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bumblequinn · 7 months

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hi @sourpatchsquids! thank you for your question.

as an artist with ADHD, i know this struggle very well. unfortunately offering advice on this kind of thing can be tricky, because what works for me may not work for you (and vice versa!). nonetheless, i can try; take whatever works for you, forget the rest, or reshape any part of it as you see fit. :)

but before i offer any actual tools, i have one caveat. i want you to take a moment to reflect and consider if you should be:

changing expectations

the timing of this question seems fated, because just the other day i had a therapy session wherein i expressed my grief and frustration over struggling to work lately due to my seasonal depression. it's not fair that i'm struggling just because it got a little darker outside! i just want the spark i had in the summer! i was so much more consistent!

my therapist's response: nothing about human beings is consistent. we get sick, we get tired, we get hungry and thirsty (and thirsty) and sad and lonely and restless and stressed and overwhelmed. this all gets amplified for folks who are atypical in some way or another.

when my therapist compared our seasonal cycles to those of plants and other animals, who wilt and slow down and hibernate, i protested aloud that i wanted to be a perennial instead. at this she said: even perennials change with the seasons. rose bushes have to be pruned, sometimes down to half their height! it was a dose of perspective i didn't particularly want, but really needed.

so when you're struggling to work through executive dysfunction, burnout, or brain fog, it can help to first check in with yourself about a few things. what do you have the capacity for right now? do you need any accommodation? and if so, what changes you might make to accommodate yourself?

with practice and self reflection, i've learned a handful of specific routines that help me when i'm struggling with creative work, which i'll detail next. note that while your question is specifically about music and i am specifically a musician, i believe that all of these suggestions can apply to most any form of digital creative work.

with that in mind:

#1: work slower

when i'm at the top of my game, i can get a LOT done in a day. but when i'm depressed, fatigued, or distracted, i just can't go full steam. sometimes i'll try to convince myself that i can if i just push harder, but what actually ends up happening is that i'm just fiddling with settings and going in circles rather than moving forward.

instead of that, when i want to work a lot but can't, i try to work slow. how slow? however slow i need to. take four hours to figure out the melody for a single verse. take all day to figure out that drum groove. yeah, i take a lot of breaks in between. who says i have to be my Absolute Most Productive Every Day Or Else? that's the puritan work ethic talking. kill it. be kind to yourself.

i'm reminded of advice i once read about some super successful and prolific author (gaiman? king? pratchett?) who said they wrote only four hundred words every weekday. that's already less than the word count of this post, and i'm only—[travels into the future to check my final word count]... 22.8% of the way through writing it!

now, i don't think i could function that way, because ADHD means some days i'm hyperfocused like crazy, and other days i just have no steam at all (more on that in #4-6). but it seems to me that if even someone highly respected in their profession can achieve what they have with only a little bit of work on a regular basis, maybe i don't have to punish myself for not pumping out a finished work every single week.

doing less work per day means you're much less likely to burn out, which does a lot for working more consistently. if that consistency still doesn't look like a five-day work week, that's okay! as long as it helps you work even a little more often when you want to, it's something worth doing.

however, if you're still feeling truly stuck, all hope isn't lost. you can still try:

#2: switch projects

sometimes the reason i'm moving slow is because of a bad brain day, but sometimes the reason is that i just cannot muster the motivation to do the specific task i'm trying to do right now. ADHD is fueled by novelty and interest, and if i'm not interested in what i'm doing, or it's feeling stale, that's a sign that i need to switch gears.

this is why first it's helpful for me to have more than one project going at a time. this might mean completely unrelated works, or it might just mean related tracks as with the music for a game like SLARPG or susan taxpayer.

the idea here is not to start a dozen different projects and bounce around them like i'm playing whac-a-mole—though i have done that. (i don't recommend it.) the idea here is to have a manageable number of different projects i can be working on so that if i get bored or stuck on something, i have fallback options.

what that number of projects is depends entirely on the week. maybe right now it's two, maybe another time it's three. i would probably be getting carried away if i tried more than that, but that's just my own limit. maybe yours is different. that's something for you to think about.

but it doesn't have to stop there.

#3: switch focus

maybe there is this one project that i just HAVE to work on, but the task i'm trying to do at this stage just isn't coming to me. okay, well, why don't i try working on a different task?

let's say i can't figure out what i want to do with the melody in one part of the song:

what if i try jumping ahead to a different part of the melody? ...no, i'm stumped on melodies today. okay, how about working on the drums instead? ...hmm no, i think i'm just completely tapped out on writing parts right now. alright, what if i organized my tracks, making sure they're all grouped and named in a way that i can work with easily? what if i did a rough volume balance for the mix?

and so on. if that's not enough to shake the off stuckness, i might consider: what can i do to make this project more interesting to me?

what happens if i try using an instrument or effect that i almost never reach for? what if i try sampling something obscure? what if i bang out the drums using my midi keyboard instead of drawing it in on the piano roll?

any approach that breaks me out of my usual habits is bound to get that feeling of novelty and fun back when i need it.

or maybe i can't do any of that right now, and so i take the time to answer a question from a fellow musician instead. i consider that part of my work, too, in a broader sense. check in with yourself and figure out what you can do right now. the rest will still be there later.

but okay, let's say you try switching gears, and switching again, and again, and nothing is moving. you try new approaches, but that wall of awful is insurmountable in this moment. it happens! the next thing you might try is:

#4: learn something new

when you aren't able to make progress on your projects, you can still make progress on your knowledge and craft. i often find this stokes a flame of inspiration in me where there wasn't one before. and even when it doesn't, it still gets my brain out of that feeling of stuckness and dread and into one of thought and action. learning also benefits in the long term because it adds to the well of knowledge from which you draw for all your future works.

for all the awfulness that exists on the internet, it remains an absolute treasure trove of teaching. there's an endless ocean of videos, blog posts, and articles from which you might learn something about your craft. (and if you sail the seven seas, plenty of book PDFs as well. 🦜🏴‍☠️)

it's true that the quality and depth of information out there can vary wildly, but in my experience most resources get at least some things right. and the more you research, practice, and figure out what works for you, the better you will learn to differentiate between the advice worth keeping, and the advice to forget. (that goes for all of what i'm saying here, too!)

that said, since our shared focus is music, a few resources i would highly recommend are:

music theory and composition music matters, 12tone, charles cornell, music with myles, 8-bit music theory, and this introduction by andrew huang

mixing and production dan worrall (especially this series for fabfilter), kush after hours, red means recording, andrew huang, alice yalcin efe, in the mix

general inspiration nahre sol, ben levin, david hilowitz, game score fanfare, posy, jerobeam fenderson, open reel ensemble, and ELECTRONICOS FANTASTICOS!

