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stcrsquad · 3 years

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Annabeth Headcanons

She loves dogs. Annabeth can get along with any dog she meets and is also good at training them.

She and Percy definitely have two dogs at any one time when they’re adults.

She always seems to get along best with dogs that other people find threatening, like Rottweilers or Pitbulls. She’s just like “you’re just a cutie, you haven’t done anything wrong” :)

Percy loses his MIND whenever he sees this happen and it’s just so soft

She walks the dogs everyday and it helps her clear her head. She does her best thinking then.

Anyway, Annabeth would definitely be obsessed with Minecraft. You can’t convince me otherwise.

She would build the most beautiful structures anyone’s ever seen in the game.

Ok now I’m thinking about Annabeth being a gamer and like ahhhhh there’s so much potential there

I don’t know enough about video games to elaborate

Annabeth is deep in the dark academia aesthetic

She owns a grey collared shirt and black ripped jeans, that’s like her favorite outfit

She always wears her hair up in a ponytail as a teenager because “you never know when you can get caught up in battle”

But as the years go on, she lets her hair down more and more

Annabeth can stay in a museum for HOURS. She loved learning about historic influences in art and architecture.

Percy gets a bit bored when she takes him with her.

Sometimes she goes with Rachel to museums because Rachel appreciates everything along with her.

(Btw, Annabeth definitely apologizes to Rachel for being very rude toward her during BotL and TLO times. More of Rachel and Annabeth getting along!!)

One of Annabeth’s favorite things to do is to find out one topic that people absolutely love and get them started on it. She enjoys listening to people talk about intellectual stuff they’re passionate about, whether it’s science-y stuff or theories on symbols in a certain book. She loves have intellectually stimulating conversations like that and learning something new while someone else rambles.

She especially loves listening to Percy talk about the ocean and all of its creatures. Look up a flamingo tongue snail and tell me you aren’t IMPRESSED.

All of the 7 reluctantly agree that Annabeth is not a good gift giver.

She always forgets people’s birthdays until it’s the day of and her planner is staring her right in the face.

(Speaking of- Annabeth is definitely a planner girl!! She’s got the stickers and everything.)

So she’ll rush to the store and will buy something like a sweater or a pair of funky socks.

One time she got Piper chocolates and Piper is like “thanks but im allergic”

Another time she tried to make blue cookies for Percy but she burnt them

(You know he still loved them anyway, and oh my god I’m so soft at this idea, I need this fic 🥺)

As they grow older, Percy tends to take over when it comes to giving gifts to their friends

So it’s always one gift with a “From Percy and Annabeth” tag on it

Shockingly, her and Leo get on really well

Or not so shockingly. They worked together on building the Argo II so

They can always be found sharing their next building plans with each other. Or as the rest of the 7 like to call it “nerding out”

Annabeth and Jason are like the mom and dad friends of the group

Percy would be a mom friend, and he has most of the traits to be a mom friend except he’s just a bit too chaotic

She doesn’t often talk to Frank or Hazel, but they get along well enough

Hazel and Annabeth are both obsessed with stationery and they go on spending sprees together

Piper and Annabeth also get along and they train together often

Piper and Percy both bring out a spontaneous side to Annabeth.

Annabeth likes wearing Percy’s hoodies, but Percy also wears Annabeth’s hoodies too

Percy does a lot of romantic gestures for Annabeth and she always feels bad because she’s not that great at thinking of romantic gestures

So she calls up Hazel and Piper and she’s like HOW DO WE DO NICE THINGS FOR OUR BOYFRIENDS

Her romantic gestures tend to be small- getting up early to make breakfast for the two of them or spontaneously bringing Percy to the beach

Percy and her COMPETE over who can get up earlier to make the other one breakfast

Eventually they just get up during the other one’s alarm and make it together :’)

Sally is basically Annabeth’s mom, pls

Annabeth goes to Sally with literally every problem she has and Sally is just. There for her.

Sally teaches Annabeth how to cook and do adult things and never makes her feel stupid for not knowing something

Which is important because being a child of Athena, Annabeth sometimes feels like she SHOULD know everything, and it’s difficult for her to ask for help from others

OH MY GOD I JUST GOT AN IDEA OF Annabeth and Percy always supporting Sally’s new novels

They want to be the first readers, but it’s difficult with their dyslexia

So as Sally writes the book, she will record herself reading it chapter by chapter

Basically creating an audiobook for them before the book is even released

And they’re just so grateful bc Sally is always considerate to them like that

Oh!! Annabeth plays chess with Nico all the time

And they’re pretty evenly matched

They end up in a stalemate several times

Will and Percy watch from the sidelines with NO CLUE what’s going on. They call the pieces “the little men”

Annabeth is also very good at crocheting bc duh daughter of athena things

She picks it up very easily and will do it during lectures where she has to listen or when listening to audiobooks

Sometimes it helps her focus bc her hands are occupied

Ok yeah this got a bit long but maybe I’ll do more??

#annabeth chase #percy jackson #sally jackson #rachel dare #piper mclean #leo valdez #jason grace #hazel levesque #frank zhang #percy jackon and the olympians #heroes of olympus

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stillwinterair · 3 years

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Hey Nick! What is your favorite Star Wars book? I'm looking to read a lot more star wars novels this year and I think you'd be the expert

I unfortunately haven't read nearly as many Star Wars books as I'd like, mostly because several times through my life I've been like "I'm finally gonna read some Star Wars books!!" and whatever I pick up is somewhere between terrible and mediocre.

That said, I've read a few good ones!

A New Dawn by John Jackson Miller remains my favorite SW book for now, mostly because it's just tonally everything I want out of Star Wars. It's also a prequel to the Rebels animated series, and covers how two of the show's main characters, Hera and Kanan, first met. It's good, campy fun with a really well-realized setting and a great cast of characters.

Ahsoka by E.K. Johnston is a sequel to The Clone Wars that covers bits of Ahsoka's life shortly after the rise of the Empire, and it's good fun if you love Ahsoka! Some parts of it are now technically no longer canon, as it alludes to things that happened during the Siege of Mandalore that didn't actually happen once that arc finally came out, but mostly the book is about Ahsoka continuing to help people wherever and however she can and sending a new friend into a gay panic.

Bloodline by Claudia Gray is a fantastic political thriller turned adventure about an older Leia Organa, struggling to hold the New Republic together. This is some of the best character work any of the original trilogy cast has gotten in new canon works, and really highlights her internal relationship with the two father figures in her life, long after their passing -- Bail Organa, and Darth Vader. It explores these really meaningfully, I think, and the political climate of the New Republic by this point in the timeline is very... let's call it familiar.

Phasma by Delilah S. Dawson. Hear me out. This book fucking rules. It's goddamn weird, and it's very Mad Max, and it works so well. This is one of those books that really shows how good the sequel era might have been if they had taken actual risks with it; most of this book takes place on the post-apocalyptic, tribal world Captain Phasma came from, and while it feels a lot like Mad Max, it also feels like the early seasons of LOST, too? It's wild. This is one of the hardest Star Wars books to recommend because Captain Phasma the character is like the epitome of sequel trilogy schlock, clearly engineered to sell toys and look cool and to make Disney look inclusive or whatever, only to be killed off twice as lamely as possible, but trust me, this is genuinely good content.

From a Certain Point of View is an ongoing 40th anniversary project, releasing short story collections that retell the original trilogy movies over the course of 40 short stories per movie, all from different perspectives. There are two out now, one for A New Hope and another for The Empire Strikes Back, but I've only read the first one. It was good! It fell apart a little bit in the last half, as the first half was a really fun collection of weird and wild tales from all over the galaxy (and especially Tatooine), but the latter half is so heavily focused on the Death Star and the battle around Yavin that it's just, like, exhausting, man. The same story structure plays out a few times too many. However there IS a short story that implies Grand Moff Tarkin is having an ongoing erotic affair with the young man whose armor Luke steals when he arrives on the Death Star, and that whole short story is told from the point of view of a mouse droid, so that one fucking rules.

The last one I'll suggest is one I'm not even done with yet; The Lando Calrissian Adventures by L. Neil Smith, a trilogy published in 1983. I'm halfway through the first book now, and I would have probably finished it in one sitting if not for my having ADHD and dyslexia, but it is SO... good might not be the right word, because it's mostly 1980s dime novel sci-fi schlock, but the writing is punchy and the dialogue is a hoot and it's SO cheesy in all the right ways. The main villain in this trilogy is an honest to god evil space wizard. Not a Jedi, or a Sith, or anything recognizably Force-y, he's just like, a sorcerer in space, for some reason. And he out-cons Lando in the first book to go find an ancient artifact left behind by an ancient civilization, the fucking Mindharp of Sharu, a name which pretty clearly spells out the tone of the book. I can't, like... I cannot properly express just how much dumb fun this book is. The prologue is set around a sabacc table, where dim light filters down through thick wisps of cigar smoke; it's all flash and pomp, swindling and daring escapes, crooked cops and capers, and like, also an evil sorcerer is there. This first book in the trilogy, Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu, might be the best Star Wars book ever written. (And yes, they all have titles as ridiculous as that.) I might completely change my mind by the end, and I'll definitely finish it over the next couple of days and have an opinion by then, but so far this book rules and I'm excited to get to the rest of the trilogy.

Now, I've read a lot more Star Wars than this, but most of it's, like... bad. Or if not bad, then mediocre. A modern favorite, Dark Disciple, a sequel to The Clone Wars, is straight up dogshit. Meanwhile a true classic, Heir to the Empire, is... fine, at best.

The true best of Star Wars books is always gonna be shit that doesn't take itself too seriously, and isn't afraid to get at least a little bit weird.

Anything more than this... you're gonna need to find yourself an actual expert on the topic lmao

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renaroo · 4 years

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A Cass with Many Faces

About a month ago, specifically on Cassandra Cain’s fictional birthday, I made a few posts dedicated to one of the fictional characters that have had a visible, measurable impact on my life, and has continued to do so since I first picked up an issue featuring her in 2004. I was twelve years old at the time and the issue in question was the fifth of a six-issue arc starting off Superman/Batman. I picked up the issue because Superboy -- my then-favorite comic book character -- was on the cover including some other characters I was mildly familiar with. And the character that I came away with the most intrigue in was, of course, Cassandra Cain.

Next time I was at my LCS, I picked up an issue of her solo series that was still ongoing at the time [Batgirl (2000-2006) #47] and instantly fell in love.

I’ve made posts before about how a scattershot strategy can be a good thing when talking about characters in multimedia franchises. Characters are more likely to endure in these environments if they are given more presence, and more significance, when more voices are advocating for them.

In the past, I was speaking about my experience in seeing the opposite happen with Cassandra.

I can honestly say I would have never checked out Cassandra Cain had it not been for her minor appearance in a silly comic four years after her debut. I was twelve, and still fairly new to DC Comics having grown up with a Marvel loving family, and as the years went on and Cass was diminished by poor corporate decisions, I learned a lesson about strategy with characters in these franchises. If they are not seen outside of their lane, if people aren’t exposed to them outside of their one series no matter how fantastic and great it is, when that series is canceled and they are mishandled, there is not going to be any protection for them.

Bad comics happen all the time, bad adaptations happen all of the time, it’s the nature of the business. But for the thousands of terrible Batman stories that have been published and the hundreds of head-scratching Ninja Turtles adaptations, there have been, they continue to prevail and good things happen to those characters’ IP because there is enough material out there to keep people coming back.

[Superman/Batman (2003-2011) #5]

This is all a long introduction to get into saying that we are starting 2020 in one of the most unique and unprecedented ways we could start it as Cassandra Cain fans. There is, I’m pretty sure for the first time in the two decades of this character’s existence, an almost scattershot approach to getting as much Cass content out in a blitz as possible while aligning with the first time she has appeared in multimedia outside of video game DLC only a few hardcore fans will ever get a hold of.

But, as to be expected, not all interpretations of Cass are going to be the most helpful or similar to the character as we know her. And while I try to think strategically, it’s important to acknowledge these differences outright. Because if this is someone’s intro to her character, it can paint what they see and expect from her for the rest of their experience.

I can’t say how good or bad that’ll be, I am the fangirl who jumped on board when Jeff Loeb was writing and Ed McGuinness was drawing. My quality receptors will forever be in question to more purist fans! But I do want to start out by saying that most things are valid when it comes to starting out with a medium as ridiculous and unintelligible as comics, and we can destroy each other over the remaining 10% any day.

