#though it being official would help with the fucking imposter syndrom I have

[bylightofdawn]

2023 Wrap Up.

It’s officially New Years in Texas. 2023 has been a weird year for me, one that both dragged and flew by way too quickly. There’s so much pain and awfulness going on the world right now that it’s hard to not dwell on or carry that into 2024 but I’m going to try and keep this relatively light-hearted and positive if only because I want to try and start the New Year on a positive note. For me personally? I didn’t really do anything big or notable but I had some smaller but meaningful victories.

I made a New Years resolution (something I’m pretty vehemently against because I always feel disappointed in myself when I don’t follow through) that I was going to start writing again and I would try and write every day. I didn’t manage every day but boy howdy did I still keep up that resolution. The major project of course being Seeds for the Future which I clocked in at 176,456 words minus I want to say around 10,000 words which I’d previously started like 3 years ago before abandoning it. So we’ll call it 165,000 to make it even-ish.

Holy. Shit. 165,000 in one year. I did not in a million years think I had that in me. And it’s been a wild ride. At points I felt like I was being ridden by a damned demon that was demanding I write this NOW. I was especially busy the first six months or so and then I burned myself out which….completely understandable when you consider your standard basic fiction book is around 70,000+ so I wrote two fucking novels in six months length-wise. But I also wrote a bunch of other stuff. I wrote A Fragile World Between Sharp Teeth which I’m still absurdly in love with. Wrote two whole-ass Witcher fics this month and one Star Trek fic as well as some other WIPs.

By my calculations I wrote -drum roll- 233,383 words in 2023.

223,383 WORDS WRITTEN ARE YOU SHITTING ME

And actually followed through on a New Years Resolution.

I also forced myself out of my comfort zone in little ways. I pushed myself to take action on my health to try and figure out the cause of my chronic pain and while the diagnosis was a bummer as was getting diagnosed with diabetes on top of everything else this year, I am proud that I forced myself to do it. I also did silly things like bleached my hair and dyed it all manner of crazy colors.

I think for 2024 I’m going to try and hold myself accountable for my health. I desperately need to go back to therapy and as much as I hate to admit it, I need to join a gym and strengthen my body. It will be the best thing I can do for my RA if I can help strengthen my muscles and I think it will help with my pain levels. It just...it sounds like so much effort though and it scares me so we’ll see how that journey goes. I’m going to keep plugging away slowly but surely.

I’m also going to keep trying to write in 2024. I have so many fic ideas I want to write. I’m definitely not going to do anymore crazy fucking 100K fics again. It definitely takes a toll on me creatively and not going to lie, after a while it feels like I’m just kinda screaming into the void because the sad truth of the matter is, long-fic will turn readers off and they won’t click or interact with it. And eventually my imposter syndrome reared its ugly head and the last half of this year and trying to finish Seeds has been a slog for the most part and not one I enjoyed.

Now, I’m going to go pour myself a glass of Moscato, eat some stupidly expensive caprese salad and I think edit the first chapter of my Gallahir sequel. I think I might be able to get it up and posted today if I can edit the first chapter tonight. Thank you to all my tumblr buddies, both new and old who have stuck it out with me through everything. I love and appreciate y’all and I am hoping you all have a happier, more kinder year than 2023.

[givemethatgold]

Fix’er Upper -Pt 14

Paring: Frankie Morales x Fem!Reader Warnings: just a bunch of fluffy family fluff, some dude being a nosy creep, overbearing mothers Length: 1.1 k Notes: This one is slow, babes. Just needed to build a bit of this new world, introduce Annie a bit and show you how things are progressing. It’ll pick up again soon I promise, bear with me! (Or don’t, I mean I can’t force you to like where this is going, lolz) Also, just typed this up tonight while raging at the laziness of men, so there are going to be mistakes, I can’t be fucked to find them. Trying to post this with NO links, as I’ve heard that may be the reason for the tagging issues? LET ME KNOW IF YOU GET THE NOTIFICATION THIS TIME!

Turns out, two people with zero child-caring experience are not going to have an easy time suddenly becoming parents. There wasn't any one particular thing that you could pinpoint the difficulty one, either, it was just a complete one-eighty on how you had previously lived your lives.

Frankie immediately stopped working such late hours, effectively putting a bookmark in the cider's expansion. He didn't even have to think twice about it, it was a no-brainer to him. Didn't make the loss of potential income an easy pill to swallow, though. Date nights were officially off the schedule, so were sleepovers and all the fun things that accompanied them. There had been a few heated moments between the two of you, but Frankie felt weird about having sex anywhere near his daughter and you refused to let him fuck you in the barn. Again. Especially after the last two times resulted in unfortunate splinter placement. 

Annie took less time to adjust than the two of you did, she really was an amazing little girl. She loved her little nook in the loft, although the décor was not to her taste and she wouldn't stop dropping hints about it until you took her to pick out new everything. Frankie had tried to put his foot down by explaining she wasn't going to get everything she wanted in life, but all it took were widening eyes and a protruding bottom lip before he was handing you the truck keys before you could blink.

Annie's attachment to you had surprised everybody, including her. The conversations you and Frankie had had before her arrival usually skirted around the conversation of what your role would be. You knew she was mourning her mother and were wary of trying to replace her, so you had fully expected to take a step back from Frankie's life while he and Annie built their new one together. You had her at apple farm, however, and now the two of you were best buds.

Well, until the six-going-on-sixteen attitude reared its ugly head and suddenly sweet, angelic Annie was replaced by a stubborn, moody, unwilling child who decided that screaming was the best response to negotiations.

For the first couple of months, Frankie had allowed it, not knowing what was normal acting-out behaviour for a kid who had experienced parental loss. He also had a hard time being strict, as he still felt like it wasn't his place; some weird kind of imposter syndrome. However, after Jacquie and Mark had been witness to one such episode, they had gently pulled Frankie aside and encouraged him to find a therapist for Annie and that structure and rules would be beneficial for her.

New routines were set, some of which you were involved in and others were special between Frankie and his daughter. Saturday was movie night, she was asleep by 7:30 so it was more of a movie evening, with popcorn, Twizzlers, and coke floats. You were invited to these, as Annie insisted on educating both adults on which Disney princess was best.

Frankie drove Annie to school every day, he knew he could easily send her on the bus but he needed that extra assurance that she had gotten to school safely. There had been an odd incident, which no other adults seem to have witnessed, where a man had apparently approached Annie and started asking her questions about her parents. 

This had, understandably, upset the girl, and the two of you, but the busy body's identity was never revealed. Frankie had been irate. Initially, he interrogated Annie, asking her for every little detail. Then the bus driver, parking lot attendant, teachers, and other kids were subject to his questioning. He went so far as to request all security video footage from around town, but nothing showed up. Neither of you suspected Annie of lying but it was like the man was a ghost. 

Eventually, it was chalked up to a parent wanting to get the scoop on your and Frankie's lives, as you'd been very private considering your first action as a couple was to practically dry hump on a carnival ride. After that incident causing Frankie's panic attack, and now creeping out a kid, you were a lot less inclined to appreciate the meddling from bored townsfolk even if it did bring the two of you together.

Frankie was always thinking up new ideas to build trust and create new memories for Annie, his guilt at missing out on her toddler years was exasperated by having her now. They created a memory book for her, so she could write down, colour, or paste anything that reminded her of her mom or her life in California. You were secretly building a memory book for the two of them, to show Annie when she was older how hard her dad had worked to become the man she needed him to be.

Twice a week Annie got to pick the recipe and they made dinner together. This usually resulted in a massive mess and only semi-edible food, but the smiles on their faces were worth it.

On Wednesdays, you picked her up and had a girl's afternoon getting something from the bakery and perusing books at the library, making up stories about the people walking by the café windows, or driving over to Jacquie's so Annie could play with her kids.

It was after one such outing when you were dropping Annie off at the farm, that Frankie came out to greet you with a guilty look on his face.

"I'm sorry," he began, rubbing the back of his neck and readjusting his baseball cap. "I didn't look at the caller display before picking up, and then once I was on the phone I got nervous."

"Frankie," you said lowly, dread filling your stomach. "What did you do?"

"I couldn't help it, I panic talked and I don't even know how much I blurted out! She's like Oprah or Barbara Walters! She just knows how to get people talking!"

"I know, Frankie," you ground out, trying not to lose your shit in front of a very interested little girl who has no filter during Sharing Time at school. "That's why we don't answer her calls!"

"But, babe, she's your mom. We can't keep ignoring her-"

"Apparently not!" You didn't realize how frustrated you were before it was too late. Your voice had gone shrill and loud and, judging by the look at Annie's face, angry. Taking a deep, calming breath in you tried smiling at the two of them without it making you look demented, "I need to call her and do some damage control, make sure she doesn't do something rash like-"

"Ahhh..." Frankie was back to looking guilty and you could have sworn your heart stopped. "She knows about Annie. Called herself Grandma. Said that Mother's Day would be extra special this year..?"

"FUuuuuuudge.." you barely managed to withhold the swear, looking at Frankie with a slightly panicked yet amused look on your face.

"It's okay," a little voice piped up, "I know that word. Mom said ‘Fuck’ all the time while we were stuck in traffic."

Part Fifteen - coming soon!

TAGS: Let’s see if these bitches work...

@rebelliouscat @pedro4ever @speakerforthedead0 @yespolkadotkitty @ilikechocolatemilkh @weirdowithnobeardo @pedro-pastel @disgruntledspacedad @a-skov @trash-dino-5000 @reader-s-cantina @alberta-sunrise @pascal-rascal424 @bts17army @sarahjkl82-blog @grogusmum @radiowallet @vonschweetz @greeneyedblondie44 @diaryofkali @cassandras-nest @silverstarsandsuns @haapeaness @missstef23 @computeringturtle @julesorwhatever @keeper0fthestars @lackofhonor @metahigh @thirstworldproblemss @sergeantbannerbarnes @callsigncatfish @inaturenymph @agingerindenial @pedritobalmando @lord-of-restingbiface @marydjarin @sebbys-girl @apascalrascal @thisshipwillsail316 @bison-writes @absurdthirst @ubri812 @marydjarin @inaturenymph @hyperfixatingmenever @louderrthanthunderr @petersunderoos96 @dobbyjen @tobealostwanderer @studyofawearymind @jaime1110 @bison-writes @rosiefridayrogersunday @leias-rebelion  @captainjaspenor @prettypedros @gracie7209 @peterhollandkait

[totallyboatless]

Gather around, dear queers, on this, the last day of pride 2022, to hear the story of the magical butch that made me feel seen in a moment where I really, really needed it.

