shout out to people who's family isnt entirely bad or entirely good, but something in between and you dont know how to feel about them. you feel angry but you also feel guilty, because you know they genuinely love and care about you, but sometimes they show it in a way you know its not okay. your feelings are valid, your anger and sadness and grief are valid, and you dont have to prove this to no one. bigger shout out to those with memory issues who know something isnt right but can't recall all of the bad events, only the feelings, which only increases the guilt.

transphobic family members are one thing but it's so hard to deal with family that are convinced they're supportive but are bumbling, misinformed, or forgetful and will still misgender/deadname you nearly as frequently, but when you call them out or ask them to try harder all of a sudden you're the bad guy. i have heard some of the most fucked up shit from 'liberal' parents using the 'correct' terminology about trans people, where what they're actually saying is deeply fucked up. like my step mom excitedly telling me she saw 'an afab man' at the market and explaining how she could tell.

'i don't want to be in a room where i will be misgendered/deadnamed/deal with transphobia' applies even if it happens 'on accident' every single time you see someone. and it's a healthy boundary to set. but good g-d some people would rather kick and scream and cry than acknowledge that they're hurting you, even unintentionally.

the thing is there's like, a point of oversaturation for everything, and it's why so many things get dropped after a few minutes. and we act like millennials or gen z kids "have short attention spans" but... that's not quite it. it's more like - we did like it. you just ruined it.

capitalism sees product A having moderate success, and then everything has to come out with their "own version" of product A (which is often exactly the same). and they dump extreme amounts of money and environmental waste into each horrible simulacrum they trot out each season.

now it's not just tiktokkers making videos; it's that instagram and even fucking tumblr both think you want live feeds and video-first programming. and it helps them, because videos are easier to sneak native ads into. the books coming out all have to have 78 buzzwords in them for SEO, or otherwise they don't get published. they are making a live-action remake of moana. i haven't googled it, but there's probably another marvel or starwars something coming out, no matter when you're reading this post.

and we are like "hi, this clone of project A completely misses the point of the original. it is soulless and colorless and miserable." and the company nods and says "yes totally. here is a different clone, but special." and we look at clone 2 and we say "nope, this one is still flat and bad, y'all" and they're like "no, totally, we hear you," and then they make another clone but this time it's, like, a joyless prequel. and by the time they've successfully rolled out "clone 89", the market is incredibly oversaturated, and the consumer is blamed because the company isn't turning a profit.

and like - take even something digital like the tumblr "live streaming" function i just mentioned. that has to take up server space and some amount of carbon footprint; just so this brokenass blue hellsite can roll out a feature that literally none of its userbase actually wants. the thing that's the kicker here: even something that doesn't have a physical production plant still impacts the environment.

and it all just feels like it's rolling out of control because like, you watch companies pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into a remake of a remake of something nobody wants anymore and you're like, not able to afford eggs anymore. and you tell the company that really what you want is a good story about survival and they say "okay so you mean a YA white protagonist has some kind of 'spicy' love triangle" and you're like - hey man i think you're misunderstanding the point of storytelling but they've already printed 76 versions of "city of blood and magic" and "queen of diamond rule" and spent literally millions of dollars on the movie "Candy Crush Killer: Coming to Eat You".

it's like being stuck in a room with a clown that keeps telling the same joke over and over but it's worse every time. and that would be fine but he keeps fucking charging you 6.99. and you keep being like "no, i know it made me laugh the first time, but that's because it was different and new" and the clown is just aggressively sitting there saying "well! plenty of people like my jokes! the reason you're bored of this is because maybe there's something wrong with you!"

aaa games: we have some of the most CUTTING EDGE character customization options for you!! you can't make them fat tho, only cause we'd have to design more clothing models and adjust the animation for them and we just don't have the resources for that haha you understand right. that's totally the only reason we don't let you do that. anyways which of these 6 cocks would you like your character to have

man ok so I've been trying to be more attentive to the way my body feels bc apparently i feel bad way more than i really notice and man i feel so goofy stupid about it

