected and subtle. Everything must be reduced, depressed and lessened for safety, and she sighs, for even she recognises that they’re no casual magician. Why shouldn’t the world outside a small, backcountry monastery welcome or accommodate such ability?

Why shouldn’t Freehome welcome Suki’s free, unrestrained, honest self?

Such pondering, when she knows the answers to both questions, provides only one thing: delay.

“How old were you,” she asks, “when you learnt the word for your aromanticism?”

A slight frown, more the suggestion of expression than the actuality, shifts Moll’s brow. “I know exactly,” they say in their slow, deep voice, “because I learnt five weeks and two days after my acceptance as acolyte.” They purse their lips, studying the movement of their finger across the teapot. When a breath of steam issues from the spout, they pull back their hand. “I knew what I was since childhood, but knowing that I am loveless isn’t the same as a more … academic term. Loveless … people have other ideas about what that means.”

She always knew whom and what she was, clinging to a truth so obvious part of Suki still finds it absurd that Mama Lewis persisted in her stubborn obliviousness. Knowing, though, isn’t recognition, isn’t identification and permission; knowing isn’t the certain categorisation of the self as a different, acknowledged, communicable manner of ordinary.

Knowing isn’t pride.

“When do you think I found the word?”

Moll shakes their head, pouring now-steaming tea into a clay mug, the glaze chipped about the rim from years of use, the handle too small to fit all of Moll’s fingers. Their expression shows not the slightest hint of curiosity towards her questions. “I wouldn’t begin to guess, sir.”

Given Moll’s newness to the red, they can easily rough-reckon the numbers, so she answers as they did. “One and a half years before you, and leave off the ‘sir’! What are we, Astreuch?” Suki draws a shaking breath, her voice undeservedly sharp, but how can she fight both her acid tongue and the awful surge of hurt? How can she fight both her acid tongue and a nebulous tension that only fuels and strengthens her aching joints? “I was accepted, in a ‘some people don’t like relationships’ way. My mentor, Amadi, was like us. But the word? I didn’t know words until a cluster of young priests brought books from Khaloun. I found it, unexpectedly, while reading. So I made it my life’s work to have, here, our library.” She pauses, rueful. “Or the rest of my life’s work, since…”

Moll has given only patient, considered answers. Moll hasn’t asked questions coated in that dread mingling of need, hope and dismissal. Moll has done nothing to deserve her mood beyond asking one question, in the vegetable garden, that they had and have every right to voice.

Anticipatory fear and aching memory, poisonously entwined, have ever raised her hackles.

Suki counts backwards from ten, breathing long and slow, before realising that the Stormcoast’s culture of tiptoeing around advancing age—one daren’t observe that another approaches a state of “elderly” or “ancient”—has left Moll dwelling in a stone-faced, finger-entwining, staring-at-the-ferns silence.

“Which relative told you off as a child for calling another relative ‘old’?” she asks, grinning. “You think I don’t know I’m over the bloody hill and rolling down the other side? Yes, it’s the rest of my life’s work, because most of my life happened beforehand! Why pretend otherwise?”

“Many.” Moll rolls their shoulders back, softening. “How old were you?”

“Seventy-nine.” Suki silently applauds them for avoiding the tired “may I ask how old were you” approach and leaves the rest of the reckoning to Moll, carefully shifting her hands. Too often, these days, she earns nothing for her restful efforts but more time yearning for the work around which she has anchored her life. “Sometimes I feel like I was alive when the Sojourner supposedly lead hir band of survivors from the Change-ravaged North. Sometimes the world feels impossibly different, from then to now. Mostly, I feel the same as I always was, and the world's less different than people think, but people treat me like a ... a relic. Fancy attempting to educate me about theories I promoted because the old can’t understand the new!” She sighs. “Pour me a cup of plain tea, please, and put a pill on the saucer. The rats are gnawing today. Bloody rats.”

If her pain becomes unbearable, she’ll ask Thanh for hir set of nerve-blocking spells. She won’t be able to move or feel much of her body, but since she’s already remaining still, the real difference lies in consideration for Thanh. Ze’s had enough on hir metaphorical plate over the last week without Suki’s adding to hir work—and she hates to call on hir when she unnecessarily provoked at least half the throb in her hands, knees and ankles. Thanh has never made her feel as though she shouldn’t, but she does nonetheless.