It was pride 2019 in San Francisco. I grew up repressed and was in a relationship with a dude for most of my 20s. I came out later in life. 2017 (when I was 27) I was pretty much fully out as bi, but even by 2019 I wasn't ready to fully confront my gender shit, even though it was getting more difficult to deny.

Even being out as bi, I hadn't actually dated any women yet. I was terrified to jump in that dating pool. I didn't want people to think they were my experiment, all that usual stuff. So I was in full imposter syndrome mode.

But at the same time I really wanted to be part of the SF Dyke March (which if you're ever in the bay area for pride, that's the one to go to, way more community-centric, way less corporate than the official parade, and it's a march so anyone can join, it's not like a float thing). I decided a good compromise was to go as a volunteer for a few hours with a couple of my friends, because then I could feel like I earned a spot that I didn't feel like I deserved otherwise? I dunno, imposter syndrome logic.

Which amplified into full panic when I got there and was told to write my name and pronouns on my name tag.

This was one of those significant moments for me in my *~*~*gender journey*~*~* when my brain wouldn't let me push the thoughts away, so I couldn't get myself to write "she/her" on the sticker. But I was also afraid to write "they/them" (and, fuck, even under threat I don't think I would have been able to consider "he/him" like I'm considering now). So I panicked and didn't write any pronouns.

During my volunteer shift I had a couple people be like "oh, where are your pronouns?" and I just kept being like "whoops, forgot, I should go fix that" and then I'd wander off to help with a different thing, and bounce around to avoid ever having to answer the actual question.

Fast forward, my shift ended, I hung out in Dolores Park and drank with my friends for a bit and watched some live music, and a little while later the proper march started. My friends had plans and I said I was going to head home.

But the march was in the direction of train station, so I found myself walking with it.

Only I wasn't with everyone. I was walking on the sidewalk. I still felt like such a fake, how could I have gone 29 years and not known? And also now that I was starting to know, beyond my sexuality and deeper into my gender identity, how was I supposed to confront that? I couldn't even declare it in the middle of a celebration of queerness, the safest place to do it. I didn't feel like I deserved to be in that crowd.

I continued to walk on the outskirts of the march, watching all the queer joy happening in the middle of the street, everyone dancing behind a truck blasting music, people living their full unabashed authentic selves, until I couldn't take it anymore and I sat on a wall by someone's stairs and put on my sunglasses and started crying.

I'm still not sure how the magical butch clocked me so instantly. I thought I was being pretty covert being removed from the march, on the far side of the sidewalk, in the shade, with sunglasses on to hide my tears. But somehow they saw me. I didn't even see them emerge from the crowd.

But suddenly they were there, walking directly up to me. The wall I was sitting on was high enough that they had to look up.

They didn't say anything.

They just reached out their hand.

And without even thinking I took their hand.

And they squeezed my hand and I squeezed back, and they nodded at me and I nodded back, and they smiled and I cried harder.

And then the moment passed and they let go and disappeared back into the marching crowd.

I cry every time I recount this story. It's the most powerful thing that's ever happened to me. That butch saw me, saw that I was experiencing something that's universal to all queers at different points and different intensities during our self discovery.

They didn't try to talk to me. They didn't try to pull me into the crowd. They knew I wasn't ready yet.

But they knew one day I would be.

Early 2020 I came out as nonbinary to my closer circle of friends. October 2020 I came out to my wider network. December 2020 I chose my new name. May 2021 I came out with that name to the wider public. And now, next month, I'm planning on going forward with testosterone.

I got there.

No matter where you are in figuring yourself out, whether you're on the sidewalk or in the crowd, happy pride, my dears.

[captainstiddies]

take a break kenma x gn!reader

a/n: beware it might be a little ooc but tbh I just really needed this so enjoy

kenma has already graduated and you're in your final year

warnings: anxiety, breakdown, self-worth being questioned, imposter-syndrome kinda, hurt / comfort no fighting just kinda sadish at the beginning

pairings: kenma kozume x gn!reader

The room was filled with both your and Kenma’s frantic typing. You trying to finish a paper for university and him streaming to his audience. Usually, you would be sat beside him answering questions and on occasion join in the games but right now you were sat on the bed out of view stressing over whether it would be good enough to pass. Sometimes you envied how Kenma’s future with his company and social media seemed so stable while all you could worry about was if you’d get a degree and if you’d even get a job in your field. As you stared at the essay on your screen you could feel the anxiety and stress of your final year build-up. Not wanting to break down while your boyfriend was streaming in the same room you muttered that you were going to the bathroom. “Okay.” He called to you but as he caught sight of your form in the video of his stream did he notice your slumped shoulder and you hastily rubbing away tears that were threatening to fall.

He waited a couple of minutes before announcing to his fans that he was going to take a break for a bit and made his way through the apartment, when he turned into the living room he found you sat back against the foot of the couch with your face buried in your knees. “Oh, kitten.” Kenma couldn’t help but sigh at your position already knowing that you were crying by the soft shake of your shoulders. Making his way over to you he sat down an arm wrapping around your shaking form pulling you into his side, instinctively you turned into his chest letting tears fall freely as the entire pressure of this final week of school crashed down on you. “Let it out kitten, I’m right here.” He continued to whisper sweet nothings as he rubbed your back gently, at the moment nothing else really mattered besides making you feel better, his audience could wait forever for all he cared.

At one point he did go back and officially end the stream but he was back in a second only to see the tears had finally stopped. Looking up towards Kenma you gave him a sad smile, cheeks still damp from your tears. “You didn’t have to stop your stre-” His hand shot up as he shook his head. “Don’t, you mean more to me than my streams, anyways it’s pretty late I’d have to end it soon anyways.” He pulled you up onto his lap after he had sat down even as you tried to tell him you had to get back to your paper he just held onto you making sure you couldn’t leave his arms. “Not right now Kitten, right now we’re just gonna sit here, you and I and we’re gonna relax.” Giving up you let your head fall to his shoulder fingers absently tracing shapes on his sweater-clad chest.

Some time passes with a comfortable silence before you spoke. “It’s just so much sometimes ya know?” He hummed placing a kiss along your hairline silently pressing you to continue. “And when I see it come so seemingly easy to everyone, it fucking sucks it feels like I’m not doing enough...Like my best isn’t good enough. And even though I know logically it’s not easy for anyone my brain just doesn’t compute it.” He nodded again before tilting your chin up. “I know it feels like nothing is ever enough, but just know I think you’re more than enough. You’re smart and talented and funny. Don’t even get me started on how supportive you are. But baby, you can’t keep overworking yourself like this. You’ve been working on that paper all day and it’s already past midnight. I love you kitten but you need to stop working on it for a day or two, it’ll make you feel better.”

Pressing a soft kiss to your lips he sighed. “C’mon Kitten, we’re gonna order some food and watch movies and then you’re gonna sleep.” And for the first time that night, you giggle the irony of his words not flying over your head as you stood up before leaning over him, hands cupping his face. “You stole my line.” He scoffed before closing the distance pressing a kiss on your lips that just seemed to engrave every word he had said into your mind. For the first time that night, you didn’t feel any stress or pressure just pure and unadulterated love.

[afoolforatook]

A RWBY V7 Ep12 rant.....When I say this is long..... Legit was fucking 37 pages double spaced at one point. Sorry....

Before this gets started I want to warn you, this is long (even longer than I thought it’d be going in). It’s probably too long ... actually it is definitely too long but if I agonize over editing it down again and again I won’t get it up before the finale. It’s probably repetitive at times, and most certainly not anything I’ll be showing off as an example of my top essay writing. And I want to be able to say that the length pays off because I have some grand hopeful insight at the end. I want to say I know things will be okay. But the fact that I can’t is exactly why I’m writing this, and why it’s so long. So if you need this to have a hopeful ending, I’m sorry, I don’t have one for you currently. I want to, so badly. But to me false hope would be even worse.  So if you can’t handle another long post that doesn’t end with a way to fix things, it’s okay, take care of yourself. But maybe the most hopeful thing I can tell you, and tell you up front, is that you aren’t alone in your pain. 

I want to preface this all with one more thing: I don’t hate CRWBY. I respect them, support them. I’ve wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt as much as I could.  That doesn’t mean I can’t criticize them or expect more from them or just be plain angry with them. I can be vocal about all of that without harassing them, without hating them. I don’t think they’re just plain evil or homophobic. I still want to believe that they can do things that will allow me to trust them again. Maybe it’s naive, but I want to, at the very least, still have hope that this wasn’t malicious, just very poorly conceived and executed. 

And I know that other people who are hurting like me are lashing out towards CRWBY. And while I don’t at all condone that kind of reaction, I can understand it to an extent. Because I’m very, very hurt and angry and it would be so easy to let loose and say all the awful stuff I want to in my anger. To yell and call people out and not care how I come across. It would definitely be a lot easier than spending all week writing this long thing and agonizing over making it perfect. There is nothing wrong with venting and being raw and open and angry, but just as we want CRWBY to be aware that their actions can truly hurt people, we need to be conscious of the fact that so can ours.  Many people are very hurt right now. And whether or not you think it was queerbaiting/BYG or not, or even whether or not you just think it was bad writing, no one has the right to invalidate the people who are hurting right now, many of whom are queer people dealing with personal traumas and mental illness. 

The few people who are attacking CRWBY and other fans (and there is a difference between being angry and vocal about that anger and just attacking them) do not invalidate the hurt people are feeling. If you are hurt or angry you have every right to be. You have every right to stop watching the show or leave the fandom, or communicate your hurt to CRWBY. But communicate means just that; communicate. Talk. You can be as angry as you are, you don’t have to temper your pain to be more tolerable to the people who caused that pain. But there is a difference between being harsh and honest about how hurt you are, and harassing real people. And I won’t say “harassing real people over a fictional character/show” because I know it’s more complicated than that. My hurt this past week isn’t over a fictional character or a ship. It’s about me and what I’ve been through and the fact that the very thing that gave me strength in hard times was turned into something that confirmed my biggest fears and hurt me immensely. 

The world always gets so sentimental when we see things about fictional stories giving people some comfort, and we celebrate that. But as soon as people say they can be hurt just as much by media, we lash out, say they’re overreacting, that they’re just getting upset over fictional characters. But you can’t have it both ways. We can’t want fiction to be important and inspiring to people and then belittle people who are negatively impacted by the same material, especially when often that vulnerability comes from a history of trauma and/or being neurodivergent. I am extremely hurt. I feel betrayed and abandoned and angry. And it will take time for me to process all of that and move past it. But I can be all of those things without attacking CRWBY or the people who might disagree with me. 