wait, maybe I'm visually sensitive?? what a shock!! i thought everyone had moments where they wished they were blind as a kid. i thought everyone felt better when they broke their glasses bc there was less detail and it made things less overwhelming. i thought everyone had to lie in the dark for a couple hours every day just to feel normal. i thought everyone's eyes hurt when they went outside even if it was cloudy. i thought everyone preferred looking at things via peripheral vision bc it's less direct. i thought everyone wore black every day so their eyes have somewhere to rest on. what the hell is this normal???? is it????? probably not right???????? what the hell

like i just didn't realize i felt bad until i felt better?? i never considered that i could be any of these things bc no one told me to pay attention to it and ignoring it was easier. and even when i did it was kind of a :/ feeling like a 3/10 discomfort peaking at 6/10 all day and then "hey wow why can't I do anything now that I'm home" like,, dipshit it's bc you're in hell what. maybe your idea of a 3/10 isn't right ya moron

oh maybe i don't feel as brain staticy after walking through the halls if i play music. it's almost as if it's overwhelming and bad. and i already knew that but i always get stuck not doing things differently so i didn't bother bc i could tolerate it (probably by dissociating tbh) and wow yeah now that i am it's just. easier. sheesh

oh, i can feel my bone marrow retreating into my body whenever i touch wet clothes? noted. can't actually do much about that one but it's the thought that counts

it even goes for nonsensory stuff like stimming and communication. maybe THATS why i wish so badly that i could communicate nonverbally (esp ASL, seems super useful), why it feels So Wrong To Talk sometimes. maybe THATS why i gotta move and/or make noise like 70% of the time and always have in some way. maybe THATS why i can't understand people if they're muffled/have an accent I'm not familiar with/if multiple ppl are talking, and why there's a delay in processing, and why i can't watch things without subtitles. hell hell ass hell hell hell etc

and a lotta this is only stuff i realized bc i started looking into various flavors of neurodivergency. still not really willing to self diagnose until i do more legit big boy research but at the very least apparently I'm onto SOMETHING if these realizations keep happening. like even if I'm neurotypical and faking it or just quirky or whatever it's making my life better to pay attention to how i feel for once so..? yeah it's productive ig. i swear this is a positive post guys

and a lot of it's easier realizing people don't usually mean 100% universal literal inability when they're talking about not being able to do stuff or when they experience things really strongly. sometimes stuff is just disproportionately hard or rare for someone. shit man idk. doesn't mean they ain't disabled or nd or whatever and, therefore, it doesn't mean i can't be just bc i used to be able to do my homework before the deadline :/ when ppl have special interests it doesn't mean they only think about one thing for their entire lives hell ass of course not why would you think that. jeez.

anyway i swear this is a good silly thing even though the tone is a bit mad(?) but sometimes it's just baffling the way I've lived my entire life. clown behavior. what is wrong with me. shape up there bud

in the club crying sobbing wailing screaming

I think there's a really big difference between "I recognize and respect what the canon is trying to do, but I'll write this thing that goes against it anyway because that's what makes me happy" and "I do not recognize or respect what the canon is trying to do, and am going to do what I like because it makes me feel like I'm smarter than canon."

The former is Anidala writers who just want the sweet and fluffy domesticity in a no-66 AU, because we know it was meant to be toxic and tragic but DAMMIT let us have this. We know they're fucked up and a big part of the message and tragedy is that they're fucked up, but we want to live, if only for a few hours, in that dream Vader had in that one comic l, where Padmé was Supreme Chancellor and they had a son named after Qui-Gon who was also a Jedi. We know it's a dream and a fantasy but It Makes Us Happy.

The latter is people who write the New Mandalorians as enacting cultural genocide and lionize the True Mandalorians because why treat a complex political situation with nuance when you can use a Bad Animation Decision as an excuse to say that Actually the guys with guns are the morally correct party.

"I don't get why people write Anidala as this happy domestic--" delusion is fun and can make you feel better and that's fine if you aren't hurting anyone

"I don't get why people rewrite Satine to reject Mando'a when she speaks more of it than any other named character in TCW and all the signage and writing is in the Mandalorian alphabet--" malice and misogyny, probably

Sometimes, a girl's just gotta complain

Something about mistranslations and perspectives and trying very very hard.

it's so hard to explain to people who aren't jewish the profound sense of loneliness we feel when our posts about any other cause get ten times the engagement, but whenever we share something about antisemitism, the only people who engage are other jews. it's not about likes, but it feels like screaming into the void. we post about the latest synagogue attack, or about our community getting bomb threats, or how another jew got assaulted on the streets, or killed at a protest. and the world sees it, and doesn't blink. doesn't care. because they can care about anyone on the entire planet, defend them, speak up for them, but a jew? well, we aren't people, are we. we'll never count.

how fucking bad does it have to get for my friends to share a single fucking post.