She’s learnt the hard way how much her mood, and her guilt over wishing for relief, stokes and banks her pain.

Moll sets down their mug and pours another. “Can I do anything for you?”

Suki laughs. “I don’t suppose there’s the slightest chance you’ve figured out Thanh’s nerve blockers?”

They shake their head with speed enough that she guesses this a source of some frustration. “I don’t know how! There’s so much grafting onto nerve points, and in trying to describe it all and then shell … I make too many mistakes in the spell compression. It isn’t something in which you want mistakes.” They stop, breathing out long and slow. “I’m sorry, s—I’m sorry.”

Suki considers asking why, since she can’t expect a former quartermaster to reveal mastery of an art for which Thanh spent years studying at Eastern universities, but isn’t all this another distraction? “Don’t be. Thank you. Can you put the tray, just the cup and saucer, on my lap?”

Moll shifts the teapot and plate of corn muffins onto the bench before, as carefully as if handling fragile porcelain, arranging the rest of the tray on Suki’s lap. “Do you want to eat?”

“No.” Once, she could clasp a cup without provoking or worsening the pulling, throbbing pain in her wrist and fingers. So simple a thing to hold a cup, to drink, to return it to her tray! The tea’s heat doesn’t ease her pain, but the warm, tingling sensation distracts her somewhat, so she cradles the cup in both hands before raising them to her face. Now, at least, she needn’t waste her time in hope. As much as she yearns for Mara’s unlooked-for shape of witchcraft, there’s no reason to think her magic anything but sorcery, distant and unattainable. So be it.

She has blessings to count: a home, acolytes to help her wash and dress, purpose.

The bitter pill sticks to her tongue before she swallows it down.

“I can imagine,” Moll says, settling themself back onto the bench, “but in that way of theory. I can’t know, in the heart, the longest rhythms of time unknowing or half-knowing, given all denied us because we lack comprehension’s authority and…” They trail off, taking up their mug and, likely unconsciously, mirroring the position of her hands. “Place. That sense of place in time, in space, in community, in family, that … existential assuredness. Place. I know separation, distance, but I won’t pretend that I know that deeper shape.”

That Moll thinks their service should encompass only the safety of the vegetable garden is both tragedy and metaphor, but their still face suggests they don’t realise the contradictory echo of old words behind the new.

Mara wanted her kindred’s acknowledgement of her pain, someone to help her shoulder the weight of her agony in the validation and sympathy offered only by one who understands. Was Suki wrong to think, for so long, that she can’t risk seeking comfort? Does Moll’s rare consideration, offered unprompted no less, betoken safety enough for her to try?

“Do you have place, now?”

Moll cocks their head to the side, tapping one finger against the mug’s brown handle.

Suki waits.

“I don’t know that I will ever have that … neat, puzzle-piece sense of fitting into any time or space shared with others. Just autism alone, just aromanticism alone, just genderlessness alone … possibly. But they can’t stand alone, even if others want them to.” Moll exhales, hissing their breath over their lips in the loud, habitual easing of a priest performing and, through performance, encouraging the behaviour. “Sometimes … I want, so much, the ease of that fit, the confidence of an unquestioned place. And always … not, never, at that price.”

It shames her that, for all she has long held Moll at arm’s length, they are so willing to share.

“Burn the whole damn puzzle,” Suki says through a terrible, crooked grin.

Moll nods, a slight frown creasing their lips.

Do they realise? The shock of their first conversation in the vegetable garden, followed by an induction into the events surrounding the Hill siblings, may have seen them miss or put aside the obvious, for all that they touched upon it in their question of her. Moll owns too much perception to remain in acceptance of the thick paint covering the wallpaper beneath, and priests must do just that: question.

No thought or word can be worth anything if crumpling under curious, inquisitive challenge, so the question remains: have they the courage to ask?

“Do you know,” she says in a would-be conversational voice, “that the best thing about being a priest is that you can, amongst other priests, speak your mind? The trick lies in only having something worth speaking. Try it.”