To me, this isn’t about disagreeing. We can argue forever about whether or not this was queerbaiting or bury your gays or poor writing (and I honestly at this moment don’t even know what I think about all of that because I’m not in that headspace currently) but the fact is that there are many, many people who feel it was, and who are hurting because of that, and whether you believe it was or not does not give you the right to invalidate the real pain that they are feeling.  Who is right is less important than the fact that people, people who were already vulnerable, have been hurt. So, please. Respect each other. Respect those who are hurting. Respect those who aren’t and don’t understand, and respect CRWBY. You can still be angry and speak out without attacking others. 

With that said, to fully understand why this has affected me so much, and why it’s going to take a long time for me to get back to where I was, regardless of how the volume ends, there are things you need to know about my history. It’s a lot of background and this is already going to be a longer post than I’d really like, but it’s important to understanding why RWBY is so important to me, and thus able to have such a negative effect on me. So please, bear with me. Also, fair warning, though at this point it’s probably obvious, but my story isn’t happy. I still haven’t found my own positive ending to it. If it’s too much for you to read right now, please, like I said before, take care of yourself. 

I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Farley. I’m 24, nonbinary (they/them), biromantic, demisexual. I have MDD, GAD, ADHD, Panic Disorder, OCD, Comorbid PTSD, and am trying to get an official autism diagnosis. I’m a full on alphabet soup. I struggle with imposter syndrome, intrusive thoughts, self-isolation, dermatillomania, and multiple trauma related phobias. My queer and neurodivergent identities are huge parts of my life and I try to be as open as possible about them, in the hopes of helping end the stigma around them. One of the main ways I cope with my mental health issues on a day to day basis is through hyperfixations. While it might not technically be the healthiest method, it’s what I’ve found to work for me when I’m in a really bad place and unable to practice more active coping skills. Through stories and characters that I relate to, I can separate my problems from myself a little and both escape from them for a while when needed, and view them a little more clearly from a new perspective.  

That’s some important info about me, but what really matters here is the past five years of my life and the trauma within them. 

In October of 2015, a few months into my sophomore year of college, I went into a deep depression, mostly brought on by multiple family deaths and stresses over the past summer that I had not properly had time to process and recover from. I quit my job as an RA and withdrew from school and moved back home with my parents.  While this was the right decision at the time, it wasn’t easy. I left a very close group of friends at school, and didn’t really have a strong support system at home aside from my parents. My friends from high school had all gone off to college themselves, and the few that still lived in town were often busy with work or school. And because I have an intense fear of driving and needed time to get myself in a better place before starting a job, I ended up spending most of my time home alone. I became more and more isolated, to the point of verging on agoraphobic, and my parents and I started thinking about ways I could basically get my life started again. 

 But isolation messes with your head, and makes you want to just isolate more and more. In mid February of 2016 I started to really work on being social again. Mostly because I started talking to my best friend from high school, Emma, regularly again. She knew I was struggling, and while I’ve always had a hard time keeping in touch with people, Emma has always been the person I never felt self conscious about going to. We talked everyday. After high school, Emma’s mom and younger brother had moved to Ohio (I live in NC) and Emma had gone to school in Oregon. Her father lives in Germany. So between visiting her family in Ohio and Germany she didn’t have a lot of time during breaks to come back to NC to visit friends. Since we graduated I’d only seen her once for about 12 hours during that awful summer. But now we were skyping and chatting everyday. And slowly I started to be less and less scared of being more social. I wanted to hang out with friends. I was excited about going back to school in the fall. 

Something important to understand about me and Emma is how close we’ve always been. We’d been best friends since 8th grade. We told each other we were soulmates, soulfriends, when we were 15. Nearly everyone in our small high school thought we were dating at one time or another. I always knew I loved her. I was fine with our relationship being “only” platonic. Because platonic wasn’t “only”. It was absolutely perfect. It was having her as one of the most important people in my life, and me in hers, and that’s all I wanted. But I also knew that if she ever wanted to try a romantic relationship, I’d be open. 

Around the time I left school Emma had been going through a lot herself. She was finally getting help for her own mental health issues and she was, for the first time, really thinking about her identity and sexuality. On May 4th 2016 she texted me like always, but this time she was nervous. She wanted to tell me something. She said she was still confused about her sexuality and didn’t know where she fell. But when she tried to think of being with someone, the only person she pictured was me. And I told her basically what I just told you. So we started talking about testing out us being a couple. She had already been planning to come to NC to visit after she went to Ohio later that month for her brother’s high school graduation. And my parents were going on a two week vacation around that time as well. So we decided that she would come and stay with me for two weeks. We would keep this to ourselves until then, so that we could see if this was really the best thing for us. And if so, then we’d tell people. We’d always talked about living together after school, but now we wanted to see exactly what we wanted our relationship to be. She bought a bus ticket for May 26th and would stay through June 10th or so, which would mean she’d be there for her 20th birthday on June 5th. We talked everyday about our plans for her visit. How excited we were, how we could cook dinner together and dance around the house in our underwear, and just get to be Us again. We talked to friends, planning to visit friends from high school and maybe even my friends from college.

On May 18th I texted Emma around 11 pm. I hadn’t heard from her all day which was unusual but she was in Ohio celebrating her mom’s birthday and getting ready for her brother’s graduation that weekend, so she was probably just busy. We’d told each other goodnight every night for months at that point. So I told her I loved her and was so excited to see her in just over a week.

The next morning it was a bit odd that she still hadn’t texted me back but again, I just assumed she was busy with family. And then the mail came, and the last part of a birthday present I was making for her arrived. So I got to work, giddy. 

Around 2 pm my other best friend from high school, Juli, called me. For some reason I decided I’d just call her back later, I was too engrossed in making Emma’s present. About 20 minutes later I heard a knock on my door and turned to see my parents standing in the doorway to my room. I vividly remember spinning around happily and saying “Hey! Everything okay?” even as I noticed the tears on my dad’s face and how pale my mom was. My stomach knotted and I stood as my mom said “N-no. Honey…..” and walked towards me. I took a deep breath, preparing myself for her to say that a grandparent or aunt or uncle had died. But as she got closer and put a shaking hand on my shoulder, I got a little more confused, a different kind of scared. One of my cousins? One of my baby cousins?  

Nothing could have prepared me for her telling me that there’d been an accident in Ohio. That Emma, and her mom, and her brother, and her aunt had been in a crash…. And that all four of them had been killed on impact. The only thing I remember about the rest of the night is the pain of continuously screaming, punching the wall until my dad stopped me, and calling my friends from college, trying to have someone to talk to, someone who I could call who wouldn’t also be mourning. I couldn’t handle my own grief, let alone anyone else’s at that moment. 

There’s a lot more to that story. There’s the memorial service in Ohio and meeting her dad and stepmom for the first time. There’s the service we put together at our high school and seeing our friend group all together again, except not. There’s the panic attacks every time I saw a garbage truck, or my parents drove off to work. 

But most importantly for what you need to know right now, is my sliding back into isolation. I barely ever saw my friends from home and every time I did for the next two years it had something to do with mourning Emma. I saw my college friends a few times; them coming to visit or me taking a bus to stay the weekend. But eventually they went back to school and I stayed at home. I drifted away from high school friends because I didn’t know how to handle being with them when everything we did together reminded me of what I’d lost. I didn’t know how to talk to them because I needed their support but knew I didn’t have it in me to be supportive of them, and that wasn’t fair. I drifted away from my college friends for the same reasons, and even more so as the group dynamic that I had left slowly changed and faded until I didn’t know who was talking to who anymore and I again felt bad for dumping my shit on them when I couldn’t do the same. I began to think that all I brought to any social interaction was my pain and hopelessness. I would just bring everyone else down. They shouldn’t have to deal with my pain. So a year after I left school I was even more alone. I’d lost or pushed away all the people in my life that I’d expected to be lifelong friends, family. And I didn’t know how to begin to fix that. I didn’t know if I wanted to. I didn’t know if I deserved to. 

The only reason I was even still alive was because anytime I even got close to thinking about hurting myself, I could just sense Emma glaring at me, yelling at me, telling me that I couldn’t let this stop me from living out all those dreams we’d talked about. And I knew that my life wasn’t just mine anymore, that all those dreams, that bond, the parts of my favorite person that only I knew, would be lost if I died. 

But I didn't have my friends to vent to, and as supportive as my parents were (I’d told them and a few close friends about me and Emma that first terrible week) I needed friends. But I didn’t know how to reconnect and I was too scared to go out and meet new people, especially knowing that at some point I’d have to drop the “dead girlfriend” bomb on them, and who’d want to stick around after that?  So I tried to use media and hyperfixations to pull myself out of spirals, like I always had. But it was hard. Because most of the things that had been comforting before were all things I’d shared with Emma, and so now they were just more reminders of her absence. And even new things I found soon turned rotten because I couldn’t help but think about how I wish I could show it to Emma. Everything that made me happy for even a moment would pretty soon make me sad. 

Eventually I found things that comforted me and helped me be creative again and that led me to starting school again, nearly three years after I’d left, at SCAD.  I loved the classes. I wanted to be there. I’ve always been a fiction writer but now there was so much in my head that I needed to get out, to process, and to share with people, especially people like me dealing with an unimaginable grief. Those past few years had been made even more difficult by the lack of representation I found in grief material. Everything was either about grieving the elderly, not someone who’d barely even gotten to live. Or if it was about someone young it was due to suicide or disease or violence; in other words things that at the very least, left the grieving with some cause to care about, or something to be angry at, some real world outlet. I didn’t have that. I didn’t relate to that. And even harder was finding anything I could relate to that included the complexities that my queer identity put on my grief; there were people I could and couldn’t tell about our relationship. Did I say I lost my best friend or my girlfriend? What if her family didn’t approve and wouldn’t talk to me, wouldn’t let me have any of her things, wouldn’t want me around? And one of the biggest things I kept thinking those first few months; why had my life become a ‘bury your gays’ soap opera plot line. Was Emma supposed to just be my tragic backstory now? Was I just supposed to use this as angsty fodder for the rest of my life? What about her? What about her dreams, her potential? What about her progress? She’d just gotten to a place where she was accepting herself. Where she was overcoming her mental health issues, where she was proud of who she was. Why was I allowed to keep going and she wasn’t?  I couldn’t find any support for these feelings. Not books or groups or forums. So I decided to make them myself. I started writing and drawing, putting together what I called my Grief Scrapbook. I was working towards the thing that mattered to me more than anything; telling our story. I was getting the chance to create the content I’d so desperately needed. 

But I was still alone, even at school. I was 23 living with mostly 18/19 year olds. And while there wasn’t anything wrong with them, I was struggling with a strong sense of dissociation. Everywhere I looked I saw Emma, forever 19. And there I was, continuing to age and getting further and further away from her. 