I hate that having ADHD is seen as “quirky”. Or one of the “lesser” mental disorders.

It is agonizing.

You are constantly forgetting everything, names, locations, tasks, items, everything. You misplace things subconsciously and have to spend half hours looking for them, only to find them in places you genuinely cannot recall at all. Your memory is nonexistent. You are constantly aware that you have things you need to do or need to be doing but you cannot remember what. You know you are forgetting something but it doesn’t come to you, so you spend all day anxious. You get awful moments of dysfunction where words become incomprehensible and you are incapable of completing a task, but people are quick to assume you are lazy no matter how hard you’re trying. And one of the worst parts is that you KNOW you’re letting people down. You know you can’t grasp time so you’re showing up late even though you left extremely early. You know someone expected something from you by a deadline but you genuinely couldn’t remember. And in academics, you know some of your teachers are trying hard to be accommodating but you can’t even do the most basic tasks by the given deadlines. Or! You get teachers that do not even understand what mental disorders are and accuse you of not trying. People think you are using your disorder as an excuse just because you know you have it and use it to explain some of your behaviors. If you mask well enough to never need help, you don’t get diagnosed even though it’s taking all of your strength just to get by. If you don’t mask well enough and you are fem presenting like I am you are told you aren’t acting out so you are fine. You can’t win. It’s not quirky to have ADHD, and we aren’t faking it.

It’s a constant struggle, and I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone.

tbh. let those men have thicc locs 🫶

hey, listen! this is a rant post about neurodivergent characters in Genshin and my frustration with the fandom's reading comprehension skills. if you're in a bad place or just don't like angry rants, please don't force yourself and go read something else instead. <3

Okay, so, I watched this video recently, and let's just say, I have some thoughts.

https://youtu.be/tYK3297p4rk?si=eMaf8NF57HFlUhfd

This isn't just a Xiao problem- the entire fandom is terrible at characterization. The example that makes me the most angry is the mischaracterization of neurodivergent characters.

Take Alhaitham for example. He's often seen as rude and narcissistic by the fandom- which is especially apparent in Haikaveh content, where people portray him as straight up abusive.

You wanna know why this makes me so mad? The supposedly narcissistic and rude traits Alhaitham has are actually just exaggerated symptoms of autism.

Like, come ON, people. Don't skip dialogue. Better yet, go read through his story quest again. He straight up tells someone who sees him as narcissistic that he doesn't see others as less than himself. Also, his voicelines basically confirm this- he's extremely socially inept and he doesn't care. He has difficulty showing emotions as readily as his peers- that doesn't mean he doesn't have them, just that he expresses them differently. He comes across as rude because he doesn't get that people don't like to hear what they're doing wrong, and he probably doesn't care because that's not his problem. If people don't like how blunt he is, that's their problem. At least, that's how I think he views the world.

And like, there are SO many hints that he's autistic. He wears sound-blocking earpieces, for crying out loud. Hell, the ENTIRE REASON why he helped out during the Archon quest was because he didn't want his life to change too much. Preferring routine is an autistic trait.

And the worst part is, when I talk about this outside of neurodivergent groups, people tell me I'm wrong and that he couldn't be autistic DESPITE THOSE PEOPLE NOT BEING AUTISTIC THEMSELVES.

And I'm not saying that every autistic person relates to Alhaitham, but I certainly do. And I'm actually quite friendly because I'm anxious about being rejected. Alhaitham isn't, and I'm so jealous of him for that. He's living his best life.

Finally, back to the Haikaveh thing... Alhaitham isn't abusive. He doesn't say horrible things to Kaveh, and the one example of him doing that I could find, he immediately backtracked and subtly tried to make Kaveh feel better. Hell, Alhaitham doesn't even actually care about making sure Kaveh pays rent. He says it as a joke, but because he's autistic and his tone of voice doesn't give that away as well, he's portrayed as abusive and misunderstood as narcissistic. Y'all just don't like neurodivergent people and it shows.