Let’s talk about some Casses.

Shadow of the Batgirl (2020)

If you or someone you know is at all interested in reading more Cassandra Cain and the 73 issues of her original series are intimidating, there is a simple solution that has been given to us by Sarah Kuhn and Nicole Goux, Shadow of the Batgirl.

In a very short first-reaction review I did the week this graphic novel came out, I mentioned that I was teary the entire time I read this graphic novel because it was just so darn impactful and endearing. And that continues to be the case.

This is a YA graphic novel aimed at introducing young new readers to Cassandra and a world that desperately needs her gifts to escape the shadows of her past and regrets in order to fully realize her potential for the future. And it is both heartwarming and gorgeous.

One of the things I have hit on for years when it comes to Cassandra Cain’s treatment in comics is that it has felt that for a good half of a decade if not more, what she lacked more than anything was a consistent advocate on the publishing side of things. Fans and decent sales -- which, to be clear, her meager appearances and even the majority of her solo did definitively have -- were never going to be powerful enough on their own to give her a publishing opportunity if there were not writers and artists there to provide good stories.

In 2020, more than any other year, I feel like we finally see the fruition of these things coming true. Sarah Kuhn’s blurbs and interviews have been filled with personal love and detail for the character and her importance, which only fueled how great it was when the Shadow of the Batgirl did come out and surpass almost all expectations.

This is a retelling and reinventing of Cassandra’s origin story told completely from her perspective from the beginning.

One of the lasting critiques of Cassandra’s beginnings in comics has always been her silence and lack of voice at the very start of her career. While sometimes these complaints grew to hyperbolism and would deny provably existent agency -- and to be clear, there’s still a lot of that to a concerning degree to this day -- there is truth to the criticism. Cassandra’s internal narration was not provided for almost a year after her first appearance which is an alienating tactic to use for a character meant to be latched onto by readership. Even when handled well, the thoughts behind this choice still deserve examination.

This was further complicated by later reveals that Cassandra’s difficulty with expression was in part due to her aneurotypical processing. These are not independently bad choices to make narratively, I have gone on for thousands of words before on how important I believe Cassandra’s dyslexia is, but the shakey start to giving the perspective of an aneurotypical character a definitive voice to tell her own story is right to be critiqued.

Shadow of the Batgirl completely circumvents this by giving Cass a clear voice from the start and focusing her central relationships on the power of expression and individuality while giving her plenty of characters of varying backgrounds and abilities to bounce her own understanding off of.

In some parts, this greatly enforced Kuhn’s take on making Cass’ story a teenage coming of age story that she has proven skillful at in YA novels. It also allowed her to directly correct many of the wrongs that have been long criticized about Cassandra’s original series, such as having Barbara Gordon (a physically disabled character who should and has shown more sensitivity and nuance outside of her terrible capital-M-Moment in Cass’ series) embrace and love Cassandra for her aneurotypical perspective.

[Batgirl (2000-2006) #54]

[Shadow of the Batgirl (2020)]

But, for those of us who adore and have attached to Cassandra for her disabilities and portrayals of mental illness in the past, there is also some nuance and representation that has been left on the cutting room floor for this new origin.

Namely, while Cassandra is shown to be perplexed by and struggling with books in the graphic novel, there is not the desperation and frustration that we actively see her undergoing throughout the original Batgirl (2000-2006) series. By issue #58 of a 73-issue comic book solo, Cassandra is actively struggling to read “It was,” and her insecurities toward it are used and manipulated by the villain by the end of the series.

However, Cassandra of the Shadow of the Batgirl shows some capacity to read from early on, and her struggles with reading are not the subject of conversation in the novel, so how much her limitations are a function of dyslexia and how much are a function of her childhood is left up to debate.

A debate with many questions that do require an answer since the form of her isolation and abuse by her far-less rounded character of a father in this graphic novel has been changed dramatically.

While I am giving these critiques and do think that we should be mindful and conscious of their removal for those fans who are seeking out those types of stories to read, I do not want to at all give the impression that this is a bad comic.

In fact, it’s quite the opposite. I would argue with just about anyone that this is the gold standard for Cassandra Cain stories printed in the last fifteen years, and for what I miss about the original iteration of Cass stories it can easily be exchanged for the new voice and new direction for her character this graphic novel provides for us.

Many of these critiques can be chalked up to the graphic novel being just that, a self-contained graphic novel and not a 73-issue monthly publication. And I believe its art and story are a great deal more consistent and appealing than many eras of the original series as a result.

I love its tributes, its characterizations, its purpose, and its focus above all else. There is also something just utterly charming about having Cassandra’s first well handled romance in comics come from a YA novelist who obviously understands the character and also understands what readers want in a non-toxic and adorable story.

I love the focus on Cassandra’s journey being on self-compassion, forgiveness, and the earnest belief that people can change. Including yourself, if you make the choice.

It is a good book, the best for Cassandra Cain in ages, and one I bought no less than three times already to show my support. And in just one week on my classroom bookshelf, I’ve already seen it be avidly read by five students. And those are just the ones I catch!

I would also be remiss not to mention that after complaining about this pet peeve of mine for years, that it’s happened. It took us twenty-one years but we finally did it, guys. We got a costume that Cassandra Cain got to make and design herself! And not only did she get one but she got two! An adorable (and hilarious) DIY Batgirl costume, and then ending on the high note of her official Batgirl costume to swing through the city in!

This book is precious and I hope it is the start of something new and exciting in the future. Even if that new and exciting is simply a sequel graphic novel, I will be HERE for it, and supporting it and Sarah Kuhn all the way.

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)

Oh, boy. If there was one reason I was scared to make this post, it was because of this film.

Before I get too deep into this I want to first state my position on a few of the controversies that have cropped up online with concerns to this movie and its portrayal of Cassandra Cain.

First and foremost, I have no interest in telling people how they should or shouldn’t be offended on the grounds of representation and erasure. Not being able to or simply being unwilling to forego criticisms of tropes or insensitivities perpetrated by this or any other film are completely valid experiences. I have been that person in regards to other things, and I have also been someone whose first exposure to serious issues were the stances people took with regards to protesting certain media.

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) has faults and plays into certain erasures (one of which I’ll discuss more below) that people may be unwilling to let go of. If that is the case for people you know or see online, you should accept and support them. Listen to them.

But I do think we should also support people who love this movie for good reason. I enjoy this movie, but it’s not life-changing for me. I support it in the hopes of seeing more and better.

There are students I have who now are wearing merch and drawing fanart of the Birds of Prey, picking up the comics for the first time, because of their exposure to the hype and “girl power” of this movie. Some adults needed this movie to be some hopeful change for them and I support them too.

We’re lucky to be alive at a time where a superhero movie is so completely told from a feminine perspective, with a huge diversity of filmmakers behind it providing female voices at every level from acting to casting to scripting to directing. We’re lucky that there’s such a diversity of the cast. I want this to continue.

I hope that it continues to do better in theaters, and I know there are some murmurs of poor box office returns for it. I hope that doesn’t affect future projects. We’ll see.

All of that out of the way, we need to talk about its use of Cassandra Cain.

The joke I’ve made with my friends is that the best thing to do with this movie is to start getting in the habit of calling the young girl at the heart of this plot “Kassandra Kane” instead because the connection between this character and that of Cassandra Cain is fairly negligible. They are both young women of East Asian descent who pop up in Gotham.

I happen to like both characters, but there’s an obvious difference between one focused on as a main character and hero of her own story and one focused on as a supporting character who has plots happen to her. Neither is a bad thing, but my preferences obviously rest with the former.

It’s the fact that they were supposed to be the same character that seems to baffle most people. Myself included.

This may have been a move more suited for a character with less history and expectation on her before her big debut, like Sin who is Dinah’s adopted daughter in the comics and already connected to the Birds of Prey, or the character who clearly inspired Kassandra Kane, Ditto from the Black Canary (2015-2016) series.

[Black Canary (2015-2016) #6]

I also think that adaptation that dramatically changes Cass wouldn’t necessarily be a terrible thing either. With some rewrites and some more agency, a younger and more hardened Cass from the streets could have also worked with the movie they were trying to make -- perhaps have David Cain be Black Mask’s main enforcer rather than Victor Zsasz. Give Cassandra’s connection to the plot more character-oriented and have her liberation work in tandem with the liberation of the adult women.

The options were there, and there are critiques to be made, but the movie also knew what it wanted to be and spent its script and filming time focused on maintaining the continuity and integrity of the adult female characters who it probably could justify putting in the rated-R situations their fights got them in more than they could young Kassie Kane.

One of the no doubt unintended consequences of this has been that online discourse revolving around Cass vs. Kass has been in justifying the decisions one team has over the other in claims of racism and ableism.

Now, to be clear, my ability to speak with authority on either of those points is minimal. I’m an ally but not a voice of those communities and I want that to be as upfront as possible. I can only speak from personal experience in the realms of being a woman and being someone who lives with and has survived mental illness. And I can speak as a critic of media at large.

There are racist and ableist connotations in many things, and I am not going to deny that those conversations are relevant and need to happen in regards to Cass’ original portrayals or in this film. They do. I know even in my first viewing I wondered how it was deemed so unimportant and so uncritical to give even a moment where Kass could display dyslexia or any other form of disability when we had entire sequences dedicated to backgrounds of characters who appeared for half a second of screentime.

But I’m seeing a lot of discourse that is especially leveling claims of racism toward Cass’ original portrayals and not always looking at the voices of fans of color who debate that argument. But I also see people outright denying any critique of Cass’ original portrayals having overtones to them that are unsavory. The answer is to maybe settle for something less radical than both positions.

Like there is no ethical consumption under capitalism and we should murder the patriarchy. Just like Birds of Prey taught me.

I enjoyed the movie a lot, Kassandra Kane was a lot of fun, but it’s a 1/5 for adaptation which is bizarre for a movie that was firing on all cylinders for almost literally every other character that came on screen.

Batman and the Outsiders (2019-) #10

When it comes to consistent monthly comic publishing, the pickings for Cassandra Cain have been incredibly thin for years, arguably since the end of her own solo in 2006. But since the DC initiative “Rebirth” in 2016, an era has been entered where, with a few months here or there as the exception, Cass has been appearing in some comic each month.

That seems like a small thing to celebrate, especially when the quality of monthly content can vary so much depending on the creative team, but it has been a hugely important development that Cass has been put on a team book for over a year now.

Bryan Hill is a comic veteran at this point, publishing comics independently and from both Marvel and DC, making him quite busy, but one thing I’ve really appreciated as a Cassandra Cain fan is that he has consistently shown love and appreciation for her character.

The Cassandra that features in Batman and the Outsiders is arguably the closest the character is to her original solo series on paper, and Hill has weaved her origin story and relationship with Lady Shiva into the overarching plot of the entire series.

For me, Batman and the Outsiders has been a little slow in its story structure, and I worry about how that will affect the future of the book and whether or not it will continue as an ongoing after Hill’s planned departure, but his character focus is also my style of comics to read. And make no mistake that there is a plethora of character development and examination in every issue.

Cassandra is sharing her page time with her Outsider teammates, but this can be a good thing. Development is easier for characters who have consistent character interactions, and I have always been a firm believer that the Outsiders as a team concept works the best for Cassandra’s specific needs. This plays out and the team consisting of Bruce Wayne, Jefferson Pierce, Tatsu Yamashiro, and Duke Thomas all compliment each other and compliment Cass very well.

I do want to mention that I love this book and think it’s great reading for Batman fans, too, even with Bruce’s reduced presence. And I think the snub the Duke and Cass are receiving in other Bat titles like Peter Tomasi’s Batman: Alfred Pennyworth R.I.P. just last week is cruelly shortsighted.

But, hey, Tomasi being dismissive and backhanded toward members of the Batfamily outside of his preferred five. Guess it’s just another Wednesday.

Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey (2020-) #1 (of 4)

After the complete circus that has been made of the Black Label Birds of Prey title meant to tie-in with the movie -- one DC thought to give to Brian Azzarello who vocally despises Harley Quinn and is divisive (to say the very least) in his treatment of high profile female characters that he does say he likes -- I wasn’t expecting DC to come through in aligning movie buzz with their comic publications. To be clear, DC has always sucked at doing this and I really didn’t think it was special to the BoP movie.

When Conner and Palmiotti got to announce their own tie-in for the movie that was supposed to be more fun and use more of the same characters, I was intrigued but also a little concerned about how this team would handle it. I can like or dislike their work depending on the project.

