#- i got diagnosed with adhd so maybe shut the fuck up!!

[cowboyjimkirk]

dad drag anon: all things considered, my parents’ divorce is going about as well as can be expected, and by that i mean anyone who’s new to the blog is about to learn why my nom de plume is “dad drag anon” because THIS MAN!!! is getting on my last nerve! i got woken up at 8am this morning by my poor mother calling me in tears to make sure i was doing okay because my dad tried to make her feel guilty for leaving him (YET AGAIN) by saying he was worried about me not handling the divorce well because i don’t ever come out of my room anymore. first of all, i never really come out of my room that often at all unless i have a reason to because all (or at least most) of my stuff is in my room and i’m simply just vibing, my dude! i have both adhd AND autism—neither of which he’s made a real effort to understand or accommodate, ever, and i was diagnosed in my preteens/early teens—i will sit in this room and hyperfocus on something for hours and be happy as a fucking clam! second, he wouldn’t actually know whether or not i’ve been handling the divorce well because he doesn’t fucking talk to me about it either, unless he’s blaming or badmouthing my mom, which i of course immediately shut down and change the subject on because No™, so then he uses that interaction as the basis for his claim that i’m not handling the divorce well. third, i don’t think it’s ever occurred to him that maybe, just fucking maybe, the reason i stay in my room all the time and don’t talk to him about stuff is because he’s a manipulative asshole who does shit like make mom feel guilty for no reason instead of examining his own behavior and taking responsibility for it like a grown adult.

i'm so sorry, living with an overgrown child is not what you or your mom deserve. i'm glad you have a safe place in your house---i wish you didn't need it and i wish your dad had some basic understanding of the house dynamics and that he's driving his own kid away, but i'm so glad you're vibing and having a good time.

you start school soon, right? i'm sorry that i can't keep track, but is this your last year?

#<333 #ilu dad drag anon

[toonjazzy]

Shadows

Jean’s turn

Hello, I am Jean-Pierre, just call me Jean. I have a not so great story to share right now. If you’d rather read something more happy, this story obviously isn’t for you.

I’m sure my sibling already told you what a jackass our father was. I did not even know about all the other shit he did until they told me. He was a very shitty father, always ignored me and acted like my sibling was an only child sometimes. I could never do anything that was considered “Perfect”, even my art was often ignored by my dad. My sibling and Mother always supported me and loved every new drawing I made, that’s what a true family does, support each other’s skills and shit. But he never did, he never cared about the art I made. Or anything else, actually.

What the hell was it about me that made him ignore me? For fucks sake, I was his own damn child! Was it because I look weird, he was the one who made me feel so goddamn insecure about my left eye being a different color from my right eye! Or because I’m Autistic, he was fine about Tylise having ADHD but he acted like it was the end of the fucking world when I was diagnosed with Autism. It wasn’t my fault that some noises scared me or that I hated when they sent me to go grab something at the store as they continued walking away while I went to grab it. That freaked me out and yet dad never even tried to understand why I was so scared, instead he got annoyed.

Because of this I would just keep my mouth shut all the time, if he was gonna ignore me then what was the point of even talking? Especially when he would tell people about how proud he was of Tylise but never bothered mentioning me, I was always in Tylise’s shadow. I spent all that time sitting in her shadow learning how to draw better, I thought if I just drew better then maybe dad would stop ignoring me. But it’s like no matter what, nothing I did mattered.

Even when mom took us to meet her best friend, I felt kinda left out from all her kids. When we got there, she had 3 of her kids already there, but her youngest was missing somewhere and didn’t know where they went. I remember just sitting there somewhere to draw and then I heard a voice say “Hello there!”, I looked up and saw them, Stacey. We were 3 and a half at the time, she was already super hyper and wanted to see all my drawings. They were super nice and that’s what I always loved about her. We were kind of on our own while everyone else played together

The years went by and I was still being kind of ignored, still felt in the shadows of everyone else. It’s like they all had a talent, Reese could act and sing, Devon could sing and dance, Sicillia could play the violin and do ballet, my sibling can rollerblade and is really good at Video Games, and Stacey was amazing on her little guitar. Meanwhile all I did was draw, it didn’t seem like much compared to everyone else. Again, I wanted to be better at drawing, I wanted to actually be told that my art is good. But I was also way too shy, I have never had the spotlight on me so when it does happen, I kind of get nervous and don’t know what to do. Slowly I got there, I used to only show one drawing if somebody asked to. But now I’m okay with my family actually watching me draw.

