#anyway: i may come back and reword the ending because i am not totally happy with it

[fromtheplanethexagon]

the robot problem: a critical look at tobecky, 5 years late

hello wordgirl fandom i am back :) and i have a lot of thoughts that i never got around to expressing before i moved on from the show. so be aware that everything i'm saying is based on my experiences during the 2012-2016 era of the fandom & state of tumblr in general, and i am not familiar with more recent fan content.

it's been over five years since the show ended, and @ifbrd​ reminded me (along with some great analysis) that while tobecky was super popular since before the show technically started (thanks to the play date shorts), it's pretty unhealthy in a lot of ways that tend to be excused or flat out ignored in fanworks. i'd like to reflect on that a bit (a lot); specifically, how both the show and the fandom approached this enemies-to-lovers ship, and how easily this ship can slip into uncomfortable territory if we're careless about how we interpret the ship and create fan content of it.

i will admit, i'm mostly writing this as a response to past me and my old creations - though i moved on from the show as a whole years ago, i do like taking the time to reflect on old interests once in a while, and reevaluating my thoughts on them. and this ship is probably the biggest one that still lurks in the corners of my mind once in a while, so let's go.

cherish is the word: a short positive note before a much longer negative one

i wanted to start this essay off with some positivity, because i am going to be very negative after this. tobecky was, in some ways, cute. it's obvious from the very beginning that these two characters are on pretty equal ground, even if one of them isn't aware of it. and that's part of the fun - the irony of how unaware tobey is that his nemesis/crush/person that pretty much always wins against him is someone that he completely dismisses as incompetent. i want to point this out because honestly, in general i don't like enemies-to-lovers because a lot of them use a power imbalance within the dynamic, and i hate power imbalances, especially when it comes to actual life-or-death scenarios (at least, as much as cartoons can do that). in most episodes, becky is never actually forced to go along with his wishes. she's not held in a 'date' against her will, nor is she ever really outwitted by him. i bring this up because there is one huge, uncomfortable exception, which i will get to later.

another big plus to the ship is the fact that they just... get along? even when fighting? of course we get brief moments where they just hang out and talk about paintings or whatever, but i'm talking about how much they get each other, even if they don't realize it. like the word banter, for example. been there since day one. becky loves words, and while most other people in her life don't really care (ranging from 'eh, that's cool i guess' to her brother calling it annoying), tobey gives her a chance to show off and thus treats her as a worthy adversary as herself, not because of her more generic superpowers - something that we've seen in canon that she feels self-conscious about (see: her motivation in patch game). one of the less noticed examples, to me, is "it's your party and i'll cry if I want to", because it's just - okay. they both are excluded from a social event, and while it's obvious that tobey deals with it by destroying the city, it's also pretty obvious that becky also deals with her frustration by fighting in that battle. like, yes, realistically it's just objectively bad that he's destroying buildings. but they're also providing each other with a way to work through their frustrations, first by fighting and then by talking things out, and finally by hanging out together instead of dwelling on being excluded from the party.

so it makes a lot of sense to me that many tobecky fans gravitated towards writing far-in-the-future fic, usually by implying that some growth had taken place before starting to write the ship. (there are, as far as i'm aware, 2... maybe 3 exceptions, that take the time to attempt a real redemption for him, at least when i left the fandom.) because if you take away his worst moments, either by reasoning out that he was 10 years old and a mess, or that he was a cartoon character in a cartoon world where everyone's actions are over-the-top, or by just flat-out pretending that certain episodes never happened, there's some pretty solid ground to start a ship on.

go gadget go: we all do not see it, we simply close our eyes (review of canon)

when the show began, i was the same age as the characters. a lot of other people were, too - at least in my cohort of the fandom. i think it's pretty safe to say that many of us have fond memories of the show's earlier seasons, and held on to that interest as we got older, for whatever reasons. so like, not to be all 'as an OG fan...', but i remember seeing the shorts air for the first time in 2006. i have a diary entry in july of 2009 about how i, a 12yo with no concept of the idea of 'shipping', was disappointed in the new tobey episode because i wanted more tobecky interactions. (that was robo-camping, btw, lol.) and so i remember how exciting their rivalry felt, watching them as someone literally their exact same age, and then watching that again as a nostalgic 17yo, and then uh... growing up, to put it frankly, and realizing just how unhealthy most of their interactions were.

