Hey! I took so much time to answer I’m on holidays now :’) feels so weird to have that much free time in may… If you’ve had the appointment by now, I hope it brought good news (or, I suppose, as good as possible in this situation) and if it hasn’t happened yet, I hope it’ll go well. I wish I could help you with that, but at least I’m glad our correspondence is bringing you joy :)

Honestly, there might be a lot of them, but I don’t really do anything with my OCs, they just float in my head lol. Sometimes I draw them or I talk about them, a few have Pinterest boards for how they'd dress or toyhouse pages (I wanted to create TH pages for everyone but I don't have art of most of them so it's not happening anytime soon unfortunately) and one or two are used in other stuff like Cécilia who I used to play in a DnD campaign and is now an NPC in another campaign, but mostly they're just there for me to have silly little fantasies about. Meredith and Cécilia are for general stuff, a lot of projecting, thinking about QPRs and fun flatmate stuff; Alex, Laë and Adrien are for cute romance stuff, sometimes more spicy stuff if I'm in the mood, or soulmate AUs; Ophelia has problems with her parents and adventures with Oswald; Aster is all the dramatic stuff but also boring work things that he gets to be all 'drinking wine in your cool chair at 1am' about; Alex also gets a lot of family bonding and shenanigans since I gave him a big family (it keeps extending... I gave him one more sibling and a few cousins since last time and I'll probably keep adding to it...) The only one I really actually use is Cécilia, because while I don't play her anymore my friend started another campaign in the universe of the one where I played her in, so I’ve given them my opinion of what she would say when they’ve asked. Mostly I create them for the sake of creation, because inventing a little guy and doing whatever you want with them is like playing with dolls or petshops but you decide what they look like hehe.

The 'drawback' with making all of my OCs for daydreaming purposes is I tend to gravitate towards characters in a very - set? period? Like, you know how fandoms tend to have specific moments at which they prefer to write characters, before or after they change a lot, when they're still alive, when they're still talking to another character? Not all fics use this 'ideal state' of characters of course but like, you'll see a lot of Obikin set during the Clone Wars but Ahsoka's still there, or a lot of Johnlock before Sherlock fakes his death in S2, that kind of thing? It's like the characters have a default state? Well mine are all kind of like that, and there's not a lot of story around it. They almost all live in the same world at the same time, so at best they'll have a past where they became who they are now, but they're all a bit stuck. Meredith grew past a lot of her insecurities, Cécilia has a goal of becoming powerful and cool but it's for a very distant future, Laë Alex and Adrien are dating and they're young but they probably won't break up, Alex's sister's kid is going to be a toddler forever, etc. They're all relatively nice and doing okay, because I personally don't daydream about people being mean and suffering, but that makes them a little flat sometimes haha. A bit like we’re seeing them at a set point in the story, but never going forward, only seeing them at the beginning/middle/end of their story but not the rest. Which is why characters for a story sounds so interesting to me! If you put them in a story you need to know where they start and where they end and how they change in the middle, there's a few moments where they're at their 'ideal state' and then they keep going, and that's so cool! Though that must mean you’d be creating them very differently, less ‘what are their vibes’ and more ‘what’s their fatal flaw’

Right right right, the amatonormativity is there and I think it would be a little funny to throw poor Reil in all of that. The conflict between “Jedi don’t form attachments” so being aro is ‘useful’ because that does eliminate a type of attachments, but also still being surrounded by people who date and swoon over crushes and have romances (because personally I’m firmly team ‘attachment is when it’s too extreme, Jedi are allowed to have fun as long as it doesn’t interfere with their duties’ so I imagine romances are a thing, whether they end quickly or they manage to last.) And yesss making characters a bit like you is so so cool!! Tbh I can't believe I first thought about giving Meredith a boyfriend because she's the most self-insert of my OCs! Though even back then I knew that would just be wrong so I didn't and then I realised some stuff about myself haha. I also thought I wasn't aro because I'd like some kind of life partner and romance is fun, which wasn't helpful lol. But yeah I’ve seen the sentiment of ‘I thought being aro/ace was hating/being completely oblivious to all that stuff and I was okay with it/got it fine so that meant I couldn’t be aro/ace’ and 1) mood 2) good example of why it’s so important to talk about those definitions because, I’m so glad to see those identities talked about more.

The OC post hadn’t been written but I think you’ve seen it by now haha. I don’t post anything besides +/- finished art on my artblog, so for anything OC related it’s on my main in the ‘wow i have an ocs tag now’ tag!

The vampire OC is Meredith, she's my little self-insert <3 Technically you could argue that since both her and Cécilia are really similar to me and they're not-dating-but-also-not-not-dating it's a bit weird but hey who cares. She's 52 and a potioneer/alchemist, she has a cat called Theo, a lot of friends, long hair and skin problems, she's aroace and she owns her own shop. Since she's a vampire and she has sensitive skin most of the time the only parts of her body not covered by clothing are like, her hands/fingers and her face more or less, she wears a lot of long sleeves turtlenecks and tights/trousers. That's not actually how I wanted to dress when I was younger, I said that because she also wears relatively poofy skirts and cool gloves and ballgowns and boots and jewellery and mostly dresses in black and red and dark colours, which IS closer to what I wanted to dress like (and still do tbh. How lucky she is to have an actual adult job that gives her money to pay for cool clothing and accessories...) Most of my OCs dress in styles I love actually, whether it's the guys who are literally just a guy and dress like that (the graphic tee/hoodie + cargo pants, a singular pair of sneakers and one vest that's too light for the winter, you know the type? Literally just a guy. Love that vibe I’m obsessed with it for some reason) or the elaborate dresses or the hair colours I can't really do because I don't want to bleach mine, or the clothes sharing or the jewellery or the gay poet/pirate shirts, they're all dressing super cool and I wish that was me 😔 Sometimes I'll imagine what my OCs or my favourite characters would wear in my wardrobe and it's very fun, I keep meaning to draw that and then I never do lol

Yeah I mostly act like cringe is dead because I don't really have interactions with people who still believe in it, but I do have a few anti mutuals (though coming out as liking Snarry got one of them to unfollow me so...? That's something? Don't know if it's positive or not but it happened) I don't actually know if you're mutuals with Alex @/storm-of-feathers since I saw you reblog from them but if you are, then you too have the pleasure of having anti mutuals :D Don’t know if you’d already noticed that or not, sorry if that’s how you’re learning about it? tbh after I answered your ask about Tomarry I expected the inquisition once again but apparently either those mutuals weren't online or I was right to tag the post because nothing happened. It does get kind of taxing to avoid talking about specific things or refrain from reblogging posts I like in case the few people who wouldn't approve see it. But at the same time I really don't like change so I'm not really doing anything about it since both of them aren't bothering me about it like 99% of the time.