With the speed and presence of a glacier, Moll turns their head to look Suki in the eyes. Their brow sits low and heavy, their controlled voice too tense for indifference: “What is this, then?”

Suki shakes her head. “No, try again.”

Moll’s lips shift, as if they mean to mouth a word before deciding otherwise. “Do you want honesty?”

“Your own mind will tear you apart if you say anything less, so why should I expect otherwise?”

A slight crease of Moll’s brow may suggest amusement—or consternation. Both, perhaps. “You’re discussing,” they say with painful slowness, “aro—” They hold up a hand, stopping her from remarking on their woeful statement of the obvious, and Suki, despite her anxiety-fuelled throbbing, works to hide a smile. “When you’ve had five years to start a conversation, why now?”

Their breath hisses over lips and teeth, one hand sketching lines on the meat of their robe-covered thigh.

Suki nods her encouragement.

“I did think that if this were well-known, I’d have heard. Someone would have said so in explaining to me? I also thought that your answer to my question … undermined your sense of the importance that we guide our own, especially now.”

“Do you feel that with Esher Hill?” Suki asks, wondering if they’ll dare put damning thought to voice. “Importance?”

"Yes." Moll shifts the girdle book and the bunched-up length of brown belt fastening said book to their waist. Their robe spills over thighs and knees, leaving ankles and shoulders bared; unlike Suki, they don’t appear the least bit cold. “He doesn’t trust me, but I think seeing himself reflected in that tangle of sharedness does more to help him survive than anything else. It matters.” They draw a breath, their voice firming and harshening: “So why do you talk sharedness now?”

Good! Only pain and the fear that Moll will take a somewhat-deserved offence keeps her from clapping. If she spends her remaining months or years helping Moll craft a more intentional relationship to obedience, even the Sojourner must reckon this time well served.

Easier to think about that than her own fear of an unvoiced answer.

Easier to frame this as a lesson or a guiding, her conversation possessed of another’s purpose.

Easier to think of anything but guilt and the damning thoughts an old woman must dare speak.

“Why do you?” Moll sips from their mug, their body angled towards her, their soft tone less a question than a prompting. “Isn’t that it?”

Only then does Suki realise that she embodies her own lingering, encloaking silence.

Her eyes rest, fleeing Moll, on the fern-encrusted garden wall and its uneven rows of red and yellow orchids. Her plants, fronds and leaves stirred into bobbing by the evening breeze, appear peaceful and fearless, but even allowing for flora’s unknowable sentience, that can’t be true. What stops a priest from consigning her flowers to the compost heap? A swarm of thrip from devouring the vegetable garden? Ferns, too, live their lives at the whims of the weather, the season, the denizens of the land upon which they take root. Plants grow, flourish, sicken, die. Peaceful?

What is peace but illusion: the hope of a perfect shelter from nature’s whims, ways and hurts?

“It goes the same way,” she says, now staring at her lawn and its mushrooms, those glistening fruits of the fungus conquering the soil beneath. “You learn something you didn’t know existed: the word. Once you find it fits, you feel the betrayal, the ache of once not knowing something fundamental, the deep cuts left by ignorance. You want sympathy, reassurance and validation to heal, and where are they when most don’t understand?”

Deep creases form across Moll’s brow as they thread their fingers together. “Yes. Esher needs it from me.” They hesitate, lips parted. “He needs it. So does Mara.”

“You can say it,” Suki murmurs, wondering the cost of standing, stepping onto the lawn and pulling the closest mushroom … with her back, conveniently, facing the priest beside her. Perhaps she and Moll aren’t so dissimilar if she wants to turn her hurt to fighting fungi. Perhaps this only crosses a mind looking to find a replacement for her knitting. “Please.”

“And I needed it from you.”

They may be referring to that first vegetable garden conversation. They may be referring to the years that passed between Moll’s learning the word “aromantic” as a descriptor and discovering that another priest is also aromantic. Both are truth.

“Nobody but Amadi had anything close.” Suki yawns in the first touch of medicine’s giddiness. Pity, as always, that she feels the effect in her head long before her joints. “Given nameless, remaining nameless with eir last breath.”