(if any readers have their own helpful resources for creating music or any other media, feel free to share in the replies & reblogs! 💓)

of course, on an especially bad day, it might be a challenge to seek out information, let alone retain it. that can feel pretty bad, but remember: be kind to yourself. the next thing you might consider trying is:

#5: consume art you love

not just music. books. shows. movies. games. illustration. animation. whatever moves and inspires you.

but do it intentionally. don't just pull up some random thing the algorithm suggested! check in with yourself about what you want (or are able) to engage with right now. choose accordingly. if you get a little way into it and realize it's not scratching that itch, hit the bricks. check in with yourself again. wash, rinse, repeat, until you find whatever it is that speaks to you right now.

and do it actively, if you can. don't just let it go in one eye and out the other! really pay attention to the work. what do you like about it? what are its themes and motifs? what makes it work so well? what are its flaws, and how much do they matter? what might you do differently? you can write notes as you do this if it helps, but even simply noticing and thinking goes a long way.

what you don't want to do is come at this with a lens of shame or envy. you're not here just to say to yourself, "ugh, if only i could do THAT." it's okay if it happens. use that thought as a springboard for curiosity: "well okay, how DID they do that? do i have the resources for it? if so, how could i apply that to my own work? if not, how can i adapt it, or what do i need to learn?" keep your mind open and approach the work with a sense of wonder.

as a creative person, it's very easy to think, "i should be making something right now, not watching a movie!" but that thought forgets something vital: your art is a response in a conversation. of course the "language" you use is your own, and maybe if you're lucky you'll invent a new word. but most of the words you use have been around long before you were born. you're just one voice in a dialogue that spans continents and generations, and that's okay. it's even the whole point.

none of us is an island. we are profoundly social animals. just as we can't live without eating, we can't make without learning. so half of making art is consuming it. consider this part of the process as well.

and finally,

#6: rest, and live your life

let's say you're in really dire straits. you've tried working slower. you tried changing focus, you tried changing projects. you want to take in new information or actively engage with your favorite art, but you're not in the headspace for it. what now?

take a nap. take a walk. take a shower. eat a nice meal, or an okay one. talk to a friend. maybe even do that chore you've been putting off (you know the one).

it's human to always crave making, but you're not a machine—and even if you were, machines need regular maintenance, too! you wouldn't drive a car that's completely out of gas, and you won't do yourself any favors treating your body that way either.

i know that when you take a break it feels as though you're not accomplishing anything, but you are: you're taking care of your animal self. and while you do that, your creative brain doesn't stop working! much like windows, it has countless background processes running at any given moment, with inscrutable names like "cbdhsvc_692da" or "Microsoft Edge Update Service." it's true, i checked.

when you're stuck on a project and you step away to rest, your brain is still chipping away at your ideas unconsciously. i like to tell people, "it's percolating." much like waiting for a pot of water to boil, that idea is still heating up, even when you take a step away. just be sure to check in on it once in a while. the time will pass, and it'll be boiling again before long. :)

before i go, i'll leave you with one last thing to keep in mind as you try all of these strategies:

be kind to yourself.

being human is just about one of the hardest things you can do. let alone being a human trying to survive capitalism while living with disabilities! the last thing you need on top of that is to overwork yourself, talk to yourself negatively, or treat yourself harshly. there are plenty of other people in the world who do that to you—don't be one of them.

i'm not saying that you shouldn't try to challenge yourself, to test your limits and go above and beyond your ambitions, if that's what you want to do. just remember that hard work and self compassion are not mutually exclusive. so be careful not to bully yourself. take pride in the progress you make, even when it seems small. encourage yourself like you would a friend who's going through a hard time. and when you challenge yourself, be your own cheerleader.

i hope you find this advice helpful! remember, this is just what helps me, so don't feel like you have to follow any of it exactly. maybe taking time to learn new information helps break you out of your rut more than working slowly, so you reach for that tool first. maybe having multiple projects going at once is too distracting for you, so you prefer to stick to one at a time. whatever your needs are, feel free to alter and adapt these ideas to fit you.

thank you for reading, and i wish you the best of luck in your creating.

with care, bee 🐦

#adhd #advice #asks #from #sourpatchsquids

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unseededtoast · 2 months

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Turtle Doves | Joel Miller

Part Seven

Chapter Directory

Series Summary: In which two broken souls connect so deeply, that if one should perish, the other would surely die of a broken heart. (slow burn, timeline changes. After TLOU1, before TLOU2, assumed knowledge of infected, uses elements from both show and game)

Series Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence, death, and sexual content.

Also cross-posted on Wattpad and AO3. Link to my masterlist for everything else I’ve posted!

"When they return, I'll be waiting for them."

The eerie silence of the night amplifies every little noise. Joel managed to fall asleep about an hour ago, and each time he moves or readjusts, fear strikes me. For some reason, my mind is convinced that more infected are in here, when I know they're not. If they were, they would have made themselves known by now.

Looking back out of the window, I readjust the way I'm sitting because my legs have gone numb. My eyes burn from forcing myself to stay awake, but each time I close my eyes I'm haunted by images of the dead children. I tap my fingertips on the floor as I keep close eye on the horizon, looking for anything to signify life. My chest rises and falls dramatically as I sigh in frustration and disappointment.

Standing from the ground, I pace around the small corner I've confined myself to for Joel's comfort. I knew that he'd never let himself be lulled to sleep if I stayed close, he seems to be well guarded and generally untrusting. So I was surprised when I glanced over and saw his eyes closed and head leaned against the wall a few hours ago. Only the muffled sound of my boots hitting the floor can be heard, and I'm sure it's not loud enough to wake him.

My mind begins working through different scenarios once more. Like what is my next move if the killers don't start a fire tonight? How am I going to determine which way to go? I can't just guess at it, that would be a massive waste of time and would put me in unnecessary danger. My eyes drift back to the large windows on the wall, wishing and hoping that I'd finally see something. Each time I look and see nothing, a small part of my strong resolve dissolves.

Yawning, I find my fingers fiddling with my necklace, trying to keep myself inspired to stay here and see this through instead of feeding into my disappointment and going back to the QZ.

"Why don't we trade off?" Joel's voice startles me. My body jumps involuntarily at the unexpected sound and I look over to him, the moonlight illuminating half of his face. Once my heartbeat has settled to a semi-regular pace, I shake my head,

"No that's okay. You get more sleep, I'll be just fine." My voice is rough from staying silent for so long. Joel looks out the window.

"You haven't slept all night. You really think you can keep goin' like this?" His voice is deep and quiet, his dark eyes meet mine through the shadows. A part of me knows he's right, I can't keep functioning at my fullest capacity with limited sleep.

"I'm gonna have to." I say, my words betraying what I know is right. For some reason, I know I would feel bad if I took him up on his offer. This isn't his fight, he shouldn't have to stay awake for my sake. He shakes his head,

"You say that 'til you're face to face with death because your judgment is impaired and you make a simple mistake." It almost sounds like he's speaking from experience. I walk closer to him so that our voices can stay quiet, just in case there is something lurking around in here that we didn't see.

"But that won't be on you. And besides, this was my idea, I can't pass off my responsibility to you. You'll need the rest for your trip." I say, tucking my necklace back underneath my shirt. He stares at me for a long while, like he's trying to figure me out.

"Who are you after?" He asks. I shrug my shoulders,

"I don't know. Well, you heard what I said back at James' place, three kids were killed. They were all assaulted and mutilated. One of them died in my arms. And I had even checked that area not fifteen minutes earlier." My voice trails off as I remember the poor girl's last breaths and her blood smearing on my arms as she grasped at them for help. My gaze finds its way down to the ground and I blink away the tears.

"Who were those kids to you?" He asks, his voice sounding softer than it was a few minutes ago. I pick my eyes back up and stare straight ahead out at the city.

"I didn't know them. But nobody deserves that end, especially not kids." I say and turn my head to look at him. He just nods.

"Sleep. I'll look for them." He says and stands from his position on the ground. I shake my head and cross my arms, prepared to stand my ground on this one. I'm not sure why I'm so concerned with this stranger's wellbeing, but I can't find it in myself to be selfish and accept his offer.