Yeaah the Knights are just no fun :( I’m glad fandom is there to make something with the fun material the canon writers are just leaving there unexploited, but I also wish canon was just good on its own. Though I guess that does change things in terms of the fandom… I finished watching Gravity Falls a while back and it’s a very good show, so I was a little afraid of going in the fandom, as opposed to things like Star Wars where I knew that if I got into it I wouldn’t even hesitate throwing myself in the fandom. I don’t really know how to explain that, but (and I say that without any negativity towards people who like different stuff than me, they’re doing their thing I’m doing mine y’know) when canon is good and works on its own, it’s different to apply the same ‘fandom lenses’ to it. I read things casual fans wouldn’t even think about, but when it’s for like, HP or SW, it’s whatever, because canon doesn’t really feel like it’s going to explore the stuff it sets down anyway. Whereas with things like GF, canon IS exploring what it sets down, it has a clear message it’s communicating well, and coming in with for example some completely out of left field ship feels different. Anyway :’) I guess I could start getting into stuff that’s good to avoid the problem of canon sucking, but then I’m not getting as much weird fandom stuff, and that’s full of pearls and really interesting stuff I love, so heh

You don’t sound like you’re putting down your writing! I do get what you’re describing, not on a writing level but on a general language level, and I’m glad to know I’m not the only one haha. I learnt french and english through osmosis but my grammar is really bad and as you said, I know what would sound right and what wouldn’t, but not why. I don’t really feel like working on it personally though, so props to you for that, I gotta admire the dedication to actually improving yourself through work haha. I’m sure the exercises’ll pay off and you writing will be even better! (also 15 years is a lot, that kinda hit me but whoa you’ve been writing for a whiile) (and I realise I didn’t say a lot about this, I don’t quite know how to put that in writing but you can imagine the equivalent of listening and making little noises to let you know I’m following)

The GwtW essay might or might not come, I got a 18.5/20 on the ‘exam’ I read the book for (only counted as 8% of that class’ final grade but still) and the teacher told me I should try developping my thoughts and writing the full essay I didn’t have enough time to do. I’ll have to see how motivated I get, I’ll tell you if it ends up happening! Though I was a little turned off by the vibes Rhett and Scarlett give off at the end, I love me a nice little fucked up relationship but their vibes were just hitting too close to home (derogatory). I’m also considering a thing about my absolute forever favourite fic, Pacify by chickenpets, because it’s just. It’s just good. Except it’s the one that got people to send me panicked asks about my morality so yeah :’)) (it’s like. Snarry with some underage, an interesting dynamic and BDSM, but also super well written and it hit 700k recently and every time I think about it I want to go read it again)

Also also how’s the Tomarry going hehe? Recommending you all those fics got me to reread some I hadn’t touched in a while and *dreamy sigh* Don’t think I’ll be going back to canon anytime soon though, because by that point I know it well enough to tell you all the little details even if I haven’t read it since I was like 13 :’)) Your comment about Dumbledore made me think about the morality of putting the magical baby of her sister on the doorstep of Petunia Dursley though. Personally I see him not as a good or a bad person but as someone who by the point of the wars with Voldemort just did what had to be done. He didn’t explicitly want to give Harry a shitty childhood to make him more malleable like you’ll see in certain fics, it’s just that Harry had to be protected and the blood magic was already there. Also he probably expected Petunia to have grown up a little since her childhood when she was super jealous of her sister, and tbh why wouldn’t he? Yeah giving Harry to people you know nothing about is a bad decision, but sometimes you believe in the good in people (in most cases) and – well there are times when turning a blind eye to a situation is helpful, and when you feel responsible for the wizarding world… Like he’s not really a good person, but he wasn’t doing it to be evil? He just had flaws and a past and responsabilities. But also yes Harry Potter is fucked up if you analyse it from an adult’s POV because it’s a children’s book and obviously in the children’s book it’s not fun if Harry isn’t put in situations no good guardian would make possible :’)) God Harry Potter will never leave me. Like I’ll be able to give you a little speech on Severus on autopilot at 82 in retirement home :’)) just, forever etched into my brain whether I want it or not.

ANYWAY sorry Harry Potter was my thing for so long it’s ridiculously easy to get me to monologue about it for hours. Hope you’re doing well and having fun, sending you love <3 (and if you’re not, then I’m sending you even more)

Hello hello! I hope your holidays are going well! It must be wonderful having so much free time after classes! My appointment went well, though there's still no official reason for why I can't hear as well anymore lol. Supposedly it's actually a processing disorder? But I have to be evaluated for that now, so I have to wait until I can have that evaluation before I'll know anything more substantial.

Listen, I absolutely love every aspect of these asks. It's so much fun to get to really dig into things! And your insights and thoughts are always so well put, it's genuinely a pleasure every time you're in my ask box!

Wow okay the thought you've put into your OCs! You're right, I do create my OCs from a standpoint of "how do I get this character from point A to point B," so it's so fascinating that you've got this consistent point of reference for yours. Like, with my OCs, especially the ones I make for the purpose of filling out my cast (or in the case of my original novel thing, for the purpose of being the cast), I need to think of them as these works in progress, because that's what they are, they're constantly being affected by the actions of the other characters and their surroundings and the workings of the universe I'm writing in. I can remember always struggling with certain aspects of one-shots because how does one demonstrate the way a character changes in only one scene? And then when I switched to writing longfics (and ultimately novels, now), suddenly my writing clicked.

And, your OCs all sound incredible! It must be so wonderful to have this consistent cast of characters for all your needs and purposes. If you ever do manage to make the toyhouse pages for everyone I'd love to see it! You really have a way of emphasizing who a character is at that point in time, it's absolutely amazing how you do that!

I'm also firmly on team "Jedi can have some fun but not the extreme attachments that Anakin had going on." But yeah, I also want a life partner and I agree romance is incredibly fun to do! That stuff all requires a really good conversation up front with whomever you're gonna be doing it with though (and here I am, giving life advice like I'm not only 23 lmao but) if you've got the right person (or people) it can be a wonderful arrangement. I've been with my partner for a year and a half and with my boyfriend for just about nine months, and genuinely having a relationship with people who are similarly on the aroace spectrum has been so much fun.

I was going to explain how my relationships worked and then realized that's a little weird of me, even for tumblr, so I deleted it and um you're getting this instead lol. But yeah! Qprs and "romantic" relationships where all parties understand that the romance isn't something y'all are able to feel are really fun! Highly recommend!

I saw the OC post! Your OCs are so cool, just saying, like my dude, that's so so cool!

Omg please draw your OCs or characters in general wearing outfits you have or outfits you want!!! This is just a random thing, but I swear Luke Skywalker would look incredible in one of those 1950's shirtdresses. And the just a guy aesthetic, that's how I dress rn lol! Granted, once I get top surgery I'm going to finally buy the 1950's style dresses I've always wanted to wear but didn't pass enough to, but the just a guy vibe is incredibly fun to do!

Yeah so when I went from being a Zelda blog to an obikin blog in 2021, a bunch of my anti mutuals unfollowed me (which, good for them for having the maturity to unfollow instead of me needing to block them), and those that didn't ended up getting into obikin along with me. I did notice Alex was an anti, I'm not mutuals with them though I was following them for a while. I'm not anymore, one too many vagueposts about anti rhetoric got me to unfollow them, but yeah. I'm pretty open about what problematic stuff I ship (at least, in the Star Wars fandom), so if people follow me after seeing my bio that's kinda on them, and if they start shit I just block them. I'm still unlearning the whole being hesitant to share what ships I'm currently into from the hellscape that is the main Zelda fandom (and from my 2016 experiences with anti-reylos), but I've started to get better about it finally. It really helps to have like-minded mutuals tbh.