But my life still wasn’t that great. Dad died, I didn’t care because he acted like I didn’t even exist. But mom…I miss her…She died when I was 7. I realize that was when my life began to go downhill, nothing felt the same without her, I was starting to lose sleep at this time. I just couldn’t sleep, no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t sleep. The only thing I could do was just draw out my feelings and those were actually some of my favorite drawings (Well besides the ones of Stacey) It was my way of coping with my mother’s death.

I have definitely changed but in a good way. This all made good inspiration for drawing, I’m actually less shy now. I still wish I had a better childhood and that my father actually paid attention to me but I guess I just wasn’t that lucky. But I can’t keep thinking about it forever, I am actually being noticed now and that makes me happier. It just takes time. I’m no longer in the shadows.

#Jazzy’s writings #aaaaaaahhhh I don’t even know if this one is good enough ;-; #well just one more!

[a-shared-experience]

Stress isn’t pretty- it’s pretty fucking deadly actually. I consist of mostly just stress- I don’t think I’ve unclenched my fists for more than 5 minutes in my entire life. In April I asked my employer, one of the leading “ health” insurance companies in North America , if I could take a week vacation because I was stressed. They denied the request stating I would have to save the earned time in case I was “ sick” from a spinal cord injury that I hadn’t recovered from and which they had forced me back to work from disability against advice of three medical professionals. What can ya do when call centre reps override professionals ? You have to pay bills right! I worked and worked and worked to the point of waking up crying and crying after my shift in complete overwhelm from pain. I have nerve damage to both sciatic nerves, severe degenerative disc disease in my hips and sacrum and damaged vertebrae so sitting for 8 hours was excruciating. When my request was denied after working for this company for 9 years and getting 100% quality scores each month I went to my doctor who booked me off under stress leave. She looked at me and said , “ you work there, they don’t listen to me, tell me what to write and I’ll back you 100%”

I remember her handing me tissue to dry my eyes and I walked home angry with yet another physicians order in hand.

They haven’t paid me in almost two months and keep sending more and more requests to doctors despite their own hired psychiatrist diagnosing me with cptsd, adhd and generalized anxiety disorder. For some reason- my drs note from a woman who runs three medical practices doesn’t suffice.

You can’t even begin to understand what it’s like to have no income - no way to pay rent, phone bills, internet, credit cards, electricity…

Soon my phone will be shut off , my credit destroyed when my total debt is less than 5 k . I decided for once to say fuck you. The biggest fattest meanest super fuck you to them and came home to be around loved ones. At least I have people here who will feed me as opposed to eating out of food banks back in Edmonton.

I’ve been home for less than two weeks and got my first period in over 5 months.

Just being able to laugh and love and sit by the ocean has helped me unwind enough that my body is getting regulated again.

As a woman it’s heartbreaking to feel so much pressure especially one who has always put her career above anything else.

The power of stress in the body is intense- and yet we downplay it - we allow fuckhead employers to drain our souls while we make them rich off our hard work and they repay us by fucking us over.

Why should we suffer for the rich ?

Maybe this is immature but I never claimed to be inspirational or perfect so as I sit here in agony with cramps and a powerfully emotional

Menstrual cycle that’s long overdue I just would like to say

Fuck you bluecross :) double fuck you

Ps: Insurance is a fraud

Sick leave and vacation aren’t the same things

Healthy employees are better than sick, bitter ones

Don’t work to get sick and financially stable while someone is counting stacks on your dime

Eat the rich

#insurance #healthcare #alberta health #edmonton alberta #employees #workers rights #stress #stress kills #womensrights #trauma #living with cptsd #adhdawareness #anxiety #mental health #fuck you

[ramblingtomcat]

Serious TW: self-harm, (adhd) meltdown

It's now several hours ago and yet I really need to get this out of my system. In my life I have had phases I have self-harmed. I had a mother who self-harmed when I was very little. Anyway. I both understood and did not understood why people self-harmed and I'm also trying to grasp why I do it.

I have had thoughts about self-harm since I was young. But it often scared me, so I didn't conciously do it. Yet I always had difficulties with emotional regulation, which is kind of typical for adhders I guess. Interestingly enough I'm not sure if I've mentioned it when I got diagnosed. Anyway. Mostly I would cope with overwhelm by shutting down, freezing, sometimes turning non-verbal. Or I would break down in tears and hit pillows in private. I think that's probably the most healthy way so far. But as I grew older, expectations for myself to "control my emotions" was also growing. I probably am really good at controlling myself for an adhder... or am I?

Fast-forward to me as an adult. Having unprocessed trauma and actively burning myself out. Burning myself out soothed some of my adhd symptoms, but also made some stronger. And I became really, really depressed. Did I go to therapy then? No. So I self-harmed through cutting myself. It gave me some sort of relief, and yet it wasn't that satisfactory for me, because I just still felt numb and because I also was in a limbo of wanting somebody to point out that I am clearly unwell, but also wanting to hide it so bad.