"No it's oka-"

"No. Sleep. You'll need the energy." He doesn't let me finish my sentence before he turns his back on me and goes to look out the window.

I take his spot up against the wall, and lean my head back. If he's so insistent on it, then I guess I shouldn't fight it. He knows his capabilities and it's not my job to take care of him. My eyes close and the silence welcomes me to sleep quickly, maybe I needed this more than I thought.

"Hey." A shove on my shoulder wakes me and my eyes fly open. Quickly, I look around, not recognizing my surroundings. I find Joel's face above me, he's standing right beside me and must have nudged my shoulder with his leg.

"What?" I ask, suddenly alert and aware of where I am. I stand from my spot and follow him over to the window, where he presses a finger to the glass, pointing off in the distance. I follow his finger and see what I've been looking for all night. A plume of black smoke is rising to the sky.

My jaw sets tight as I watch the smoke dissipate in the air. The rising sun is visible on the horizon, I must have been out for a few hours. My arms cross in front of my chest and I make note of where it's coming from, and what streets I need to take to get there. If I leave now, there's a good chance I'll be able to reach them before they abandon their camp.

Turning away from Joel, I grab my backpack that I had put in my corner last night. I shrug it over my shoulders and tighten the straps so that the weight is evenly distributed. My boots feel like they might be getting a touch loose, so I bend down and tighten the laces. Once I'm sure I'm ready to leave, I take a centering breath and go over to Joel and extend a hand.

"Pleasure doing business with you." I say with a small smile, appreciating his willingness to stay with me. He looks down at my hand and back out the window.

"The smoke was to the west, the way I'm headed back home." Is all he says and I awkwardly drop my hand back down to my side. My eyebrows scrunch together, not entirely understanding what he's implying.

"You could go around, might add a mile or two to your trip though." I say, glancing back at the smoke plume. Joel takes a moment to look back out at the smoke before he nods his head and holds his hand out. I take it and give him the firmest handshake I can.

The two of us turn and make our way back down to the street, the sun quickly rising in the sky. If I can pull this off well, I might even be back home before sundown. Off in the distance, I can still see the smoke. Joel and I turn to one another before we part our ways.

"Stay safe out there." I say with a small smile, hoping that his trip is uninterrupted and goes well for him. He's probably got a family waiting for him, and they deserve to have him back. He gives me a curt nod,

"Good luck." Is all he says before we embark on our separate journeys.

I begin walking towards the smoke and try to get into a fighter's mindset. It's not only the people I have to worry about out here on the streets. I push every other thought out of my mind and try to get back into the headspace I had years ago when I had to fight the infected every day on patrols. They're quick and they're strong. So, I have to be quicker and smarter if I want to live. The same goes for dealing with the killers.

My stomach twists the closer I get to the smoke. I don't like that I'm essentially going in blind, who knows how many there are. It would be in my best interest to try and pull this off stealthily. If I can find some sort of vantage point before I get too close to scope out the camp that would be best. It would be really nice if I had a rifle with me, then I could find somewhere up high to camp out and take them out like that. But unfortunately, rifles are very difficult to find nowadays, even more so now that the arms trade has slowed in Boston.

I keep moving forward until I find myself close enough to the smoke where I can smell it. Taking a look around, I find an old store off to the right where I should be able to get a good angle on their camp. Swiftly and quietly, I make my way to the store with no interruptions and carefully step through the broken glass door. I'm careful to keep my footsteps level and close to the ground, so that the glass shards don't make too much noise.

The store looks like it had been ransacked years ago, and is now a mess of tipped shelves and useless products. As I make my way to the back of the store, I look at the discarded items, making sure there's nothing of use that I can grab. But it looks like all that remains are empty boxes and various electronics. Nothing that I can immediately use to my advantage. The back of the store houses the roof access point and I climb the ladder, pushing the entrance open with a small squeak.

Sunlight blinds me as I step out onto the roof and I quickly crouch down so that any wandering eyes won't be able to spot me. From my vantage point, I see a small camp. There's one tent set up and a smoldering fire in the center, billowing white smoke now that it has been put out. Squinting my eyes, I see one person standing around. But nobody else.

My blood runs cold, that has to be the killer. Or at least one of them. Maybe the other one is off patrolling the area or something. If I can go take that one out, then the other should be no problem. However, it all seems too simple, too easy. Something just doesn't feel right to me. But, maybe I'm just overthinking this and it really is going to be this simple.

I wait for a few more minutes before I leave the rooftop, just to be sure nobody else is going to show up. I don't hear anyone in the distance, so I have to guess that the coast is clear, or at least will be clear enough for me to get down there and take down the person I saw.

I stay crouched as I make my way to the camp, grabbing the curved blade out of my belt and holding it tightly in my hand. All of my focus is on staying quiet and making smart moves. My mouth goes dry as I approach the edge of the camp. Hiding behind a building, I peek out to make sure nobody else somehow showed up.

The same person is standing by their tent with their back facing me. It strikes me as odd, but maybe they got their hands on some pills and are too spaced out to know what's going on. Before I leave my cover behind the building, I close my eyes and say a silent prayer with shaky breaths.

My eyes open and I'm focused on one thing only. To kill the man that stands a few feet from me. I turn the corner and take calculated steps, avoiding debris on the ground. My breath is silent, but my heartbeat sounds incredibly loud. The man isn't turning around, he's standing oddly still and it sends a familiar panic through my body.

I freeze in my tracks as my boot steps on a rogue twig, probably meant to fuel the fire but never got used. Within the blink of an eye, the man turns around and it doesn't take me long to register that he's not alive, well, not humanly. The man's reanimated body screams out and runs toward me, hands outreached to grab me.

I dodge his swing and plunge my knife towards his head. The recently-turned man is fast, and my knife only catches a few inches of his throat. I don't have enough time to react to the missed slash before I'm tackled to the ground, the man's teeth inch closer and closer to my neck as I try to fight him off.

My panic somehow makes me more focused, and old maneuvers feel like muscle memory. I bring my knee up and hit the man, throwing off the equilibrium so I can get the upper hand. As he's thrown off balance, I use the momentum from my kick to bring my body above his, my hips straddling his torso. Without thinking, I raise my knife and bring it down into the man's head. His body goes limp and twitches as he dies once again.

Blood splatters my hands and forearms as I pull the knife from the man's skull. I use the man's green shirt to clean my blade and then I stand from the ground, looking down at the corpse. He looks recently turned, maybe a few hours old at this point. Turning around, I look for any more runners that may have been tipped off to the struggle, but find nothing except empty streets and silence.

Taking advantage of an empty camp, I start rummaging around for anything they left behind. I check the man's pockets first, finding nothing but an old cigarette. Next, I search the tent and find an old map shoved underneath the sleeping bag. Unfolding the map, I see several marks on it.

The Boston QZ is circled, and I see a few other cities with the same circle. Other places are marked with the Firefly symbol. Sprinkled throughout the country there are some areas marked with stars. One location is marked with a large 'T'. There's no indication of what these symbols mean, but I can deduce some things from common sense. I can only guess that the circles represent QZ areas and the Firefly symbol is where known Firefly outposts are; that much is fairly obvious. The T might represent where these people came from, but it's all the way out in Nebraska. As for the stars, I don't have the faintest idea.

I fold the map up and put it in my bag to study later once I'm not out in the open. The rest of the tent holds nothing of value to me and so I move out and check the fire. There are scraps of paper in there mixed with twigs. Reaching in, I grab the largest scraps I can find, and see that there's only a few legible words left on each. The one scrap says "eliminate" and the other says "immune".