My first year at SCAD I made two friends, and while I love them, they didn’t fulfill the hole left by the large close knit groups of friends I’d lost. I tried to get back in touch with my best friend from college, only to find that she was no longer talking to me. And I don’t blame her really. Yes I’d been going through things, but so had she, and I hadn’t been able to be a good friend for her. So if she needed to move on for her own good, no matter how sad that made me, she had every right to do what was best for her, just as I had been trying to do. 

I’m now in my second year at SCAD and recently started hanging out with a new group. And they’re great and I’m slowly feeling more confident and secure around them, but I still struggle. I still miss the relationships I held so dear, the relationships I let dissolve. I still worry I’ll never have that kind of connection with people again, and that if I do somehow manage to find it, I’ll mess it up again.  Some days are particularly rough, when I sit with my thoughts too long, or see something that reminds me of any one of the many people I miss, and I ache for the happiness I had. And it’s those moments when I turn to hyperfixations (I do promise this is getting to RWBY). 

This past February the final How To Train Your Dragon movie came out. The HTTYD franchise holds a very dear place in my heart, as it was my main hyperfixation during high school, and something I shared with Emma and other friends. The second film came out the day of my graduation. It was the last movie Emma and I saw together before she moved to Ohio and then went to school in Oregon. It was the last movie we saw together at all. I knew it was going to be very emotional for me to see the final movie, alone now. But I had to see it opening night. And (spoilers for The Hidden World I guess) the movie ended up being about the reality of having to let go of the important people from your childhood as you grow up. About dealing with the fact that sometimes the people you expected to always be a part of your life, aren’t. I loved the movie, but it destroyed me. A few months later I had to get through May, the 3rd anniversary, away from home for the first time. And it was extremely difficult. I’d had to take a break from HTTYD and process things. 

So my main hyperfixations weren’t helping me get through a really difficult time. But around the time HTTYD 3 came out I happened to get back into RWBY. I’d watched the first season or so when it first came out, but then had just kind of forgotten about it. And so, in the absence of HTTYD, I got caught up. And I can’t say there weren’t things that hurt, that made me have to take a moment and collect myself.  Watching the end of volume three, watching Pyrrha and Jaune finally kiss, and then watch their relationship die with her before they even had a chance to be together, hit way too close to home. Logically I should have projected on Jaune more than I did but I think I couldn’t, because it wasn’t just similar, it felt like I was literally watching the worst moment of my life play out. He was too much like me to handle. But there was Qrow. And at first I just kind of latched onto him because I liked him. I like his characterization, his design, and I was a fan of V*c ( I hate to even mention him here for fear of causing a totally different discourse, but Emma and I were big fans of his and high school and met him and when everything happened with him it was just another thing that felt like a good memory of Emma had been tainted.)  

And so I was watching while the last half of volume six was airing. And I was watching Qrow slip further and further into his depression. I watched as he felt betrayed by Oz after grieving him and then getting him back. I thought more about how he’d basically lost his sister, about how he’d grieved for Summer (regardless of whether it was platonic or romantic), how he lost hope in having strong relationships ever again. How he felt cursed and how he pushed people away to protect them and himself from more pain. I saw how the Apathy affected him and how close he was to giving in before Ruby and Weiss snapped him out of it. I saw him struggle to get himself back together for Ruby and the rest of the kids, but not know how. I saw every single fear I’d struggled with those past few years in him. I related to Qrow more than I’d ever expected to. And so my hyperfixation on RWBY grew. His addiction was my isolation. His insecurities of hurting others and thus pushing them away was my fear that for the rest of my life, I would be alone because I was always going to be too broken to be worthy of friends and love. 

And then everything happened with V*c and for a bit everything hurt again and I had to get away from RWBY and the toxicity within parts of the fandom. And when I was able to come back I was excited but worried. I hoped that Qrow would continue to develop, continue to progress alongside me, that I would like his new actor enough to finish healing the sting I’d felt over V*c.  I just wanted Qrow back, I wanted this character to be there to help me again.

Because Qrow Branwen gave me hope. He gave me hope that I could get better. He gave me hope that even with my insecurities and trauma, something I’ll never be fully free from, I can deserve people who care about me, and that there are actually people who will care about me. He gave me hope that good things can still happen to broken people. And not just people who were once broken and have healed, but people who are still figuring out how to heal, who know they will never fully heal, but also know they still are worthy of support and care. And then volume 7 started and I got more than I’d ever dreamed. 

There was the hug with Ironwood. And even though I shipped Ironqrow, the idea of there being a romantic aspect to that hug wasn’t what made it important. It was the fact that we got Qrow connecting with an old ally (and an adult), finding that he even still had an old ally. That despite everything that had happened with Oz and Lionheart, despite all the trust he’d had broken, maybe he wasn’t actually alone yet. And then we got Clover. I’ll admit I was wary of him at first. I was worried about the traitor theories, the death theories, and then the theories that he’d negatively affect Qrow, making him feel worse about his semblance. But then he grew on me so quickly. Because he smiled at Qrow. He got him to talk about himself, called him out when he was putting himself down, told him how well he was doing. And while it’s wasn’t because of Clover, he was sober, and Clover had to at the very least help him stay that way. Qrow was hunching less when he walked, opening up, being more vulnerable and social. He was smiling, laughing, making jokes. He had a steady partner that he trusted and worked well with, likely for the first time since team STRQ. And yes, I shipped them, but honestly while I would have still been disappointed if it was never canon, given how blatant it really seemed like it could be, it would ultimately have been okay. Because again, it was less about Qrow finding love and more about him finding support.   And then I saw Qrow and Clover and Robyn team up, and whether it was canon or just fandom I felt represented. Not just in the way I had with Qrow about my mental health, but as a queer person struggling with complicated grief; the exact thing I had never been able to find and had taken upon myself to create for others. I saw Qrow being loved (again, whether platonic or romantic isn’t as important) and healing. Even if Fairgame never actually happened, I could still see them as queer characters helping each other process trauma. And maybe I set myself up in a bubble part of the fandom that fully convinced me that Fairgame was possible, but at the very least I truly, undoubtedly thought that Clover would side with Qrow. 

And as I watched episode 12, I could feel my stomach sinking. Okay Clover didn’t side with Qrow at first, but maybe he’ll come around. Okay maybe he won’t come around, but maybe he’ll take Qrow in and they’ll have time to talk, maybe even with Ironwood. But then Clover abandons the ship, abandons Qrow and I was scrambling even more for hope that things would be okay.  Maybe he’s trying to get away to diffuse things. But then “Never pegged you for the manipulative type” the first sign of Qrow doubting their entire relationship, of feeling betrayed again. And then Clover calls Qrow cynical? Maybe I’m forgetting something, cause I haven’t gone back and analyzed every scene with them, but I can’t remember Qrow ever being cynical around Clover this volume that we’ve seen. Self-deprecating yes, but this is legitimately the happiest and most secure we’ve ever seen Qrow. But okay maybe they’ll reason and Clover will come around. But then “We don’t have to fight, friend.” and it’s friend not Qrow. And then “You don’t know my friends. That’s how it always goes.” and I broke. I almost stopped there, a part of me wishes I had. Because it was already so broken, this thing that had even in the past few weeks, been a main pillar of hope for me. But maybe they’ll come together to fight Tyrian. And then Qrow goes after Tyrian and Clover keeps attacking Qrow. Well maybe he’s really trying to protect him, or has some plan. But then they continue to fight each other. And they don’t have even a moment of “who’s the bigger threat here? Us or the serial killer?” And then Qrow works with Tyrian?! Tyrian the serial killer? Tyrian the unstable maniac? Tyrian who tried to take Ruby? Tyrian who nearly killed Qrow? Tyrian who fucking worships Salem, who Qrow has spent most of his life fighting, has lost Summer to, and countless other traumas? (and I get the possible reasons, realizing that Clover won’t lay off of him so Tyrian is his best bet and then he can take care of Tyrian, but I still don’t like it. But this isn’t even about whether or not I think it’s good writing or characterization and it’s too long already to get into that.) And then Tyrian and Qrow fight so well together and I honestly felt sick. We haven’t seen Qrow work that well with anyone. Not RWBY, not Ironwood, not Clover.  And now we see it with fucking Tyrian? And maybe it’s a stretch but it honestly felt like another nail in the “Qrow attracts bad” coffin that is his insecurities. Qrow and Tyrian fight nearly perfectly together and it felt so damn wrong. Clover’s wrong here, Qrow’s wrong here, and it all feels so very very wrong based on the entire progression of their relationship throughout the volume. And then Qrow takes down Clover’s aura and I’m just empty.  There’s no hint of him trying to just beat Clover and not kill him. He has no reason to think that Tyrian won’t actually go for the kill during this fight. But they continue to have these snippets of “We don’t have to fight” or “I want to trust you” while showing no signs of holding back and still caring about the other’s well being. And then Qrow’s voice breaking during “Why couldn’t you just do the right thing…”. We’ve literally never seen Qrow this emotionally compromised, let alone during a fight. He’s crumbling because he finally had someone who made him think he could get better, that he could have close relationships, that he could be good for the people around him. And now he’s losing it. 

I was broken here, I was already spiraling. I knew Clover would get hit. I knew I would be struggling to deal with this episode because I had so fully expected a different course. But I thought there could still be hope. There had to still be hope. CRWBY wouldn’t give us all that development, wouldn’t show Qrow finally happy without leaving some hope for things turning around in the finale. He’d get hit by Tyrian’s stinger and Qrow would have to work to save him and they’d work things out. But then “I trust James with my life… and I wanted to trust you.” And I’m sobbing. Because I get it, Clover’s loyal, but when Qrow’s face hardens I know what he’s thinking. What he’s trying not to think but it’s so hard to fight: “Maybe it is me. Maybe I can’t be trusted. Maybe I’ve ruined things again”. Even though he knows what James is doing is wrong. But he trusted James, he trusted Clover. And he thought they trusted, cared for him. And now they’ve both turned against him and no matter how much he knows he’s doing the right thing, he can’t help but worry that he’s still the thing broken here, that he still messed up somewhere and ruined the relationships he needed so much. I was breaking more and more as I watched this source of my own hope lose all hope. 

And then Harbinger. The weapon Qrow built himself. That he modeled after his hero. The literal extension of his soul. And only moments before, Qrow destroyed the one thing that might have protected Clover. Clover’s emblem falls. Tyrian with “Like you killed Clover”. And yeah yeah Qrow being framed is heartbreaking. But it’s more that he’ll believe it. He did. He fucked everything up again. He tried so hard to do the right thing and still managed to hurt the person he cared about. And if Clover, the foil to his bad luck, could be destroyed by his semblance, how does anyone else stand a chance? And then blaming James. Swearing to make him pay (I honestly don’t remember if he says make him pay or kill him but I physically can’t rewatch that scene to see which it was). And yes he blames James. He hates James. It was the last straw breaking on someone he wanted to trust so much, wanted to have as a friend. But he still blames himself. He still knows he’s cursed and all the progress he’d made with Clover’s help is ripped away. 