okay what i meant to say was, this section is an overview of the relationship's canon portrayal throughout the years.

first, we have early tobecky: this includes the shorts and the first few seasons. this is their classic relationship: he likes her and takes robots on rampages to get her attention, she majorly disapproves and has fun taking him down. we've all seen the show, you know what i'm talking about. his backhanded ways of trying to find out her identity often feature prominently in the episodes, which - sigh, i've mentioned this whole issue before, but it's kind of a grey area in the whole uncomfortable-factor thing, because while trying to find out her identity is VERY invasive, it's something that like... everyone in the show tries to do, even her canon crush (scoops). on the one hand, it's really not a great look, but on the other hand, this is a cartoon meant to parody a genre in which this trope is extremely common. so i just wanna say that i have Issues and Thoughts on this aspect of their relationship, but there are other things i find more important to discuss here.

second, we have late tobecky: this is seasons 7-8. this is... a very strange and huge shift from the previous dynamic, though it's not necessarily obvious. what i mean by that is that for some reason, the show writers made it so that half of tobey’s rampages have nothing to do with his crush on wordgirl, even though that used to be the sole reason for his villainy. seriously. we have the birthday episode, where he's upset because he feels left out; wg vs tobey vs the dentist, where he's mad that he has a cavity; and trustworthy tobey, where his robot goes on a rampage... after becky accidentally makes it malfunction. the two outliers are ‘guess who’s coming to thanksgiving dinner’ and ‘patch game’, but they still differ from previous seasons because 1) his destruction is isolated to a forest far away from the city, and 2) his motive is still to impress wordgirl, but his methods are relatively tame. also he completely gives up on the secret identity thing??? i may have missed some things but i think he straight up tells her 'yeah there's no way you're wordgirl, lol' and the subject is just dropped for the rest of the show.

i also want to include 'the robot problem' here, because it's one of two season 6 tobey episodes, and follows the 'doesn't destroy buildings to get her attention' pattern: in fact, he teams up with her to try and stop someone else from going on a rampage (even if his reasons are selfish, lol).

and finally. the other season 6 episode. we have go gadget go, the bane of my time spent in the fandom. because GGG is the single episode where tobey truly manages to take away her autonomy, and proceeds to abuse that power for an extended period of time, for his own amusement. it's bad. it's Very Bad. put in the context that it's a white boy doing this to an (ambiguously) brown girl, it's REALLY REALLY BAD. and the more i look back on it, tbh, the more weirded out i am that the show not only made it seem like she wasn't affected at all within the episode, it just... forgot about it (which is not unusual for shows and especially children’s shows, but WG does make some efforts to either retain continuity or create canon reasons for why things are forgotten about). it's the kind of thing that you can't excuse and honestly you can't redeem (like at this point, you gotta ask yourself why you're spending so much effort trying to redeem this guy when becky has several other possible ships that are nowhere near this unhealthy - violet, scoops, honestly even victoria if you want another hero/villain ship, my absolute fave rarepair rose, etc).

so if you want to still ship it you have to just pretend that it never happened. (i remember trying for weeks to write something exploring the aftermath of this episode, to try and make myself feel better about it, but the more i wrote the more i realized just how traumatic this event should've been, so i eventually just dropped it.) and i brought up my own timeline of experiences earlier to point out that this episode aired eight whole years after the show started. which means that when i saw it, even though i was a huge stickler for canon at the time, i'd built up my own idea of the show and characters strongly enough to go 'yeah, no, this episode sucks and i am going to pretend that it doesn't exist'. and i think a lot of other people did too, because i really saw like... no one mention it, ever, except for some rogue fanfics over on ff dot net that already liked dynamics like that.