I told my partner and I stopped. And the line between my depression and my then undiagnosed adhd really blurred. Me being horrible at really voicing my needs and even recognizing that I have needs, I lose my temper more often than before. Maybe it was because I was having more stress than before. Probably even. And that also the earlier phases of my now-long-term relationship were a little challenging with us being two undiagnosed probably neurodivergent people having very contrary needs. (my partner isn't diagnosed, but has some autistic traits and a difficult upbringing, soo... yeah we both bring some intense trauma on the table)

Anyway. With the increasing external and internal stress I went through the last 10 years, it became more and more apparent, that I am really unwell. Even when I stopped cutting myself, I really struggled with emotional regulation. With translating my feelings into words and actions people would actually understand. And now I'm kinda good at it.

The thing is... I still feel overwhelm and overstimulation occaisonally. Which is a shocker, I know. /s

When I'm going into shutdown mode, it's normally "not that bad". I mean... it also sucks immensely, especially when I'm not alone while those moments. BUT I at least don't hurt myself.

Today I think I experienced a meltdown. And not really liking to use terms lightly, even though I am 90% sure that I'm using the terms I use accurately, it felt like one. Or at least how people describe them.

I woke up a bit late today. Which was okay. I was hungry. I made myself a sunny-side-up egg on toast. It was still a bit liquid, which I really enjoy. But I spilled it a little on the bed, which caused huge distress for no fucking reason. Like... it can be cleaned up and everything.

But i just couldn't help but scream and freak out. Which triggered my partner and distressed them. We were both distressed and both had our outbursts. While I think, they have recovered from it after, I just still feel this heaviness on my chest.

And I hit the wall. Like a solid stone wall. I also hit myself, but I guess the most damage came from hitting the wall. In that moment I just wanted to hurt so much. My impulsivity screamed at me wanting to beat me up physically. I stopped myself from doing worse. But now my right hand hurts. It's not THAT bad, because hey. I didn't bleed, I am likely a bit bruised and shouldn't really use my right hand that much. Especially the middle and the ring finger. The knuckles hit the wall and yeah. A part of me is concerned, another part kind of embraces it, liking that I was being destructive.

No, I do not plan on doing that all over again. It was not pleasant and I did sob after it. It's just that... it all was just pressure that released. Because who would cry over spilled egg yolks? Me, obviously. But on any other day, I would be like: "welp, hold on, I'll need to clean it" and move on. And today I punched myself in the face and hit a brick wall! Like woah, wayyy to go (ugh).

I don't know who to talk about it, because I don't know how to cope either. I have explained my situation with my partner earlier and they also explained their situation and it's fine. I just feel like I want to talk about it with somebody else who probably knows what I'm talkng about? On friday I have a therapy appointment, so that will be at least something.

I have heard about self-harm-skills before, since I have some close friends who have self-harmed before. The thing is just, that I normally don't self-harm. Meltdowns like this don't happen on the regular. Even when I'm overwhelmed or overstimulated, I normally manage to take a moment to calm down a little, before it gets worse. Also my medication also helps me most of the time one way or another. Today I was hungry and unmedicated, when I had my meltdown. That combined with a lot really small details that kept adding up, made me have a meltdown.

And I kind of want to joke about it. I kind of want to point out to SOMEONE. ANYONE that I was hitting the wall, being a big dummy, because I was overstimulated. But I don't want anyone to be concerned, because I know that I am not addicted to self-harm.

It's still scary though. Growing up as a person who never was able to express their feelings. Growing up as a person who always HAD to have control overtheir feelings. And then being in such a rage they can't control. Or well... rarely control.

I'm pretty sure I would never hurt anyone else than me. But... I really want to bring it up to my therapist this week because I kind of am afraid of myself. Not because I was able to harm myelf. It's more the uncertainty of it. People who self-harm regularly at least can be prepared. I don't fucking know when I would spill my coffee and spontaneously break my hand.

#self harm tw #tom rambles #depression tw #actually adhd #adhd #overstimulated #neurodivergent #please dont reblog

[catis15]

Haha

I've been skipping classes and am currently failing all but 1 of my classes. Am I failing cuz I'm skipping? Nah, I just did 80% of the past 3 weeks of work in an hour. Turned it all in and got As ans Bs on all of it. The shit I got Bs on is because I half assed it cuz I'm impatient 😅

But the Mother who literally said she doesn't give a shit where I go, doesn't give a shit if I move out and never come back, doesn't give a shit about me because I'm an ungrateful brat she'll be happy to get rid of, is having a meeting with the school tomorrow.