Only the stirring of hair and robe by breeze and breath mars Moll’s quiet stillness.

“Those with more,” she says bitterly, “serve to guide those with less. How doesn’t aromanticism apply? But we know the other side of its truth: a priest must have more to serve. More knowledge, more support, more sense of place, more safety, more community. A priest offers sympathy, provides reassurance, validates feeling, illuminates direction. A priest does what the world so often can’t in telling the different that we aren’t wrong to exist as we are.”

Mama Lewis wanted Suki to be safe, happy, loved. Mama Lewis never valued the daughter she had over the image of the daughter she thought herself entitled to have.

The part of Suki still yearning for the promise of her mother’s love can’t surrender one tainted, maggot-ridden idea: that a concept bearing an academic-sounding, official name must have made a difference.

Or will she still exist in this same circumstance, a trailblazer struggling with the full and challenging consequences of being this path’s guide?

“You think that I’ve known our word for years. You think that age means my hurt no longer throbs and I will carry your pain. You think I have more.” She presses her lips together, fearing the tears threatening to burst their dam. No, Suki takes pride in being the human equivalent of a splinter under a fingernail! She doesn’t weep. She rebels. “I have more knowledge only! You’ve … thirty, forty, fifty years of knowing ahead. You won’t find the word when you’re at death’s doorstep. You won’t bear the pain of a word unknown for eight decades. Your guide came delayed, but your guide still came!”

Suki learnt her words from books, not other priests. Moll had Gennifer, who’d learnt of aromanticism from her and affirmed in person the name of their identity and human worth. Moll, now, has Suki, even if five years later than right or deserved. Mara and Esher Hill have the wonder of identified validation provided by other aromantics, but Suki lived in a time when even the best affirmation went unnamed.

She tried openness for a year. She tried talking, despite such guiding never being her strongest art, to those guests who showed signs of aromanticism. She tried to find and connect with her own.

Easier, so much easier, to withdraw, to leave nurturing the younger aromantic starting their novitiate to other priests, to trust that Moll’s future will achieve what hers can’t.

Easier, so much easier, to avoid the young’s self-involved cruelty in relegating her only to their mentorship: the provider of their needed validation and support, the priest with more.

Easier, so much easier, to avoid speaking of her named identity with her aromantic kin … until a man almost died in part because of how he took a priest’s careless words, a situation that may not have existed if everyone knew “aromantic” described her and understood its context. Her failure, her cowardice, her unwillingness to build aromanticism more obviously into all her priests’ knowledge and service. Her inability to survive the bruises dealt her by others in pain. Her rebellion offering no direction or answer.

“You want me to strengthen you, shore you, shelter you. I can’t. I can’t when even thinking of sharing your agony reminds me of mine. I can’t when listening to you…” She sucks in a harsh, shaking breath, her throat tightening like a python’s jaws around a struggling rat. “I don’t have more. I’ll never have more. But acknowledging that isn’t enough!”

No lie slipped from her lips when she spoke to Moll in the vegetable garden, carefully dealing in careless and shallow words: how can a priest best guide someone when that guiding means taking further injury to damaged flesh? How can she serve their guests and her belief when she fights to keep back her screams, when pain and defensiveness sharpen her words to cruelty?

How much did the ostensible Sojourner struggle in leading hir collection of rent and ruined survivors along such a frightening, untrodden road?

She wishes herself able enough to march into the kitchen, grab a stack of the cracked plates she kept aside for such purposes and find a private courtyard where she can hurl them at a particularly offensive wall.

“I’m sorry,” she rasps, “because you needed. Because what happened to Esher wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t retreated. I didn’t question. I didn’t try to find an answer. I used the precept as a shield; I failed it. I’m sorry, I—”

She doesn’t realise she’s weeping until Moll slides towards her, closes their warm hand about her bony shoulders and pulls her into their chest, her tears soaking their red linen robe. They don’t speak. They don’t do anything but sit, awkwardly leaned over the arm of her chair, and hold her like a fresh-hatched chick in a pair of sheltering hands.

Guiding priests don’t, by custom, embrace their guests.