Oh, so what you're saying with Gravity Falls reminds me of this one thing I read somewhere a while ago! Basically, you can tell how good a canon media is by how much you (/general you) want to read/write fic for it. If its good but has lots of room for improvement, you're more inclined to look for fic, but if its really good and you can't see anywhere it could be better, you won't want to look for fic because it's all right there in canon! Obv ymmv, ofc, as with all things, but I've found this to be true for a lot of my own fandom experiences. Ofc there aren't any medias I can think of for myself off the top of my head, but when I do write fic or search for fic it's because I didn't like some aspect of canon or another, and really wish it had been different in whatever way!

I'm glad what I was trying to describe about writing was making sense! Thank you for listening, I really appreciate it. And 15 years is a long time, but like, I've been writing since I was like 8, so that's how I arrived at that number lmao. I was telling stories from the time I could talk, I just didn't start writing them down until I got to be 8, and that's where it all began! Little 8 year old me didn't even know I'd be writing like this though, little 8 year old me just wanted to keep my siblings entertained for our parents :)

Oh yeah I love a good fucked up relationship omg, but I'm sorry it hit so close to home like that. Okay so Pacify sounds amazing, I'm going to give that a look, thank you for mentioning it (insert eye emoji several times I'm on desktop and have no idea how to do that from here lmao). I'm sorry that you got panicked morality asks about that, wtf, that's so fucking rude of them. I checked the tags out on the whole series, and this seems so tame considering some of the tags I've seen for other stuff? And like, maybe I'm tainted from delving into the wonderful world of dead dove as a writer plus no longer having anti mutuals, but sheesh. Antis really don't have better shit to do? I hope you can get back to the fic someday, it looks really good and you deserve to have a good time reading whatever you want!

I had to take a break from the tomarry because I ordered the 7 books (from a thrift store, obv, we do not support R*wling in this household) and it's been over a decade since the last time I read them and I needed the refresher. I've just started Goblet of Fire, and I've only had my hands on the books for 8 days, and omg. The tomarry brainrot is real. And my old drarry brainrot is back, and I have to tell you I'm down for snarry too now!

Looking back at this from an adult's perspective is pretty wild too. The first two books were marketed as children's books, but 3-7 were YA back when they were released, and my library even had book 7 alone in the YA section up until a few years ago when they finally moved it down to children's to be with the rest of the series. All this context because, I've been reading adult fiction and horror for the last decade, when I wasn't reading fanfic. And reading children's books for the first time in that long was a goddamn shock (affectionate), but it was really fun to pretend for a bit that I was just a kid on the 8 hour drive to our vacation cabin again! Once I got to Prisoner of Azkaban I felt a lot more comfy with the writing style, but YA is much closer to what I'm familiar with than outright children's, which I'm ofc grateful for. And omg, this series meant so much to kid!me, and I forgot how wonderful it was, and all the current discourse with it (while justified) has really tainted my recollections of it. Yes there's so much ableism and racism and homophobia, but that's what fandom is for, isn't it?

(I'll be honest, as someone who's still got a foot in a fandom such as Hetalia, I see no issues with being in a fandom for a problematic media; and my personal opinion is that I'm not comfortable consuming canon unless necessary for such a media, and if I must consume canon then I buy it secondhand so that the creator doesn't get my support. I have no interest in the HP movies, nor the books past Deathly Hollows; and if I ever do have a point where I'm interested in them, again, I'll just by them secondhand. And if I may add, I've recently started getting involved in professional published and to-be-published author's groups, as a means of encouraging myself to work on my original novel, and you'd (/general you) be incredibly surprised to see how they all interact with and around content that's incredibly problematic for whatever reason and how they interact about authors who are horrible people such as R*wling. It's been very interesting to see such things from a professional, irl pov instead of just fandom. But anyway, that's my views on the topic just so we're all clear fuck R*wling <333 I also hope that all made sense lmao thanks for letting me express that I've been needing to say it since getting back into the fandom)

But okay my opinions on Dumbledore. That opinion from the other week was 100% warped by the last decade in fandom without any interaction with canon on my part. Having read books 1-3, I can see a lot of my old opinions and admiration for Dumbledore still being applicable today, in fact I even suspect a lot of my opinions of death and dying could have come directly from Sorcerer's Stone where Dumbledore talks about Flammel deciding to give up his immortality. And you're right, it's hard to apply adult lenses to a children's/YA series where if the guardian figures were "adequate" for lack of a better word, we wouldn't have any story at all. So I'm kind of reading this from a, "if I were still a kid again how would I interact with this" perspective, while also maintaining my, "as an adult how would I write these characters being in their 20s (or whatever age they are when Harry, Ron and Hermione are mid-20s)" perspective. It's been helping a lot to have my reactions split like that lol. I think my current annoyance with Dumbledore is that, how dare he let Harry go back to the Dursley's now, knowing how abusive they are to him? And I understand (from memory, ofc), that there's the mother's love protection, but I suppose from an adult's perspective, particularly an adult like how I am, I can't quite get it. I do take back what I said about Dumbledore being a horrible character though. He's got his past, and his reasons, and he's been fighting this war longer than any of the characters in this series have been alive for the most part. Obviously he'll be flawed in ways I won't be able to understand, and that's how real people are, so ofc I won't always get it. It's interesting, I think, being an adult and remembering how fondly and in awe I'd look up to Dumbledore, and now as that adult wondering how he could make some of these decisions. None of this is meant like, rudely or anything btw, just v interesting and v looking forward to rereading the rest of the series and forming further analyses!! Thank you for getting me onto this <33

When I finish the last book, I would love to hear that essay about Snape please (once again insert eyes emoji)!

And yeah, Harry Potter was a big fandom for me at one point so I def get it! I've found it's the kind of fandom that almost everyone has been in at one point, and most of us always go back at certain points in our lives. I'm really lucky that I get to be rereading it now, I really needed this right now with everything going on, so thank you so much Ram <333

Everything is going much better now, thank you for all the love! And right back at you, all my love to you and may you have a lovely day when you see this <333

hey so. i’ve been waiting to write up this post to see if any of it goes away but it hasn’t, & i’ve been dreading Actualizing any of this lmao.

my body is kinda deteriorating in some new ways that were pretty unexpected and now i end up in pain for Days whenever i go out. I’m sleeping pretty much most of every day either way just from sheer exhaustion, & my legs aren’t really doing to good specifically. Even working @ home in the small ways I do I’ve barely been able to get any work done recently & have been becoming bedridden for increasing amts of time.

We’re trying to find a doctor, set up an appointment (they’ll probably want to run some tests, but we’re pretty sure I just developed chronic fatigue On Top of the other shit i already had going on), & probably get me in a wheelchair bc my cane just isn’t cutting it at this point, so if anyone wants to help with that it would be super appreciated.

my paypal is @ https://paypal.me/athesiel, n my wife has a venmo & cashapp over @ coquiprincess.