because here's the thing, and i don't know if people nowadays are aware of it? but i'm 80% sure (cannot find a source, so the other 20% is that it was just a rumor) that the show was originally supposed to end after season 6. and even if it's a rumor, it makes a ton of sense, because we get 1) an 'ending' to tobecky, which is a bad one, 2) a permanent wordgirl identity reveal that significantly changes one of the major dynamics in the show, 3) an episode where TJ gets to work with wordgirl and get a nice potential ending for their sibling dynamic, 4) an episode where we see Two-Brains explore life without his henchmen... the list goes on, and idk how many of these are just major stretches. but the point is. if the show had ended there, that would've been a pretty solid ending for many things, including their relationship: aka, it would prove that it was only ever heading somewhere bad, and when tobey finally has his moment of triumph, he is truly evil about it. and this provides us fans who HATE go gadget go with an easy reason to dismiss it - we can say that it was an attempt to conclude things in a way that wouldn't have happened if the writers had known they'd get more time. but despite that... it is still a canon episode.

it is odd to me how dramatically the dynamic shifts after that, though, because we seriously go from 'worst case ever, tobecky is toxic, your ship is dead' to 'no actually they get along and hang out and get ice cream together and tobey isn't even pressuring her into it, she's happy to go along with it :)' like, immediately. i never knew much about the show writers, so i don't know if the writers changed in between these seasons, but i would absolutely not be surprised if they did.

the earlier episodes are definitely problematic as well (though they pale in comparison to GGG) but i think everyone who ships it is aware considering that tobey is, yknow, a villain. from memory, he destroys buildings to get her attention, lies to her about the level of danger that people are in to trick her into spending more time with him, blackmails her into reading his poetry, and he creates a robot based on her that’s supposed to be devoted to him (but of course, all of these things backfire). not great stuff of course, but like... he’s a villain, that’s the point of his character. and considering that he’s a child these are things that can be redeemed, if done thoughtfully.

anyway, to sum up this section, the show starts off with a pretty standard 'enemies with an unrequited crush' setup, takes a really dark turn for a single episode, and then for the rest of the show takes their dynamic in a direction that makes it much, much easier to ship. as long as you ignore a lot of previous content.

wordbot: where's becky's autonomy in all of this? (misogyny)

we've finally gotten to the fandom. i recognize that a lot of this is going to come across as hypocritical considering how active i used to be re: this ship, but like... i'm a very different person now. anyway. disclaimer i guess - i don't write this to accuse all tobecky shippers of being like this - i know a lot of us aren't/weren't! but boy do i have things to point out, so without further ado:

it is very hard to ship this without allowing some bit of misogyny to slip into it. very, very hard. the entire premise of the ship involves a girl falling in love with a boy that repeatedly pressures her to date him via threats to the safety of herself and people she cares about, which... it's 2020, i shouldn't have to explain why that's terrible & a terrible example to set for children (which is why i am glad they never made it canon, tbh). best-case fan content has tobey stop pressuring her and start working to redeem himself out of an actual change of heart, which leads to becky seeing him in a new light. worst-case fan content treats his incessant pressuring and sometimes outright threats as something romantic - and even worse, romantic to the point where he deserves her attention and love as a reward for not giving up or whatever. i did see this pretty frequently for a while, especially in the earlier 2010s (didn't read much, Not My Thing At All), but i don't feel like going into detail here because of how obviously problematic it is. one medium (but still bad) case is where the fan content makes him start his redemption, but treats her liking him back as a reward for not knocking buildings over anymore. another not great case is where she tries to fix him with her love, which is a very common and very dangerous romantic trope. both are just... so incredibly unfair to her.

in content where she tries to 'fix him'... yeah i feel like it's really obvious how misogynistic that is. girls and women should not feel responsible for the evil actions of men, plain and simple. idk what else to say here i just really hate that trope and hated it back then and it just sucks! so can we not do that anymore, thanks.

in content that treats her like a reward for good behavior, there really isn't much of an explanation for what she sees in him. if she just goes 'oh wow, you're good now, i am going to fall in love with you for it' the whole thing falls flat because it makes NO sense whatsoever. we get to hear so much about tobey and his feelings and why he likes her and how he feels about it, but where is that energy for becky? why does she choose to trust him, to spend time around him, what does she enjoy about his presence? where is her getting over scoops in the process of falling for tobey? where is her telling her friends about this, confiding in them, asking them for advice? where is her choice in the matter?