A lifetime’s grief spills from her eyes, stinging creased, dry cheeks. Not until the evening’s chill increases to something unignorable does Suki find again her composure. She sniffs, draws a shaking breath and speaks in her ever-readily barbed tongue: “Ten years ago, before your novitiate, I’d have asked if you were interested in bedding. Or even just sleeping, because you’re better than a dog and a hot brick for keeping an old woman toasty.”

Moll sits upright, only a strained shift of shoulder suggesting any stiffness or discomfort. Their wet eyes glisten even in the dim light, an odd contrast to their twisted lips and crumpled chin—and then a noise between a hoarse laugh and a snort explodes above the breeze’s whisper. “Don’t distract!”

They sound like Suki does when objecting to the young's woeful blathering.

She straightens, wiping her face on a corner of her shawl before smiling in pride. “Yes. I…”

“Thank you for trusting me enough to share.” They’re priestly words, taken right from the instruction manual, but Moll’s following sentences aren’t: “You said my guide came delayed, but she came, she showed herself when needed, she served. She’s here. I don’t know … how people reacted, what was asked, all of what you feel, how you bear the weight. I want to know. Your guide came delayed, so delayed … but they’re here. Even at the last.”

Emotion cracks and shreds her voice: “I’d rather not cry again, thank you very much.”

Moll doesn’t dilute their blank stare with speech or gesture.

“What path, then?” she croaks—tired, giddy, shivering, relieved.

Part of her, the wary woman once a distrustful girl, feels it ludicrous that Moll, so junior a priest, can answer something she can’t. The girl does them no justice: Moll hasn’t asked her to carry their pain. They’ve shared only at her prompting. They’ve treated her with a friend’s warmth and courtesy. If she holds no faith in their sacred service, is there anything left of Suki but damaged bones in an aching body? Isn’t this the same old difficulty: a woman fighting herself to trust another person, simultaneously needing and fearing?

Moll rests a hand on the arm of her chair, fingers half curled in invitation.

Suki nods and rests her stiff hand in their soft one.

“Someday,” they say slowly, “as how it seems incredulous to question one eschewing gender, we will be history. My school, years ago, taught that: the tears and blood spent to make a world where I can shrug at gender. Not just as a past to avoid repeating, but as … respect for the pain that birthed the now.”

They motion with their other hand, fingers curled inwards—the mug and teapot sitting, long abandoned, on the bench.

Suki yawns, presses her trembling lips together and waits.

“We need books of names and definitions, and we need books of stories. Our futures and hopes written on the page. Stories of the past that we’re hoping become … incredulous. We need the stories of those who wept. We can’t forget.” They turn to glance at Suki before speaking in a voice marred by quivering: “May I write down your story? So I can understand—so we can understand, all those who come after?”

They won’t offer power. They can’t violently remake a world so wrought against her. They don’t provide resolution to the ache felt by a woman struggling with the community who need her to help them bear and understand theirs. They haven't a solution.

They offer direction, one balancing their hopes for the future with the harms of the present. A direction that doesn’t make her feel like a relic to be cast aside but a paving stone at the road’s beginning, one small part of ensuring the steady, continuing passing of feet and wheels.

Moll’s suggestion is why she believes in the concept of the Sojourner, even though she can’t make herself ascribe to certainty in god.

“I don’t mean to be impudent—”

“Never cluck when you’re doing a bitchy old woman a kindness.” Suki draws a shaking breath of her own. “I’d … like that. Very much. Thank you.”

At first, she thinks Moll’s expression—a slight curve of lips, only a smile by comparison—speaks more of relief than happiness. No. Don’t they also straddle a complex and confused struggle to build their place? Don’t they also feel the sacred power in their service? Aren’t they also in need of friendship?

“May I ask—” Moll stops themself, raising a palm. “Why did you talk to me, at the beginning, as though guiding a priest? Why didn’t you talk about this straight out?”

Suki grins at both the correction and the question. “I’m the Guide. What else do you think I’m going to do?”

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dysperdis · 4 years

Text

tw: traumablogging, talking about suicide & abuse, sexual trauma.

I need to get this shit out, in one big chunk, before I lose track of it.