Random dee twin headcanons pt.2

Part 1 here

They both have the waddle dee ‘walk in a linear path’ instinct that causes them to just kinda wander around, head 99% empty

they have gotten lost this way(lost in that no one else could find them, they somehow always get back home mostly unharmed)

Now whenever that’s about to happen, Dedede just holds Bandee in the crook of his arm so they can’t go anywhere

they were born in a small village kinda hidden in the hills, but sometime when they were like 2-5 years old it burnt down somehow

they were the only known survivors

you’ll never guess who saved them

Morpho Knight itself took them out of the wreckage and left them in a place where another village could take them in

they both suppressed the memories and have ptsd 👍

also Bandee has a small head scar from the fire

now for a tone shift

Bandee knows several different languages and sometimes switches languages mid conversation to fuck with people

he can and will call you a dumbass in several languages

Sailor is just the smartest on the Halberd, still dumb but has the most common sense and knows the most about mechanics

in the Kirby Clash games, they’re basically the last ‘normal/basic’ waddle dees left

also they’re more directly kinda adopted by Morpho

you can see Sailor running after a butterfly in the background, it’s the grim reaper playing with it’s technically adopted daughter fight me

Kirby once bought a toy mouse to see what Bandee would do

cat like things happened

in general - waddle dees have a weird ass behavior mix of dogs, cats, and donkeys, and it is very confusing but cute

Bandee has some chronic fatigue symptoms, it’s pretty much the only reason they actually rest at all

Most common is just resting more and having headaches, tho they can also get brain fog

Sailor can hyperfixate on working(on machines) for so long that they’ve passed out before

Her ‘record’ is 11 hours basically completely renovating/fixing Heavy Lobster

It is a problem

Sailor started having flashbacks when she was the last one on the Halberd

Bandee had a bad time when Waddle Dee Twin was destroyed

and the Forgo Dedede battle-

they do get through it tho because Bandee’s a badass who’s been through therapy

and I can’t come up with anymore rn so enjoy lmao

To anyone worried T will make you ugly or angry, from your local fat masc-presenting non-binary

Hi. I’ve been on T (not low dose) for 10 months.

Physically: it has squared my jaw a bit, I have grown a lot of hair: I now grow dark hair on my legs, arms, pits, and my face - and have found all easy to shave (it irritates my face a bit but I’m getting used to doing it right), and I have a lot of acne. My voice is a fraction lower and I’ve lost a good bit of my upper register. My legs got more defined, my weight stayed the same. I gained a little bit of upper body strength, my chronic pain stayed about the same, and my chronic fatigue stayed about the same. I’ve noticed bottom growth, and more than anything else it’s just sort of weird-feeling to walk for a little bit, lmao.

I’ve found myself to be less attractive in some ways, but almost all of those ways I can control (various hair) or were already present and now just have a more predictable schedule/just need more intense treatment (acne). Any unattractiveness I feel is vastly outweighed by everything else that changed. I’ve never felt more comfortable wearing revealing clothing. I regularly feel perfectly comfortable going topless as long as my breasts are covered somehow. I’m particularly happy with my legs and how much more comfy I am with my tummy.

Mentally: I have noticed a lot less anxiety, depression, and self-consciousness. I’ve felt more grounded to my body. I’ve not been more angry - I’d personally say I’ve gotten a lot calmer, actually. It’s much easier to handle my brain in general. My mood can swing, but generally it’s because I’m already tired and pretty similar to PMS anyways. It’s made me cry a few times, overwhelmed or extremely touched by whatever caused it. These mood swings happen kinda rarely, and they’re never worse than any mood swings I’ve gotten from ADHD, Anxiety, Autism, or PMS.

You’ll be okay. If you want to do this, then do it. Anything you don’t like, it’s okay. If what I’ve said is a dealbreaker, that’s okay too. But know that you’ll never be so fucking awful as the people who try to scare you away from helping yourself by calling transmascs ugly.

Remember that they don’t know you. They don’t know what you look like and they don’t care, more importantly. All they want is to keep you unhappy. Please don’t let them.

Feeling very down right now, just want to vent...

(Treating this like my old Livejournal since I don't really have anywhere else I can complain LMAO)

I've been out of work since August after completely running out of FMLA.

Between getting severe COVID in February and being out recovering for 6 weeks -- and then with Long COVID making the chronic fatigue and migraines I already had even worse -- I ended up missing so much work that I used all the time FMLA allowed before the year was even half over.

I'm living with my parents now and don't really have income except my savings; honestly most days I don't have the physical or mental spoons to even contemplate applying for even a part-time remote position yet. Thankfully I also have a retirement fund I am slowly cashing in, even if that also isn't really sustainable long-term. (But me losing my insurance will definitely be an issue soon when I run out of refills for my prescription meds...)

I'm aware that I've been pretty isolated since August; I've gotten maybe like two texts from former co-workers. I'm mostly asleep during the daytime and don't drive, so going out is hard. The person I consider my BFF is out of state and is busy with their own life. The only people I talk to most days are my Mom and Dad. (Admittedly, I am also pretty terrible about calling or texting people!) Tumblr has thus been the majority of my social interaction, for good or ill.

On top of all that, my birthday is this Friday and I always find myself depressed anyway this time of year. Like, it's probably half Seasonal Affective Disorder, and half a reminder that I'm a year older and having mixed feelings about where I am in life, IDK... But the current situation of *gestures vaguely at everything* isn't helping. So I am very blergh in general.

My parents and I had made vague plans a couple weeks ago that we could all go out for dinner on my actual birthday; nothing fancy, maybe the nearest sit-down Mexican restaurant. I was kinda looking forward to it. Mom just informed me that she is now unavailable after 5pm on my b-day itself since she offered to babysit kids for someone in their church that evening and night. We can't do it tomorrow night either, because Mom & Dad will be at a craft show from 4pm to 10pm.

And... it's fine, I guess. I'm disappointed but I'm an adult. I'm not gonna throw a tantrum or yell and cry or try to guilt her about it. She brought me flowers from the grocery store as a sort of peace offering and says we can still have cake or whatever. We'll probably do something on Saturday instead.

But EVERY YEAR, it's something. Last year, it was the cheesecake I asked for as a birthday cake getting dropped on the way into the house from the car; over half of it was smushed and then Dad stole the best remaining slice for himself. The two years before that, it was during the worst of the pandemic so I just had mediocre delivery food. I literally cannot remember the last birthday I really enjoyed in over a decade and half.

Another big source of anxiety right now -- we found out have 60 days to move since the leasing company is selling this house. So we have to find a new place, be packed and then move by January. Meanwhile home inspectors, realty agents and potential buyers are walking through while we're still living here, and it's super stressful. Words can't express how much I hate strangers being here any and all days of the week.

I guess I'm feeling a bit sorry for myself. I'm not trying to be whiny or woe-is-me, but my mental health right now is uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... Not Great (tm) 😅. I do try hard to be positive but it just takes so much energy and I'm stressed and a little numb.

Not really sure how to end this. I just really needed to put it all in writing as a journal-type situation so that I don't end up crying in real life LOL.

Current Mood: burnt-out 😑

Current Music: HGTV playing in the background

questions about suranga ! why did they pick their name / do you think it fits them ? what is their gender & sexuality ? what are their (romantic) relationships like ? what is their motivation, either in general and/or to pursue villainy ?

alright let's go!

The name ‘Suranga’ when i originally looked it up while trying to name him meant something like divine? It apparently also means orange, which is funny cos of his arrogance and daring stats lol, though he was more of a bluestep when i first made him, so yeah, oddly fitting. As for why he picked his name, I think I decided it was a name someone he almost came to see as a parental figure in his pre-vigilante days would’ve given their kid, if they’d been able to have one. In some ways, that was his way of honoring them and it was the first thing that could be his (if also something residual from farm training and people-pleasing to need someone else to pick).

he could’ve gone for something more common but then again, it wasn’t a name he was intending to share with anyone else until ortega, otherwise, he was always giving fake names. whether suranga actually believes he still deserves his name, though, honestly varies with his self-loathing levels. this guy has so many complexes lmao.