But my god, were they absolutely on when it came to this first issue of their four-issue miniseries.

I didn’t think I’d be recommending fans go pick up the first issue of the Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey miniseries, but I am absolutely doing that for any fans of the movie who, like me, enjoyed it but wished a better Cassandra Cain adaptation had been woven into the plot.

Amanda Conner’s history with the character of Cass and with the Birds of Prey, in general, is actually interesting. While she is regarded for her art and her storytelling now, when she first started at DC it was art only in the credits, but those credits included a BoP arc and several fun covers for the latter half of Cassandra’s Batgirl (2000-2006). When she later had the opportunity to write comics along with doing their art, she even had Cass (albeit very chattily) feature in a rare team-up with Power Girl and Wonder Woman in the Wonder Woman (2006-2011) #600 special.

And, of course, the husband and wife team have become industry heavy hitters thanks to their smash hits with multiple Harley Quinn solo series.

This is a fun and cartoonishly violent miniseries that plays to their styles properly, but the characterizations in the first issue struck me as very true and very calculated. Cassandra Cain does not speak in this entry, but that allows Conner to stretch her artistic muscles in making Cass’ actions and expressions give a lot of character to her role. Which already shows more restraint and understanding for the character than many others have with Cass -- including Conner’s freshman efforts at writing Cass herself.

Cass isn’t alone in the little joys of this comic. There are overt references to Conner and Palmiotti’s Harley Quinn miniseries and solos that place this non-mainstream comic in a more nebulous space than the Black Label imprint would initially make you think, and the strong characters feel as though they walked off of the pages of their current mainstream efforts. All of which I greatly appreciate.

Not to mention on the front of queer representation, while Harley is a mess, I’m glad that I can unabashedly relate to her as a gay mess without obfuscation this time.

If there’s any comic that new fans brought on by the Birds of Prey movie are likely to pick up themselves, it’ll probably be this one. Which is a great thing because it seems like an honest effort with strong roots in the original comic source material for everyone -- including Cass this time.

Shame I can’t recommend it to my middle school students who are loving the movie. Though, I suppose, if they are watching a rated-R movie they’re probably sneaking to Black Label comics too. Little scamps.

DCeased: Unkillables (2020) #1 (of 3)

I cannot believe the wholesome Batfamily content I’ve craved for a decade needs the zombie apocalypse to happen.

While I read DCeased last year and didn’t hate it in the vein that I thought I was going to due to it being a zombie apocalypse AU in a superhero universe that seemed to keenly pull from the surprising successes of Marvel’s efforts, I never imagined that it would join the ranks as continued Cassandra Cain content vehicles.

It must be the sign of a good decade, right? Bats are lucky, indeed.

While DCeased proper dealt with the aftermath of the Anti-Life Equation that was Totally Not a Zombie Virus as they kept telling us over and over again, it was pretty closely tied to the most main of main DC heroes and heroines and their families as they attempted to survive and escape the hordes. We didn’t see many other fan-favorite but not quite A-tier heroes’ efforts until the tie-in comics began coming out.

I, as a Booster Gold, Blue Beetle, and Mister Miracle/Big Barda fan adored A Good Day to Die, but I never saw DCeased: Unkillables coming. And even when it was announced I said to my dear friends “This will either be very good or very bad.”

I need to put more faith into Tom Taylor, he really hasn’t let me down just yet.

In Unkillables, we follow the days after the Anti-Life Equation is released on Earth now through the eyes of two teams -- one helmed by Deathstroke, whose unique physiology allows him to recover from infection and is now joining other supervillains in a doomsday cult led by Vandal Savage; one helmed by Jason Todd, whose unique position as the family rebel has apparently left him out of the loop enough to not die with Bruce, Dick, and Tim in the series proper, but not so out of the loop that he can’t access the cave and the heart monitors Bruce creepily keeps on track of all their other family and friends, letting him reunite with his estranged sister Cassandra and Jim Gordon. Who is just as confused as you are that Batman kept a heart monitor tracker on him without asking. Also, Ace the Bathound and I love it.

This is the first of three issues, but it fits a lot of character work and relationships into those pages, which if you’re paying attention, is the sort of writing that seems to be most helpful with Cassandra Cain's appearances.

I am hoping that everything continues to work well for this team, even knowing that we are going to have bloodshed and death along the way, but I think that the setting of making the last stand in an orphanage protecting children is the exact kind of thing these three characters would be united to do together in the zombie apocalypse.

This is a fun, albeit bloody and morbid, comic that is worth picking up for anyone who misses Cassandra being Batgirl as much as I do.

Also wow that family photo with Cass alongside her brothers and father. It took us this long to finally get one, huh.

Worth it. Suck it, Tomasi.

I have a lot of love for Cassandra, and a lot of opinions as well. Obviously! But what I love more than anything is to enjoy good stories with other people, and I’m hopeful and joyful that there seems to be more and more of those things intersecting on the horizon.

If you’ve enjoyed my take on any of this, I hope I can continue to point you toward content in the future. And even if not, if you want to share your takes with me, I hope I can provide some good conversation there, too!

Most of all I hope we all have something wonderful we can look forward to.

[Shadow of the Batgirl]

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krazy-rp-hatter · 5 years

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1, 2, 3, 9, 14, 15, 17, 25, 27, 28, 29, 35 for the honesty meme? (I want to hear your take on these!)

Honesty Meme | Accepting

1. What would prevent you from following someone?

Mostly it depends on if I want to interact with their muse or not. There are some where I just really don’t like the muse. Other things that stop me are when there are maybe two or three blogs that are so exclusive with each other that you feel like you can’t interact with them. Sometimes if people post constantly post A LOT I can get overwhelmed, and that might stop me on the odd occasion. And, of course, if someone is just generally being a dick.

2. Are aesthetics important to you? If they are, why?

Yes! I’m a graphic designer, and I’ve always loved things looking pretty. So I love making a blog look as gorgeous as possible. And I love finding aesthetic images that give you an idea of what the muse is like.

Though, when it comes to text, the aesthetic is also important in the way of, I like to be as straight forward as possible. Since I’m ADHD and dyslexic, sometimes reading can just truly be a nightmare. So when things are in super tiny, scripty font, constantly changing from one word to the next with words broken up by symbols that shouldn’t be there, my brain just goes ‘NOPE! I ain’t doing this shit!’

3. What current rp trend do you hate?

Honestly, not a fan of some of the formatting. When people make it vary constantly my brain hates it. And I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. ‘I hat/e peo.ple do/ing t.his thi/ng no.w!’ It’s just… it’s hard for me to read, and that makes me not want to try.

9. What is your opinion on exclusivity? Do you practice it? Why / why not?

No and no! I’m honestly not a fan of it. I understand why people do it, especially if they are a very popular blog. But it’s not for me. I kinda get put off from interacting with blogs that are mutually exclusive, because I can’t always find an opening to interact with them. And I think that if you limit who you RP with, you’re missing out on a lot of opportunities. I also love interacting with multiple of the same muse. Most people bring their own spin to a muse, and I love seeing how things play out with each different mun.

14. Do you think rp has had a positive or negative effect on your life or you as a person?

I mean, I’d say fairly neutral. It’s something fun that I enjoy doing, and I love getting to interact with so many people. But on the flip side, it does take a lot of energy and also tends to take away from my novel and fic writing. I struggle to find balance in a lot of things, so I tend to find I kind of go hardcore on RP, then burn out and take a year or two hiatus and get sad because most of the people I know are gone. (Except @cfmanymuses. She’s my forever girl, and as my IRL best friend, I know she’ll tell me if she ever switches platforms).

15. How has rp changed you personally?

I mean, I honestly don’t know. I’d say that it’s helped improve my writing over the years and given me a new, unique way of looking at things when it comes to writing because of the format it’s usually done it. It’s also helped me develop a few of my OCs from what they started as, and I LOVE working with my characters.

17. Have you ever sent a message to yourself on anon? Why?

Admittedly, I have sent myself memes on anon that I REALLY wanted to do when no one sends them in before. I haven’t done this in a while, but there are some that have been tempting. I wanna answer those questions, dude!

25. Are you open to duplicates? Why / why not?

Hell yeah! Bring on the duplicates!!! I mean, MOST of my muses are OC, so duplicates aren’t going to happen there. But all of my canon muses are from fantasy or sci-fi and are super easy to make bump into each other via alturnate universes. Or heck, they could be twin sisters! I love seeing how other people write the same muses as me, because everyone’s take on muses is unique and I feel like I’m missing out on getting to work with that if you deny duplicates.

27. Do you follow people even if they don’t follow you back?

Yeah, I mean, why not. On the odd occasion, someone might follow me back a month after I’ve followed them or something. The only time I’d unfollow someone for not following me back is if they’re mutually exclusive and I keep accidentally liking their starter calls and such. I have mutual tracker, but sometimes my brain jumps ahead and goes ‘Yeah! I wanna RP with them’. And then I feel like a twat for accidentally breaking their rules and have to apologise. So if someone is adherently mutuals only I might unfollow to prevent making an ass of myself repeatedly.

Plus, I had a really bad experience with this once where despite instantly apologising and saying I wouldn’t do it again, someone continued to harras me to the point I had to block them and ended up taking a year-long hiatus.

28. Do you read people’s rules before following or interacting?

I generally try to. Some, I will follow the moment I see their blog, then have to go back and find their blog to read their rules. And sometimes the ADHD/dyslexia is being a butt and basically makes my brain scream at me if I try to read anything longer than a sentence, so I’ll kinda skim over the rules as best I can.

But I try to read peoples rules as much as I possibly can, especially since it gives me a good view of their stance on certain things. Sometimes I forget if I’ve read them or not and go back and do it again.

29. What is your opinion on “reblog karma” and do you practice it?

Yep! I’ve only recently come back to this blog, and reblog karma was pretty big last time I was on. I’m trying to get back into the habit of the lastest trend of reblogging from the source, but sometimes I mess up. When I do that, I try my hardest to make sure I send something.

35. Do you read other people’s threads or do you only read your own?

Mostly no. As I said, sometimes reading is not a thing my brain wants to do. I’ll usually glance or skim other threads, but unless something really grabs my attention, I won’t put too much effort into reading through others threads. The shorter the thread, the more likely I am to read it. (So, basically, if I wasn’t invested in my own writing, I’d probably skip it because I very rarely write short replies).

#cfmanymuses #Answered by: Kyla

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elliepassmore · 5 years

Text

Six of Crows Review

5/5 stars Recommended for people who like: fantasy, multiple POVs, heist stories, morally grey characters, diversity

Bardugo's writing has definitely improved between writing the Grisha Trilogy and this duology. There's more diversity of character, better plot continuity, and the stakes feel higher. Not to mention, the world building re: Kerch and Fjerda is amazing.

The novel starts being narrated by a young member of the city guard, and it's here we're introduced to the thing driving the plot: jurda parem. Parem can make Grisha--magic-users, for those who didn't read the Grisha trilogy first (you don't need to and I don't recommend it)--do fantastic, impossible things. Of course, this means the government wants Parem to be kept under wraps. Enter the Dregs, a street gang led by Kaz Brekker, the antihero (antivillian?) with a bum leg and a knack for getting out of tight spots. The Dregs are hired to break into the most secure place in the world, the Fjerdan Ice Court, and kidnap the scientist who invented Parem, bring him back to Ketterdam, and hand him over to the Council to keep him hidden. It's a fascinating set-up. A street-gang performing a high risk heist to kidnap a scientist? Sign me up. But beyond that, the plot opens up so many of the doors Bardugo utilizes for character-arcs and world-building.

Kaz Brekker is not a hero and he's definitely not the sort of person you'd want to run into...probably ever. In the slums of Ketterdam, referred to in the novel as the 'Barrel,' he's known as Dirtyhands. He's a master lock pick and practically leads the Dregs. Due to an accident a few years before the novel starts, he also walks with a cane and a perpetual limp. He's questionably moral, with the question more being 'does he have any?' more than 'you need to reevaluate that particular moral gap.' That's not to say he's necessarily a bad guy--albeit most of what he does is for money and revenge, but--he is one of the protagonists of the story, and he clearly cares for the members of his gang, even if he 1) doesn't show it, and 2) gets frustrated with them a lot. In the beginning of the story he definitely comes across as more uncaring than toward the end, and we sort of get to know why as the book progresses.