I keep wondering why the fuck Beru decided to spend so long treating me like shit. Do they just hate me? Was I just a convenient target? Did they realize they'd let their mask slip in front of me & decided I needed to go? Why did the abuse start so immediately?

Beru basically started moving in within a week after I said it wasn't fair of the two of them to jump straight into the "overly-obsessed new couple" stage of a relationship without so much as a heads up to the other two people involved with this relationship, long before I had any inkling that they were actually already fucking by that point. By week 3, the complaints were pouring in about how "unwelcome" I was making Beru feel by, say, insisting that they tell the other people living in the suite when they're going to spend the night before putting on their pyjamas and setting up on the couch, or letting me know to make food that Beru could eat without taking over the single bathroom in the house for most of the evening (& of course, they "didn't want to make extra work" by saying anything when I was asking them to simply let me know before I started making food!), or literally any frustration I expressed over my boundaries being ignored, all of which were delivered to me by Monica, not Beru, but very clearly as a result of Beru's complaints. I wasn't allowed to set any boundaries; I could be lying half dressed in my bed with Monica with the door shut having a conversation & Beru would invite themselves not just into the room or conversation, but *into my fucking bed* without so much as a word to me. These violations were constant, and at the same time I was pressured into doing more to facilitate the relationship, including chauffeuring the two of them around so they could go to Beru's apartment (did I mention yet that Beru lived alone, and could have been inviting Monica to visit them instead of invading my only available workspace & telling me that wanting to work there made me an asshole?)

The "sleepovers" happening at random most nights a week over that summer were undermining my ability to do any work for the upcoming events I was paying for table space at, space I shared with Beru because I wasn't confident of my own ability to fill a table & thought a "friend" might be able to help. I was explicitly told that wanting to work in the living room overnight for creative work when no one else was awake to use it was an unfair attempt to monopolize and dominate the suite's common space. Even after I asked Beru to spend time away from the home because I felt like the lack of boundaries was incredibly unhealthy for me, I still felt obliged to facilitate the relationship in ways that continued to deny me a chance to set any sort of healthy boundaries because of the previous months spent harping on how "unfair" I was being by expecting Monica to prioritize the relationship she was still referring to as her "Primary" relationship & the health of the partner she was calling "husband" over the happiness of her continuing affair with Beru.

I'm pretty sure I paid for 100% of all the tables, including the Canzine table Beru had entirely to themselves because I knew if I went I'd end up pulling out the zine I made to vent about how stressed I was about everything going on, and all of the gaslighting I was starting to notice even then but let myself ignore. I don't know if knowing the answers to any of this would help me, but it probably would help Monica, if it's not another thing she already knows and has been trying to deny while everything burns around her. But I'm not sure if I can ask without my bitterness making it sound like pure pettiness. I kinda wish I had gone to Canzine and taken the zine & let it all blow up then, I would have felt bad about it afterwards but I doubt it would have been anywhere near as terrible as I've been feeling for the last 2 years, but I wasn't willing to toss 6 years away for someone who only inserted themselves into our lives so substantially a few months prior.

When I told Monica about my discomfort, that I couldn't have this person involved in my life, she acted like she understood. She made a new friend during this time, and started visiting them "going out for coffee" a lot. She kept finding excuses for why I shouldn't worry about giving her a ride, and finally she admitted that it was because she was still seeing the person she had cheated on me with, and pressured me into agreeing that it was "incredibly unfair" to demand she either stop cheating, or stop pretending to respect our relationship. She told me she wanted to work on our relationship, while targetting my insecurities to convince me that expecting honesty and respect for my boundaries was abusive, and that I was overreacting. Throughout this time, I was gradually scheduling my life more and more around when Beru wanted to see Monica; the solution Beru, Monica, and Liz decided on for "letting me get Beru out of my life" was to continue seeing Beru while never mentioning their name, or giving me details I needed to know how to schedule my own day-to-day life. If you ever wanted to know how someone could participate in abuse without actually directly interacting with them, well, there's you're answer- you continue as a shadow presence in their life while your fellow abusers take all the direct action. And, every time the subject came up, Monica didn't actually want to break up with me, and agreed to "work on things" (tell me how I needed to forgive her & stop ~getting in the way of her happiness~, but also maybe planning 2 or 3 "date nights" with me before getting distracted & falling immediately back into the same habits. At some point, she started using the insecurities she had learned about me thru the years to start convincing me that I needed her, and that I wouldn't be able to survive without her. She knew exactly what fears to prey on, and I believed her. Meanwhile, Monica had a whole new circle of friends, who Beru has been telling that the reason I can't stand to be around them is jealousy or some shit. I thought I was imagining the distain in their voices when they realized I was there, but no- Beru has been telling lies to them about me, and Monica is too concerned with them liking Beru to intervene, so now she's surrounding herself with people who don't like me and are enouraging her to dislike me.