win a day with wordgirl: do you guys even like becky or do you just like the idea of her (misogyny... 2!)

it was pretty standard for all fandoms the early-mid 2010s, but that's still not a good excuse for why so many tobecky fanfictions centered specifically around tobey's feelings while refusing to give becky the same level of empathy and nuance. it is true that to ship them comfortably you have to redeem him to some degree, which means spending time figuring him out and trying to find ways to pull him to the light without feeling super OOC. but ships take two people??? and there was so much potential for fanfics to explore becky's complex feelings on the matter - because she is! complex! she's heroic and kind but she's petty and has a competitive streak, she easily befriends villains but also doesn't trust them and doesn't believe they can ever really change, she's the savior of an entire planet but has feelings of inadequacy as her civilian identity and struggles with feeling like she can be successful without superpowers, she's great at the straightforward meanings and uses of words and loves reading but struggles to write passages that aren't dry as hell, it can be easily headcannoned that she's neurodivergent (special interests, issues with fitting in with her peers, taking things very literally, etc)... seriously there is SO MUCH to explore about her character, and a lot of it comes into play when you add tobey into the mix (literally ALL of the things i mentioned are explored at some point using tobey as a parallel or foil), but i rarely saw fanfiction that explored her thoughts on things further than 'he's evil but... maybe good?' or 'he's evil but... i kind of like him anyway?'.

if you want her to fall for him while being a villain, explore it!! why does she go against her morals? does she lie to herself about it to feel better? does she feel like she has to 'fix him' as part of her superhero duties to the city, and if so, how does that affect her as she tries and fails to help him? does she fall for him when she believes that he's turning good, only to feel betrayed when he starts acting worse because he feels like he can get away with it? it's such a shame that fanworks spend so little time even considering these questions, and it is absolutely a product of how deeply misogyny is/was baked into how we approach media (especially back then).

tobey goes good: but wait, i thought this show was progressive (a conclusion, i guess)

ifbrd wrote a great meta recently about how the show is a bit misogynist, despite being progressive in several ways. honestly i don't have much to add, but i'd really recommend reading through this; it makes a lot of great observations about the ways that male and female characters are presented differently through the show

i have little to add, so i'd just like to conclude with a reflection on the ship from my current viewpoint. i do think part of the reason so many of us latched onto the ship, despite how obviously problematic it was, is that the show treats a lot of things that would be serious in real life as normal or even comedic - which is fine lol, i'm not going to pretend that it's not a show for little kids, so they have to keep the tone light.

but if we, as teens/adults, decide to engage with this content in a more realistic manner, we have to be prepared to confront how messed up so many of the things going on really are. and if you still want to ship it, there's nothing inherently wrong with that! there's a lot of interesting things to explore in this ship, no matter what stage of enemies-to-friends-to-lovers you write them at, and it can be really helpful to have a space where you can explore a dynamic such as this in fiction. (speaking from experience here tbh, writing some fic for them helped me deal with complicated feelings about some ex-longtime friends.)

so to write this ship at all means that there are canon issues that you need to deal with if you want to have them end up in a healthy relationship in any manner that makes sense (unless you create an AU where none of that is applicable, which, power to you then). and i’m not saying ‘write them with a healthy endgame or you’re Bad’, not at all lol. but at least please, please take a step back once in a while to examine the dynamic that you’re writing, and please be careful about whether you mean to be romanticizing whatever behaviors you end up portraying as good.

#wordgirl #becky botsford #tobey mccallister #tobecky #tobecky critical #has anyone ever used that tag before LMAO #anyway: i may come back and reword the ending because i am not totally happy with it #but wow this is so many words. so many. send help

[violetosprey]

Good/Redeemed Male Yandere Examples

So I decided to organize a little and make this post after a long conversation I had with someone on tumblr recently.  In the conversation, I stated both my general definitions of a “good yandere” and a “redeemed yandere,” as well as gave a brief list of examples I’ve seen.