Moving on and not dwelling on what those words might mean, I tear apart the rest of the camp to look for anything useful. Beside the fire there's a second sleeping bag and I reach my hand down in it, pulling out another piece of paper. These people love writing notes to one another it seems.

The words on the paper are a lot more useful than the scraps I found in the fire. I read it quickly and read it a second time, not believing what I'm seeing. The note is almost like an instruction guide. It tells whoever was here what their mission was. It looks like their mission was to hit all the QZ's in the northeastern part of the United States and kill children between the ages of thirteen and seventeen indiscriminately. It doesn't say why, but on the bottom of the paper the Firefly logo is drawn.

I put the paper in my bag along with the scraps and map. What do the Fireflies have to do with this? Going back to the man's body, I look for the telltale sign of the Fireflies, but see no pendant around the man's neck. But what I do find is the letter 'T' carved into the skin of his chest.

Making sure there's nothing else to find in the camp, I move on so that if someone does come by I'm not caught off guard. I return to the store rooftop to monitor the camp some more. If someone does come back, they'll need to be killed for their involvement as well. Nobody is going to be spared from this group if I can help it.

The sunlight begins fading, and it's becoming abundantly clear to me that nobody is coming back to this camp. Infected probably came by and they scrambled, leaving their friend to his undead fate.

Back on the move, I decide to go west. I know there's more of these people out here and if I'm right about the map, they might be going back to where they came from in Nebraska. And even if they aren't going there now, they will eventually. And when they return, I'll be waiting for them.

#joel miller #joel #joel tlou #joel miller tlou #joel miller x oc #joel miller fic #joel miller fanfic #joel miller the last of us #the last of us #tlou #pedro pascal

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sygol · 2 months

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does it distress you to be host to so many with little memory in between at times? or is that just part of life while plural for you?

this is gonna be rambly: im not plural because of any trauma, I've never been "singular", its not really distressing to me except when i get really psychotic and ruin a relationship with someone because i get weird, it doesnt happen often, but its embarrassing and quite sad when it happens. but otherwise, rotating through different perspectives and memories and schema is regular to me, sometimes i am shifting between stuff so quickly that the demarcations and understanding of the world around me is constantly warping and morphing. this is really just a way for me to cope with being the crazy that i already am. im gonna go off on a little tangent and say that i think the idea of being one being or one identity is extremely weird, like a facet of trying to force people to be individual entities within society so they can be tracked and taxed. i think the notion of identity is a delusion in the first place. when i was young i didn't interact with many people out of lack of any interest in it, and was very internal with my world, i live like this because it is most comfortable to, i am very anti social in general and i find that trying to manifest as a specific mask or being is really only relevant to me when i am interacting with others who dont understand me..

i know this is sort of digressing from the question you asked but i feel this is contextually relevant to explain why i am "plural" in the first place, i dont always have issues remembering, its only when i wake up with none of the aspects that were fronting the day before, i can wake some of them up and query them about memory to spread the memories to my other parts and fill in the gaps, but generally im just overall shit at remembering because im retarded and have memory issues by default lol, i think that being plural in this way actually improves my capacity for memory and function regarding it

#asks

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drdemonprince · 9 months

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are there any arguments against the following hypothesis:

a lot of people carry (intergenerational) trauma in their brains and bodies. Some people choose the construct of autism to label their intergenerational trauma traits. this gives a sense of belonging to a community, which people in capitalism carrying (intergenerational) trauma don't have. Intergenerational trauma can be healed (IFS and Ancestral Lineage Healing are two great approaches for this). This would mean that autism can be healed, and I know this is an utterly triggering and ableist sentence. We classify it ableist because the pathology paradigm of mental health has taught us that healing means 'getting rid of' or masking. What healing actually is and should be is getting to know, attending to and listening to (autistic traits, for example). If we listen and attune to something, it relaxes. So if we listen to our autistic traits and needs, they soften and may become less prominent (the result of unmasking). If autism is the brain and if everyone has brain plasticity, transforming the brain by listening to our autistic traits and attending to their needs may actually make us feel like we have fewer autistic traits. This may feel threatening because we might fear losing our sense of belonging (being autistic or identifying with the autistic community). Not everyone has the privilege, resources, and capacities to attend to and 'heal' aspects of themselves. Society limits the possibilities in which we can accommodate our autistic traits and the prominence of harmful 'healing' paradigms gatekeeps us from the healing we actually need. Most healthcare providers are unaware and still being taught harmful approaches to 'help' body and mind. A lot of harm is being done while slowly but surely new paradigms that are actually helpful are shifting into mainstream Western (mental) healthcare sectors.

A lifetime may be too short to heal all the intergenerational trauma our bodies have accumulated. So identifying as autistic, belonging to the community, and using the construct of autism to deal with our experiences in the world is one solution to protect ourselves during our lifetime and in this quite fucked up society, and to feel some sense of belonging in midst all the craziness.

What am I missing and what are your thoughts? Maybe this is more a late night ramble than anything that actually makes sense to anyone, and that would be okay too...

There are a couple of faulty premises here. The primary one is this:

"So if we listen to our autistic traits and needs, they soften and may become less prominent"

That's not really what happens, and in fact unmasking is the act of your Autistic traits becoming MORE prominent and you shaping your life around them MORE.

I'm sympathetic to many of the ideas you are sharing vis a vis the social construction of disability labels including Autism, but certain elements of the experience such as sensory issues and gross motor deficits are very much NOT negotiable or best understood through a social or contextual lens alone. I had pervasive developmental delays relative to my peers not just socially, but physically too, and nothing is making my sensory issues or propensity to Autistic burnout go away.

I think this take on Autism is largely more appealing to maskers who, in a different life, would have been Aspie-identified. Not saying you're that, I'm just commenting on your positionality relative to those in the community who cannot verbally speak, couldn't write with a pen or walk due to motor deficits, have regular seizures, or can't mask at all. I may pass for what people used to consider to be "high functioning" in a lot of ways but i was also in special education because of physical disability caused by being Autistic, so I'm a bit sensitive to the interpretation of Autism as solely being a social mismatch or a trauma effect or things of that nature. I think many mental illnesses are basically just trauma symptoms with a worse more stigmatizing label put on them, but Autism is a lot more than that.

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roebeanstalk · 1 month

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boop

not doing well at alllll today. the financial stuff is always rough esp when it's the first of the month. i have so much guilt over asking people to help out with stuff, but i can usually get it in check and still be able to function to some capacity... but it's feeling hard and like it's going to take forever to pull in april rent. it's just so much this month. regular rent, two months of payback for nov rent, and my roommate texted me like... pretty sternly about paying him back for stuff. i am trying to just keep my head in a good spot. but he's here working from home today and i like...won't even leave my room to refill my water bottle or pee or get something to eat. it's not good.

so now i'm fighting like, spoons. what do i have the spoons for. i'm working rn, but i want to eat something, but i don't want to leave to eat something. and realistically i should go and buy something more substantial to eat but then that takes out of rent money, or if i'm spending money on not-rent it should be going directly to my roommate. let alone like, i have to walk past him in the living room to leave in and out.

idk. i'm just... i'm trying not to listen to all of the thoughts going through my head because 99% of them are not helpful. but just doing that alone is enough mental energy that i can barely do anything else.

i'm glad i have therapy tomorrow and i can talk about all of this. i just like...am so scattered and stuck at once and it sucks.

i'm working on pwyw commissions right now but being so, so inefficient and realistically should just take a step back but i feel like if i do that i'm a total failure.

this is all just pulling on past experiences of failures and money issues and near evictions and every thought i know people have had of me and things people have said and just...everything is intertwined and knotting up tightly and constricting, suffocating me.

and then the feelings i get like, physical anxiety ones, are linked to all of the other traumatic bullshit that i've been through that it just...spreads out and triggers it all at once. i am beaten down.

i'm not going to let this destroy me. i am going to keep going. i want to let myself rest but i don't think i can yet. or should. idek. -_-

#vent

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adobe-outdesign · 1 year

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Thoughts on Zarude? I always thought it was weird that it's classified as a mythical when it's canon that there's just a population of them out and about.