Yes, neurodivergent includes Xiao. PTSD is often viewed as a form of neurodivergency, and there are many MANY characters in Genshin that have PTSD or some other form of neurodivergence. Yet people refuse to see them as such and mischaracterize them as "edgy," "narcissistic," "unapproachable," "weird," and the like. Yet none of these characters are any of those things.

You wanna know the true narcissists? The true edgelords? The actually rude people? Might I direct your attention to Scaramouche, Childe, and Dottore, whom everyone makes out to be as misunderstood pathetic little meow meows that need love.

Reminder that only two of those three are actually redeemable, and one is STILL an edgelord who is more rude than Alhaitham could ever be, while the other is a certified insane person with a weird set of morals.

(Side note: I love Scaramouche and Childe as characters. I'm just tired of people acting like they aren't worse than the autistic characters. Scaramouche is extremely rude, but he's trying to be better as Wanderer thanks to Nahida's help. He has severe PTSD, and Childe does, too. But both of them are actually messed up and have done horrible things, yet people portray them as better and more in need of love than the characters with unlikable (read: neurodivergent) traits.)

Don't even get me started on how people portray Kokomi, Sucrose, Fischl, Diluc, Zhongli, Cyno, Furina, Neuvillette, and Albedo. Especially that last one- I WILL get mad if one more person tries to tell me he's just emotionless and rude.

Also, if anyone is wondering where I've seen people misunderstanding these characters, it's mostly on Hoyolab site discussions. There's one too many posts talking about how "rude" and "annoying" these characters are.

With Alhaitham especially, I see many people writing him as abusive in Haikaveh content. I see people arguing about the ship being toxic because Alhaitham is "abusive," "unfeeling," and "cruel." Even people who like the ship portray him as such. And I've seen too many people comparing him to Dr. Ratio, who is literally just a narcissist who views others as beneath him. Don't get me wrong, I understand the comparison. It's just... very obvious that people skipped dialogue during Genshin's Archon and story quests.

And it's frustrating because I've been misunderstood in the exact same way. I've been called "rude," "annoying," and "unfeeling" in the past and it's screwed me up. Seeing people do the same thing to a character I so deeply relate to makes me lose confidence in both myself and people around me.

If that's how you view a fictional character with autistic traits, how do you treat real people with the same traits?

Thanks for reading this far. My previous post seemed to get a lot of attention, so I felt more confident about posting my full perspective on this subject. Can any of you think of other characters that have been constantly misunderstood in the fandom? I'd love to hear about it.

ʏᴏᴜ'ᴠᴇ ɢᴏᴛ ᴍᴇ ɪɴ ᴀ ᴄʜᴏᴋᴇʜᴏʟᴅ

☆ seonghwa in wonderland symphony no. 9 vs ’chokehold’ by sleep token ☆

Evening, ladies

It is January 2024

I'm still a Covid ward nurse

In the last couple months I've seen 3 people die specifically and directly because they chose to go on a cruise or bus tour as their way to enjoy retirement / enjoy their time before they need a rest home

Covid ages older people a decade in a week

People who were still managing to live independently at home with maybe a cleaner once a week - again and again I see them spend 3 weeks in hospital and be forced to discharge straight to an aged care facility, if they come out of it at all.

Don't let older people go on things like bus tours and cruises.

A memorable holiday with your partner, very easily ends with one of you losing your life, and the other never being the same again, and never being able to go home again.

Wear a mask.

Get vaccinated.

Quit smoking.

Encourage community or social events to continue to provide some degree of Covid safety.

Are you ok? My favourite mechs artist has been quiet recently

im am SO so sorry i havent been able to post in so long aaa.. at the moment i am very much not okay, unfortunately a lot of things have gone poorly very quickly but hopefully its only a temporary set back!!

tldr i finally managed to get a full time job a month & a half after moving and my car broke down for the last time almost immediately upon hiring so i now have to walk ~2hrs to and from an 8 hour shift every day + more personal stuff,, the pain & stress is Not fun for my back problems or mental health :,^)

hoping to get the bike my mom leant me repaired as soon as i have my first paycheck or 2, so fingers crossed that will make a huge difference

i have still been slowly working on comms in whatever free time i get but its slow going 😔 ty everybody for your patience & sorry again for not being online!