Genderwise, it’s kinda a mess? At first seeing ricardo on the news gave him some gender revelations, starting to id as a binary trans guy and staying stealth with the rangers (and it was def comforting to know there was a fellow trans man on the team, even if he and sentinel were never close) but it didn’t fully feel right? Then post second escape and through puppeting yasmin he gradually realizes oh, the whole girl thing isn’t so bad when it’s on his terms (or close enough), yoink, my gender now. As yasmin he’s a lot more confident, so he basically trials things he’d never be able to do as himself through her and post-debut, he gets a little bit bolder with his own body.

i’m ultimately imagining whatever mess in books 3 or 4 happens if ace gets their body back like this:

suranga: sorry abt the whole bodystealing thing thanks for the gender tho

ace: ???

Obv with the whole maintaining two different identities thing (without even factoring in argos post-debut), the Autism™, and never really having a stable sense of self thanks to cuckoo training (plus SO MUCH TRAUMA), it’s hard to actually pinpoint what his gender is, at best i’d say something like uh, genderqueer/genderfluid?

Sexuality is similarly a very big mess. He’s definitely aspec/some kind of aroflux, and his ongoing secret crush on ricardo is a jumble of ortega being his first real friend (and not letting anyone else close enough to have other points of reference), and being a simultaneously touch averse AND touch starved mf, and also the gender confusion triggered by ric before even meeting him (‘do i want to be him or be friends with him??’) so suranga’s whole ability to determine if it’s romantic/sexual attraction or platonic feelings is very very fucked. With ortega specifically they used to be very close (he thought the world of him tbh), but with ricardo hovering since their reunion he’s trying to keep him at arms length, because he’s very aware how well ortega can read him. He can’t help but go back to ortega in spite of his efforts to stay away, partly because he wants ortega to stop and/or help him but doesn’t know how to ask, or if he can.

He’s honestly very clueless on the chen attraction thing. There’s the baggage from having known eachother back before, but also post-heartbreak he can better relate to chen (which includes a mutual hatred of stairs!) because of the chronic pain/fatigue problems he’s had to deal with, and spoon is also a big factor - he does prefer cats, and his own cat Fred in particular that stayed with elena after HB,, but getting to hang out with spoon is pretty good too.

As yasmin, he becomes very fond of mortum, but he’s not sure he’d call it romantic attraction, though they might’ve flirted a bit at the start. Suranga really enjoys the doctor’s company and respects her a lot, in part cos it’s so fun to nerd out over tech stuff, and there’s none of the baggage that comes with ortega. he’d rather not compromise that friendship by stringing her along, so I think he makes it clear at the gala on the feelings? i’m still working out his canon route, but for sure he tells mortum the truth in retri. 

Also his flirting as yasmin bleeds over into his argos persona when he fights with argent. he def likes playing with fire lol. Romantic relationships are a big ????

However, in general relationship terms, he’s pretty familial with rosie and his crew, in part cos the dynamic reminds him a lot of the rangers in his sidestep days, and old habits are hard to shake. 

Motivation tends to vary, but the underlying principles are that he’s very very tired and bitter and just wants to feel like he’s in some control of his life again/not powerless - the argos suit is in part a mobility aid, because it lets him do what he could as sidestep, and more. argos gives him a lot of freedom and at times euphoria, but also huge guilt, just as he does with yasmin. he's following the path of least resistance (fate motive), even if that’s driving himself (further) into a self-destructive spiral. at least it’s by his hand instead of someone else’s?

Basically he’s swinging between these two modes: 

He also does a lot of joking to deflect from when he accidentally lets slip he’s not doing well  (which is. all the time) which is probably best summarized by an excerpt from the Hoots scene:

Faulty logic aside, there’s a lot of anger at himself, especially his past self for his naivety and getting careless (as much as he tries to bury it, he’s still a hero at heart), but also at the Farm, but it’s not like he can really touch them. I have a soft spot for the outsider scar cos that’s the first one i ever got, and the whole disconnect from the rest of the world feels very very fitting, and coupling that with the suicidal scar (so suicidal from rebirth → outsider into retri), though I have tried him out with puppetmaster too, and maybe some parts from the hunger scar can work too?

idk if he'll actually remain driven enough to stick to being argos, but it sure is fun watching him be a trainwreck about it

this has been a (semi-coherent) ramble about suranga thanks for indulging me <3

Oh wow

What's it like dealing with chronic fatigue? *Grabs notebook*

(I'm not doing something weird, just taking reference for when I write characters with chronic fatigue in the future since it helps asking people with conditions for your characters-)

im p sure its different for everyone but ill try to summarize my experience best i can :]

for me super simple stuff like walking up / down stairs and looking around my room for something i lost can make my entire body hurt and its kinda like a dull pain, i also get like .. breathing problems if im out walking or standing for too long and talking can wear me out too . if i talk for too long i have some troubles breathing and my headaches get kinda bad But i usually just deal w it cuz i like to go on tangents :P my leg muscles also tense up / spasm sometimes when im doing shit for too long . some days are better than others so i can do More but i still cant do as much as the average person :[ i get told i should exercise and go on walks and do breathing exercises but ive tried tht stuff and they dont really help cuz . Its Chronic :P

sorry if this doesnt make sense !! i have a migraine rn so LMAO

Wip. I do want to finish this, i really enjoy doing even digital art of Metal, digital which is usually painstaking for me to do, and I’ve got sooo many angst art pieces of him in the works lol

But this is vent art. And I’m thinking it can be a nice opportunity to give an update on myself? And have a talk about flowergore, machines, sketches and disability, because I’m in that kinda mood

I didn’t want to put a read more split on this post but it became too long to comfortably fit on my blog, so alas... Life doesn’t often go as planned, yeah?

Cw for the next paragraph, just skip if these make you uncomfortable, or if you want to go straight to the flowergore & metal convo: discussion of chronic illness & disability, with references to disordered eating. I’ve been diagnosed a bit less than a month ago with a chronic autoimmune disease that has been severely impacting my life for a long time without my knowledge: coeliac disease. Basically, my intestines see gluten as something to defend the body against, and that not only causes painful indigestions but also damages the intestines over time, so much so that the body starts having trouble digesting other things and getting nutrients from food. This has caused chronic pain, a miriad of ungodly symptoms like hair loss and skin rash, but honestly, more impacting? Chronic fatigue. I cannot express just how much psychological and emotional damage it has done to me, to have that decline of energy come in waves, but also steadily going down over years right up to now, where I spend most my days laying in bed, where sitting up in bed and booting up my computer is a “good day”, where I’m either sleepy, exhausted, bored out of my mind or frustrated that I can’t just be making the creative content I want to do. The self-esteem utter destruction, having to work through with myself that it’s okay to be idle and abandon all ambitions, to prioritize physical survival and keeping the will to live even as you stop eating to protect yourself from pain, struggle to keep up with your daily schedule and even thinking takes so much energy. My ipad, my accessibility tool that allows me to do something even as I can’t do anything irl, has become super old and dysfunctional. It gets overwhelmed easily and works slowly, closes randomly, corrupts art files and loads apps uncorrectly. Doing anything with it is either incredibly frustrating, time-consuming and difficult, or straight up impossible or a risk to lose work. I have a Metal Sonic artwork I’ve lost and redone twice, I’m currently taking a break from redoing it a third time. It’s been rough. But tbh, in another way, I relate to it? Massive brainfog energy, lmao. When I have to remind myself that machines are faillible too, I end up humanizing it and validate its struggles, even tho it isn’t alive and it just malfunctions because it is what it is. It has taught me patience and the ability to build back up work that I have lost. But hey, there ain’t no reason to add another layer of inaccessibility to my pile, and I ordered a replacement for it just today! I’ll be so much more productive and happy with material that works smoothly and allows for more. But anyways, back to flowergore.