While I'm not really sure how much we needed Zarude in any capacity (as it mostly seems to exist to tie into its movie and very little else), and we probably didn't need another monkey, given how many primate Pokemon we have. BUT, with that said, this is probably one of the best looking monkeys GameFreak has given us.

I think the aesthetic of this thing is pretty cool; dark fur with some rib-like markings on the underbelly (somewhat mimicked by its shoulder and head fur), vines around its arms that function similar to Spiderman's web-slingers, and a really cool face with a distinctive muzzle, eyes, teeth, and fur pattern. The body proportions are also good; not overly human, with short hind limbs (including dew claws of all things), long arms, and a wide chest.

The only visual nitpicks I have are that the random green triangles on the palms are bothersome and not needed, and the second stripe on the snout makes the muzzle harder to read. Everything else is solid.

I guess the "dada" version of it is technically a different form, but A) it's not really a form because it's just regular Zarude wearing a cape/blanket and B) it only exists to tie into the movie. I feel like it's a bit odd to have a form that's more of a specific character than it is a, you know, form, but it's most inconsequential at the end of the day.

Speaking of the movie: The alternate designs they have for the other Zarude in the colony are neat. I do think the mythical status thing is maybe pushing it a bit when there's so many of them, but I think the colony's supposed to be extremely isolated; knowing there's a lot of something out there doesn't make it less rare to find if you don't know where it is. It's a bit of a stretch, but I can buy it easily enough.

So overall, this is a pretty solid monkey. It growing its own vines to swing with is a solid concept, the proportions are nice and animistic, and it has a very unique face with a pleasing shape. It might not have been strictly speaking needed, but I am glad we got it regardless.

Also, this doesn't have anything to do with the actual Pokemon, but the way it's animated in the movie is gorgeous and I need everyone to take a second to acknowledge this.

#zarude #pokemon #pokemon anime #pokemon reviews #.gif

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dissociacrip · 5 months

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i wanna punch anyone who says "just stay home" to people irt anything about disability or otherwise frames staying home most or all of the time as an easy, consequence-less existence in the throat. this includes mental disability, but i'm especially talking about physical disability here.

i am ambulatory and not bedbound or housebound and i won't claim that experience. i'm also (mostly) capable of living independently. but part of the reason i didn't understand i was physically disabled for so long is because i have, up until this point, spent most of my life at home and in bed unless i was in school. i didn't go out with friends on a regular basis and most of the long outings i've been on were when i was less sick (even though i was born disabled) or when i was too young to understand that what i was experiencing was - in fact - not normal and not how "healthy" and "functioning" bodies work. having to work, having to be much more physically active, is what has really highlighted that my body doesn't work properly to me.

so like, the only way that i can avoid pain and suffering is by being at home. in bed. doing nothing. i get physically worn out just from sitting up and folding my clothes.

and i'm fed up with it because now that i'm in a situation where i can actually go out and do things with people, where getting to go out and do these things is bringing to my attention that i am in fact a cripple with limited physical capacity, i'm realizing how fucking miserable it is to be home all the time. because before i didn't really have a point of comparison. when i don't get to see people and socialize for a while my mental problems start jacking up too. my boyfriend tells me that working from home is probably the most accessible option for me once i graduate, but i don't want to because being home all the time. fucking sucks. and while my current jobs are manual labor that makes me miserable in other ways due to my body not working correctly, at least it's an excuse to get out of the house and be around other people.

not being able to participate in society to the same extent as others, barring the fact that said participation does open up some more avenues to ableist violence in my experience (sometimes i ask myself what is even the point if society evidently doesn't WANT me participating in it), is miserable. being home all the time and not getting to experience what is conventionally framed as "real life" is miserable. being isolated and cut off from the world fucking sucks.

not to mention isolation makes some of us so much more vulnerable to certain forms of violence - e.g. being stuck with abusive family and caregivers. just look at how abuse/domestic violence spiked during the height of the pandemic.

and if it sucks for someone like me, imagine how it is for people who are housebound or bedbound. or who are avoiding being in public nowadays because COVID could kill them and most people and institutions have thrown all precautions for that to the wind. this isn't even going into the ways in which society physically bars us from the public thanks to inaccessibility.

i remember when the lockdown first happened and a bunch of abled people were talking about how miserable it was to be stuck inside all the time and 1. my immediate thought was "welcome to the fucking club, this has been my life for ages" bc i'm a bitter asshole and 2. i wonder how many of those people make any kind of active effort to make the public safer and more accommodating to disabled people, including masking, whether they know them personally or not, because while maybe they can return to a "normal" life, some of us have never gotten that chance in the first place, do not have that chance right now, and those things are inextricably linked to the way society is structured and the oftentimes the decisions abled people make in their everyday lives.

so stop telling immunocompromised and high-risk people that they should "just stay home" and also stop pretending people who spend most or all of their time at home due to disability reasons are lucky or privileged.

#j #ableism

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this-should-do · 8 months

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oooh now I’m curious about Ed. Are they sentient? To what capacity? Also the crow seems interesting if you wanna talk about that

oh no, ed is really just a regular zombie, any sentience that may be seen is sentience as viewed by angus who is functionally the last living person around, and due to that tfact and that he doesnt want to accept that ed is dead and he is well and truly alone has fully convinced himself that ed is still in there somewhere and he just has to figure out how to cure ed, thankfully for him, depending on how you see it, ed is mostly non hostile becuz he no longer ahs any way to fight back, his chest mouth is covered most of the time by the suit and his arms have been removed (originally i decided that angus cut them off in self defense but am not sure hwo much i am gonna stick to that) so for the msot part ed and angus are co existing and angus has definately over the years ingratiated himself to the ed (the headcrab) by bringing him food and keeping him safe sorta like a wild animal being socialized even if they can still be somewhat of a threat and will act out in certain conditions

teh crow as of now is mostly uninteresting, the last post i talked about htem in sorta covered everything lol, theyre just a goofy guy who has a bus and they hang out in the silos and fuck around lol they steal magnussons yogurt, move his stuff around, hoard tacos etcetc, theyre so silly coded lol

#oc: ed #oc: angus #ask #hi neon glad to see u stop by :)#ponderingradioactivedecay

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aussievriska · 2 months

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Okay so I’m trying to get a job I am trying so hard to get a job. To get said job I need to pass a physical, I pass, all is well.

In two weeks I get a call. Said call says that, because my, k10 score was high, and I mentioned previously being on ADHD medication, I need to? Get my doctor to verify I can work?