' To figure out how to deal with me because I'm a problem'

She has already told me that in the meeting I will be forced to quit my job and all extracurriculars. I am President of FBLA, vice president of DECA, and an active member of HOSA. I also attend D&D club when I have time for it.

My life will be from home to school back to home.

I have diagnosed depression, anxiety, and ADHD. There is a high chance I also have PTSD and autism.

My mother is not nice to be, hasnt been since I was about 8 or 9 years old.

I am responsible for paying my school bills including supplies, buying my own food, and for my mice's food, bedding, and vet bills. I cannot just not have a job.

And while I'm sure most people are like 'well you shouldn't have skipped' I have insomnia and struggle waking up sometimes when I'm able to actually sleep without waking up every few hours or not being able to sleep at all. I miss my morning class a lot. I spend time with my girlfriend (someone my mother hates and has literally yelled at over the phone before and has begged me to break up with) during some of my afternoon classes because I could do the entire curriculum in a day without studying and get a B. I've been doing this since 7th Grade.

I take that time for myself because I have been on and off suicidal or bad suicidal thoughts since I was 7 to 9 years old (that timeframe is really blurry for me so I am not 100% sure on my age) this time keeps me from living the life I'm about to get again be forced into, where I have no life outside of studying for school and being belittled by my mother every night when I go home. This means I will be living off of ramen, canned soup, and whatever I'm lucky enough that my parents do not want and leave in the fridge. Sometimes they cook. Usually once or twice a week if I'm lucky.

I'm not a great daughter. I will be the first to admit I'm a little fucking asshole, I'm not nice or thoughtful twords anyone but my little sisters and my grandparents. I fully admit I have said horrible things about my family, but I've only ever heard that from them. When it wasn't that it was about how well I do in school and how I need to keep it up keep it up keep it up. Until I collapsed, until I realized getting straight Cs and jeopardizing my academic future was better than that constant pressure. How much freedom can be found in being the family screw up.

I'm left to my art and my business ideas and my relationship. All things my mother has told me are unproductive, and silly, and useless, and going to bring me down from my potential.

There wasn't really a point to all this, but I am genuinely afraid of what my life is about to go back to. For a while I wished I could remember how to just shut up and do as I'm told again, because I can't seem to remember. But now? I'm glad I can because while I might be miserable I'm sure as hell going to fight in any way I can.

My only fear outside of that is how it will affect my girlfriend. She is more emotional and attached than I am. I'm used to being away from family and having relationships torn apart, being in a military family. And while she is used to it too in some ways, it affects her a lot more. I literally cannot get attached like how most people describe. Every time I get close I get a depressive episode and can't feel much of anything for a bit. But I don't get close often, maybe once or twice a year.

There's no point to this, just a personal rant on an account no ppl ik in real life know of :)

I needed to tell someone but don't have anyone to really go to 😅

[briamichellewrites]

43

I’m not going back to the hospital and I’m not taking my medication. Those were two things Elliot was adamant about. His head twitched as he had another tic. What his therapist was worried about was his self-harming. He looked down at his arm before looking back at her. It was just a few cuts. He didn’t even know he had done it until he saw the blood. Did he black out or disassociate? He probably disassociated because he couldn’t remember doing it.

Did he have problems with doing things and not remembering them? Yeah, he had ADHD, and sometimes he would put something down and forget about it a few minutes later. Did he ever find himself somewhere without any memory of how he got there? No. As she continued asking questions, he caught on to what she was doing. She was screening him for schizophrenia or Dissociative Identity Disorder.

After the questionnaire was completed, he was found to be at risk of having schizophrenia. He had been at risk since he was eighteen years old, maybe sixteen. His therapist wanted him to go through another evaluation. Didn’t she just give him an evaluation? Yes, but she wanted him to have a more thorough assessment. One where his dad could be involved. His father wasn’t going to come. His girlfriend wouldn’t let him and his stepfather have a new baby.

She encouraged him to talk to them about coming with him to the appointment. Did it mean a different medication? It was unlikely. He took the appointment card and put it in his pocket. After getting into his car, he called Mike to see where he was. He was in the studio. You’re welcome to join us. Cool. He was on his way.

The guys were surprised to see him. He was fashionably dressed in a baggy sweatshirt and matching pants, with matching tennis shoes. They fit his tall thin body perfectly. How was he doing? Terrible. He had possible schizophrenia. They should just diagnose me with everything under the sun. He was frustrated and they could feel it. Mike had him sit down, so he sat in between Brad and Rob. Was he separating them from each other? Shut up. They laughed and switched chairs.

He was in a good mood, despite not being medicated and feeling frustrated. Where did he get his clothes? He got them at Target a few months back with Anna Kendrick. They were expensive but they were so comfortable. Who’s Anna? She was a friend he met while working on Pitch Perfect. They had the same outgoing personality.