I figure not everyone’s going to want to hunt back through the original post specifically for the list every time, so here’s a shortcut for you.  I’m basically copy pasting what I said before (with maybe some rewording on some parts so they make sense).  It’s a small list and those that have been around the block looking for male yanderes will probably recognize these titles.

You’ll notice not a lot of otome game characters make the list here because a) that’s not what the original asker was interested in and b) to be honest a lot of yanderes in otome games come from the “bad endings.”  That’s falling more in the villain category then.

So HOPEFULLY, with the good/redeemed male yanderes, I have remained consistent at the very least with what they are.  Please feel free to let me know if the definitions below don’t appear to have been very evident in my posts, or if this contradicts past posts too much:

-        Good Yandere: Still exhibits behavior and actions of a yandere that are deemed either inappropriate or bad when displaying one’s affection for the love interest, BUT still manages to keep certain behavior in “check” for the sake of their love interest (and possibly others), and shows genuine love as opposed to just obsession towards their S/O

-        Redeemed Yandere:  A yandere who somehow changed to understand that they need to respect/understand the point of view and feelings of those around them (particularly their love interest).  Usually start off over-the-top, crazy, or villainous, but realize they’ve gone too far and end up changing for the better.  Redeemed yandere can then either end up as “good yanderes” or actually fall out of the yandere category if they decide to either love in a more natural manner, or even forfeit their love interest to someone else.

Male Yandere

1)      Nozomu from Hadashi de bara wo fume (Stepping on Roses) – Redeemed Yandere

While not a fan of the artwork for the story, it’s one of the best examples of a prominent male yandere in a story.  Used him as an example for my “good endings” post.  Without spoiling exactly what happens, I will make it clear that he just becomes redeemed, not a good yandere.

2)      Kairak from Abide in the Wind – Redeemed Yandere?

I can’t find the raws to read, and it’s still being translated.  I am 99% sure this has a happy ending though.  I actually really recommend this story in general.  Seeing as Kairak is both literally and figuratively a “different animal,” he’s a good example of making a character that becomes a very clear yandere, but that it makes sense what happened and why he can be forgiven.  It’s all about how the character is set up.  Like I said, I haven’t seen all the raws though, and I don’t want to spoil too much here.

3)      Toma from Amnesia- Redeemed?/Good?

First off, I don’t know if you want to include this guy because while there’s an anime, it’s technically based off an otome game.  So it’s really only just…episode 9 and 10 I’d say you can take a peek at for fun. Since it’s based off an otome game and only a 12 episode anime series, it’s kind of shallow though with the change. That’s why I’d say it’s kind of questionable if you agree with what Toma does and why and if he properly learned his lesson.  So I can’t outright declare him as a “good yandere” or a “redeemed yandere.”  That’s probably more of a personal opinion thing. …It doesn’t help that I find him kind of cute though *sweats*

4)      Jung Yu from Cheese in the Trap- Good?

It’s a Korean webcomic that I really enjoy.  This one would require quite a bit of investment from the reader though to determine what they think of Jung.  I’m going to be blunt…there are many signs in the series that he’s actually a sociopath (or close to one).  No, this isn’t a horror or thriller webcomic.  This would be what I’d say is the best example of a sociopath who is NOT a psychopath.  Sociopaths generally don’t care about others, just themselves.  It’s REALLY hard to explain, and Jung still has some genuine caring moments.  Like I said, this would be a project to get into if you want to properly determine if Jung is a “good yandere,” if you can even call him a yandere at all.  I haven’t read the end yet, so I don’t know if he “redeems” either.  Just know that in this story, Jung does/thinks some things that are “not right.” But he’s in love with Seol I believe. The yandere moments are sadly spread out too, but you’d notice them.

5)      Onyu No from Metronome- Good

At least I think he is. Story is still getting translated. Guy’s definitely a yandere, and I recommend this because other characters than just him appear to have an obsession with the main character.  So far based on the plot…I think you can call him good?  Will kind of have to see what happens.  He’s also the type that would never want to harm his S/O (at least I think so), so that’s a plus.