And then “Good luck”. I’ve seen people saying it’s sweet, that it’s a moment of reconciliation, of Clover showing he still cares. And I don’t necessarily disagree. But I hate it. Because Qrow won’t take it that way. It’s just another reminder that good luck is out of his reach. And then the goddamn sky and the bi flag colors. And then we see Qrow cry for the first time. And then…. The scream…. I literally nearly vomited and that was the thing that sent me over the edge into full blown panic attack. Because I know that fucking scream. I know how it feels. I hear it ringing in my ears, I feel my throat getting raw. I could hear and see and feel myself in the same position. The nightmare I’d fought off for years; kneeling over Emma’s body and there being nothing I can do but scream and scream as the last of the hope I was clutching to faded with her… with Clover’s eyes.

It wasn’t that Clover died. It wasn’t that my ship won’t happen. It was how traumatizing it was. It was that Harbinger was now defiled. It was that Qrow set it up to happen. It was the sky. It was seeing the light go out of Clover’s eyes. It was Qrow’s scream. We’ve never seen a death like this on RWBY before. Yes we watched Pyrrha’s death. But there was no blood. We didn’t see her bleed out. We didn’t see the exact moment the light left her eyes. We saw Adam stabbed and some bleeding and then hitting the rocks, but we weren’t right there, seeing the exact moment of his death close up. If Clover had been stung by Tyrian and died I’d be upset still, and many of the issues I have would still be relevant. But using Harbinger like that, playing directly into Qrow’s own insecurities like that, after having him do things that felt extremely out of character in order to set things up for Tyrian to kill Clover like that and blame Qrow? It felt vile. 

It didn’t just feel like bad writing or different narrative choices. Hell, it didn’t even just feel OOC. It felt malicious. It felt like twisting established plot and characterisation completely in order to make it fit some tragic climax that was only chosen because it would have the biggest emotional impact, not because it was the best way to continue the plot. And they can’t say that they didn’t expect people to be so attached to Clover. Because if they didn’t expect that to be so emotional for viewers, then why do it like that in the first place? Why put in the climatic cinematic shot that mirrors when Yang lost her arm? Why have Qrow screaming over Clover’s body be the final shot?  If Clover was never meant to have significance to both Qrow and fans, why make his death so painful? They can’t say that they didn’t know fans would get so invested at the same time that they say that it was necessary to make it that traumatic. It’s not that you can’t kill off beloved characters, no matter how long they’ve been in the show. But if you do, it’s got to feel important, it’s got to feel necessary, and it’s got to make sense for those characters, or else it just feels like you’re playing with peoples’ emotions for no reason other than shock factor. 

I’ve seen a bunch of theories and discourse. Arguments over whether or not it’s queerbaiting or bury your gays. Over whether or not it’s bad writing or out of character. And I’m sure I’ll eventually have a stronger, more thought out opinion on that, but right now I can’t even get there. 

I’ve seen theories as to why CRWBY did this, why it’s important to the plot. And maybe I’m wrong, maybe I’ll be just as surprised in a good way next week as I was in a traumatic way this week. But it will take a lot, and I will still need time to recover and dig myself back out of my own intrusive thoughts that saw this episode and rejoiced because “See!? See, good things can’t happen! You’ll always lose whatever good you find. You’ll always ruin whatever good you find.” And none of the theories I’ve seen make that better. Maybe they’ll bring Clover back with the Staff of Creation or some other method: doesn’t matter, the damage is still done. Qrow still is betrayed and traumatized. And even if Clover came back and Ironwood realized he was wrong and stopped, even if everything went back to exactly what it was, Qrow still would have lost all the progress he made this season. Because even if everything was fixed, Qrow would still have to fight down the newly boosted fear that everything will fall apart again. And similarly even if I come back to RWBY and things are good, I will still have a hard time trusting the show, and will still have to climb my way out of a hole I had just gotten out of, except this time I won’t have the comfort of RWBY to help me. 

Or maybe Clover won’t come back and Qrow will relapse and try to kill Ironwood and lose his mind like the scarecrow he is. And what will that do but reinforce the fear and idea that “broken” people can’t escape their vices? That they’ll always come back to pain. Yes, it’s important to show that people can relapse and still get better, that relapse doesn’t mean all hope is lost. But there’s a difference between a relapse and new trauma that directly undercuts all the progress you’ve made. That’s not inspirational, it’s exhausting. Yes, you can come back again, but what about the next time and the next and the next? When will you just get to be secure in your happiness without worrying that at any moment you’ll thrown back to square one?

If it turns out there’s some great plot point this creates, some big revelation that fixes things, I still think it wasn’t done properly. Fine, have that, have that pain. But don’t end on that and leave people for a week. It’s not about it being a cliffhanger. It’s about people who are traumatized being abandoned. (Again, I’m not even getting into how, if this did happen, how episode 12 would still feel off from a characterization standpoint and whether or not it was poor writing. It’s an analysis I can’t currently do.)

And maybe my least favorite theory and the one that I might see as most likely; that Qrow won’t relapse. That he won’t completely lose it and instead Clover’s death and influence will be what keeps him going. Because yeah, that sounds great, that sounds heroic and strong and like the progress that came from knowing Clover did make a difference. But it feels wrong in this instance. Qrow’s had that. He’s had loss that hurt him but he kept going to finish something or honor them. He kept going after Summer died. He kept going for Ruby and Yang and Tai. If he didn’t have that, why would he have kept going when things were so bad? But Qrow doesn’t need that again. He doesn’t need another pain to spur him on. He needs support. He needs proof that his hard work, his struggle, has been worth it and that he still has allies. And not just the kids. Because as much as he respects them, as much as he believes in them and their abilities as hunters, he’s still protective of them, they still aren’t on an equal level. He still feels responsible for them. And that’s good for him, but he needs adults too. He needs people who aren’t his responsibility. He needs adults who can call him out on his shit. He needs adults he can lean on, who can take care of him. And now who does he have? Summer is gone. Raven is gone. Tai is back at home. Oz is gone. Lionheart betrayed him. James has now betrayed him. Winter has sided with James and might not be alive much longer? Robyn is there, but also hurt, and we haven’t seen anything to suggest that they are particularly close. And now Clover is dead. Clover, the only person we have ever seen Qrow let his guard down around like we did this season.

And it’s not that the “Staying alive for the person you’ve lost” is a bad plot line, and if I’d trust any show to do it I would’ve thought it’d be RWBY. But I can tell you from fucking experience, forcing yourself to keep going in honor of someone? Yeah, it might keep you alive. It might give you meaning and even lead you to do great things. But when it’s just you and your head? When you’re alone because you’ve lost everyone who kept you going and now you have to keep going without them, for them? It fucking sucks. It’s not poetic. It’s not this heroic strength that lifts you up. It’s a crushing weight of fear that you will fail again, that you’re the only one who can carry this burden, but this time you’ll let down the person most important to you.  And then not only will you have fucked up your life but you’d have made their suffering and loss meaningless. 

And I can see why CRWBY might take this route, what their message might be, and maybe for them and for some people it’s good, but personally it’s crushing. Because it can be a good thing to have the desire to honor someone spur you on, that’s literally why we still have RWBY. But if that’s the only thing you have? It’s toxic. You have to have other support and motivations of your own to keep you going without becoming hollow inside. And right now, Qrow doesn’t have that. Right now, if Qrow uses this to push him forward, it’s not recovery, it’s not avoiding a relapse; it’s falling into a new, much harder to spot, addiction.

Yes, shitty things happen regardless of whether or not you’ve recovered from previous shitty things. Yes, life isn’t fair and sometimes it feels like you just get hit down over and over. And yes, people die in war and it’s ruthless and unfair. But RWBY is still a show. It’s still a show about hope. It’s still fiction, an escape from the cruelty of reality. And to me there were multiple other options for the plot to create conflict and sacrifice without doing it in a way that seems so needlessly cruel.  

This is complicated and layered and I think there have been mistakes made on multiple sides, and in the end, we still don’t know what CRWBY has planned and how things will go from here and why they chose this. Because everything has a meaning in RWBY. At least I want to believe that. But right now it’s very hard to think that all the meaning that was what made this my favorite volume, was anything more than a trap to make the end that much more painful. And that hurts. I want to believe that’s not the case. But it’s very, very hard. And like I said before, even if they pull it off amazingly and everything makes sense after next week, damage has still been done. No matter what happens, there were ways things could have been handled either throughout the volume or in this episode that, while still having emotional significance and sacrifice, could have been less traumatizing to a large portion of the fandom who supports CRWBY specifically because they trust them not to do something like that to them. 

In the end I’m hurt because right now it feels like the entirety of this volume was just a build up for the shock value of tearing Qrow down again. And I’m just tired of it. I’m biased I know, and maybe for some people it’s an important narrative. But to me it just feels like angst just for the sake of being cruel to a character who can’t catch a break. Since Emma’s death I understandably haven’t been a big fan of really angsty fanfiction. At first seeing fics where a character lost their partner made me irrationally angry. Because why can’t good things happen in fictional worlds? Why do characters I care about have to suffer like I do just for the sake of being angsty? Why would someone do that to a character they love? Why inflict that absolute agony onto a character when you could just, let them be happy? Yes conflict and sacrifice are crucial to good storytelling, but you still have to leave a character some hope, or else what’s the point of just watching them linger in misery? This kind of pain isn’t just a plot point that gets addressed for one or two episodes and then is fully dealt with. It’s a part of who you are now and will be for the rest of your life. 

I’ve been sad over shows before. I’ve thought plot lines were bad and like I’d lost a character that deserved better. But I’ve never had something take me from a (relatively) stable mindset to a truly frightening spiral like I’ve been in this week. If this had happened when I was younger (granted if it had happened before Emma’s death it wouldn’t have had the same meaning), if it had been during that first year? It really might have been a breaking point for me. The final straw. The only reason I’m able to know that as truly devastating as this has been for me this week, I’m not in actual danger of getting to a critically low space, is because I’ve learned how to deal with those low places these past four years. I’m still in a dangerous headspace but I know how to handle it.  I know to reach out, to vent, to ask friends to keep an eye on me, to keep an eye out for critical signs that I’m getting worse and I need more professional help. But if I’d had this trauma as a teen and saw this, or if I’d seen it before I’d built up this method of keeping myself safe even when in the worst headspaces?  I don’t know that I would have been able to deal with it. 