Mike asked about the appointment. He told him that his therapist had given him an assessment, which was just her asking him questions. Whatever he said led into the next question.

“An example would be asking me if I have ever seen something I couldn’t explain. I said yes. What things have I seen that I can’t explain? Shit like that. She wants me to have a more thorough evaluation with my dad there because he can give background information, I guess. I have to get him away from Angie for a few hours.”

“Why is that a problem”, Rob asked.

“Because Angie has abandonment issues. Whenever he sees me, she has a tantrum. So, he sometimes has to sneak out. She’s the reason why I never go over there if she’s there.”

Was she abusive? Yeah, to his father. She never abused the kids, though. When she had tantrums, she threw things. She also physically attacked him and emasculated him. He couldn’t leave because she threatened to take the kids away and tell everyone he abused them. Parental alienation. He knew that everyone would believe her over him because she was a woman. She was a narcissist with untreated Borderline Personality Disorder.

She loved to have people think she was a good mother and humanitarian. They didn’t get along because he didn’t let her get away with her bs and they got into verbal fights. She never attacked him physically because he would go straight to the police. He was also a child in her eyes, even though she was only twelve years older than him.

“I called her a narcissist to her face. She got pissed off but I didn’t fucking care.”

“Wow. How long has he been with her”, Joe asked.

“2005, so six years and five kids. The first time I met her, I got a cold reaction from her. Like she was looking down on me.”

“Wow. She doesn’t strike me as the kind of woman your dad would be interested in.”

“She’s very sexual. I’m just going to leave it at that.”

His head twitched and he started blinking repeatedly. Mike timed him. Fifteen minutes. How many tics has he had? That was his second. He had one during the appointment. Did he ever have them while driving? No. Ok, good. How were his animals? They were doing great. Bark and his dog, Misty got along like mother and daughter. Bruce liked watching them. The cats tolerated them and each other.

Richie liked to cause drama with his brother. They had yet to break up a catfight, though. What breed was Bark? She was a pug. He got her because he thought she looked like Misty and he thought her face was adorable. She looked very innocent. They laughed. Where did he get her name? She came with the name Bark Damon, so it reminded him of Matt Damon. He then changed her name to Bark Minoda while hyperactive. They laughed.

“Bark Minoda. That’s awesome”, Chester said.

“She’s calm, while also outgoing. She kind of goes with the flow compared to her brothers. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing with my hands.”

They laughed as he moved his hands while he talked. His cats were more territorial. They didn’t hiss that much. Instead, they batted at the dogs with their paws. It took a couple of hits before they got the message to leave them alone. Bruce was the one who made sure everyone was getting along because he was the oldest.

If Elliot had not just been in the hospital, they would not be able to tell he wasn’t medicated. He was acting like he always did. Mike wanted him back on his medication because he could easily go back to the hospital. He didn’t want that for him. At the same time, he couldn’t make him because he was an adult. He felt like he couldn’t help him and that broke his heart. For the moment, he was enjoying his good mood because he didn’t know how long it would last.

He loved him as his son and always would. Mental illness was not his fault. His mind was sick. It was giving him false information and making him delusional. He took a moment to reply to a text on his phone before going back to the conversation. Who was that? It was his dad. He was going to call him later. How long has he been masculine? About a month or two.

He felt more comfortable as a guy. That’s why he cut his hair. He loved wearing looser clothes and not worrying about what his body looked like. They sold binders for transgender men but he didn’t want to use those. What were binders? They were like sports bras that made the chest look flatter. He tried one on one time just because he was curious. Holy shit! He could not fucking breathe! It made him feel suffocated, even at the biggest size! He decided he didn’t need them. TMI, Elliot. You’re welcome. They laughed.

@zoeykaytesmom @feelingsofaithless @alina-dixon

[maxxmutt]

Venting about neurodivergencies and mental illness bc im struggling with it rn and I need to let the beast out

Everything about the way my brain works and how I learn was always so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ on all ends. I was never quite sure if I was 'normal' or if 'something is wrong with me' and the adults in my life never had solid answers for me. In 8th grade I was Struggling very badly, my parents and teachers talked to me about it and they say I got back on my feet and did better, on paper they are correct i think?? but nothing felt different to me. I still felt the same struggling after I supposedly 'started doing better'. It never felt like I was doing better and sometimes still don't.