Inej Ghafa is a spy for the Dregs, contracted to them after Kaz got her out of a rough situation in one of the pleasure houses, which left some obvious trauma--this all occurs before the novel begins. She's one of the characters with the most straight morals. She's an ex-Suli acrobat who grew up in Ravka before she was kidnapped and brought to Ketterdam, and she uses those skills to scale walls, run across rooftops, and do otherwise gravity-defying tasks for the Dregs. Inej might be my favorite character of the bunch. She doesn't want to kill people, but she's unafraid to when it comes down to it, and has a collection of knives she named after Suli Saints. Her character growth in this book goes from 'not sure what I'll do with my life after this heist' (which will give each member $4 million) to following a Suli proverb "the heart is an arrow. It demands aim to land true" (311) and deciding she wants to hunt slavers.

Jesper Fahey is a Zemeni sharpshooter for the Dregs and a notorious gambler more adept at losing than winning. As good as he is with guns, he gets the group into a bit of trouble with the latter bit. Jesper always feels the need to move and the feeling he gets shooting or gambling helps fulfill that need. Despite the trouble, Jesper also saves the group several times using his sharpshooting skills. He's also hilarious and has a pretty big heart, he worries and asks after each of the characters, and I really like his relationships with the others. Bardugo definitely wrote him caring about others well, showing that sometimes there are fault lines in that, such as how he cares so much about Kaz and what he thinks that it sometimes impacts how he feels about himself or when he's so worried about *SEMI-SPOILER* Inej *SEMI-SPOILER END* after they're shot he can barely stand to be in the same room until they're recovered almost completely. There's a secret Jesper is holding onto that largely drives his arc in this book. Admittedly, his arc is more static than the others in this book, it mainly sets up for the complete arc in the second one.

Nina Zenik is a Heartrender Grisha from Ravka who made some bad decisions that landed her working for the Dregs in Ketterdam. She's the most bubbly of the group and loves to eat. A lot of her actions are driven by either trying to right her wrongs or trying to protect her country and people; so she's not exactly moral but she's definitely righteous. She's also a really funny character and the only one who really continuously, blatantly challenges Kaz throughout the novel, though the other characters do so in more subtle ways. I feel that a lot of the success of the heist ties into Nina and her abilities. For one, she has to be able to use her abilities to break in/out of a prison, make Matthias look like someone else, to erase the identifying gang tattoos some of the group has, subdue prison guards, subdue regular guards, basically take out an entire army, and *SPOILER* disguise Wylan *SPOILER END*. She does most of it without complaint, though that's not to say she's a pushover, she's definitely strong willed and opinionated, which, as stated earlier, means she's not worried about challenging the different characters' opinions and actions. A lot of her arc also occurs in the second novel and not so much this one.

Wylan Van Eck is their Ketterdam-born demolitions expert and bargaining chip. He's also decent with drawing and coming up with ideas on the sly. Wylan is definitely the baby of the group in terms of experience, but he makes up for it in his quick-thinking and seeming infinite supply of explosive materials. Surprisingly, despite his lack of a criminal upbringing and being the newest to the group, he doesn't really have many qualms about a lot of what occurs, though when he does he raises a bit of a ruckus about it. That seems to be his main arc in this book, and it's relatively easy to track; in the beginning, he has quite a few issues with pick-pocketing, but later on he's the one to suggest to Jesper to wake up guards before they kill them if it'll make the other boy feel better about it. It's not so much a devolution of morals as much as a rearranging of morals, so to say.

Finally, Matthias Helvar the Fjerdan ex-drüskelle (Grisha hunter) and the crew's way to know Ice Court. Matthias maybe has the most character growth out of all of them. He goes from essentially being a ranked murderer to someone who understands Grisha aren't evil and that the hate spouted by the drüskellen order is wrong. He's another character who has a strong moral compass, though his comes off as more righteous and 'look down my nose' than Inej's does. He comes off as cruel in the beginning, but almost immediately it's obvious he has a heart and a conscience under the drüskellen mask--at least for anyone not Grisha.

The relationships between the characters are all complicated, which makes them feel real. The way they bump and sharpen each other's edges and then soothing them back down makes them feel very much like a family, even though some of them--Wylan and Matthias--are newer members. Each of the characters also has their own intricacies and tics. Each of them also offers great representation for readers--Jesper is black and has ADHD and is bi, Inej is portrayed as looking Arabic or Persian and has PTSD, Nina is fat and also likely bi, Wylan has dyslexia and gay, Kaz walks with a permanent limp and is touch-averse (likely has PTSD too), Matthias has to fight against the hate that was taught to him, and the semi-surprise character who comes in later is portrayed as being East Asian, likely Chinese or Korean--and it's all written as being normal.

Bardugo also did a good job of building Ketterdam and Fjerda as a world I could see and rules I could understand. The way the Barrel was described allowed me to really be in the moment with the characters when they were at the docks or the Slat (Dreg HQ), that I could feel the chill of the ice in Fjerda or the fear of being in the Ice Court prison. You can also tell, from the way Bardugo built the places and the languages, that she paid a lot of attention to history and real countries and languages when creating the world of SoC. Kerch, the language, is loosely based on an older form of Dutch, and Ketterdam is based on pre-/ante-Industrial Revolution trading cities of the Netherlands. Fjerda is likely based on the Nordic countries, though I couldn't begin to say which language Fjerdan resembles, maybe a mix of them. Anyway, the point is that the world feels real, as if you could really crack open a textbook and read about Kerch or Fjerda alongside countries like France and Germany.

The characters were obviously a driving point of the story, but that's not to say there isn't plenty of action, because there is. Likewise, the plot is well thought out and has plenty of twists and turns to keep readers interested and guessing, though you might guess some of the things that occur beforehand.

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quilloftheclouds · 5 years

Text

WIP Questions Tag Game

Because I have to start this blog off somehow! Say hello to some random facts about One Siren’s Soul.

... what, what do you mean I could post some actual writing? Pfft, no.

I actually got this game from @thelysstener‘s blog and thought it was pretty cool! I wasn’t tagged or anything but I really like doing tag games. Hope you don’t mind!

1: Describe the plot in one sentence

Magical things get stolen from magical people, forcing a siren, a sea witch, a pirate, and a legend of the Royal Navy to begrudgingly work together to get them back. (Aka: A study in how Quill doesn’t know how to write story pitches yet) 2: Pick one sight, smell, sound, feel, and taste to describe the aesthetic for your WIP. (I definitely did not follow the “one” thing but too bad)

Sight: The soft, welcome blues of the sky peeking through clouds of a dispersing storm, the ocean below calm despite its froth of foam drifting across rippled dark water.

Smell: Salt and drying seaweed and rotting fish. And then a permeating, engulfing scent from the ocean that you can’t place or describe, like the very depths of its soul. Magic.

Sound: The howl of wind through a cave opening, a background of distant waves crashing amidst sea bird’s cries.

Feel: The crackling of static electricity through your fingertips as you smooth down the folds of your clothing on a stormy day.

Taste: The slight tang of something metallic. Is that blood, or sweat, or metal? Or all three? (Or the tears of my future readers?)

3: Which 3+ songs would make a playlist for your novel?

I’m normally better at making playlists for things but in this case I was really picky, so...

Your Bones by Of Monsters And Men (Probably one of the biggest inspirations for the overall aesthetic and just... feeling of my wip.)

Sirens by Fleurie (The name and lyrics of this song fit in both definitions of the word.)

Coastline by Hollow Coves (There’s... a happy song on this list? What?)

4: What’s the time period and location in which your novel takes place?

Early 18th century on an alternate Earth in the North Atlantic.

5: Are there any former titles you’ve considered but discarded?

So uh. Funny story about that. One Siren’s Soul was originally going to start with ‘A’ instead of ‘One’. I realized pretty quickly why that wasn’t such a good idea, and also I just like how it sounds more, now? 6: What’s the first line of your novel?

Mmmmm this is a first draft, mate, I don’t wanna touch that just yet. 7: What’s a line of dialogue you’re particularly proud of?

Oh, jeez. All of the ones I really like are heavily context dependent or ridden with spoilers. In lieu of those, have a somewhat-kinda-funny one:

“Colin! Nice to see yer up. Or, well. Down.” - George, right after Colin falls flat on his face in front of him.

8: Which line from the novel most represents it as a whole?

~Spoilers are fuunnnn~ 9: Who are your character(s) face claims?

I’m definitely not the most set on these (especially for Io and Dione), but:

Celestine - Amandla Stenberg

Colin - Booboo Stewart

Phoenix - Enam Heikeens Honya

Dione - Maggie Duran

George - Johnny Harrington

Isabel - Camila Cabello

Io - Kirby Griffin

Rose - Nivetha Pethuraj

I have no idea for Io or Sheila or Alixandre yet, oops.

10: Sort your characters into Hogwarts houses.

For some reason these sorts of things are always tough for me? I myself don’t fit in only one so I think that’s worn off on my characters. Here’s some approximates, though:

Gryffindor: Phoenix, Isabel, Colin

Ravenclaw: Dione, Alixandre

Hufflepuff: George, Sheila

Slytherin: Rose

I can’t decide whether Celestine is in Ravenclaw or Slytherin, and Io’s stuck somewhere between Gryffindor and Slytherin.

11: Which character’s name do you like the most?

Chichima is probably my favourite. Who’s that, you ask? Nyehehee.

Including full names it’d probably be Phoenix Solarin because if that isn’t the most over the top thing to name a pyro I don’t know what is.

12: Describe each character’s daily outfit:

I’m just... gonna do my PoV characters, since I have too many characters in general, and fashion (especially historical) is not my strong suit.

Celestine: Maroon, long-sleeved dress; long, cream woolen scarf; and a pair of dark brown, lace up leather boots.

Colin: Simple white tunic; red and multi-coloured knit sash around his waist; brown trousers; and black cavalier boots (but to be honest he goes barefoot way too often).

Phoenix: Simple white blouse; bright red sash around her waist and as a headband; dark trousers; and buckled black leather boots. She gets a scarlet frock coat with gold trim later on.

Dione: Honestly, I have no idea how to describe Dio’s clothes. Other than black felt boots and a light green dress-like thing, I know she has a billion hidden pockets and a giant, hooded, fur and wool cloak that covers over all of the rest of her clothes so you can’t even see them. I dunno.

13: Do any characters have any distinctive birthmarks/scars?

Phoenix has a tattoo of crossed cannons somewhere (and also her, you know, vitiligo), George probably has a couple sailor’s tattoos as well, Isabel only has one arm, Celestine is missing her whole left eye, and Io has very distinctive scarring that she hides and is totally not going to become plot important at all.

14: Which character most fits a character trope?

Maybe Sheila? She’s the sweet and kind old lady shopkeeper who has all the best juicy gossip for our main cast to conveniently learn of.

15: Which character is the best writer? Worst?

Dione. Just. No competition. She writes poetry in her free time. She keeps a diar—I-I mean journal. Also she has actual training in writing but you’re not supposed to know that so shhh. Worst is probably Colin. He can barely read due to his dyslexia and as a regular deckhand he never really had the need to learn anyways.

16: Which character is the best liar? Worst?

You’d think it’d be actual thief and criminal Celestine but no, it’s Phoenix. Also another character I can’t mention because spoilers. Worst would be Colin. That comes up a lot. Sorry, Colin.

17: Which character swears the most? Least?

Rose. Swears. A LOT. Celestine does in Spanish. Least would probably be Alixandre because he’s just... too sweet. Too innocent of a boi.

18: Which character has the best writing? Worst?

Dione also has the best handwriting, since spoiler reasons but also she’s just like that. Colin’s handwriting isn’t the best, but it’s actually Io’s absolute chicken scratch that takes the cake for the worst. You wonder how people can even read her ship logs.

19: Which character is the most like you? Least like you?

Fun fact: Colin was originally based on another character of mine that was originally based on a sona form of me. So. His clumsiness is a new development, I don’t have that, and I’m apparently really good at lying, so there’re some differences. (Also I’m a writer and he can barely read. Oops.) But that obliviousness? That absolute clueless, distractibility? That inability to sit still? Those terrible puns and attempts at being socially adept? That’s me.

20: Which character would you most like to be?

I think Phoenix? You’ll find out why that is in the book, ‘cause her true personality isn’t quite the one people think of her as having, but... yeah. Phoenix is fun.

I’m gonna ignore the rules like a rebel and not tag anyone, so I’ll just tag everyone who wants to do this, instead!