This is fine this is fine I get a doctor who I’ve seen once or twice (I don’t have a regular doctor) usually has a two week waitlist to come through and sign off that I can work. Except its not a sign off he needs to answer with a whole essay confirming my diagnosis, my current treatment plan (that I don’t have), whether I manifest insight into my condition, my functional capacity, my ability to sustain attention, am I compliant to requests for medical reviews, is my condition well controlled how long has it been well controlled for, Do My Meds which I USED TO TAKE adversely affect my ability to work, do I have Any comorbidities (substance use, personality disorder, other medical conditions) and also they want the last report from my psychiatrist.

doctor gives a flippant response but it’s, fine, we hope.

All this because I used to take ADHD medication.

You know I never really understood how having a diagnosis could prevent people from working, not having a condition, but having a Diagnosis, because surely, that would be discrimination. But this is my dream opportunity and, now I don’t know if I’ll succeed. Because, time is short and my medical report is taking too long. They might just chose someone else for the position. All because I Used to take ADHD medication in highschool? And now they know about my therapy history too so god knows what will happen there.

I just.

Wow!

#johanna posting #thoughts #mental illness #adhd

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perpetuallyfive · 9 months

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I'm not going to reblog someone else's post just to disagree on this, but I genuinely don't understand why people are so upset by the way the One Piece (Live Action) ads are functioning on tumblr.

Like first of all there are just straight up actual ads on the dash showing up — though I seem to be seeing them way more on mobile than I am on desktop, so maybe that's part of the confusion — so it seems pretty obvious they're running an ad campaign, and on desktop there appears to be just a tab rotating through fanart and little hyped up posts created in anticipation of the show, somewhat focused on one Straw Hat at a time in lead up to Thursday's release.

None of this is being re-appropriated into a new context or transformed into a regular ad. They're putting posts on a tab in a timeline, the same way they do a "hey this is trending" tab already. Any art appearing this way is in its original post, with its original tags, with the artist's username, with a capacity to reblog and add to the notes, making their work much easier to find than in the current search format honestly.

Tumblr needs money to continue surviving, so obviously they're going to accept payment for ads, and if one of the ways they choose to do this is just making things that people are choosing to tag slightly more visible rather than inserting a million ads onto your timeline all the time, I'm not sure how this is some morally reprehensible thing that should be opposed. What even is the anger about, other than people just immediately being mad when something you like on the internet needs money to survive?

#i don't know i just feel like it doesn't actually feel like other people's work is being used IN AN AD even if it's part of a campaign #just to be like ''we're advertising this thing and also here's some stuff people who already like the thing made''#since functionally ''here's a thing i made about a thing i like'' is what tumblr is about #so this feels more like ''we are promoting you - the fan creators - at the same time as we are promoting the product''#feels like what they're going for #instead of ''we are stealing your work unpaid in order to promote a thing''

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art-of-mathematics · 1 year

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I need to workout mentally in regards to use of my language. Phases of cognitive decline become worse, more frequent, more intense.

I think it would help if someone would give me exercises to write about a topic and let me elaborate on that topic.

I need that in real life.

I think ergotherapy could help with that.

Yet, I also need a living place. And the living place inmdresden doesn't work due to the abusive father and sister and also the very bad experiences in the clinic there and the clinic staff beingjoverwhelmed extremely, no refuge place/no single room. No stable food times and no organization. The psychiatrists don't talk with each Other and it ends in everyday I was treated different.

I become more and more unfunctional. I am desorganized and confused, do not know where i am most of the time.

I do not know how to receive help.

Just a regular day routine would help, having an own room and learning to be more selbststänvig andjfunctionaljstep by step.

But the situation in Germany is the following: Clinics are overchallenged and send me elsewhere. Nowhere. Back to that overchallenged mother who is also not able help me with creating a daily life routine. She does notjhelpjwith diabetes, food, day planning, organization of tnings like ergotherapy and minimum physician visits either.

Then I would be given the advice to be sent to special care home. And that is also horror.

I could think about living in a care homejfor some months or few years in the north of germany, but not anywhere where that mother is living and the Konzern vitos is roaming.

I write too incoherently.

Yet I know these most basuc things would help with the cognitive descline:

-stable environment

-active cognitive training - especially writing texts wouldjhelp. It would help if someone wants me tojwrite and if we could elaboratejthe texts together. It would also motivate me. Andjhelp me tojcontinue andjdont discard my projects all the time.

- stable food times

- a room

Things that make it difficult:

- medication does not work. Meds often even worsen the symptoms and side effects are most present. Often, clinics only fill you with meds. Even if they work paradox they don't look. The clinic staff has no capacity.

- I would NOT want a psychiatric stay, but currently the options are few.

Currently, Miri helps me. But she has few options as well. We want tojtravel to her parents today. And the village is tiny and i dont know...

I will also not be able to becomejmore selbstständig. I willjnot be ablejto learn to take care of myself there as well.

Sure ijwilljhave a room there, which i am grateful for.

But ijwill also not have any structure or realistic challenge or active mental training.

... that the meldeadresse is stilljin Dresden makes it alljtoo difficult. I need to be movedjaway fromjthere already to receive help more easily. But for that i need more daily functionality. For that i need a bit help from medical staff ad well...

And damn, the kind of problems is banaljactually, but this constellation of problems makes it utterly difficult.

I need to go "step by step"...

There will be options.

At least I know what I need, or what would help me - and it's "im Bereich des Machbaren" (area/space of the doable)...

We'll see.

#asd #autism #brain.exe needs active training. it's exhausted being in idle mode.

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ecoamerica · 1 month

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youtube

Watch the 2024 American Climate Leadership Awards for High School Students now: https://youtu.be/5C-bb9PoRLc

The recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by student climate leaders! Join Aishah-Nyeta Brown & Jerome Foster II and be inspired by student climate leaders as we recognize the High School Student finalists. Watch now to find out which student received the $25,000 grand prize and top recognition!

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griancraft · 11 months

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can you share a bit about that oc?

HIII THANKS FOR ASKING!!! There is actually like. 4 of them.

I am so sorry this is so long, dear god it is so long. I also apologize for how disorganized this is omg

T is a character that is infected with a type of yeast that makes it possible to “escape death” via replacing cells at a faster rate. This doesn’t affect brain cells, only slowing down the rate at which the cells die. This leaves empty cells in the brain that don’t reallly have the capacity to learn new things permanently or remember anything. This only causes issues after a longgg time. Meaning someone infected with the yeast slowly looses their capacity to function. Destruction of any part of the brain that would kill a regular person also kills an infected person. Sort of like a zombie that slowly looses themselves over time.

T is the adoptive son of this other character who had been infected by that yeast for over 500 years. T is a quarter East Asian, with short black hair and dark brown eyes. He is gay and mayyyybe trans I forget.

T’s adoptive father is named Michel Hobbs, and he worked as a field scientist with the Canadian governments secret military that investigated monsters and aliens and shit. They were looking into tremors under a remote area in the Yukon when they find a massive dying creature. A leviathan. The leviathan thrashes around as it withers in pain and it knocks Michel off of a ledge and into a bubbling pit of water. By the time the team retrieves him it’s too late. Michel is “dead”. The team leave the cave and seal it off, deeming it too dangerous to explore further. They have to sit in the belly Fo a plane with their dead friend as they fly back to base.

A week later, after Michel has been buried for a few days, he digs his way up. He has maggots in his skin and can barely breathe. The government scoops him up and runs test, unable to find out why he’s alive. Deciding he is an asset, they put him right back where he came from.

Michel Hobbs is a light skinned half East Asian man raised by two mothers with his brother on Cape Breton island, Nova Scotia. He has a PhD in microbiology and is a massive advocate for conservation of large marine animals. He is ace/aro and gay.