I was told I have some learning disabilities but never go formally diagnosed for some reason. I got my adhd diagnosis as an adult, but all that's come of it is I know for sure I have it. I never got diagnosed with discalculia but im am so so certain I have it, I've researched a lot and i know my experiences. It effected me so badly and still fucking does. It's the source of many of my problems STILL. There may be other things going on in my brain but I don't think I count so I don't see a doctor about them. But I also still have the lingering thoughts in the back of my mind anyway, but I can never belive myself so once again ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I have felt stupid since late middle school. I felt stupid in high school. My grades didn't contradict this thought in my head to me since i have a horrible complex set for myself that is way too high, and now I feel stupid as an adult going through uni. I just don't deal with it as often bc my uni doesn't require math 99.9% of the time and I straight up don't read things they give me and work around it (probably unhealthy but eh). I procrastinate until I'm crying through an assignment even though they give me time. I have been told to ask for accommodations, but if they give me extra time I'm just going to procrastinate LONGER and continue to suffer.

My meds only do so much. And trying new ones to find the one that works is daunting as fuck, I'm in school atm and don't have time for the repercussions of going on and off diff meds ever month. I already am doing bad with assignments, I don't need another problem to make that worse. And sure, maybe I find work around without medication, but I also feel I can't do that bc I can't get a handle on my adhd by myself.

I am so so mad at myself for laying in bed unable to get up and start tasks for no reason other than my brain works different and executive dysfunction and task paralysis are attached to my ankles at all time. I feel so fucking stupid, and lazy, and broken and I just don't know what to do with myself rn. If I had time to go to someone and find out all of what is going on with me and find meds that work maybe I'd shut the fuck up but I have zero time for it rn.

Idk, I'm just really feeling the frustration and sadness of neurodivergency rn... actively procrastinating on an assignment due in 2 days as we speak <3 cant get out of bed <3 adhd is a fucking nightmare and anyone who says it isn't real or isn't that bad is wrong and I fkn hate you, this shit is fucking hell.

#max text #this probably isnt coherent but i need to word vomit #vent

[bum-ju]

.

#time to overshare in the tags again!!! yep its that kind of day #tw ableism #and bad parenting #if yall want to send nice asks id appreciate that very much #anyways #ive been chewing tf out of hoodie strings and theyre getting deformed and i simply cannot stop so i decided to ask my mom to buy me #- a chew necklace and of fucking course she just had to make fun of me for it #since its only marketed towards very young autistic children. 'oh youre an autistic child now?' honestly probably!! but you were there when #- i got diagnosed with adhd so maybe shut the fuck up!! #god i just wish she would leave me alone #fortunately she said ok and they'll be coming in the mail soon but i have a feeling she's going to continue to make fun of me #- as long as i keep using it so. yeah not looking forward to that

[ashley-jones]

Nothing But a Toy

Warnings: Insecurity, Homophobic parents, Confusion on Sexuality

Character name: Adriana Rhett - Natalia Pretrov (Mother) - Pietro Petrov (Father)

Character: Rhea Ripley, Nikki A.S.H, Shayna Baszler, Charlotte Flair,

"Adriana! Why did you attack your father?!"

"Adriana are you leaving Petrov Corp?"

"Adriana are you dating your teammate Rhea Ripley?!"

"Adriana!"

"Rhett!"

Questions. Questions. Questions. It's all she could hear as she was trying to get a drink! Paparazzi surrounding her! She wasn't even able to make it to her car that was 10 feet from her!! Her parents where doing everything they could to set her off!

"Adriana, is Rhea Ripley using you for your power in the upper industries of wrestling?" another shot out. "I am not dating Rhea Ripley! She has a fiance!" she growled. "Now get the fuck out of my way!!" she yelled.

Pushing them away from her and quickly climbing into the passenger side of the car and climbed through to the driver's, locking the doors and putting the windows up. She couldn't drive off because of the paparazzi, fingers gripping the steering wheel till her knuckles turned white. Pressing her head into the steering wheel waiting for Rhea to answer her phone.

The sound of the voicemail made her toss her phone across the car, hearing the screen shatter the moment it hit the floor. The flashing stopped making her raise her head watching as security guards pushed them back, her father getting into the front seat looking through the windshield. "So you're having sexual relations with a female, but also an engaged female?" he spoke.

Adriana pushed her hair back and out of her face, starting the car and pulling out if the parking lot. "Why does it matter?" she mumbled. "Because it's a family name that you could be destroying." he growled. "She's using you. You can get her places, and once she's in that place she'll dump you off leaving you alone. Without that name, you're nothing to her." he coldly spoke.

"She's not using me.." she whispered. "And what will you once she drops you completely? You're young, something she needs, and very easily manipulated. She could get anything she wants out of you with just the touch of her finger. She even got you into bed with her." he harshly spoke.