Want to learn more about One Siren’s Soul? You can find the page here. I’m going to be starting a taglist soon, too, so let me know if you’d like to be added!

#oss #one siren's soul #wip #wip tag game #tag game #wip intro #wip introduction #writing #writeblr #writeblr community #ocs #my ocs #i enjoy doing tag games way too much #please tag me if you ever do them #plz

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freshfromthegraveyard · 6 years

Text

Bullying.

Super random.

As a kid who was bullied less by other students and more so by teachers.

I was bullied for my brain not matching my exterior. Being an embassy brat, when I came to the US for school I often was and still act like a foreigner in my own country. But I am a blonde white girl. So this was never well received. Not grasping certain things was seen as an act, or attention seeking. If I had the nerve to correct a teacher on something about a country I lived in. I was shot down in a publicly humiliating manor to ensure I knew my place. If I looked like someone from that country I gurantee they would have actually opened up the floor for me to discuss my homeland.

When I did start gaining weight due to an emotional trigger. I did still for some reason always maintain confidence in other areas. Like I knew I was getting chubby and fatter. But was like meh, whatever I'm still smart, funny and can draw. Heck I'm still a beast in PE. Running sucks but I can still do other shit. So I wasn't always picked last. I still had friends. If my weight was mocked I kind of got it and was like yah I did get fat but I can loose it. I was always active so it was never hard to lose a lil chub. Sadly I did go way past chub into super fat town and man losing that shit was hard and daunting. Still was the same me no matter what school I went to. Still made friends.

The only people I got super offended by when they made fun of my weight was the teachers. Because again, your an Adult picking on a kid. That is a low blow a cheap shot. Remarkably my bad grades have nothing to do with being fat. I don't go home and be like oh donuts well no time for school work. I will always have a learning disability, and a massive sleep disorder. Meds do help. I hate being one of THOSE people who fall under the excuses department but it is like night and day. It is not as simple as stfu and pay attention. I even got mad at myself thinking I was dumb because of this. Like yup, those honors classes you take now are just because of the meds. Your actually an idiot. Why do you take those AND a special class, why do you still take your tests in the library or have to read in total silence? Your dumb that's why! So I went off my meds to prove a point. The point wound up being my grades dropped and everything was so much more of a struggle. The stress was awful. It was the stupidest thing I could have done to myself. But just in case other generations feel that learning disabilities are cop outs. Please know. They aren't. Infact some people get tested for adult learning disabilities and it changes their lives.

Anyway, on back to bullying.

At one school, when I was first gaining the weight. I still had friends. I was still given the frog eye because of my white girl forgienerism, thankfully at that time I was in a private school and the teachers did not bully me about it because new flash private schools get military brats. Though I always had to write papers on countries I hadn't been to. Good call actually.

But here is the kicker. Though my bullying did not really start until public schools. Again I cannot stress enough that what was done by teachers was far more damaging then anything some kid could say.

I did, possibly unlike some bullied.

I always noticed who else was bullied.

I'm an odd lil bird in that, while I could be entirely self absorbed and be all about me. I remember who and why other kids for bullied.

I bet most people will think since I got bullied for being plump I only root for body positivity of the plump sort. You couldn't be more wrong.

The ONE person who had it the worst at the private school, was a tall lanky girl. She wanted the same thing all us girls wanted. To be like the cool girls at the time. She was thin due to her incredible metabolism, and her height, she was shy, and due to being made stand out, only getting shier. She was one of the first people I remember talking on my first day of school other then Rosemary a girl who just was genuinely cute and nice. I've yet to meet a Rosemary who wasn't. I get a whisper from a fellow student not to talk to this thin girl too much. I'm like.....why? Their like, well she's just kind of strange. I'm like, I'm new, so logically I'm gonna be the resident strange kid for a while. But how is she strange exactly. She just seems quite. Their like exactly. I'm like, 11 and confused af. I'm like, wait why is being quite weird in a bad way? Before I could spit most of that out the teacher agree on my suggestion of being quite. Being a embassy brat, I had NO probably striking up new convos with perfect strangers. Ie kids at a school I just met. Before the hell that was HS. I was anything BUT shy. When you move around a lot you need to make friends fast. That and I was born not giving a shit and thinking I was the shit. Before the weight gain I assure you I was cute as hell with attitude to spare. So I was not entirely wrong.

I didn't let this why is silent bad thing go. I still talked to this mysterious thin girl. I sat with her at lunch. Prior to that I kept asking why her just being quite was bad. They said it just made them uncomfortable. I did ask the obvious of did it ever occur to you guys that you treating her weird makes her silent. Their like no she came that way. I couldn't argue because a lot of these kids did know eachother since kindergarten so ya know. They maybe right even if it is wrong. In case you have not guessed. Being raised an only kid, overseas you have bennies of being treated like an adult and being more logical then a kid the same age. Hence why I sound more adult in this story cuz I always was even if I still enjoyed childish endeavors *Like I still do*

Here is the heart breaker. The thin girl at lunch enjoyed my company. I made her laugh a lot that day and got her talking *novel concept when you reach out to someone* at the end of lunch though. She said, this was nice but ya know you shouldn't really hang around me the other kids will black ball you. I'm like yeah, I don't care. She's like no, you should. I appreciate it, but another group has tried and the other kids make life hard on them. I'm like well I extra don't care. I said your kind of in luck. I don't stay at schools very long so by the time they do that to me I will probably be moving. Plus being the new kid I will be resident weirdo for a while. I can play dumb for a long time and befriend the black balled.

I told her which, I don't get why. I said, being shy is the last reason someone should be pushed aside. Granted it took me a few times to get you to talk BUT I gotcha damnit *swearing in Catholic school woot* *at a whisper less woot*

So I made friends, with the very group she spoke of who had made efforts to friend her. I also was friends with other groups. Including 2 class clowns, 2 twin black girls who too me for forever to realize they were twins. I had one jerk kid who ironically was a pretty chubby dude to be so judgy about me being a chubby chick. But I still was friends with thin girl be damned. Needed a book shared in class and no one would share with her. ME! And don't be fooled our one class clown never had a homework buddy because surprise ppl thought he couldn't be serious. ME! I think the funniest thing that happened at that school was rainy day recess where class was divided up for games. Started up with normal dictionary teams. Then Okay Megan is really good at this, let's pair her with the one person who isn't. Okay still really good at this both drawing and guessing. Let's make the team's be class vs Megan. It's only fair. Sorry it still amuses me. My one glory day.

Back to bullying.

Though at the private school, bullying was far minimal. and kids really had to be imaginative. Since we all wore uniforms. Kids had to be like, well they make us laugh, but he's probably not serious about his hw. Woo. Wow. Lame. She's too quite. So lame. She's too smart. All of these are so damn lame. And let's face it none are bad qualities. Sorry the kid finds hw boring and is a quick whit. You actually have to be smart to be fast in humor. She's quite. So she's reserved and actually nice if you reach out. Your only too smart if you can't use your book sense.

Now, public school. Girl was made fun of for being too thin, having the nerve to go through puberty *ie acne* and also was very shy, if not stand offish, not dressing nice enough. If anything, id say she tried to look her worst regardless of what students said. I could go on about warning signs this child had. My mom caught them instantly. Did the school? NO

Turns out she was being molested by her stepdad. Like, srsly. My mom met her once and got it. Oy. So sad. I have a lot of guilt for not being able to communicate better with her though.

Anyway, another girl, got made fun of for having big boobs which she hated especially during PE. I don't blame her.

Yet another girl made fun of for being too thin. She was petite and had all brothers. So she was small and mean.

Another girl was shaped more like a guy and strong. She excelled in some PE sports but still made fun of.

Guys, same deal. If they had curly hair that's a pain to style. Chubby but not good at sports. And idky other kids care if you are good at grades or not? Like, we all have the same hw if you can spell congrats. Some ppl have dyslexia so ya know kindly fuck off.

Why does a grade make you popular or not?

It's odd to me. It's like, you need to get good grades but not TOO GOOD cuz then your too smart and it's also weird. Public school bullying. Lawd have mercy. Talk about a new level of awful.

Again, I was attacked publically by teachers. Who decided I was infact fat and stupid and somehow cheating at art?

I had art taken away from me as it was a distraction. Since I was bad at reading out loud all of my work was to be delivered in this fashion. I corrected a teacher on some foreign affairs, as he got locations, pronunciation, law, and well just a fucking lot wrong about a country I lived in for so long. I held myself back on so much but it was like he was getting everything confused with an entirely different country. For one thing he was still mentioning a city by it's old name. Like omg update

your book man!!! When I finally sad something he blew a stack and made sure everyone in the class was aware of how fat and ignorant I was.

When I told my parents. Boy did they come undone. At the parent teacher conference this same teacher said "if Megan would put down the donuts and study this wouldn't be an issue" yah my dad pinned him to a wall by his neck. Mind you this was after he had already

Made repeated digs at me, my family, and pretty much anything we could stand for. My parents also made the argument that if a student was a concert pianist or a ballet dancer. Would they take away their craft? No. So why take away my art? Both piano and ballet are considered art. Needless to say this battle of the teachers vs parents and all the horrible things they said and did was not over. Two shrinks were involved, and the state was called in. Their shrink and our shrink. The shrinks wound up agreeing and asked the state to come in for a learning disability test. Hence me first getting diagnosed. The shrinks also needed the teachers to understand something. They brought my mom in, since the one teacher now feared my father *not that my mom couldn't take him* the teachers sat down, the shrinks showed them pics of me thin and active and the dates. They show me chubby then thin again due to being an active kid. They then ask when my recent weight gain started. My mom didn't even hesitate she just took off her wig from cancer to reveal her bald head and said about when this happened. She said she was studying to finalize some culinary school work at a local college. She said she knows her daughter felt food was an emotional way to be close to her. My shrink said. Sometimes fat is better then too thin. You can lose fat. You can't undo the damages of too thin if bulimia sets in.

So you'd think the teachers would back off. Ha. No. That one male teacher persisted that everyone has problems and I needed to suck it up. I was now all of 12. He loved making fun of me. I also noticed, though I was his favorite to pick on. I was not alone. He hated anyone who could not read out loud flawlessly. He hated anyone who was not athletic and bragged about his triathlons to this day I get an eye tick around the word. Friend of mine was a solid A student. Read flawlessly outloud. But guess what she had some small kid pudge on her. The second her history teacher went into his class. There goes her straight As. She got a B- in his class. Never on tests with multiple choice, just written work and general performance. Ya know subjective stuff. Not shady at all. Mom got wind and had enough. She sat in his class one day. In my friends class no less. Not mine on purpose. She sat their and made fun of him the way he did us. She's like hey kids, I know this guy makes fun of all the students. Let's make fun of him the same way. Isn't he kind of short? Like really short. I met his wife, he must use a step ladder to kiss her. He's also bald. Notice how he only keeps pictures of himself in tight triathlon clothes or old pics with long hair. Think he's compensating for something?? Who keeps pics of themselves on their desk!?! My husband has his family. Self centered much?

And what's with those triathlons anyway?

We notice you hate fatties. Were you a fatty? Do you run from calories? Did a fatty break your heart? What is it? Why do you hate them So? She's like, actually, it doesn't matter. Whatever your problem is it should not be taken out on children. My mom continued. She's like, ya know why he picks on you kids. One your the only people smaller then him. Two he is to cowardly to stand up to other adults. My husband pinned him against a wall and his eyes nearly popped out of his head from terror. Yeah. All talk this little fart. He obviously was livid talking over her saying she can't do this, he's calling the cops for trespassing.

Apparently when she opened the room up to the kids to pick at him they had a bunch of weird shit they noticed he does. One kid said he's just jealous because everyone likes his wife as a teacher better. That's why he made her stay home with the kids or keep having a kid. She's like everyone liked her? Whole room was like best teacher award every year!

Lol this dude didn't speak for days he was just fuming. It got better when, guess what my mom met his wife and put on her best cute, sweet innocent lady routine. I remember walking to our truck, douche teacher behind me. *cuz of course I had to stay after in his class for some kind of punishment*

His wife was all smiles at my mom, looked over at him with such a look. My mom had an evil smile looking at him like. Checkmate mother fucker. I sat in the truck, waiting for her. Dressed daper. Smiling. She sets behind the wheel, we drive off. She's like well we tried the proper channels first. He made me play dirty but I assure you the war is over.