Flowergore is vividly poetic, but I only realized why it has always appealed to me as a comfort/vent and cathartic aesthetic while drawing this: There’s an innate stillness and loss of control to flowergore. Pretty, but tragic. Illness stops being an evil, and becomes a simple product of life that does its thing regardless of the will of the soil it grows in. You have to tend to the plants, whether you trim them to get them under control or must care after them to coexist.  No matter if you find the flowers pretty or not, it doesn’t change anything. The flowers aren’t an innate good nor a moral wrong, they don’t even have an opinion about growing on you. They don’t care, they can’t, they’re just flowers. And yet there’s something so comforting about it, something that can be sad but that can just be peaceful, too. It’s about living through the effects, and dealing with the weeds as they come and go. Resigning yourself, or the process of getting there. It’s about acceptance, and compromise. I think flowergore has innate ties with disability and illness that can’t be denied, nor broken honestly, when you think about it. I also think it can represent/relate with dysmorphia a lot, bodily or otherwise. In my case, I have various skin and sensory issues that give me dysmorphia, and an otherwise “I hate my body and my body hates me” feeling.  The stillness of flowergore often resonates as fatigue, sadness or anguish. It personifies the illness in a way that you can better reflect on your relationship with it, and your relationship with your body & yourself, in a way that allows you to better vent about them. It’s very healing.

These sort of things are the kind of thing that sometimes, you kind of have to personify to distance it from your identity and properly cope with them, you know? Or it’ll just consume you. Even way before I developed my disease, or was regularly fatigued, I loved flowergore, and I think it’s just... A really nice way to frame things weighing you down, that you just kinda have to deal with and process through. Even vague or “normal”/”light” things, like fatigue or negative thoughts, feelings or insecurities.

And don’t get me STARTED on the metaphors and feelings of plants sprouting from an inorganic machine. It’s the classic “sprout growing from a crack in concrete” dystopia trope, except with a negative punchline hah. I’ve always loved to humanize the dehumanized: robots, antagonists and otherwise. I love having characters that feel like they’re on a high pedestral of innate difference and superiority away from others, but that makes them unreachable by default, deeply lonely and misunderstood for it, wether they’re truly an exceptional being or not. I love characters thinking that they’re above physical or emotional weakness getting a slap in the face and having to acknowledge their vulnerability and neglected/suppressed needs head on. I love the delusional, emotionally repressed with anger issues robot having a moment of clarity where he allows himself to be honest to himself for a bit, and resigns himself to the pain of his past and future, before returning to their regular schedule or self-destruction, or not. Ignoring is often the only option you can manage to choose when you don’t have the strenght to make a change or admit to something you didn’t want to about yourself, but ignoring is a lot harder when the proof grows ever bigger and more out of control everywhere on your body. It shouldn’t. It shouldn’t grow on you, impossible. But it does. So what are you going to do about it?

I think I finally get the appeal of hanahaki stuff too. I never understood before, but now I can see it in that same vein. Unreciprocated love causes flowers to sprout wildly, causing, at best, only body horror and/or wounds, when weeding them out or otherwise, and at worst proves to be fatal, most often by suffocating. Except that instead of illness or things like that, the thing you experience a lack of control over and feel some sort of detached destructive blame or resentment for is feelings. Feelings of love, like falling deeply in love, without your own consent, and the pain that being unloved brings. Your love, like a damaging parasitic disease.

Yeah, this isn’t gonna be my last flowergore content.

I didn’t end up talking about sketches, I don’t have the energy to and I don’t think it fits in with the rest anyway, but basically? It’s been an healing journey to allow simple, unclean sketches to be “enough”. To not be shameful, to represent progress and be pretty in their own right and a valid art format. And so, with all of this, I post my messiest sketch on social media to date. One of my very rare public wips. Freedom, baby. You get what you get, and that’s fine. Low standards art is part of my disability recovery arc ✨

scars:  how many scars does my muse have? where are they located on my muse’s body? how did they get them? what do they look like? 

aches: does my muse have any frequent aches? ie, muscle aches, joint aches? how do these affect them from day-to-day? 

mind: does my muse have any mental conditions that affect their lives? what are they? how do they handle them? what coping methods do they use most? 

You Will Tell Me About Rune

[ooc: asiug,shjdngiuskd,hjgsdg thank u for the ask, this is gonna get long tho lol (also why are u talking in kanaya's quirk lmao?)]

[scars: shes not got too many surprisingly! tho theres quite a few around her hands and arms. mostly burns from raising littie and being clumsy, as well. shes also got some scars from just.. continuously picking at scabs lol]

[aches: shes not got much surprisingly! but she does have carpal tunnel from constantly using computers (and drawing too!) which annoys her to no end, since basically all her fav things revolve around using a computer. shes also got some back aches from shrimping a lot lol but it doesnt effect her that much]

[mind: yes, definitely, absolutely hehe.

shes got adhd, autism, depression and maaaaaaaaaaaybe chronic fatigue syndrome. id have to read more on it, and ive already spent enough hours reading the dsm5 today lmao. also maaaaaaaybe trichotillomania? i know enough about it but idk if i wanna make it canon

it would partially explain her messy hair and also ive literally never seen any character with trichotillomania? ig itd be nice to have the representation... but i dont rly wanna increase the self insert-ness of rune! shes different than me and i want it to stay that way lmao. but some traits overlapping is fine.. idk should i do it? tell me in the comments! dont forget to like and subscribe!

anyway, for coping n such, she doesnt have many specific coping strategies, all the ones shes tried in the past have failed in the end. in general tho, she usually leans on bolt and littie for support, especially during depressive episodes. she also escapes into games n such to help Cope, but it doesnt work all the time since that still requires some energy. sometimes shes burnt out or so deep in depressive stuff that she just.. cant get herself to do it. thats when she leans on littie and bolt the most.

for the social side of things, she doesnt do much actually. shes mostly stopped caring about seeming weird or whatever and doesnt mask too much.. cus of that and her impulsiveness, she can often seem kinda blunt, and doesnt use much nonverbal communication. the little she does use is based off of shows and games she likes lol, tho idk how aware of that she is]

[sdiughksdg u can rly tell which part got my main focus huh. uhhhhh thank u for the ask! and sorry for taking so long .. and making it so long lol. i got kinda distracted and for some reason felt the need to reread the relevant sections in the dsm5 despite having done so like 10 times sdiguhsdg]

(previous anon) thank you for the detailed answer. my knees have no cushion either! and yeah, my body does not move the way i want it to in a few ways. standing still for more than a minute or so quickly gets very painful, and the only way to mitigate it temporarily is to walk slowly or shift my weight from one foot to the other if sitting isn't an option. i have to sit when i bathe/do dishes/laundry. i've mentioned this to doctors in the past, but they just tell me to exercise more, which unfortunately is not ideal because exertion makes my base level of fatigue worse to the point where i can't keep up with my day job. i'll put a pin on seeing a physical therapist some time, though; i have been planning to look into my mobility issues for a while.