The second really important character in this is his husband. William Winters is a black man who is a general in that super secret sci-fi Canadian military thing. He has a BA in history. He had a wife and 2 kids, but his wife divorced him and left him with the kids once Michel died and William is left dealing with a lot of complex feelings and. Pretty bad trauma after watching his best friend die. His ex wife isn’t framed as in the wrong per-say? She has her reasons and while they aren’t entirely moral they end up being on decent terms years later. William raises his kids and does his best for a long time. He finds out the Michel IS alive and after a lot of distress they end up together after another year and a half of working together. They end up getting married at 37/39 and live the rest of their days in happiness until William dies from cancer at 94. Michel is there for his children’s children’s children until he leaves for good, unable to watch more people he loves die.

Michel lives, and after a catastrophic event decimates the world about 50 years later, a federation of aliens step in to help.

See, worlds are kept alive by the presence of god like entities called “leviathan” there are two per world on a healthy planet and they reproduce to spread life to the universe. They are partially responsible for aliens and humans having significant similarities and being able to like. Have kids and stuff. They have been in the universe since before the Big Bang and are theorized to have been from a universe BEFORE the Big Bang. Their blood holds the key to all life.

Earth killed one of its leviathan via pollution and environmental degradation, so now the human home world is a massive city sitting upon barren rock. They farm in massive buildings and the world is rife with exploitation and poverty.

This is even after the aliens help, corruption runs in deep in the universe. Humans were on the cusp of inventing safe and light speed space travel and after help from the many alien species are able to traverse among the stars, seeking resources to collect and planets to explore.

Space travel is controlled heavily by the government, which leads to pirates and bounty hunters becoming a vital part of how lower class beings survive. The government turns a blind eye most of the time, it gives them less responsibility over the under privileged.

Before the world died, Michel had collected DNA from as many creatures as he could. Paranoia is part of the reason he is so successful honestly lol. He had used his now vast amount of wealth to purchase a dead planet to repopulate with the cloned species he created. Using alien technology and his knowledge gained from his job he is able to populate the world with a large majority of earths former fauna. It becomes a garden of eden, and he is the god that looks over it. 200 years pass.

T is the son of an upper class family, and after he gets killed and comes back while exploring pipes below the world the government just dumps him with Michel. T has never seen any animal that isn’t domesticated, so upon being picked up and taken to the new earth he is amazed.

Years pass, T grows into a teenager. Michel buys him an alien creature that is also functionally immortal, aware of how lonely the world can become. Michel is. Not the greatest father? He is very hands off. Therefore T becomes VERY overconfident and does not care when he gets hurt because he can “just heal”. Michel at that point is loosing his memory, and spends days looking over his old journals in a feverish attempt to remember his husband and family. He is not a good father, and not a good person to be around. The world is alive around him and the one leviathan left threatens Michel with a fate worse then death if he doesn’t maintain it. Michel does nothing more than work on maintaining the planet and re reading his journals. Stuck in a near endless cycle year after year.

T, not liking the lack of attention and paranoia of his fathers steals Michels old shuttlecraft and leaves to explore the universe. Stumbling into situations and getting himself out with luck, rapid healing, and guns. He eventually becomes a bounty hunter!

In this universe, humans are seen how we see pigeons. Cute yes, but dumb and generally incapable. This is blatantly wrong but leads to pretty bad treatment of humans. A war breaks out between two sides of the federation, one side believes that “lesser beings” like humans should not be afforded the same rights as others, and the other is like “no what the hell is wrong with you??”.

This war goes on for decades, and many alien settlements (including human ones as well) are razed to the ground and their inhabitants taken to work in factories or as prisoners. Obviously, many of the people in the “lesser beings don’t matter” planets do not believe this and either leave or fight on planet to stop the atrocities. This conflict is like. Pretty black and white lol.

T often has a lot of trouble beating the stereotype of being weak, and even more so when he is assigned by the mob boss he owes to work with an alien from a species that very much believes humans are lesser. This alien is named Sol. Sol fully believes in the stereotypes until T proves him wrong.

They become tentative friends at that point. They do the job, and upon discovering the mob boss paired the two together to kill T, they kill the mob boss. They continue to work together and use their unconventional team to play both sides of the war, freeing humans and other aliens as well as pretending one or the other is captured to get past enemy lines. They eventually end up being gay 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈 wooooo. The alien species lives close to a thousand years, so they don’t have to worry about loosing each other any time soon.

In this universe, soulmates meet each other and die within the same time frame. Michel and William were soulmates, and due to Michel not dying William is reborn again and again and again. Never quite coming close to meeting Michel again. (t and sol are also soulmates, technically.)

Until the newest iteration of William’s city is destroyed by the military and his family killed in front of him. Prior to this, he was a math teacher in one of the schools in the city. He joins up with the military and becomes a pilot. In a firefight above the solar system Michel is in, his shuttle is shot down and he crash lands on the planet. He is the only one of his squadron to survive.

Upon opening his cockpit, he comes face to face with Michel.

Williams is identical to the Williams Michel once new, hundreds of years ago. And it’s frightening for Michel! So he feeds him and clothes him and lets him stay in Ts old cabin. He barely interacts with him, afraid of the ghost of a man he once loved.

William is enamoured by Michel, and follows him like a lost puppy much to Michel’s dismay. He uses skills he learned in the military to track him and stick close. Michel has to save him from predators multiple times and eventually has to get the man to stick with him. He still keeps him at an arms length, afraid of falling for him. Michel doesn’t want to like. Take advantage of the guy, Yknow?

William finds one of Michels old journals, and finds a picture of the im first iteration of him with Michel and their kids. He shows it to Michel and demands he explain. Michel explains to the best of his ability, it’s the most William has heard him talk since they met. William hugs Michel, and it’s the first time in many years he has been hugged.

They stay friends for awhile, and eventually are sort of in a QPR? It’s a strange situation, and neither of them really know what to do. They are just happy to be close. They are happy to not be alone and they are happy to have found some semblance of peace.

Anddddd that’s all I ever had in my little noggin!!!! It was so fun writing this out again, I missed this universe and these characters so much.

#my characters

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disagigglebilities · 2 years

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Me @ the lawyers office helping me with my disability case: Hey who am I supposed to be giving this functional capacity evaluation form to? My regular doctor didn't know

Them: Almost any "treating doctor" can fill it out.

Me:

Me: wtf is a treating doctor

#i have no idea what they meant by thos #like my neuro maybe?#or maybe my gyno or rheum or PTs #like idk bro

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mejomonster · 1 year

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STARTING justice in the dark!

1. OK so while realistically I hope it does not use this sci fi premise at All, since I adore the original story and also the inherent capacity for cruelty or kindness being something fei du contemplates could Easily be handled in a useless choice-destroyed way in this sci fi premise... I am also really happy to see more sci fi leaning cdramas? I loved Humans adaptation with ma tianyu, I loved Bureau of Transformer (and how intense the messages it had were! Like a modern day progressive star trek), I am loving Three Bodys adaptation, and seeing such a sci fi opening makes me hopeful we may get to keep seeing more... especially because this drama and Three Body are the first time I think I ever saw a sci fi drama trend on weibo or overseas.