Adriana.. an easily manipulated girl. She's been trained off her ass since early childhood. At the age of 6 was the first time her parents forced her into a ring, a 4'0 girl being attacked by 5'11 male wasn't the best way to teach a girl, but that's how her parents did it. And once she hit the age of 12 she was sent off and forced under Shayna Baszler to start training for NXT, who pushed her offer away and put her directly into WWE at only 16. Earning her first championship belt at the age of 17 after beating Charlotte flair and Nikki A.S.H.

She had trauma, severe trauma if you were to talk honesty. Not only the mix of being forced into something at a very young age, but severe mommy and daddy issues. She was soon diagnosed at the age of 14 with Schizophrenia, Oppositional Defiant Discords (ODD), and ADHD. So the fact that WWE even let her enter with her mental health background just showed how much her parents where paying them.

But she could fight. She was damn good fighter. She was trained in combat, attack mode, WWE script fighting. She could shoot a gun without missing a target, toss a knife hitting the middle without missing once..

But she didn't get to choose what she actually wanted to do in life.

And for once she is choosing to open her arms to Demi, for once taking something for herself.

But that's wrong.. and her parents are pushing everything they can to make her realize that. So when her phone went off with Demi's name on the screen she pressed the button on the car intercoms, ignoring it.

Her father smirking while watching out the window.

"good girl." was all he said before getting out and shutting the door loudly.

🌺🖤⛓️🌺🖤⛓️🌺🖤⛓️🌺🖤⛓️🌺🖤⛓️🌺🖤⛓️🌺

"Maybe she got another interview. I'm sure with her parents in the states she has a ton of them lined up." Nikki assured the Aussie. Rhea shrugged setting her phone down on the bench, sitting on the leg press, pushing soaked hair out of her face.

"You know I'm kinda jealous of her strength. She bruised me good the first time she pinned me, you can tell that girls trained.. But that family is fucked up." Nikki spoke, laying back on the bench. "It is a pretty fucked up family. She was 12 years old when I first met her." Charlotte spoke up, intervening with the conversation.

"12?!" Nikki yelled. Quickly covering her mouth holding back laughter apologizing to other people using the gym. "She was 12??" she spoke once again. "Mhm. Her mother paid Shayna a large amount of money to train her in NXT and WWE style. She trained for 4 years before signing up for NXT, but they didn't want her because she was too upgraded and highly trained, so she was placed directly into WWE at only 16. Nikki was the one she beat at 17 for the women's championship belt. Then she lost it to Becky Lynch, who lost it to Nia Jex, then Adriana won it back on her 18th birthday, and she's had it since until the tag team match against us.. Pretty rough.. Kids been through hell." Charlotte explained.

"I wouldn't be able to work like she does. I mean if she was already trained before being sent into the states... Imagine what training she had to go through at such a young age.." Nikki mumbled.

Rhea looked down at her phone clicking on a text from the younger wrestler. It was an old message, just explaining the situation in the elevator that paparazzi and interviewers refused to listen to.

Her parents where highly homophobic and controlling, and she snapped. Adriana was already confused about her sexuality as it is, the last thing she needs is her parents pushing her into a state of mind of believing her feelings towards other women is wrong.

Demi cared about the young Russian, and wanted her to feel like she had freedom around her. Yes, she punished Adriana after certain things, and yes she likes control. But she'd never push her into something she hates not will she ever pull her into a trap, to have her believe she was being used..

Which is something she's probably gotten so use to that she doesn't even notice it anymore.

Black body suit sat tight against every curve, black fishnets with pink boots with her name printed in baby blue on each boot. Collar with 'Brutality' was tight, eye shadow mixed with a glittering pink and purple, and a baby blue glossed lip.

Adriana was finally allowed back in the ring.

And she was reclaiming her championship belt.

Her parents where gonna make sure of it to.. Front row, watching their little girl either lose or win.

But she was going up against Rhea. She had to put her feelings aside, so she can get and get out.

Her song blasted through the arena, the crowd got louder instantly. Lifting her head she walked out looking around then bowing her head innocently, her blue eyes darkening. Her name plastered up on the screen, black wings with blue and pink paint dripping from them, a bloodied knife sitting behind it with the statement 'I'm gonna send you to hell' plastered around it.

Walking down the isle eyeing the ring, Flashing lights shimmering along glittered skin. Her parents stood with the announcers behind the barricade with 2 security guards with them, watching as she jumped into the ring. She grabbed onto the rope backflipping onto the top, a BlackWidow pose and winking at the crowd. Signs of her real name and wrestling name where plastered all over the stadium. The sight made her smile, flipping back hearing 'Brutality' ring throughout the stadium.

Dressed in black leather, green pocks and chains running along her pants, black combat boots with a think bottom. Her top had Ripley across it with chains hanging. The championship belt sat around her waist. She walked with confidence staring directly at her.