6)      Darin Kim from Cherry Boy, that Girl- Redeemed

You know what…I actually DON’T consider him a yandere XD  Which is weird, because he has many moments displaying behavior that is EXACTLY like a yandere.  I can only attribute this to how…less threatening I feel he his?  Don’t get me wrong though, he’s pretty darn manipulative. I just wanted to put this on here because I recommend it a lot.  Warning, you will hate ALL the characters though for the first few chapters.  You gotta ride it out a bit to get past the point “I don’t sympathize with anyone here, what the heck?”  You get to the GOOD development later, trust me.  Because Darin portrays at least yandere behavior, I’d say check it out to judge for yourself.  It’s completely translated and finished.  If you call him a yandere, I’d say he’s redeemed at the end.  Up to the reader if they’d ever call him “good.”

7)      Jarte from 100% Perfect Girl- Redeemed/Good?

Actually a manhwa, not a manga.  Like a modern day Cinderella tale.  Jarte’s yandere side starts to come out more as the story progresses and the drama occurs (serious drama at least).  I’d definitely call him redeemed by the end.  DURING the story you can debate if you’d call him a “good yandere.”  I don’t it personally.  He REALLY loves Jay, but yeah the stuff he ends up doing would not be okay in real life :P  Most of the yandere stuff is the last 2 volumes I believe (but there’s minor hints before then).  This is one of those one’s that’s either going to draw people in due to the way that Jarte and Jay talk with each other (or avoid talking with each other) on how their relationship is/was at any current point in time…or it’ll drive you nuts and make you pull your hair out honestly because they seem crazy.  This is actually one of my favorites where I feel I like how it came to the ending it did, but in real life I would have never forgiven Jarte :P

8)      …Some manga I found recently that I CAN’T REMEMBER THE NAME OF!!!- Good

Look the premise is that the male yandere kidnaps a young girl he’s obsessed with, but she’s totally cool with that.  The reason is because she’s glad to be away from her abusive parents.  I haven’t read too much into it yet, but the yandere himself is thinking “she probably needs to put her guard up around me more than she realizes, because I CLEARLY have something wrong with me” (cue room covered with photos of the S/O).  I’ll have to see if I find it again sometime.  This would be a good reference though for a good yandere who has very clear yandere behavior, but due to other circumstances in the story, is not as much of the bad guy as one would think.

…wow where the heck are my yaoi stories?  I know I’ve read a bunch of them, but most were probably short with a Japanese title so I can’t remember right now >_<  That or they stuck with the villain trend I liked so no point in putting them here anyway.  There’s two off the top of my head right now still in the works that are WAY too extreme for me to consider either of the villains “good yanderes” at any point.

Bonus: Female Yandere

1)      Yuno Gasai from Mirai Nikki/Future Diary – Redeemed/Good

People can still debate on her I guess, but I’d say she’s good because of the circumstances of the game they’re thrown into, and a lot of people believe at the end it develops into a genuine loving relationship.

2)      For the love of god, WHY CAN’T I REMEMBER SOME OF THE “GOOD” YANDERE STORIES?! -Good

Look there’s this comedy one I found awhile back.  Not a lot of chapters, but it’s a female yandere whose boyfriend is fully aware she’s a yandere.  It’s a great use of dark comedy, and the boyfriend is actually pretty good at keep her on a leash (and he does love her).  I wish I could remember the name though.  If you find it, it’s not long right now and at least it’s a good reference for comedic yanderes in a relationship with their S/O :P

Aaaaand sorry that’s all I can think of at the moment XD.  I mostly find female yanderes by accident :P  I’m usually just hunting for the males.  Some people can debate if a certain magical girl from Madoka Magica is “good,” but I’ll leave that up to them :P  I’ve pretty sure there’s a bunch of female yanderes not from otome games that are redeemed or “good,” I’m just drawing a blank at the moment.

So what you might have noticed from this list is it may be more common to find a redeemed yandere rather than a “good yandere.”  You more often will see the yandere give up after a long fight or learn to love like a normal person would, rather than maintain their yandere qualities by the end. They can be “good yanderes” during the story if the character is fleshed out enough and it complements the plot, but it’s super rare for them to still be a “good yandere” by the end of the story.