So, turns out, his wife was a loved teacher BECAUSE she had a lot of patience for her students and taught both standard and kids with learning disabilities. So to say she was understanding is an understatement. I mean, my mom didn't know this when speaking to her. It was actually a whim, when she saw her while waiting to pick me up and just got to talking.

Anyway, the point of this INSANELY long post.

Is as a kid that was not so much bullied by peers as much as by teachers. I also was not always bullied about my weight as much as just being considered an attention seeking liar THEN my intelligence and weight was thrown in for extra damage.

It is true, the book by its cover. I am still a foreigner in a American white girl body. I still have some wires crossed. I still don't know all customs or referrences. My spelling is bad. My accent isnt. Family was 2 people. My perspective is Global. Africa, Asia, an American Farm is my background.

Bullying, just cuz I got fat. Doesn't mean I didn't see the people who got made fun of for being too thin. Before I stopped struggling in school. I noticed kids got bullied for their grades. As if the school and parents are not going to add enough pressure. If you have a talent that is not a sport or a musical instrument. You are not of value. Which is funny in a society that worships actors and models. All of whom rarely look a thin like they look like now in school.

There have been a lot of school shootings over the years. I remember when Columbine happened.

Remember early on in my status of the thin girl? Regardless of people telling me again and again that I would be some social pyria for being nice to her. I still did it. Over and over. I did more to make myself look stupid then she ever could have. Nothing ever happened to me because of her. Even if it had. I wouldn't have cared. Because I had a friend in her. We would at least be weirdos together was my logic.

If you make the effort. More then once. Because some shells are really hard to crack. Because some people have been hurt a lot. At least you tried. In COLLEGE none the less. My roommate and I met quite possibly the most socially awkward creature alive. We tried repeatedly to make friends or at least make peace with this creature. To no damn ivale. Senior yr this person asked me why no one likes them. I told them that wasn't fair because we all have made efforts to involve them in groups, shinnangans, hang out, we even through JUST them a birthday party. We have all made the effort. It's a two way street. I said basically you want friends like robots. You want us to turn on when you want us and power down in an instant when you are done with us and offer nothing in return. You also cannot be rude to ppl and expect forgiveness when there is really no foundation or trust built. We can say honest things because we know that friend is a friend and is sincere and cares for our best interest. You tend to think blurting out something offensive saying no offensive it's just my opinion and smiling is some how okay. It's just awkward.

So in that particular occassion. 4 years. My friend and I, as well as others. Genuinely tried to make friends or something with this person. Some people just want or view friendship differently. They may find a perfect fit later who is not you. But DAMNIT you tried. With bullying I just want people to reach out.

And if you see someone IN THE PROCESS of being bullied. Get off your ass and intervene.

Believe it or not, confusion is a great tactic.

Say 3 ppl are picking on a kid at lunch in your school. You could approach and interupt. You do not have to get personal. If they pick on you next. Point that out. Like what tools they are that that is all they can do. Bring friends over to help break it up. Honestly when I say confusion is a great weapon I mean it. Make up gibberish and start talking like that. Speak another language the bullies won't know. Anything that will just frustrate them and make them leave. Essentially your goal is to not engage with them, be as annoying as possible and make them leave. Another strategy is to be as agreeable as possible, so sickeningly friendly that they also lose their momentum. Gauge your situation, the energy and see which would work best. They sound absurd but diffusing a situation is far better.

The key is, don't sit by and let someone suffer.

Don't join in. Also guess what. As juicey and fun as gossip seems especially in school. Guess what, it's usually lies and incredibly harmful. If you partake you are an accessory to bullying. Shocking I know.

Learning how stop gossip in it's tracks when you are young is a great life lesson.

Sadly you will run into gossip at all stages of life. So stopping it, ...as best you can. When your young. Can safe a life!

The thing about gossip. If people don't have good dirt on someone, they will make shit up. Movies like Mean Girls and Easy A point this out. I've heard gossip about myself or friends and some is almost laughable how ridiculous it is. But going up to someone and being like hey is it true this that or the other. Or treating them different all of a sudden. As if we also don't hear the whispers.

Gossip is just a form of bullying. So think about it as being an accessory to a crime. It is equally as serious. Like a crime, you have the power to stop it.

So many people talk of the mass shootings, what about the kids who are as young as 8 taking their own lives due to bullying.

I really cannot stress enough, to please, if you see someone being bullied. Help that victim in the moment. Step in, bring back up. Be confusing. Be nice. Be whatever it takes to save a life or lives.

Also it is clear the bullying is caused from something. Usually bullies are being bullied themselves or have some sort of problem.

I remember reading one story of a bully who came unhinged over the smallest thing. Would lie in wait and actually burned another child with scalding hot water. Now that story was a case for mental illness. Which brings me to a situation. If a person is a bully and being bullied by someone else. Like another sibling, a parent, or so forth. That is rough because really not everyone can afford counseling which is what that would require. Next if someone is displaying violence due to a mental illness that too would require counseling, psychiatric and possibly medication down the road. All expensive.

It's not fair that mental healthcare of any kind is a luxury. When no one chooses to have mental health issues. Most insurance companies only allow so many visits. Not nearly enough to scratch the surface of a garden much less the human mind. Plus if medication was involved, that is such an arguous process. Any mental health medication is a huge battle of trial and error and all medications take a while to get into your system. For one to be properly judged for mental health, has to be in your system long enough for you to have had your moods elevated. Essentially were you challenged at all in 6 months time? Did you have a reason to get angry, or be depressed. Anything to trigger mood swings to see how the medication altered your brains reaction.

I mean damn. That is a lot to wait for, and rarely does the first shoe fit.

After working in a local ER. I realized how sad, and how many holes are in our health care system. How long people have to wait to see anyone. How long for a room to become available. How short your treatment is.

At the same turn. When you come across none feeling bullies. The type they tell young kids to kill themselves. That hound them every day and night. Stalk them on any outlet they can find. Because they have nothing better to do then bring one person misery. When do they become accountable?

I do believe some bullies need help to stop the cycle. I also believe some have shown signs that they live a charmed life, are not bullied themselves and show no signs of a mental illness. They have admitted to just being board. *maybe the mental illness is in the path family ;>_>*

Anyway, for those few bullies that qualify. I just wonder if they should be held accountable for say a wrongful death. If the person they taunted or catfished killed themselves.

I often think that because bullying has no consequences that that is why it continues.

That if it had something truly scary to face. Maybe then kids would cut the shit.

We all know, those who have been bullied. That if you talk to an authority figure. Absolutely NOTHING happens. You still get bullied.

ladies. Hahaha isn't that rich?

And what of those rare occasions where those teachers where beaten by students on a gang like scene? What then?

Or in reverse in my situation? Where I was bullied for the majority of my life BY the faculty. Who do I turn to in a school and say, your staff is picking on me?

My last job had a bullying situation.

It was unbelievable to watch unfold. It wasn't even in my department per say. In the employee handbook it said they took bullying seriously. They had a senior staff member who was a out of control bully. She had great work history, but I guess her head got too big. She bullied everyone something awful and they lost countless people due to it. Here's the thing, while she did EVENTUALLY get fired for bullying. It took a while. A lot of new employees where very honest about why they were leaving. Many current employees made it known that all the reasons things never progressed or moral was low was bullying. Apparently this was brought up in staff meetings but went no where. It finally came to a head when they got a new boss on the floor, and a long time employee moved from one department down to that one. I guess her statement was more believable then that of new employees saying I'm leaving because I was bullying.

The thing that bothers me is. A why would a new employee lie? A new employee wants to fit in. They want to do there best. They have to learn the motion of the ocean real quick. They wanted that job. I doubt they wanted to leave that job so quickly. For one it never looks good on a resume. Do you know how defeating it is to be bullied that bad into leaving?

That is why I find it sad they did not listen to the previous statements. I understand that for a bullying case to stick. I guess they needed plenty of evidence. I know they certainly had it.

But in the case of schools. A friend of mine teachers whee toddlers. From babies to 3yr olds. And she has told me how early they start bullying.

Back to my statement on whether it's mental illness, they are being bullied elsewhere or if nothing at all is wrong. Are factors. Because listening to her. She has seen all three that young already and it's like wow if you can catch it that early. Again we could save lives on both sides of the situation.

Sorry random memory lane. Coupled with some random thoughts about current events.

#bullying #mass shooting #stop bullying #suicide #help #overseas #mental health #children #teens #young adults #gossip #don't be assholes #morel of the story

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lesbiankormir · 6 years

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PLEASE CATT OR RIYO

RIYO IS COMING LATER BC SHE NEEDS SOME WORK i’ve had catt for a long time so this was easy to write out

B A S I C S

full name: catt. he is a technician but he doesn’t give a shit about the title, he just fixes things and minds his own business

gender: male

sexuality: gay

pronouns: he/him

O T H E R S

family: somewhat distant parents, but they got along ok. pretty much dropped him on his head in an apprenticeship for a statics lab as soon as he was old enough. he’s totally estranged from his family and anybody connected to his life before leaving rata sum, though he would still be in contact with his parents if he had a choice. no hard feelings

birthplace: rata sum. he’s a city boy and he misses it dearly, but he won’t ever go back. lion’s arch is his hometown now

job: airship mechanic, occasionally does smaller jobs to make ends meet. he has enough knowledge of asuran tech to be good at what he does but he really prefers charr machines, partially because he doesn’t trust asuran sources at all. he has firsthand experience with the inquest AND the arcane eye and doesn’t trust any of it to be humane. he won’t touch it unless he invented it himself, he can trace the sources back every step of the way, or he has no other choice. his workshop is also a front for the whispers and he occasionally has to tolerate agents coming in and out, hiding in his basement, leaving dead drops nearby and generally making his life difficult like a bunch of large, secretive, interchangeable pets. he hates it but he owes them so whatever

phobias: no real phobias but he tends to automatically mistrust any asura he meets unless they’re visibly and vocally not like That. you know what i mean

guilty pleasures: crappy paperback romance novels that nobody can EVER know about

M O R A L S

morality alignment?: chaotic good

sins - wrath. angry little rat man

virtues - charity and justice. he cares a lot about social inequality and seeing the underbelly of the asuran government really cemented his viewpoint. he hates centrists

T H I S - O R - T H A T

introvert/extrovert: extrovert. he loves & needs people but he isolates himself so easily :(

organized/disorganized: his workspace is pristine. it’s his little haven and he gets twitchy if other people fuck around in it. more normal when he’s just at home, depression piles™ will occasionally build up if he’s having a bad downswing and he’s not really on top of laundry or daily tidying

close minded/open-minded: he’s fairly set in his ways but he’ll usually listen if someone has a good counterargument. it depends on what it is - if you start with Why The Council Is Good, Actually, he’ll shut you down fast and hard lmao

calm/anxious: extremely anxious all the time all the time

disagreeable/agreeable: disagreeable. if he’s arguing with you it means he loves you. it’s when he’s quiet and compliant that you should worry

cautious/reckless: mostly cautious these days, but he’s had his share of reckless moments that got him in a fair bit of trouble. he can’t really control himself if he sees people in need but he’s not much of a deliberate risk seeker anymore.

patient/impatient: impatient with people and in times of conflict, but when it comes to his work he’s slow and precise

outspoken/reserved: extremely outspoken and has almost died bc of it before

leader/follower: prefers to follow, but he’d be a good leader if he ever wanted the responsibility. he cares about everything so much

empathetic/unemphatic: very very empathetic, he can’t switch it off ever. it’s his best feature and biggest inconvenience

optimistic/pessimistic: an optimist, despite everything

traditional/modern: a bit of a traditionalist. classic statics student

hard-working/lazy: very hardworking, pushed himself through college with dyslexia and depression, still feels guilty that he accepted help from his then-friends. he doesn’t realize how hard he’s worked really, he has major imposter syndrome and he’s never been able to shake the guilt he associates with mental illness/disability

R E L A T I O N S H I P S

otp: CATTNIMM FOREVER he needs his stoner poet boyfriend to help him calm the fuck down

ot3: don’t have one but i am accepting submissions

brotp: he’s best friends with byrne, they fight constantly but it’s bc they love each other. also has a decent rapport with lia but she freaks him out kinda, he doesn’t get along with many whispers folks. he was relieved when she was assigned to a new post in divinity’s reach far away from him

notp: he was in love with his best friend/krewe leader. he had major blinders on bc this guy helped him get through college with his disability, catt thought he could do no wrong, etc. his wakeup call was finding out their krewe had begun selling weapons and tech to the inquest, under his friend’s leadership, including several of catt’s designs that he couldn’t reclaim. the damage was done, he freaked out and ended up killing an arcane eye agent who got involved to keep things quiet, the whispers took him under their protection and the rest is history. this incident also led to him losing a hand. if he ever sees this guy again it’ll be a disaster

#gw2 #guild wars 2 #asura #catt #thanks mary asurafucker666 i knew you'd come through

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missyhopps · 7 years

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1, 5, 9, 13, 10

1. is there a muse that you wish gets more attention?