about dieting- i've always been fat, since i was a child, and i felt completely neutral about my own body. when i was a small child, it was seen as cute and a sign that my parents fed me well, but by the time i was in high school, PE class involved everyone getting their BMI measured and i was classified as obese (32 or so). ever since then, my mother has been obsessed with my weight and mentioning how worried she is for my health and how i should definitely be on a diet because i was "ballooning" (said with terror and pleading).

but i was kinda never sold on it? i have relatives who're huge into dieting and would post their gym and progress photos on facebook, but some months later i'd see them at reunions and they had already gained it all back. i even had a distant aunt whose heart gave out because she gained and lost so much weight many times throughout her life. when it came to weight loss, my stance has always been: what's the point of all that effort and expensive products/services if it's so easy to gain it back anyway? i just want my weight to be stable, not to keep going down. unfortunately, i live in southeast asia, where being fat is seen as "you're gonna have a heart attack any minute if you don't drop everything and lose weight right fucking now!!!"

if anything, the only thing that annoys me about my weight and general size/shape is that it's hard to shop for clothes and shoes in my size lol. specialized plus size stores are always more expensive, economies of scale, etc. i always gotta rely on hunting for foreign overruns or secondhand stuff since everyone's so small in my country :p

Oh god, I can't imagine trying to shop for clothes at our size (I think my BMI is also in the lower half of the 30s... not that I pay attention bc that's not what BMI was designed for) in an Asian country. It's hard enough in the US and over here, Asian sizes are notorious for "plan on buying at least one size up from your US size, probably two." I hav e enough of an interest in Asian fashion that I go looking occasionally and immediately have to laugh in pain at "size: XL waist: 112cm" type size charts. (my waist for reference is 50in/127cm)

You should definitely see a physical therapist if you can find a decent one (I have no advice for this, on account of there being an ocean between us, and also I myself have never actually used one). I only had immediate pain from standing during the worst of my Bad Hip period, but I have permanent back problems and can't stand for long periods without an assistive device (which in my case means... a heavy backpack as a counterweight. Lmao.)

Also, as far as fatigue goes, if your body is running estrogen as your primary hormone, get checked for anemia! I had horrific anemia before getting on T, and it was a definite factor in my chronic fatigue.

And, well, yeah, none of what you described with your relatives is surprising to me, as someone who has followed actual weight health science all my life as a survival need. Humans tend to vary by 5 or so pounds in either direction depending on various factors, but any weight loss of more than 10-15 lbs (please don't ask me to convert to kilos I don't have that one memorized) is like... it's medically concerning... unless the person is dieting! then it's fine!

Yeah, bullshit.

Good luck out there anon.

Lmao when I was 14 my only exposure to the concept of eczema was red, swollen and flaky skin in the folds of my friend's elbows, and at that point it was cemented as the only presentation of eczema in my mind. I thought my wrecked cuticles were because of "winter hands" and me picking at it, and the dyshidrotic blisters on my feet were athletes foot or weird warts, and most relevant to this story that the entire massive flakes of whole skin coming off my scalp were craft glue patches that my brother put in my hair while I was asleep.

So I'm in the car, and my scalp is itchy and feels tight so I pick at it and a flake of probably 3cm² comes off whole, and I pull it out and you can see where the hair follicles were, and I've never had this happen, I just always had intense dandruff that I thought was caused by very sensitive skin because I could only use baby shampoo. So I turn around to the back seat and ask my brother "did you put glue in my hair??" because at that point in our lives he was kinda obsessed with those YouTube prank videos. He gets vehemently upset because he decidedly did not put glue in my hair, even though the "evidence" was right there! My mom takes one look at it very quickly because she's driving and goes "that's your skin darling".

Cue panicking because an entire massive flake of my skin came off whole that has got to mean I have cancer or something, right? And she's like "no honey you just have sensitive skin remember, you always get dandruff this is just a really big chunk" and I'm like "oh" and then I forget about it. Time to go back to baby shampoo from my regular again I guess.

Come to find out at twenty fucking four that the weird blister on my foot is not a wart, nor is it a severe case of athlete's foot, it's eczema. I went to the doctor because it was huge and fungal cream did fuck all and it was so itchy it almost burned so again, scared of skin cancer. She takes one look at it and is like "you don't have warts or cancer lmao it's just eczema wear open shoes for a few days this is caused by sweat and friction and here's a cortisone cream for the itching and swelling" and I'm like HUH??

Eczema is flaky red inflamed skin in your elbow folds this is Not That what are you on and she gets to explain to me, trying very hard not to laugh, that eczema is an immune response because your skin barrier is like, not there because Genes™. It most commonly presents in dry flaky and inflamed skin in the folds of your limbs, but can present in many different ways, including chronically dry and flaky cuticles, hairloss, intense dandruff and inflammation on your scalp, and of course dyshidrotic blisters on your hands and feet.

Sweat makes it worse, so do perfumed skincare or hygiene products, stress, allergies, dehydration, fatigue, illness, hormones and many types of medication. I got a dyshidrotic blister because I was wearing the same pleather sandals every day in 35 degree weather and the friction along with the lack of breathability of pleather caused sweat, which led to irritation, which led to a breakout, which led to a hardened skin barrier, which led to the trapping of sweat under the skin forming a massive, ugly and kinda terrifying blister that itched so bad it drove me insane.

So I'm like cool my foot blister won't kill me can we go back to the cuticles and scalp thing because I just thought I had sensitive skin that was eczema too? And she goes "well you do have sensitive skin, because you have eczema. Your cuticles take a proper beating every day because you use your hands and fingers for a bunch of stuff, so it's not that strange that you get a lot of irritants under and around your nails that cause a breakout. Get a good cuticle oil and wash your hands well with clean warm water frequently, not harsh soap or sanitizers, and it should calm down. As for your scalp do you get a lot of dandruff and inflammation?" and I'm like yeah because I do, and she goes "well try some coal tar shampoo and put something unperfumed with lanolin in on the worst patches and see if it gets any better, and if you sweat a lot wash and dry your hair as soon as possible"

Ma'am you single handedly just cured all my anxiety about skin cancer and autoimmune diseases in 7 minutes and gave me Solutions™ I have to go apologize to my brother for accusing him of putting glue in my hair now thank you.

The coal tar shampoo works wonders, my cuticles are in decent enough shape, and I haven't had a dyshidrotic blister since. So this is your reminder that your understanding of common conditions may be more limited than you think and that you should always see a doctor if you're panicking about your health because it's something completely banal and easy to treat a decent chunk of the time.