#own post #yandere #male yandere #good ending #redeemed #storytelling

[fijimurmaider]

I remember making a post some time ago about OCD and...

I've finally gotten around to typing up this symptom list with some details. First and foremost, I may list some obsessions and compulsions I used to have and carry out and I will list those that have been with me forever. The most specific ritual thing at the earliest I can remember, I must have been about 5 years old. I don't remember watching a film that gave me an idea or even anyone planting the idea in my head. My sister and cousin were hanging out (I dunno why I'm putting this here lol) and I was up in their business. They were talking about weird people they knew. Anyway, I guess it freaked me out on my way to the bathroom (which was like 20 feet away from where they were hanging out) and when I sat down to pee, I pulled back the shower curtain almost without thought. I was so proud that I had done this totally brilliant thing to ward off the weirdos... and it's been with me for almost 20 years. I've tried going to the bathroom with the curtain closed and I'll just repeatedly check behind it. At this point, it's easier to just keep the thing open. A few years ago I developed this habit while IN the shower. I will look out just to *make sure.* Also, I know I've posted about the trichotillomania before, which was also something I experienced when I was young and I shamed myself out of it from like the 6th to the 9th grade, doing it only sparingly because I was 99.99% sure that someone would pick up on it and harass me over it and I'd be the freak forever. It's a daily thing for me now. Sometimes stress makes me do it more, but a lot of times it's automatic and I just *do* it without even thinking. I've also developed a skin picking problem as of probably 3 years ago and just learned to deal with it for a while until the end of 2016 when I started working a second job. Sometimes I'd pick my scalp until it would bleed. I've definitely kept my foot off the pedal lately, but I'm still picking. ***We'll get to the list after I say this*** In 2012, I got super fucking sick and it scared me SO fucking bad that I refuse to be around sick people, especially the person that gave it to me (and kids.) Christmas this year was really difficult because my nephews had been sick and I didn't want to be anywhere near them. I ran in circles about the whole situation and even told my mom I was considering buying face masks for this occassion... which was apparently the wrong idea because my mom literally laughs at everyone else's anguish and I'm sick of talking to her about issues tbh because she's always been total shit about it. I eventually calmed down when I found out it was a sinus infection and my brother's girlfriend made him sound sicker on FB than what he really was (I want to strangle her for the shit sometimes... she's JUST like my mom. Everything is ten times worse than what it is, she wants sympathy all the time and then I freak the fuck out because I think I'm going to get some bad virus that's going to incapacitate me for days.)*** 1. Fear of bodily waste and secretions (though I try to rationalize and say they're unfounded... I can't agree with that 'logic.' They are gross...) 2. Concerns about sticky substances and residue. 3. Need to align objects just so. 4. Sexual thoughts that one views as unacceptable/inappropriate. I'm going to go into this one for two reasons, the first reason is because sometimes the fear of child molestation is symptomatic of OCD, and I am super confident that I'm not going to harm any children. The second reason is because my boyfriend is going to read this and think I'm talking about gay porn or something. I'm not entirely certain how many people envision others naked or what their sex lives are like, but I tend to do that. I don't deem homosexuality unacceptable which is why I don't want to include it even if those thoughts arise. Sometimes I will hear things about some sexual deviant and imagine it, sometimes I'm appauled by it. Not so sure how much I should have included this point because I'm not sure how normal it is to do this. 5. Repeating activities. I'll including 'checking' in with this. I check the door multiple times. I'm glad most rooms I need to access go past the door and that I can just look down at the bottom of the steps to accomplish this. I also fear ever having multiple doors in a home because I know I'll have to keep up with them. I've always been repetitive, ESPECIALLY at video games. I have played against bosses before in games and either allowed myself to die or dragged a game on longer than it needed because I felt the need to just keep doing it. I used to have 4 games total that I'd keep going over the same parts and doing the same things over and over, never progressing or I'd beat the game and go right back to play it again. I