As for Liz, she pretended to be a neutral party throughout, shutting me down any time I tried to bring up concerns about the effect Beru's shadow presence in my life by telling me "she's Beru's friend, too" so it was inappropriate to talk to her about it- even when I had literally just tried to kill myself for the second time in 4 days. I had long ago noticed that Beru seemed to get upset any time word got back to them about me complaining about the various issues I had with their relationship with Monica & the implications of my own & that when that happened, Monica started taking it out on me; between that and a desire to "protect" Monica- who was slowly but surely picking up a lot of Beru's cruelty and boundary issues- from judgement because a) she was the one who was doing most of the direct harm, even the stuff that was clearly initiated by Beru, and 2) Beru has a bit more social padding to protect them (a cutesy autistic dfab enby vs a recently-transitioned trans woman with a history of ~scary~ mental illness DXs). So I stopped talking to friends about my issues. I'm not going to go into details about the boundary issues except to say that being surprise face-fucked the first time I tried to give head at 14 by a dude who was loudly disappointed I didn't swallow is no longer the most traumatic sexual violation I've experienced.

Meanwhile, Monica (and to a lesser extent, Liz) were encouraging me to distance myself from my last remaining safety net outside of that garbage fire of a relationship because the idea of coming out to anyone in my family made them uncomfortable. So, instead of dealing with it, they turned anything that involved me interacting with my family at the house for more than 5 or 10 minutes into a sign that my boundaries with my family were still too weak, and I needed to make them stronger. I needed to not talk to my elderly grandma because of how stressful it was for me (mostly because I kept having scramble to come up with more lies about so many details of my own relationship, because being honest with someone who had no way of outting them to anyone they'd care about even if they were inclined to do so was too uncomfortable.)

By the end of the relationship, when Liz walked out the door with less than 24 hours actual notice of her move out date (and no, a single spoken sentence a week before to a person who was between back-to-back suicide attempts, trying to keep track of a 3rd person in the convo who was bouncing rapidly between mania and an extreme suicidal state, and also on T3 & a bunch of antibiotics with harsh side effects does not fucking count, no matter how much she pretends otherwise,) someone tried to get me to see her side by asking me if it didn't make sense that she was avoiding actually giving me anything that resembled a reasonable amount of notice because she felt "awkward" talking to me, and I fucking snapped.

Maybe if she had sucked it up and had one or two of those "awkward conversations" a little earlier, I wouldn't have needed to ask her to hide the pills so I didn't go through with the plans I had made to kill myself that night (I was literally double checking my math on the dosages when she got home). Instead, she pretended to be a neutral bystander in her own relationship, while taking advantage of my subservience and inability to set boundaries in most situations. Most of the private time I sought out with Monica ended up including Liz because I felt I wasn't allowed to say no to that, either.

I was accused of driving away my support network by calling out Liz and saying that any other abuse apologists who wanted to defend Beru to me could piss off with her, but I strongly disagree. Considering Liz part of my support network was a dangerous mistake that could have gone much worse, if she had decided to stay out a little longer or something that night, or had snuck to her room without me noticing (a common occurrence, I had taken it as a sign that I was still taking up too much space by existing in the common spaces of the house.)

Basically, all three of them were fucking awful to me over the last 2 years, and used any negativity I displayed about the situations they were putting me in to beat me over the head, telling me how "unfair" I was.

#traumablogging

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