There’s a loud part of my head that is berating me for letting this affect me so much. For letting a show and fictional characters be the catalyst for me having to actively ask my friends to keep sharp instruments away from me for the first time in years. I’ll have a moment of clarity of “It’s not that bad, you’ll get past it” before being swallowed back up by the hopelessness. I have moments of “How could you let a fictional character’s death put you in this place, but not Emma? How is he more important?” 

But it’s not about RWBY or Clover or Qrow. It’s about my brain, and how I as a neurodivergent person deal with things. It’s about this how thing that I use to filter parts of my life through so that I can handle them in more reasonable chunks, is now a trigger itself. I currently don’t have any other hyperfixations, which means every time I have a moment of silence, or start to get feeling down again, my brain goes to RWBY, because usually that’s how I pull myself out. But that just reminds me of the loss RWBY currently represents. Not just the trauma this has brought up, but the fact that I’ve lost this source of comfort. And then I’m left scrambling for anything as I spiral further and further. I’m at the point where unless I am having constant outside stimulus to keep my brain occupied I go right back into a nosedive. And there’s nothing I can do on my own to stop it. So I just have to ride it out, fight back dozens of overwhelming intrusive thoughts, and try to think that I won’t always be this miserable, even though the current thing that was helping me believe that has just shown me the opposite is true. 

And no, creators can’t be held responsible for the mental states of fans of their work. But when things are done that directly hurt so many people, that even if not intended to, feel so calculated and malicious, they have to acknowledge the part they played in that trauma. 

The point of whether there was queer baiting/byg, and mlm representation and how its handled, is very important, but it is also something I just can’t even begin to look at right now from an analytical viewpoint. I can’t begin to come at this from an activist place right now. And I know there are plenty of other people who can speak on it better than I could currently.  My queer identity is largely wrapped up in my grief and how it affects me, but that also means that when I’m spiraling, it is very hard to focus and make good points about things that are not issues I’ve directly experienced. The only reason I can write this at all is because these are really just emotions I’ve dealt with for years that were dragged back up.

RWBY has always been about finding hope when it feels impossible. But this feels like it’s becoming “keep finding new hope but know you’ll lose it too and have to start over”.

RWBY has been what gave me hope that even when bad thing after bad thing happened, there was a reason to keep going, that eventually something good would come your way and you don’t have to live in fear of losing it. That you can still be broken and be worthy of good things. But this episode ripped that all away and told me that sometimes a person is never meant to be happy no matter how hard they try. 

A big reason I have clung to RWBY so much, and admired CRWBY so much, and in turn been so forgiving of plotlines or details that I maybe wasn’t the biggest fan of, was because I see myself in them. They lost Monty so suddenly and tragically and I understand that as much as anyone who isn’t them can. I understand the drive of keeping the show going. When I’m working on my own writing and art about my story and my loss, they are a huge inspiration to me to keep going even when it feels impossible. I can barely listen to Indomitable because, much like Jaune losing Pyrrha, it is uncanny how close to home it hits. They have been through more than we as fans can or should ever expect to know. Because even as someone very open about their grief, who wants to get rid of the stigma of expressing grief, I know that everyone deserves to keep as much of their grief and pain private as they need. And I can't even begin to imagine how hard it is to work on a show that is literally a feat of love and honor to a person you’ve lost, and then have people attack it and you, and make huge accusations, even try to use your loved one’s memory against you. It’s my biggest fear in creating something so incredibly personal but so important. 

And I know that everyone handles grief differently, and no matter how many people you have to support you it can be an extremely isolating thing. I know that no one has the right to tell someone else they are grieving wrong, and I would never dare do that to them. Because I know that the ways I grieve and the things that piss me off about grief and people’s reactions to it, will not line up with everyone else’s, and that’s okay. So the exact things that hurt me so much may be the things that CRWBY find cathartic. 

But I still think it’s important to talk about something that hurts you. To help people understand a facet of grief that might not be what they’ve experienced. Because even people who want to help, who want to provide representation to those hurting, can never please everyone, and even can even hurt people. I want to trust CRWBY. I want to believe they care about the queer community (even if they don’t always succeed in providing good representation), I want to believe they wouldn’t purposefully try to hurt queer fans with queerbaiting or byg. I want to believe they don’t actually hate mlm. 

Narrative is complicated and sometimes things are done that will unknowingly cause harm, or that were topics that the writers didn’t understand enough to properly execute. Things that may seem so obvious to the people who were hurt could truly be things that hadn’t occurred to the writers. And that’s not to excuse those writers from acknowledging their mistake, but to give them a chance to learn and improve. I think a great example is The Adventure Zone (slight spoilers ahead), and how Griffin McElroy handled the fans’ reaction after Sloane and Hurley died in Petals to the Metal. He hadn’t wanted to hurt anyone but he made a decision that was very upsetting for many people and that wasn’t okay. But he listened and apologized and from there on not only tried to provide better representation, but asked about how he could do so, consulted the people he was trying to represent in order to do everything he could to not cause that kind of pain again. Creators are human and deserve second chances, as long as they show they are actively trying to improve.

Things will be learning experiences, but the people who are hurt in those learning experiences, and who are often the ones hurt in such things over and over, are still allowed to be hurt and upset. Intent is not effect. And for creators who want to be inclusive and supportive, it is their responsibility to accept criticism and work to avoid making the same mistakes. Like I said at the start of this, criticism is not harassment and harassment helps no one. Be as angry as you are, be as open as you need, but cruelty to people who are honestly trying to do good but will still make human mistakes just creates more pain and conflict. You don’t have to like it or forgive it but you can’t invalidate the people who are hurt, who do. 

I love RWBY. I want to love CRWBY. I want to keep watching. I want to keep supporting and trusting them. And maybe I’m letting a show have too much influence over me. Maybe it’s unhealthy to project so much on a character. Maybe things will prove to be necessary to tell the story they want to tell. But speaking as a neurodivergent, traumatized, grieving, queer person, I still feel betrayed and hurt by something that I trusted enough to be vulnerable about and I don’t want to sugarcoat or hide that. 

I can’t say I hate CRWBY or I’ve lost all hope in or respect for them, because I’ve related to them so much and know how complicated things like this can be. And because I don’t think I personally can write someone off while still in such an emotionally raw space. I’ll have to take some time to see if I’m able to watch the finale this weekend, but I will most likely watch it, if not just a bit later than I usually would. And RWBY has thrown big surprises at us before, and I can’t know what will happen in the finale and how it will feed into or try to heal some of the pain we’re feeling. But regardless of what the narrative intent is in Clover’s death, it needs to be acknowledged that episode 12 alone, ending on such an intense scene that wouldn’t be resolved for at least a week, hurt people. And CRWBY needs to acknowledge and take responsibility for it. I can’t say that I’m the most up to date on social media and what each person involved with volume 7 has said in the past few months. But I know that numerous official twitter accounts posted things that led people to put more credibility in Fairgame, myself included. And that even after seeing how big the ship had gotten, and knowing what the outcome was, some of CRWBY continued to seemingly feed into the excitement, even teasing about how hard episode 12 would hit us. 

That’s honestly one of the reasons I think this feels not just like bad writing or something, but betrayal. Of course RT can’t control everything everyone involved with RWBY posts, but for a company that has tried to seem so supportive of lgbt and mentally ill fans, they should have, at the very least, not have fed the flame and given people hope and supposed credibility that they knew would crumble after this episode. It feels like, even if they hadn’t intended this entire plot point to come across the way it has, they saw us going down this path and egged us on for added shock factor. 

And even if somehow the finale fixes everything, it doesn’t undo that hurt. It makes me think of the trailers for Insatiable when it first came out. How toxic and fat shaming they seemed and how people reacted poorly to it, but then all the people involved responded with how positive the show was, and that people shouldn’t judge it before they saw it. Or those “joke” videos or posts of kids coming out and the parents getting angry but then it’s about some stupid other thing. It’s meant to trigger a very sensitive issue, that people who have gone through traumas related to those issues are all too familiar with seeing over and over. So why would they have faith that this wasn’t just another one of those times when everything they see points to the opposite? Why trigger people who have already been hurt, for the sake of shock factor? It’s poor and callous writing. 

And that’s what this feels like. It feels like we were exploited in order to make this hurt more. And maybe that was a very unfortunate accident. But CRWBY still needs to acknowledge that they made mistakes, and do what they can to prove to the fans that they still deserve our trust. And that’s not going to be an easy one and done thing. For some it may never be enough, and that is completely valid. 

Of course everyone has different histories and issues that can lead them to be drawn to a certain show or character. And creators can’t ever know for sure that they won’t bring up painful things for any of their fans, and often trying to do so can make the content and message suffer. But even though everyone might not have a story that is as “obviously” traumatic as mine, might not have things they so directly relate to in Qrow and in Clover’s death,  they’re all still valid in the pain they’re feeling. One of my least favorite things about living with grief is people thinking that their traumas and struggles aren’t as big or important as my own. 

This week I’ve told people how hard a time I’m having, and why. And the people who know my backstory understood. The people who didn’t know though, brushed it off as crazy fangirl, tumblr discourse drivel. Even to my face after I told them how much I was hurting, they would groan about people getting so obsessed with fictional characters. You shouldn’t have to know why something negatively affects someone the way it does in order to respect the fact that it does. And I’m not more valid in my pain than people with “smaller” reasons. The fact is that a lot of people are hurting. A lot of queer and mentally ill people are reliving trauma. And like me, many of these people trusted CRWBY to be supportive, to be a comfort in a world where it’s hard to find sometimes. And that makes it hurt all the more.

I wasn’t in the fandom when Monty died, so I don’t know a lot about how CRWBY handled it, what they said publicly, what inevitable fandom discourse there was about how to navigate things. The only reason I bring him up at all, (because I’ve seen people mention him in discourse posts before and it’s usually hurtful and out of line and I truly hate it) is because he, and how CRWBY continues to honor him by keeping his creation going, is a huge part of why I feel so attached to it. My creative focus is on talking about Emma, about honoring her, telling her story, about sharing my grief with people. And while it’s extremely important to me, it’s also terrifying to think about people one day saying I let her down, or that because I made certain decisions I ruined the work or anything like that. And whether or not I am currently happy with every member of CRWBY doesn’t affect the fact that I will always keep in mind that RWBY is something directly tied to someone they’ve lost and it can be extremely difficult to have that kind of work criticized and not get defensive or angry (that’s not to say we can’t criticize things that are made in honor of someone, but that we need to remember there are still people dealing with grief on the other end of what we say). They’ll react poorly to certain things, they’ll say the wrong things, they’ll but heads with opinionated fans. And that’s not to excuse them for that, or to say we shouldn’t hold them accountable and communicate our problems with them and expect them to learn from past mistakes. But they aren’t faceless monsters in some big corporation who just make this for the money. They have real emotional investment in their work and I honestly believe they are well intentioned and want to support lgbt and mentally ill fans. But good intentions don’t ensure there won’t be negative impact, and if they truly want to keep, or regain fans’ trust and support they need to show they understand that. 