play the Sims rather often and even then, I can never finish a game for a multitude of different reasons. I believe this may be why my favorite games are puzzle-related like Tetris, Dr. Mario, etc. 6. Rewording, rewriting and re-reading. I handle the work e-mails from time to time and let me tell you... I could not be a more annoying cunt about it. Yes, I understand that to some extent, being careful and proof-reading are totally acceptable... but maybe not to the extent that I carry on. My boyfriend types and re-reads an e-mail then sends it. I re-read their e-mail, I type up my reply, proof read it. Change something. Proof read it again and the unnecessary process just goes on and on until I'm happy with what I've got. I also take FOREVER to read books (I'm not an idiot, I'm good at reading...) because I get stuck on sentences and continously read them over and over. If your book has a typo, it's even worse. 7. Intrusive, violent thoughts of others harming others, others harming me, and me harming others. 8. Food rituals like not letting foods touch and being a childish prick when they do or pretending I'm *totally stuffed and just cannot handle anymore* This is why my jerk ass INSISTS on fixing my own plate. 9. The old "even numbers are good and odds are bad!" 10. Dishes can never be clean enough, dish inspection before using them like my fucking life depends on it. I'll even run my fingers across a plate before eating off of it just to be sure. This also makes it uncomfortable to eat at other people's homes as I don't want to look like an asshole. 11. Need for symmetry. This includes becoming angry when people have facial piercings all over the place. Eyebrow pierced to the left, nostril pierced to the right, etc. 12. "Hoarding" useless objects. This is less of an issue to me than it used to be. I have to talk myself up before I throw certain things away, but I've at least worked on this especially after seeing my grandmother's hoarding and how she REFUSED AND YELLED AT PEOPLE over her pile of Sunny D jugs she was DOING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WITH. I'm not the cleanest person, but hoarding does bother me, even if I do it mildly. 13. Blinking/staring rituals. I wish I could explain this in a way that didn't sound totally dumb. It goes beyond having a lash in your eye. Sometimes my eyes don't feel like they (I hear you groaning out there because I'mma say it...) like they're open at the same level and sometimes squinting and then trying to open my eyes as wide as possible and vibrating them is the only thing I can do to fix it (but it really doesn't. My fix? Wipe around them with anti-bacterial wipes or use eye drops. One eye always seems to be err...oily? and the other always seems dry and fucking closed!) I also have eye issues, so wearing glasses is a total pain because I HAVE TO CLEAN THEM 234436236 TIMES A DAY. If I engage in ANY physical activity, the number is much higher. If there's a smudge or streaks on my glasses, life will not continue, sorry. 14. Touch/tap/rub. I have to touch things (so long as they're not slimy or wet... unless it's the shark I touched at Ripley's Aquarium...) My cat is the biggest victim... her fur is so soft I just keep doing it until she runs off or starts trying to eat me alive. The tapping is more recent, but I do it with my thumb and middle finger and only on the left hand (also on my keyboard because the sound it makes when you gently tap the keys...) Also I just generally have a lot of issues with my hands and I do weird stretches with them? 15. Also I have weird toilet rituals that I'm not getting into on here. 16. Closet door in the bedroom must be checked and shut at night. I'm also the most difficult person when it comes to getting into bed comfortably. There's just so much. I'm constantly worried about fires, floods, tropical storms, tornados, blizzards, burglary, murder, being mugged, car accidents, any other transport accidents, I've thought about driving my car into off the road and face first into a hill on the interstate (in all fairness, it could have been the depression running rampant in me at the time,) I've worried that I was going to grab some rando's ass in the store because he was bent over (and I totally wouldn't even do shit like that to ANYONE, but it scared me to even think I could do it...) I hate vacations because I hate worrying about my pets and whether or not they're being baby-sat or whether or not someone in my building is going to burn the fucking place down while I'm gone. ughhh. Not even a complete list, just all I felt like writing out right now.

#fijimurmaider #ocd #mental illness #symptom list #trichotillomania #nervous #anxiety #depression #obsessions #compulsions #mmmmmmmmmmehhhhhhhhhhhhhh #worries #honestly all my stupid fears and obsessions are holding me down in life and for some reason im totally cool with it #the heck