Honestly, Melissa. She is so chill and has her shit together probably more than the rest of them and I feel like i don’t always give her the attention she deserves.

5. if you HAD to choose, who’s your least favorite muse?

Oh man this one is kinda tough but I’d have to go with Ella since she is so uptight and it frustrates the hell out if me lmao!!

9. why were you drawn to each one of your characters?

Oh boy be prepared for one hella long answer (Under a read more for Reasons):

Melissa: I really wanted to play Judy Hopps in an rp and I knew I had to use Daisy Ridley cause she just fit so well to me and I absolutely love her!! I didn’t really find any rps that I felt fit for me but then I stumbled across this one and I figured i’d give playing her daughter a shot instead. Honestly, it was the best decision I have ever made!!

Blane: SO Captain Hook is like my favorite disney villain and I just love pirates so much I really wanted to play one!! As you guys know I am Star Wars trash and the idea of using Adam Driver (who’s my bae) as an FC popped into my head and I couldn’t resist. I really love blane though because he is a huge grump but secretly underneath he has a heart of gold and If you couldn’t tell by now that is like my FAVORITE Trope!!

Elliot: I really wanted a character from Frozen and I absolutely love Anna’s personality. She’s so loving yet feisty and I really wanted to transfer some of her personality into one of her kids. THUS Elliot came about!! He was actually originally meant to be a total smol but then the thing with Finn went down and he just kinda turned into an impulsive, fiery, goofball lmao!!

Aria: At the time when I brought Aria in, all the Olympus kids were really tough and just badass and then I got the idea of making an optimistic child from Olympus who was like the baby of the group and needed protecting and I knew I had to apply for her!! Also I really wanted a girl character since Melissa was my only one at the time.

Simon: I’ve always thought that Princess and the frog is grossly underrated and I just love that movie so much!! When I got the idea of playing Simon I couldn’t resist. He is just so shy and awkward yet loving and just ahhhhh he’s my little baby!!

Violet: Okay so I had been wanting to Play the daughter of Victor and Victoria for a little while but I didn’t really act upon it until Whale had said that she wanted to bring in Emmy. Then I was like Okay I have to do it now lol!! Honestly I love that she’s so gentle and vulnerable Even though I can be pretty awful to her for that very same reason. (Sorry Violet)

Chloe: I had been wanting to play a really crazy party animal type of character but I had zero idea of where to put her. Then I saw that The fairy godmother slot was open and I just fell in love with the whole rebellious, out of control, youngest daughter aspect!! The rest just kinda fell into place after that!! I honestly have no idea how the whole batman thing started though but it’s became one of the staples of her personality!! XD

Zelda: I really wanted to use KIm Taeyeon Cause she is bae!! I was tied between making her the daughter of Lucifer or Zero and I ultimately went with Zero because he’s like my fave and I lowkey wanted Halloweentown kid!! I think what I love the most about her is how clueless and excitable she is yet, she’s still endearing at the same time!!

Ruby: I just really wanted a bitchy stuck up kinda character and I knew I wanted a daughter of the queen of hearts so then came Ruby!! I then started thinking of really dark headcanons for her and she kinda transformed from being this stuck up brat to being a lot more vulnerable and I honestly like it much better that way!!

Rooney: Before Rooney I used Alex turner for this really chill, flirty son of Jetsem but my muse for him just plummeted. I really wanted to use Alex Turner still though cause he’s a total babe! When Lucy wanted a sibling for Stevie I was totally sold!! I love that he is like a stereotypical bad boy type who is a total fuck boy (even though he isn’t really so much anymore) with an abusive father and Idk I just really love him!!

Warren: I’m going to be completely honest the idea for Playing Warren actucally came when I heard Grim Grinning Ghosts on a halloween playlist lmao XD!! I actually went to Disneyworld last summer and I rode Haunted Mansion like four times while I was there and it just made me think about how amazing it is!! Then I started coming up with headcanons and a backstory for one of the hitchhiking ghosts and I become obsessed with wanting to play him!! I am so glad I did though cause despite the little shit he is I love warren!! He is really different then most of my other characters and I really love playing this smug asshole!!

Cecily: Beauty and the Beast is my favorite movie of all time and I really wanted to play a princess character so badly so when the slot for Beast and Belle’s kid opened up I knew I had to play her!! The first time I played Cecily she was just all up in everyone’s business and Idk I didn’t really like that a whole lot. Then my muse for her just disappeared and I dropped her which I regretted. Luckily I picked her back up again and she turned out being a lot more gentler and sweet the second time around which I like a whole lot more!!

Ginger: I love Suzy so much and I really wanted to use her but I had no idea where. Then idea of making her a sugar rush kid came to me and I really liked it!! Rancis is a little shit but I love him and the idea of him being this affectionate dad was one i fell in love with!! Ginger was supposed to be a lot brattier then she is now but she ended up being this total sweetheart and i don’t know how that happened lol!!

Elise: Originally Primrose was my sweet flower obsessed blonde princess but I lost my muse for her and I just really missed the idea of having a sweet nature loving princess. Rapunzel is like one of my favorite princesses and I just love her so much (Clearly, like I use her for my mascot and everything lol) So I got the idea of playing her and Flynn’s daughter and it was a total no brainer!!

Archer: I honestly have no idea how I got the idea to make a son of Sitron cause he is such a small and obscure character but I did. I know I wanted a skittish smol from the isle who was an easy target. Park jinyoung is such a cutie and he seemed to really fit the bill and so Archer came to be!!

Bridget: TBH I HAD THE IDEA FOR BRIDGET FOREVER!! Since last november I’m pretty sure. The idea of an energetic sweetheart who had dyslexia and was actucally really insecure was one that wouldn’t leave me alone. Eventually I gave in and the rest is History!!

Ella: Like Bridget Ella was one I had wanted for some time but just never had the strong enough muse to apply for. I also couldn’t for the life of me decide on a Fc for her. I thought of using Crystal Reed but then I ended up using her for Cecily. Then Rouge one came along and me being the trash I am, inspiration struck. Ella turned out to be a lot more of a pain then I had ever imagined she would be though lol!!

Olivia: Boo is adorable and I wanted to play a character who was just very childlike like that so I figured I’d play her daughter!! Plus Lee Sung Kyung is just gorgeous!!

Addie: My inspiration for Addie actucally came about when I was looking for Faceclaims to suggest on the Fc help blog. I stumbled Upon Ashley Moore and I thought Wow she could totally be the daughter of Coraline and Wybie. From there, I started thinking of a personality for her and headcanons and it just spiraled out of control lmao!!

I got 13 in another ask actucally and If I put it on this one it will end up becoming a novel lol!!

10.which muse is the most fun to write for?

I think i’d have to say Warren cause he’s just such a little shit and an unapologetic asshole. He’s also pretty different from the rest of them and I love the whole aspect of him being a ghost it makes writing for him a lot of fun!!

#{Answered}#{OOC}

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kitty-in-the-sun · 7 years

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Thoughts on Dyslexia

So for anyone who doesn’t know I am dyslexic. Not terribly dyslexic but sometimes.

Keep reading if you are curious about my experience with being dyslexic

I would describe my experience as initially frustrating but eventually I figured it out. When I was a kid I didn’t know I was dyslexic, I don’t think I got formally diagnosed until the second grade. From the moment I started learning how to read and write I would mix up words or letters. In writing it usually meant mixing up b and d as well as 9 and P.

The most frustrating part about it was that I really didn’t know which one was which for a while. Like I would just spell or write something how I thought it should go and then sometimes I would get in trouble. My sister liked to tease me about it but I don’t really have hard feelings.

Mixing my letters in writing is extremely rare for me now though sometimes if I’m writing to quickly by hand I will mix up the spacing. for example instead of writing “These eggs are extra” it will come out as “Theseggs ar extra” where I ‘borrow’ a letter from another word.

When I’m speaking it often translates to saying the wrong word in a situation, which I’ve learned to laugh off and joke about. I will also sometimes mix the order of words when I’m speaking, (though this is more a sequencing error), for example today I meant to say “there is only one type of person with tattoos on their knuckles” but what I actually said was “there is only one type of person with knuckles on their tattoos” which got a good laugh out of my friend. If I’m thinking about or looking at something else when I’m talking I’ll often accidentally say a word related to what I’m thinking about or looking at.

In reading it means that reading something that I can’y visualize is extremely difficult and I have low comprehension for what I just read. I can more easily read things like stories because I can imagine what is going on in the setting and fill in any “missed” words with context cues. Given enough time I can slowly read it and comprehend it. Usually I take long boring reads (usually articles from school) and break them into paragraphs or sections and then after I read that section take the time to write a brief synopsis of the main points that were covered.

Also in reading it is nearly impossible for me to read without “saying” the words in my head. Turning my inner monologue ‘off’ makes it really hard to comprehend what I’m reading. It does turn of occasionally when I’m reading a really good book because my mind is “in the scene”. For this reason I generally prefer stories written in the first person.

I also tend to memorize the shape of words that I read frequently. This more relates to reading bills at work as I’m seeing the same menu items repeatedly every day. For this reason the chef has had to change how certain things come up on the bill (for everyone but especially for me) because we had an item called the “stadium fry” and the “supreme fry” and because they looked to similar I always mixed them up resulting in wasted food and long running bills. I tend to prefer for the person running the line to read and call the bills to me aloud as I easily get confused if the bill is longer than 3 items. When I do have to read long bills I usually split it up by scanning for the different “shapes” individually. For example I will scan the whole bill and count all the orders of frys, then count the crispy chickens, and then the fish tacos, etc. I can also generally only remember to do 3 things at a time and get confused if I’m asked to fire 6 items at once, (probably also a sequencing error because my brain can’t manage the sequence for that many things at once and just forgets it all).

I also can’t read maps very well because I always mix up my cardinal directions and will pretty much always use the “left hand makes an L” trick to decipher left and right (note that if I don’t want to look like and idiot then I’m imagining the picture in my head).

I have good days and bad days for dyslexia. When I’m stressed or tired or sick I generally make more dyslexic mistakes and sequencing errors. Sometimes I go weeks without a single error.

That being said, throughout the years, and after a rocky start I have come to love reading. When I finished elementary school in grade 6 I had never successfully read a novel by myself. When I entered junior high I read my first harry potter book (Order of the Phoenix if anyone is wondering) and it started my trying to improve my reading skills. The story was so compelling that it encouraged me to keep reading even though it was exhausting. This, in my opinion, is what every child struggling to read needs. They need a story that will compel them to keep reading. If I didn’t finish the book I would never get to know what happened, after all.

If there is any note of hope, I have officially completed all my courses for my English minor at university. I never stopped loving books after I loved the first novel I read. Once I saw the value of reading I persevered and slowly my reading improved. Now my reading level is probably still below most of my class mates but I managed with a little patience and a lot of hard work.

Never let things like being dyslexic set you back. With enough time you can accomplish anything you want. Just remember to be patient with yourself.

It’s not a race, it’s a marathon.