It may be naive and there may be things I don’t know that might have changed my view but until now, even with some writing choices I didn’t love, I've really liked CRWBY and trusted them. I personally can’t say I hate them and write them off right now. I understand if you can, if this was the last straw or just proving your view, and that’s all valid. But I want to, as much as possible, believe that they’re well intentioned. RWBY is far from perfect. CRWBY is far from perfect. But that’s ok. As long as there’s effort to improve and acknowledge mistakes and try to make amends

It’s possible that things I’ve said here may anger some people, and unfortunately, as much as I tried to avoid it, may hurt CRWBY. Because as hurt and angry with them as I might be right now, I don’t want to hate them or hurt them.  I’m human as well, and I’m very passionate about this and have a very personal attachment to it. So I acknowledge that it is totally possible that I have said something here that I could have handled better. If so, please, let me know. Constructively. If you need to, privately. Don’t attack me for it. I know when a conversation is toxic to me and I will not put myself in that position and will block people. But I want to be open to criticism, just as I want CRWBY to be. I want to know what I did wrong and how I can work to do better in the future. There are also certain things that I firmly believe that I know not everyone will like. And that’s okay. I have my own ways of dealing with grief and pain that will inevitably conflict with others. In those cases, while I won’t apologize for being honest about how I feel, I will understand and listen to how I may have hurt you. Different opinions and ways of coping will always be a part of grief conversations and it is less about making others agree with you and more about giving people a place to express their pain. 

This is ridiculously, stupidly, long and honestly I’m not sure there’s a clear point and if you read through it all the way, you’re a saint. But I just needed to get this out, and I hope that maybe, somehow, through the ranting, it might help someone feel less alone in their pain, or feel validated. I started writing this on Sunday and wanted to post it before the finale. It’s now Friday and who knows if there’s really any point to posting it now, but still. 

I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. I don’t know how I will handle it. I’ve seen discourse that made me anxious all over again all week. I’ve seen jokes or edits or trolls that made me sick. But there are people out here for you. There are people to talk to who will just listen. You aren’t alone. And while I can’t promise you that everything will be okay, I can promise you that there will be people here to help you get through it. There are ways to get through it. They’re not always fun or ideal, but they’re there. And eventually you’ll be able to feel okay again. The pain might not be gone for good, but you’ll have good moments again. You’ll learn how to create good moments. I still want to believe that “broken” people can be happy again, even though the world may try to show me otherwise over and over. It’s not easy, and sometimes I honestly just don’t see how it can possibly be true. But I keep trying to get back to those good places and appreciate them, for as long as I can. 

[candle-jill]

.

I've seen that post going around about how to write characters with ADHD and there are a lot of helpful things in there... but a lot that is just plain wrong. First off... - people with ADHD absolutely can get high from stimulants. There are A LOT of people with substance abuse issues that have to take less effective nonstimulants because of this. I got high the first time I tried it (SO many people do - it's the "euphoria" stage, it's very common), it goes away and people chase it by increasing doses. Maybe people without ADHD feel that more strongly (I don't know), but people with ADHD are not immune to it. It *does* chill me the fuck out, though. Alert but relaxed. Other people with ADHD are energized by it. Some people fall asleep on it. If I take too high of a dose I'm exhausted right away, but then I'm literally up all night. *Quote: "According to a survey of 334 ADHD-diagnosed college students taking prescription stimulants, 25% misused their own prescription medications to get 'high'" - caffeine doesn't make me hyper but it doesn't chill me out - if I have it too late I will absolutely not sleep for hours (I already have insomnia, though). It does give me better focus. - not all hyperactivity is visual. Despite common perception, I don't fidget. I hate moving. But my brain will not shut the fuck up. When people talk to me they're always interrupting internal conversations ("What?" I say, when anyone begins talking to me - no, I don't have hearing problems, I was 'listening' to my own conversation). - planning isn't hard for me at all. I can plan all day. STARTING whatever I've planned? HA! That's hilarious! Executive Dysfunction seems to be one of the more universal issues that people with ADHD have. The internal dialogue of, "do this- start it- come on, just do it! you need to do it-" but not being able to? Yeah. That fucking sucks. - a lot of people seem to have rejection sensitivity dysphoria, somehow I avoided that one too. I think being in art classes and learning how to critique and accept criticism trained that out of me. - additionally, chronic fatigue was one of the most significant side effects of ADHD that I suffered from before medication. It really, truly isn't always hyper, running around, and talking 100 miles a minute. I would shut down and not move/talk because my brain was hyperactively draining my energy all day. And also... MASKING??? jesus fucking christ. Masking is fucking exhausting. 😑 I guess the bottom line is that ADHD can manifest in MANY ways. There is no cookie cutter way to write it. But please remember that ANYONE can abuse stimulants. People with ADHD are not immune to getting high from it. ~*~ Now the personal bit... Working on getting my daughter diagnosed with ADHD. She's not going to get it because it's not disrupting school yet - she'll likely get an official diagnosis in a few years. The psych we're talking to speaks as if she has it, though (which I really appreciate). Right now I'm fine with that. I don't know if we'd do medication at this point, but learning the best way to support her is perfect and she doesn't need a diagnosis for that. What does piss me off is how rigid they are with the obviously significant interruptions in multiple areas of life you need to have in order to receive a diagnosis. I was an average-to-smart kid. I was shy. Also - girl. Because of that my ADHD went undiagnosed 30+ years. Sometimes I feel like I exaggerated my childhood symptoms during my evaluation to ensure I received the diagnoses (hello ADHD symptom, imposter syndrome). But I didn't. I'm not expecting doctors or anyone else to have magically known I had it. I get it- it wasn't (key word) obviously affecting my life or anyone else's. And I get annoyed when people with ADHD put the blame on others, "My struggling wasn't affecting other people so no one cared!" Like, that's sort of how that all works. If *you* don't recognize the obvious distress, and those around you don't- then how the fuck do you expect a doctor to magically know? But what I do wish is that

the knowledge I have now, I had back then. They're getting better about recognizing how ADHD can present in girls, so that's great. And me thinking it wasn't affecting my life? SCHOOL was easy- the rest of my life was not. I was reading through old blogs and my inability to regulate emotions was so consistently present. And my anxiety was through the roof. I could hold down a job well enough, but talking to customers felt paralyzing, and beyond that, I gave up many opportunities because I knew I wasn't able to do it with my anxiety (ADHD). So... yeah- I'm incredibly resentful that because I was able to white-knuckle it through life, that lowkey translates as not being detrimentally impacted by it (though I was). Stimulants have virtually removed all of my anxiety when nothing else ever touched it. I made so many significant decisions based on what I knew my capabilities were while living life unaware of my ADHD. There are SO many things I feel like I can do now that I never would have been capable of. And now I see my daughter having trouble regulating her emotions, how she struggles focusing, the beginning of anxiety, and my heart breaks for her. But because she's well behaved in school, that's not enough to get a diagnosis. Obviously, the difference is that this is on our radar and we're advocating for her.

[theuniversalrecord]

ADVANCE: Nebula Labs (part 1)

Author: L. A. Lanquist

Content Warnings: References to ableist language, imposter syndrome

Advance: Nebula Labs (part 1)

Nebula Labs: “The place where the future becomes realized.” It’s a bit of an over-the-top motto, but people don’t really think about that because, well, Nebula Labs is an over-the-top experience. When people go to the talks and the demonstrations and the expositions that show off the fancy new gadgets Quinn “Q” Foster and their people came up with, they see flashy new ideas with research to back it up. They see charismatic speakers telling everyone how this new invention will change the world. And everyone believes it once they hear Q talk--when they think about how far Human technology has come since back on Earth. They think about the Brain-drive readers and the autoflyers and all of the other things Q themself came up with. And everyone believes that we can “leap into the future” as Q always says.

I believe that too--I guess if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here, at the Bayside District branch of Nebula Labs, ready for my first day. But I’m not one of those impressive people who give talks and make ground-breaking developments in science and tech. I just got lucky.

Just under a month ago, Nebula Labs hosted the Youth Advancement Competition and Fair, and I was one of the 100 winners. As a winner, I get to be a part of one of the Advance teams of Nebula Labs and learn alongside some other people my age from actual staff members of the Labs. So technically, I’m officially a part of the famous Nebula Labs. But I’m not a formally educated professional or a young visionary or an ambitious upstart. I’m just Leo. I just wanted to make an automated drone carrier to help my Mom when her chronic pain gets too bad. I honestly don’t know why they chose me as one of the winners. I was just hoping for a little grant money so I could build one that actually worked instead of a prototype.

Don’t get me wrong, though! I’m super excited! I get to actually work at a place as awesome as Nebula Labs! I’ll get to learn a lot, and I can maybe get a good reference to do some other interesting things in the future. Maybe I can also make some more friends while I’m at it.

But right now, as I’m standing outside the Bayside District branch of Nebula Labs, staring at the motto engraved on a stone plaque just ahead of the big glass doors, I can’t help but feel nervous. I mean--I saw some of the projects people were working on at the Competition. There were people working with enzymes and with quantum physics and with brain drive adaptation devices. Mine by comparison is nothing major--we’ve had drones and automation since the Earth days. I’m not exactly doing anything new.

Someone with bright purple hair tears past me towards the entrance doors. For a fraction of a second I almost think it’s Q in the flesh what with the bright hair color, but this is definitely not them. This person has a thinner build, white skin, and their hair is straight. They’re so different it’s hard for me to understand why I mixed them up.

Once I figure out they’re not Q, the dread hits me: I know who they are. I never got their name, but they were one of the most talked-about participants at the Competition. They’re doing something with Wormhole Mapping that’s really promising. There were even a few local papers that ran stories about them. They’re also someone I accidentally bumped into (literally) during the Competition. I was reading a text from one of my hometown friends wishing me luck and wasn’t paying attention to what was going on around me and then--wham. Neither of us fell down or anything, but it was definitely a heavy jostle. I apologized, but they were pissed. I only managed to get out of it because they were too busy to stick around to chew me out, but from their tongue click, glare, and angry shout of “Watch where you’re fucking going, asshole!” I can tell they probably wanted to shout some more.

Of all of the branches they would go to--why did it have to be this one? Thankfully they didn’t recognize me from behind, but there’s no way I’ll be able to avoid them forever.

“You going in, kid?”

I jump, just a little bit. It’s an adult, with long brown hair that falls off to the left, exposing a shaved side of their head and a heavily pierced ear. Their style clashes with the bored look their face has--big eyes and a slightly open mouth.