2. I do think... IF and that's a big if... the sci fi element is handled well? This could be a Guardian cdrama situation where I actually really enjoy the sci fi Alternate Universe plot of the cdrama version. I know people are Mixed on Guardians sci fi "mutants" premise, but as an xmen fan I loved it. It's not rhe same as the book because of it, the mutant angle causes the show to take a divergent new story route with its own sometimes very different themes than the book. I personally liked how in the book shen wei is not human, ghosts are different. And in contrast how in the show shen wei the Mutant is functionally just another human being wirh powers, as are all dixingren, all can live in Haixing and blend in if they want, they face discrimination, the Haixing government is afraid of them to the point of trying to make weapons like them (like Sentinel and William strikers experiments in xmen). The people with powers are inherently regular people just like the people without powers, and so a lot of sci fi style social commentary can be told in the cdrama version. I liked this difference and I really liked the story that resulted. If Justice in the Dark, by some miracle, uses its sci fi not just to avoid censorship (Guardian surely on one level changed ghosts to mutants to be able to even tell a story - but Guardian also did something Useful in the story with the change to mutants instead of simply leaving it at that), but also to add something thoughtful and meaningful to the story then I'll be really excited I think. On a normal level I hope the sci fi changes were just to pass censors and it will not be utilized in a negative sucky writing way (to handwave away all criminals as "born evil" and therefore "simply evil and need to be locked up" which is such a simple meaningless cheap way to tell a story. I hope at neutral the characters themselves will think all humans inherently could choose good or bad actions, regardless of genetics, and so the book approach remains. At best? I'd love an examination of biases of the government using excuses of eugenics to call some ppl worse than others or better, how it's a means of manipulation and control and harm, how peoples actions can't be predicted based on assumptions, how all humans inherently have huge range, how a lack of empathy does not determine what a person does and a person without empathy can still want to help others (which fei du would be a great character to use to tell that story). Now that's a best case scenario so I doubt we'll get it, but cool if we do.

#lb #rant #justice in the dark

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rebuketheviolent · 2 years

Text

take your hammer, take your anvil, take your very soul

1k, aurora & jorlanna, dread metrol

prior to the events of dread metrol. the dynamic between these two is always so *chef's kiss* with aurora getting excoriated for the same thing that made jorlanna disappear completely from the public eye for years, and i personally love writing aurora getting yelled at. context: aurora has regular check-ins with cannith to make sure she's not getting up to anything stupid or house-disgracing in her excoriation. usually, she's up to both.

"I've been told by a certain source that you were seen out with Corporal Dubois' wife."

"Sure? We knew each other back during secondary education. What, can't I have friends, or is Cannith allergic to that, too?"

"Out with her in a romantic capacity when she is a married mother of two."

Aurora shrugs. "Yeah, sure. I'm helping the woman have an affair. But even you have to recognize this is better than me fucking a Thuranni or something, Jorlanna."

The Baroness of Cannith West peers over her half-moon lenses at Aurora. Any snip about being addressed by the correct title has already been said and ignored; it's apparently easier to drop it than try and make Aurora fall in line.

"But you must recognize the need for subtlety, and a duty not to shame the House."

"Nah, my duty to the House ended when you gave me the boot." Aurora slings a leg over the armrest of her chair, manspreading on a new level, observing the office with exhaustion. Jorlanna's a fan of ships in bottles, historical and non-functional models of old rifles, stylistic paintings he can't identify; his heel taps against the corner of the cherrywood desk. "Anything I can offer now is a favor. Since. Y'know. I'm not a d'Cannith legally anymore. It's not my House."

Jorlanna isn't impressed. "Which hasn't stopped you from using the name regardless of it being stricken from your legal records, has it."

He shrugs. "Force of habit." A lie.

"Regardless of whether or not you owe House Cannith anything, Aurora." Jorlanna's tone sharpens, pen clicking as she fiddles. "You owe it to Mrs. Dubois to be subtle. The Corporal could draw the wrong kind of conclusion from the relationship between you two."

"With all due respect to Aundair's army, which is none, Stuart couldn't see his own dick in front of his eyes."

Her expression remains unchanged, pen clicking away. "Be that as it may, it only takes one informant."

"And it only takes me to thank Stu for his service by getting up in her cervix."

Jorlanna sputters, icy demeanor cracking as she laughs into her hand, the pen silenced. Despite their now four years of back-and-forth antagonism, Aurora feels a little glow of pride in her chest; even for many years before he would have carried that for weeks.

Now, well- she's the executioner and the petitioner staying her own hand. Aurora feels no gratitude as the one on the chopping block, not even considering that Jorlanna is the woman who took Aurora seriously, gave her the necessary recommendations to get her visa to enter Cyre during the war. That died a long time ago. But Aurora can respect the cutthroat in Jorlanna. There's no other way to survive in Cannith, let alone with Merrix and Zorlan as siblings vying for the title of Baron. She is a creature of necessity borne of the House's unending competitive streak.

Aurora wonders if her mother was anything like her cousin Jorlanna as the Baroness drops the pen into a carved wooden cup on her desk, still smiling.

"By the Host, Aurora, stop making me laugh," she says. "I am disciplining you."

"No, I'm fucking hilarious and will not consider it." Aurora crosses his arms. "And it's only a problem if you let a money-grabbing outsider to the House make it a problem."

"Show your father slightly more respect," Jorlanna admonishes. It's enough to make Aurora snort in turn. "I have done a great deal to protect you from the consequences of your actions, but even I can't quell the power of rumor."

"If you'd let that Phiarlan stick around then I wouldn't need you to."

"Aurora Odette."

The entire mood of the room changes as soon as it's out of his mouth, but Aurora sticks to her guns, stares Jorlanna's sudden anger in the eye regardless, arms crossing tighter to his chest. It's true, regardless of how far it is, but bringing up the past- Ripley- is the quickest way to make any meeting with her end in a two-way screaming match.

"I cannot hide rumors that you are a rogue asset that House Cannith is improperly, nepotically favouring rather than removing from service like a malfunctioning firearm." The air between them is hostile and heavy with what's implied, Jorlanna's arms bearing her weight as she leans close and low to try and close their distance.

"Then remove me." She settles back in her seat, unblinking. "What's the big fucking deal, Jorlanna? Do you hesitate like this with all the other excoriates, or just the ones you like?"

"The deal is that I think it would be a shame if you were killed, Aurora."

"Then let Cannith suffer the briefer shame of my death instead of continuing with my disgraceful existence. You won't." Aurora leans in now, uncrossing her arms to lean across the desk back at Jorlanna. "If you wanted me dead you'd have done it on the Day of Mourning. And you didn't do it then, when I was blatantly breaking the Twelve's rules. You're sure as fuck not going to do it now while I help a low-ranking corporal's wife have some fun. No. You want me alive. Why?"

Silence hangs heavy as they lock eyes. Jorlanna looks like she might headbutt Aurora for a moment, eyebrows drawn tightly together.

"You know the risks you're taking." Her voice is icy, but this closely, Aurora can see her concealer hiding the dark circles under her eyes doesn't stand up to scrutiny. "Show discretion. And get the hell out of my office."

He's never going to know why. Aurora white-knuckles the side of the desk. There is too much about House Cannith that she is never going to get an answer to, and he's known that for years, but sometimes he butts right up against the edges of what she's allowed to know and someone is mad at her for having seen the edges themselves and Aurora could go after this house and dismantle it brick by brick sometimes with the anger that bubbles up in her chest.

She settles instead for nicking the pen out of Jorlanna's cup.

"With pleasure, Baroness."

#ch: aurora d'cannith #writing tag #dread metrol

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