#dyslexia #dyslexic #learning disabilities #personal #my experience #story #my story #dysgraphia

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screaminginkerch · 7 years

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To Leigh Bardugo. A letter of thanks. You've changed my life in such a way I could never repay you, nor thank you enough. As an artist, I could express myself in ways that I couldn't by reading or writing, quite literally. Since I was a child, I had a pretty horrible case of dyslexia. Growing up, I grew frustrated and embarrassed with myself, especially when a teacher would call me out to read aloud to the class. In high school, we were required to read several novels, and up until year 10, I had my sister read them to me. I then started to try reading again, to show myself I could do it. 4 months later and I'd finished only 1 chapter of a book, and I ended up asking the teacher to read to me after class. Only able to read small sentences at a time, I could manage social media just fine, which lead to me stumbling across a post by @here-be-fangirls on tumblr, talking about Six of Crows, the characters, and what she thought of it. It sounded beyond amazing, and something I'd read, if I could. The next day, I went to my local bookstore, and asked if they had any books by Leigh bardugo, and so the lady showed my to the shelf with her books on it, and to my delight, SoC was there. I didn't have much money, but I had just enough, so I brought it. When I arrived home, I was going to, once again, ask my sister to read it to me, but after sitting down with the book, smelling it, I started reading. I covered the pages so I only read one word at a time, and gradually, I could read without covering anything. It was really difficult, but I finished the whole book in 30 days. My first ever book. No one can understand, how excited and relieved I was, at the age of 19, to finish reading my first book. My family knew how hard I found it to read, and they were all so proud of me. After finishing it, I was also left shattered. IT WAS LEFT ON A CLIFFHANGER! I had to get the next book, but with some google searching, I discovered that the book wasn't published yet, but holy butts, I was excited. Because it wasn't finished yet, I saw on the back of SoC, there was a trilogy by Leigh, and I knew I had to read it. 19 days it took to read Shadow and Bone. 12 days it took to read Siege and Storm. One week for Ruin and Rising. My newfound hunger for reading could never be sated. I took to the Internet again, in search of a release date for Crooked Kingdom, and upon finding one, my excitement overflowed to incoherent noises of which my mother did not approve of, especially for my age apparently. I then discovered I could pre-order the book I craved. And of course, I did. BUT! I managed to get a pre-order of a SIGNED copy!! (With temporary tattoos ❤️) The day arrived. It was on my doorstep, in a white postal bag. But, I found it on the way to university, and I was very reluctant to open it, just because it was so special to me. Getting to the bus stop, (yes, I took it with me) my patience and self control ran out. Opening it, I was the embodiment of a fangirl, just ask my boyfriend. I found the tattoos, I opened the book to look at the maps and was amazed with the artwork. Thinking the signature would be on the cover, I said aloud, "ah well, I thought it was signe-*insert loud and incoherent screaming here*" halfway through the word 'signed', I turned the page to see "to Jess - *signature*" It only took me 1 day to finish Crooked Kingdom. In between all of this, I made a Twitter account to stay up to date with Rooster Teeth staff, and I started following Leigh. Whenever I made little doodles at Uni about SoC, or The Grisha Trilogy, I'd post it, I even said about how my mum was judging me because I was re-reading one of the books. She would make my day by just liking one of my tweets, or commenting on them, no matter how shitty they were. Now I'm going to get a little deeper. I'm on medication that I don't want to be on, for a condition I can't deal with, and it's hard to find comfort form anything. Because of another condition branching from this, I have to wear leather gloves during the day and in bed. I have too much energy and I can never sit still. As I said before, I could barely read for a large part of my life. I have a lot of trouble with beliefs that were forced onto me. I'm a slightly larger person, and enjoy my food. I'm actually pretty good with knives and swords.. Kaz: taught me that wearing gloves isn't a bad thing, and it kind of made me feel like a bit of a badass sometimes. Jesper: showed me that having boundless energy can be fun, and not an impediment. Inej: well, she's the wraith. Is there much else I need to say? Wylan: there's ways around reading, you don't need to be perfect, and there are other things to be good at. Nina: I can be curvy and still kick ass. Matthias: I need to be true to myself, and not be so influenced by negative words. Oh, and Wylan & Jesper showed me that I don't have to hide my sexuality. (SCREW ANYONE HATING ON LEIGH FOR INCLUDING LGBT+ IN HER BOOKS) Leigh Bardugo, here-be-fangirls, and reading really changed my life, my ability to complete exams, do uni work etc. So thank you, everyone. @lbardugo @here-be-fangirls

#leigh bardugo #six of crows #crooked kingdom #the grisha trilogy #grishaverse #this is a thank you #thank you #shadow and bone #seige and storm #ruin and rising #reading saved my life

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firstpuffin · 5 years

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A life of boredom; I hope people can gain strength from this pt 1:

One thing that I hear again and again about people with mental illness or learning disabilities or even just with a far from ideal situation is that they feel alone. I’ll say first of all that I’ve never felt like this; I’ve never felt alone and I’ve never felt like a disappointment or like I’ve let down my parents. But I imagine that it would feel terrible.

So I figured I’d put my rather boring story out there. It’s not one of success or any great tragedy; all things considered it’s been a pretty dull existence. But if it can help someone feel like they aren’t alone then maybe it’s worth it.

Also, I have no time to research a proper article.

This entry is going to be more of a background to who I am and what I had to live with, with an actual sequence of events coming later. Nothing particularly bad ever happened to me, but there were a lot of smaller things that built up; you know what they say about straw and the camel’s back.

I don’t really want to focus on the bad, I had a lot of good too. But you remember the bad, don’t you? While the good fades away.

So first of all, I was originally inspired to write this when I realised that when I graduate from university this coming May, it will be exactly ten years since I graduated from high school. This is astonishing for a number of reasons: one, it doesn’t feel like ten years at all and two, I still feel like I’m sixteen years old. A sixteen-year old who can drink and who maybe should have accomplished more by now.

There are other reasons why it feels wrong; I knew my best friend back in first school but we parted ways for middle school and by some holy shit level chance ended up in the same high school. And yes, we didn’t do the elementary to primary school thing; I only discovered that was even a thing during high school and I didn’t understand what it was. I went to three different schools and didn’t transfer once. But anyway, me and my pal have been pals constantly in the thirteen years since then; he introduced me to manga and to so many video game series and stuff. It’s also been roughly eleven or twelve years since I fell out with who had been up until then a constant in my life, but that’s for later.

It doesn’t feel like I’ve done much of anything, at least not anything of worth in those ten years. Not until I came to university.

Background: I am the youngest child in a family of four, my brother knowing what he has wanted since he was a child and worked constantly towards it. I would try to copy him and fail miserably. I looked up to him as someone who could do everything that I couldn’t.

My dad was a straight-forward thinker who comes across to new people as stern and scary, but in reality he’s basically a big teddy bear (not in that way; in the more traditional sense). You just need to get past that cold facade first.

My mother was overbearing but it was out of love rather than some other kind of twisted motive. I hesitate to talk too much about this lest it comes off badly, but it is a prime example of how the best intentions can go awry. She wanted me to be a child and so didn’t insist on making me do chores and instead did everything for me, so I never learned to be independent. Whether it was something to do with my combination of learning disabilities or just me as a person, I just let her do so. One of my greatest joys at university has been the independence, or more accurately the requirement to do everything myself. I love the cleaning the washing, the cooking.

Oh my god, the cooking. I loathe food. Or at least I used to, I’m still not a fan. I now think I know why, but the original guess was that because I had rhinitis (think year long allergies; specifically a blocked nose) and couldn’t smell anything, that I couldn’t taste things correctly. I now know that being dyspraxic can mean an oversensitivity of the senses; like taste and touch. My dyspraxia meant that I disliked most strong-tasting foods. Or really food in general. Sure there were a few things I liked, like burgers or pizza, but no curry, no shepherd’s pie… really nothing with a sauce or herbs. Or onion. Or mushy textures. Or mixed textures.

Guess what foods my family loved. Everything I hated. Mealtimes were the worst, I dreaded them. I genuinely feared going out to eat. And you know what made it worse? The complete and total lack of sympathy. I was fussy, I should just deal with it. There are children starving in Africa. So I did. I learned to eat things I hated for every meal, even when my peers would refuse to eat what they kinda maybe slightly didn’t like.

But now I live alone and I have slowly increased the meals that I do actually enjoy, or at least don’t dislike. And it’s amazing. I don’t have to fear mealtimes anymore.

Also, my parents didn’t do Christmas. Or Easter. Or Halloween. Or birthdays (although my mom tried to work around that). And Mom avoided fairy tales because she knew of their dark origins. You know, screw the current cheerful version of Cinderella; the older versions had body mutilations *gasp*. Bodily mutilations that…are not… in the current versions…

Mom meant well, but most of my Disney knowledge comes from the Kingdom Hearts series. So that’s weird.

And I’m actually kind of relieved that we never did Christmas, that holiday is a freaking mess.

So what else? Well just for a bit of background, I don’t and never did experience sexual attraction. This may seem like an odd thing to mention but do me a favour and look around; sex is everywhere! And it’s very confusing to a kid who doesn’t even know what it means to be or to find someone attractive. Over time I’ve learned to see what is aesthetically pleasing, but that’s just the viewpoint of an artist. It was very hard for me thanks to that; and even harder when during high school, events made me think that I was bisexual (it was high school, who didn’t think they were bi?). I’m not going into them because I still don’t understand what was going through my head, but eventually I realised that I wasn’t technically bi, because I didn’t experience attraction. I now say that rather than being attracted to males or females, it’s more that I’m not not attracted to them.

It’s weird, it’s confusing and hopefully you can understand why things were difficult for me. I’d be talking to my male friends when all heads turned to follow a shapely ass (I don’t get the appeal) and I would be wondering if they were listening to me (they usually weren’t). Still, it got some amusing responses from people who couldn’t understand.

Next, I didn’t have a passion like my brother, I had no motivations to encourage me to work and even worse, I was smart enough that I could coast through school with acceptable grades and the constant nagging that “I had potential”; although I suspect everybody hears that. Still, with no skills to speak of and no motivation, I just lived. Without purpose. I kinda still do. The only reason I have any goals at the moment is to keep occupied.

As a child, Mother was scared to let me go out, so I played the few video games that we had, watched the few television channels that I could, and read. Hoo boy did I read. My parents were keen on reading and so provided book after book and despite my dyslexia, I was soon waay above my peers. I was reading adult novels (no, not that kind; although one or two of the sci-fi books may as well have been) when I was in middle school (roughly around 9 and 13 years old; I can never remember). I firmly believe it was the reading that helped me overcome my dyslexia and look at me now, learning to write fiction and non-fiction and studying language. Of course, I have no social skills to speak of, so being able to go out might have been helpful.

I was also dyspraxic, but somehow I didn’t find this out until just a few months ago. Like seriously, I can’t blame anybody for this because it’s so extreme in its weirdness. My parents knew, adults I grew up with knew, even my brother knew; so how did I not? My assumption is that being dyslexic, I got the two very similar sounding words mixed up and for some reason people only focused on my dyslexia. It’s also pretty clear that my parents knew nothing about dyspraxia so that probably didn’t help.

But the dyspraxia was a huge issue for me. I couldn’t play instruments like my brother or friends, because I didn’t have the motor skills; I couldn’t do sports because I would kick a football in 180 degrees from where I intended, and when you can’t kick a football your classmates hate you to an unreasonable degree, no doubt due to living in a football-oriented culture (which is probably worth another article all by itself) and you begin to hate sports; I couldn’t draw like my brother (like seriously, he can do everything I ever wanted to). I had no motivations, no goals and I never tried because I couldn’t do anything anyway.

This is going to be controversial but do you know what made things even worse? My parents were religious. Christian to be specific, but they go by “The Church of God” like literally every fucking religion so I can’t tell you exactly which denomination. They didn’t believe in hell so I was spared that trauma, and my parents always tried to be open about things like homosexuality (“we hate the act, not the people”) so all in all things could have been worse. But it was a small church with very few children and it wasn’t long before it was just me and this one boy. And it was so, so boring. There was literally nothing to keep a child entertained and we weren’t allowed to walk off. I ended up literally walking in circles around the edge of a room again and again and a-fucking-gain for hours. Thankfully I enjoyed walking but I think people started to realise there was a problem.

I also wouldn’t get out of bed on Saturdays (because yes, the sabbath is actually on Saturday) and that definitely formed a weird habit. It’s pretty clear that I was depressed and so my parents eventually relented and let me stay at home. They were (and still are) convinced that I will return to the fold one day (I’m actually a hardcore atheist at this point). But that bad sleeping habit continued.

So that’s the start. I was a kid with a technically undiagnosed learning disability that conditioned both my mind and my body, and that always sucks. I had people around me who were motivated and goal driven and worst of all, who were talented! And I struggled to do anything. Without goals, without motivation, and with a mother who was willing to do literally everything for me, I effectively did nothing. On top of that, I developed clear signs of depression that have since gotten worse, and worse over time.

As I said though, things weren’t all bad. My parents loved me. None of us were particularly ill. I don’t know how many people I grew up with who had parents who had split and were uncaring. My hometown is full of people who have no desire to further themselves, who are happy to do nothing. I’m very lucky with my family.

Even if my brother is a snarky asshole.

#first puffin #biography #life lessons #coping with mental illness #yeah like anyone cares #thosetagswilldofornow

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