So autistic burnout and how it impacts me

Basically it happens when you mask too much and fuck it if I don't mask like all the time

I've basically been masking since I was born lol. There are varying levels of masking, for me at least, I can't speak for other people

I guess the person I mask around the least is my ma but considering I live with her and I only get 14 hours a week actually alone, you can see how that isn't good right? Lol

Anyways, here's some ways it can look in adults

emotional dysregulation (lmao, def feeling this, could have probably stuffed my feelings down and snuffed them out if I hadn't been going through burnout for a couple months now)

decreased self-care (I am trying so hard but I've got no energy to do anything for myself. All my energy is going to work and my dog)

increased frequency of autistic traits (I can feel like they want to pop out but I'm not sure if people can actually tell? I really don't know how to unmask but I can feel the struggle of it trying to slip off)

irritability (yeap, being very resistant to change at work and yeap)

low motivation (oh yea, I really do not care about sales at work, I really don't care about doing anything except for sleeping)

Here's what it feels like to be going through it

anxiety (yeap! But I'm always anxious lol)

depression (yeap! Also always depressed)

extreme lethargy (yeap! I have chronic fatigue but it is definitely worse right now)

inability to ask for help (yeap! I have never been able to ask for help though)

memory issues (yeap! Also have always had a shit memory, thanks childhood trauma!)

loss of words or selective mutism (def going through that)

reduced executive functioning -e.g., staying organized, making decisions (yeap! And I think this is why I'm dissociating so much right now too. Kinda miss the full on black out dissociation. Not liking this fuzzy foggy sense of self and sense of the world, makes it real hard to know what's real)

trouble bouncing back from daily tasks (oh yea, but how can someone not have trouble with this when going through everything else?)

suicidal thoughts (yeap! Normally I'm just passively suicidal, like it would be nice to die but I'm not gonna do it, but it has definitely been pushing into actively suicidal lately, womp womp)

Besides masking, an article I'm reading says "Another reason you may feel exhausted is that you’re required to participate in long-term interactions that don’t offer much relief, like socializing at work. Though they may be 'lower-level' interactions, says Lombardo, they can deplete your energy." And I'm just like, yea, if you're masking then that is a huge chunk of energy. I love my coworkers (some more than others lmao whoops) but it is draining. And I work in retail so I have to interact with customers which I 100% do not want to do lol

Frequent changes are also listed as a reason for burnout and there have been a lot of changes going on at work since they were bought out. Manager was like "stop complaining about corporate they haven't even done anything lately" (which not true, they recently added a pop-up when you clock in saying to make sure you have your name tag and smile on and that felt like a huge slap in the face to me as I'm struggling with masking and is basically telling me that I can never unmask at work) but like I'm still struggling with the dress code change and being promoted to a supervisor position I never asked for and how the store no longer feels like we're finding the best option for the customer according to their needs but to just get them to spend as much money as possible and just like every change that has happened

The article lists some barriers in getting adequate support

"In a 2020 studyTrusted Source, participants reported that the inability to receive support for their needs contributed to a sense of burnout. This included:

being told burnout is your own fault (luckily I have not experienced this one)

hearing that it happens to everyone (my manager has said this to me lol, I have talked to her about it but it fucking sucked)

getting dismissed when you ask for help (it is very hard for me to ask for help so I don't really do it directly. "I'm too autistic for this" "we are understaffed" of course management doesn't listen to that. Plus I mentioned being understaffed one too many times and my manager snapped at me lol, I don't blame her she is under a lot of stress and she did put up now hiring signs after that)

Some ways to recover from burnout include

Removing obligations : It’s time to get a little ruthless with your schedule and commitments. If something isn’t 100% necessary, take it off your calendar for the near future. Your new goal is to try to find as much downtime as you can, with fewer extracurriculars, work projects, and social events."

Which I am doing. I've quit my dnd group. My schedule at work is going to be reduced to 3 days. I really want to work on cosplay but I'm waiting until I've recovered (which hopefully I'll still have enough time to work on at least one lol). A coworker friend invited me to sushi with everyone and I'm like that's nice but I can't lol.

And participating in soothing activities which they list a few

spend time in nature (trying to do that more, tossing peanuts for crows at work and such)

practice a calming visualization

exercise (lmao fuck no)

draw (I don't have the creativity right now)

listen to music (yes yes yes)

journal (yes sorry to everyone that I use Tumblr as my journal, ironically hiding myself and keeping secrets is a trigger for me. Like I make it so hard for people to know me and I mask but hiding myself and keeping secrets is a trigger? Like I know exactly why, this is childhood trauma shit but like what the fuck)

stretch (yes and popping everything as I do so)

sit in silence with someone you love (I love my ma but there's issues I can't get past while living with her so I don't think this would be a good option for me) (sitting in silence with other people I love are also not good options because they are too far away and it takes up too much energy to get to them and our schedules conflict and it takes up too much energy to plan something out or because I'm crazy lol)

Sensory interventions like compression, noise canceling headphones, texture seeking, enjoying favorite smells, having a sensory closet

I don't have a weighted blanket and I'm not sure how I would feel about compression anyways. I don't need noise canceling headphones at home and I can't wear them at work lol. I do enjoy textures at home but it's harder to do that at work. Also can't enjoy favorite smells at work. And I wish I had the space for a sensory closet lol, maybe when I have the energy I can go through my closet and start tossing the stuff I need to toss.

Sleep is great for burnout but also if you can't sleep, just rest

I am doing a lot of both when I'm not at work lol. Wow, I really hate that I have to work in order to survive. This is a huge issue for me regarding my depression but that is a whole other post

Practice self compassion

Haha, yes yes

Something this specific article doesn't mention is that a lot of people on the spectrum also develop gastrointestinal issues and I think one of the reasons that happens is because of masking and I do think my gut problems get worse when I'm in burnout.

blah blah talking about my health cos I feel like it, ignore if you're just here for fandom stuff

went for my post-op follow-up monday and finally, finally got a fucking name for what's been wrong with me. am not going to bother googling for the official name again lmao but basically it's chronic (not acute) gallbladder disease. no stones whatsoever, just my gallbladder deciding to give up the ghost and getting inflamed over and over for years and scarring each time and that's why for the past three or four years food has made me gradually more and more sick to my stomach and left in pain after eating until last summer when it finally erupted into the pain that sent me to urgent care who sent me to the ER (yay, more debt I'll never pay).

on the one hand, I'm so goddamned relieved to finally have a diagnosis and KNOW that I'm not fucking imagining it or making it up after all my tests and scans kept coming back as negative/normal (mostly cos no stones, but who knows why the HIDA one showed nothing wrong), but on the other hand, I mentioned the nausea and pain to my GP when it first started and he fucking dismissed the nausea entirely as caused by my acid reflux and wanted to put me on medication for IBS "to see if it helps" without actually TESTING me at all for IBS, it was just because of the stomach pain and absolutely no fucking other typical symptoms (I refused, btw, after googling and seeing that it could CAUSE issues if you took meds and didn't have IBS) and I can't help but feel like it wouldn't have gotten nearly so bad if he'd taken me seriously from the start and referred me to a specialist instead of dicking around and doing fuck-all for a few years. and because I'm poor as fuck and have no insurance, finding a new doctor wasn't an option for me. ugh. hate the state of healthcare in this fucking country. so my relief is kinda soured by that.

anyways, it can take up to two months for my body to adjust and I might always struggle to eat certain things so I'm still kinda hrgh about it and food is still miserable right now, but if I could just get back to being able to eat most of my normal things I could live with that, so... fingers crossed I guess. also the incisions STILL haven't healed, though I finally got the steri-strips off, but tbh that's just made it even harder to not scratch... it's absolutely killing me, I need them to just scar so fucking badly hhhhhh.

also I still have my chronic fatigue and other health problems that I couldn't get my doctor to take seriously, so that's fun. but he left the clinic a few months ago so maybe whoever is going to replace him will be more willing to listen to me. I'm so tired of being tired and if I have to be tired, I want some fucking disability so I can at least buy my own goddamn groceries.

the end. I ate earlier so I'm actually feeling sick so I'm going to reread the last few chapters of my fic and then maybe I'll actually be capable of writing, if the brain fog isn't too bad. stupid fatigue.