sometimes the only thing that gets me through this life is saying "I am a diverse female character, nothing can break my plot armor" out loud on repeat in my most california girl/drag queen/influencer voice until it gets well and truly settled in my bloodstream
sometimes that's not enough though and then the only thing keeping me going is rambling aloud to myself in my diverse female voice about diverse female things like short skirts and abdominal muscles with the window open, hoping that someone out there hears my brave ranting and somehow I'm making an impact even while caged and chained to my damned laptop
.... it's hard though
because it's very easy to say maybe I'm Bella from Twilight and if I cry in my sleep loud enough, a vampire stalker will swoop down and kill my teachers for me
mmm
tempting, but that might further toxic relationship standards so on we go
another nice intelligent thing to do is to go into full-on roleplayer mode and force myself to believe that I'm a character who happens to be seeing this bloody essay for the first time in their life and is nice enough to not mock whoever wrote it even as they edit it