“Yeah--” I manage to squeak out--“just taking it all in.” Wow, Leo. Taking it all in? Well, not the worst thing I’ve said under pressure.

They take a long look at me, then glance down at their watch. It’s one of those vintage silicone watches with the grey tinted screen and the weird, segmented lettering. “Well, suit yourself, kid. Don’t be late.” And they proceed to walk inside.

It can’t be that late, though. I got here at 8:30. I check my phone.

8:45.

Oh jeez--I am gonna be late. I still need to check in and find room 420!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I make it to the room at 8:54 only because I ran (I really did think the room was going to be farther away), and I walk in at 8:55 after waiting for my face to stop feeling so hot.

The room is small, four rolling chairs: three facing forward to the screen and the white boards, and one facing the other chairs off to the side next to the screen. Two of the three forward-facing chairs are filled. Seated in the middle of the three chairs is a girl who also looks like she’s about fourteen, tall with blonde braided hair, staring straight at her phone. Next to her on the chair farthest from the door is--by my own lack of luck--the angry purple-haired person from before, facing away from the girl. I guess I could look at the situation optimistically and think about how it’s lucky that the angry person’s not next to the empty seat, but that’s a bit of a stretch.

But hey! That girl might be nice. I went into this hoping that I could maybe find a friend, so let’s try our best!

So I sit down and ask the girl, “Why are you here?”

Fuck. She slowly looks up from her phone looking like… well… like I was a weirdo, which isn’t far off from the truth at this point.

“Wait--no--I meant--uhh like what was your project on?” Fuck. There’s no salvaging this.

She says simply, “Extreme distance laser perception.”

Long distance laser perception. I don’t have the slightest clue how you would study that. Or what the use of that could be.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“What’s your name?”

“Emily. She/her.”

“Cool. I’m Leo. He/him.”

“Nice to meet you.”

I really don’t know what else to say. Do I ask about her research? But what if the question I ask is so stupid that--

“What did you do?” she asks.

“Automated flying drones based off of Cephalo ships.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, it’s a bit different from what you did,” I say.

“Yeah.”

I get the feeling that she’s just not a very talkative person, maybe?

“That’s all you two could come up with?” the angry person sneers from the side.

Emily and I both turn to look--her, still composed; me, uncomfortable. Neither of us says anything.

“There was a whole year of time before the competition and all you could come up with were some long range lights and a drone that flies itself? I mean, the first one could be useful for reading the distance of a planet, but we’ve had drones for fifty years. What a joke. How did you even get selected? No one cares about drones that can pilot themselves these days!”

“Shut up!” I force out.

Look--it’s true that I don’t really deserve to be here, especially compared to someone who’s doing something so important as Wormhole Mapping, but that last part makes me mad. I’ve seen so many people say things like that to my dad--about how he should just go to the store himself and how he does it on some days but not others so why make his kid go to the store instead of focusing on being a kid. They don’t know anything, and they’ve never cared enough to learn.

“What did you just say?” They cock their head to the side and their purple hair sweeps ever so slightly over their face. Their chin is forward in a challenge.

“Just because you don’t know anything about it doesn’t mean people don’t care about it, so shut up.” I’m glaring past Emily, now, who’s slowly rolling backward in her chair away from the two of us.

“Oh I remember you now--you’re the fucker that bumped into me!” They stand. “Is that how you got in? You try to take someone else out of the game with stunts like that?”

I stand up, too. No way am I going to just take this without a fight. But as I’m thinking of what to say back, the door opens.

In walks the person who spoke to me out front with the piercings and the old-school watch, but their bored expression is now gone. In its place is a tight smile with their big eyes now squinting with a sharp stare.

“Glad to see you’re all getting along, because fighting isn’t allowed, and I’d hate for you to lose this opportunity to work at Nebula Labs.”

No one moves.

“Please take your seats,” they say. “We have a video for you to watch, and then we’ll make our introductions.” The two of us sit, Emily scoots her way back forward, and the video starts. It’s a brief, one-size-fits-all video of Q that talks about Nebula Labs and its mission. Q’s narration voices over images of the main branch in The Capital and of this one in the Bayside District, as well as a few photos of smiling staff members. It ends, dramatically, with the same motto that was on the placard outside: The place where the future becomes realized. The screen transitions to white and the music fades out.

“Okay, now that we’ve got that out of the way--” the pierced person from before starts--“My name is Robin Graham. They/them or she/her. I study delayed imaging, which I believe is going to be most familiar to you,” they say to Emily. “For you two, delayed imaging relies on multiple cameras, so to speak, placed at various extreme distances imaging the same place to get photographs of that place at different times. That’s the bare minimum, but you’ll be learning plenty about it over the next year or so.”

I almost expect the purple-haired angry person from before to roll their eyes or make some comment about how they already knew what delayed imaging is, but when I glance over, they’re staring at Mx. Graham in something akin to awe. It’s a weird shift, if I’m being honest.

“So long as you all follow the rules,” Mx. Graham continues with a pointed stare to both me and the purple-haired person, “you’ll be guaranteed to be able to learn from experts for the next year before the Winter Tech Summit in The Capital. You’ll also be allowed to participate in the Winter Tech Summit in some capacity, though what you do will be determined by an in-house competition in the Fall.

“At that competition, each submission will be judged by Q, themself, as well as a panel of experts within Nebula Labs each with their own specialty. Those that do well will end up presenting. Those that do poorly will end up doing support work to ensure things go smoothly and can try again in a future year.”

This sounds amazing! I know I don’t have a chance of doing something like presenting at the conference, but I might be able to meet some people who’d be interested in making production actually possible.

Mx. Graham continues, “As you all know, there were a total of 100 chosen winners of the Youth Advancement Competition. It’s likely, however, that some of them have already chosen not to continue on and that some will drop out as time goes on for various reasons. In that regard, I can’t prepare you just yet for who will be on the teams going up against you three--”

“What?” The purple-haired person says.

“Is there a problem, Kiran?” Mx. Graham asks, acting innocently.

All the purple-haired person--no--all that Kiran says is: “Teams?”

“Oh yes, you three will be working on a team together.”

“What?” Kiran is looking more and more irate as the seconds pass.

“If that’s a problem for you, you can always leave,” Mx. Graham says with a smile. “Each of the teams were compiled by Q, themself, so it’s a take-it-or-leave-it kind of situation. It would be a shame to have you go, but if teamwork isn’t something you can do, Nebula labs isn’t right for you.”

Kiran stays with their shoulders tense and their teeth gritted, but does not say another word.

“Good. Glad to see you’ll all be continuing on. I look forward to working with you all as your team leader.”

And that was that. Maybe I should leave after all.

[surprisedmama-blog]

The joy of not talking

May 31st, 2018

Today I finished the last of my practical exams, completed my formative assignment and double checked that I had completed all necessary requirements for this year. I am officially a final year. Holy fuck it feels both amazing and completely surreal to be able to say that! There’s no doubt that there is a fair bit of imposter syndrome going on and I feel almost completely unprepared, but I am so, so, SO excited. I’ve been working toward this day for six long years. There have been serious highs and even more serious lows. There have been set backs I never thought I would overcome and there have been moments where I considered giving up because it would have been easier (and a lot cheaper). However, for whatever reason, I stuck with it thanks to the help of those I love and who love me in return. Now, in three short days, I’ll be hours away from beginning my first rotation as a final year vet student. Yes. Whew. Fuck yes! This is amazing!

Oh yeah. I’m pregnant. Wank.

Oh yeah. My husband isn’t the father. Double wank.

This has been my thought process on continuous loop pretty much from the time I woke up this morning until now.

I woke up ready to tackle the formative assessment and study for my exams because I was going to kick their collective ass! Unfortunately, the pregnancy app I downloaded (to hopefully get more information) had other plans. It oh-so-helpfully let me know that the foetus was the size of a sesame seed and then prompted me to take a “bumpie”. A what? Come again? A “bumpie”, I have found out, is a picture of your stomach which you take on a weekly basis so you can look back at how massive you got over your pregnancy. Seriously? Wow. A “bumpie”?... I mean, I did take the damn “bumpie” and I’m not proud of it and will still roll my eyes at the very thought. Also, why tell me my foetus is now just barely visible to the naked eye? I suppose there are quite a few women who would want to know this… maybe if I weren’t so bitter, I would want to know too. In my current state, though, I find myself resentful of being given this information against my will. In other news though, the foetus now has a neural tube (the bit that will form the spinal cord and brain) and also a one chambered, already beating heart. Now, that’s cool. Nature is amazing. I’ve got the beginnings of an actual human being that is completely separate from me just growing away inside of my uterus. So cool.

All coolness aside, it was not what I wanted to fall into a tangent about first thing in the morning instead of studying. I wanted to be a vet student today. So, I dutifully and purposefully resolved not to talk about my pregnancy with any of the amazing, well-intentioned and fantastic people in my life who know about it. And, it actually worked out pretty well. Let’s be real, I’m never going to be able to go more than a few minutes without thinking about the impacts of my situation or wondering when my belly will ‘pop’ and if I will be able to hide the pregnancy long enough etc, etc, blah, blah, blah. But I must say that simply not talking about it allowed me to enjoy what today signified for me as an individual. For me- not the potential mom, not the wife or potential ex-wife, not the daughter, or sister or friend or ex-lover now carrying his child…. Just for me- the 30-year-old vet student who has worked her ass off to get to this moment.

Today, after basking in the glow that can only be achieved when one accomplishes an arduous task, I got to come home and officially put on my final year jacket. I put my big night shirt on and walked about in that and my jacket and nothing else. I ate dinner in my jacket. I took out the bin in my jacket. I took my jacket off to apply a hair treatment and a face mask, but then promptly put my jacket back on once out of the shower. I took far, far too many selfies in my jacket and I texted my entire family and close friend network those selfies…of me… in my jacket. It was beautiful.

Now, lying here with my jacket hanging on the back of my bedroom door, I find myself rather grateful that I was able to have that time and feel that glow. One of my fears about pregnancy and motherhood is that I will lose myself. I fear I will no longer be the woman I am, without always being associated with the child I have. I do know it is all far more complicated than the moments I had today and the definition of a woman, as a mother or otherwise, is hardly straight forward. Still, I cannot help but take a small amount of comfort from being able to enjoy my own life outside of the situation I find myself in. It is encouraging to an extent to know that while this aspect of my life is ever-present, it does not have to be all-consuming. Thus, today, I have enjoyed not talking about the sesame seed-sized Oops I have growing inside me. I feel I’ve gained a bit of perspective today and I like it.

Did I mention that I’m now ever-so-slightly nauseous whenever I eat anything?