Adriana stepped to the side pulling her silk covering off and tossing it off the ring. Rhea doing her typical intro, before climbing into the ring undoing her belt and handing it over. The two stepping to the middle, Rhea smiling cockily while Adriana stood cold.

She wasn't playing innocent, she wasn't in the mood to. She wanted her belt. And she was going to get it. Bell ringing, Rhea being the first to move grabbing Adriana by the waist looking to kick her down, but her hand grabbed her hair pulling it back, knee slamming into her stomach, and elbow slamming into her lower back, before jumping up and wrapping her legs around her throat spinning and dragging her down. She rolled back pissing before standing up pushing her hair behind her.

Baking up Adriana stood at the ropes waiting for her Rhea to stand up. Once Demi was up she pushed her hair out of her face. She ran at the younger who quickly turned out of they causing her to fling into the ropes. Stepping away once more waiting for her to turn, and once she did she ran forward forcing her body down and cartwheeling, slamming her feet into the olders chest flinging through the ropes.

She landed on her back, slowly pushing herself up, looking down at the older who was slowly getting up holding the back of her head. Rhea stood and climbed back in grabbing the younger by her hair and dragging her towards the ropes. Grabbing her throat and lifting her, hand perching between her legs gripping her body suit. Back arching attempting to pull herself from the girl, hand shooting up and grabbing a hold of her wrist.

Finally she was able to move her legs and bend it wrapping it around the back of Rhea's neck forcing herself back and flipping them both around causing Rhea to roll to the edge of the ring. Stand up quickly following Rhea, slamming 3 kicks against her, knee, stomach, arm, and she was down again. But it didn't take long for her to get up. Stepping back the younger cursing at the olders stubborn ways. Running forward she forced her full training into her mind, stepping up she kicked Rhea sending her back down to the ring, her body falling back.

But, this time she stood and quickly grabbing Rhea, placing her thigh over her shoulder and pinning her down, arm against her collar bone, other pinning her arms down. The ref quickly slapping at the ground, Rhea attempting to pull out of it but unable to. The moment it hit three, Adriana was off of her falling back on her knees chest rising and falling. Pushing her hair back, ref gently pulling her up and lifting her arm with the belt.

Adriana gook the belt jumping onto the ropes holding it high, listening to the loud cheers. Her parents nodded with their arms crossed. Looking back at the crowd panting, before jumping down and holding it tight. Rhea was sitting up looking directly at her before just letting her head fall back against the ropes.

#rhea ripley x reader #rhea ripley smut #rhea ripley imagine #rhea ripley #demi bennett smut #demi bennett imagine #demi bennett x reader #demi bennett #wwe wrestling #wwe women's tag team championship #women of wwe #wwe nxt #wwe smackdown #wwe superstars #wwedivas #nxt 2.0 #nxt tagteams #nxt takeover #nxt women's champion #nxt #nxt uk

[dadsbongos]

Katsuki Bakugou having an airhead gf for about 1130 words

Movie/Game/Show: My Hero Academia Dynamic: Katsuki Bakugou/Reader Warnings: airhead shit ig, I just got diagnosed, so I gave you ADHD because :D Summary: Katsuki never thought he’d be a fan of airheads, but here he was - holding one in his arms like he’d lose her anytime. ~~~

“Why the wide smile, dork?” Katsuki side-eyed his girlfriend.

“Because,” (Y/n) giggled, squeezing tighter at her boyfriend’s - admittedly sweaty - hand, “you came with me! You don’t usually do that.”

“Whatever,” he gruffed, “I just wanted to spend time with my girlfriend, that a damn crime?”

“No! You should do it more often,” the girl smiled, “Like all the time.”

“Maybe you’ll start training with me, hah?” the blond teased.

“No way,” (Y/n) immediately pouted as the couple walked down the street from their dorms, “Your training’s crazy! I think I'd die…”

“You wouldn’t die, dumbass,” Katsuki huffed, “I didn’t date you just to kill you.”

“I’d hope so,” the girl mumbled quietly.

~~

Tracing over the hand laid against her stomach, (Y/n) closed her eyes with a small smile as Katsuki pressed his cheek to her shoulder. Fresh slivers of golden sunlight peeked through the boy’s blinds as morning arose to wake the couple. Katsuki, for as much as he wanted to deny it, found it hard to sleep without (Y/n) - without her warmth and comfort. Something in the body he could hold so close to his was inexplicably soothing.

Neither party was asleep anymore, simply basking in the glow of morning as soft sheets spread over their lackadaisical bodies. (Y/n) turned the hand over her midsection to face palm-up and began gently running her fingers over the firm flesh there as well.

“You have pretty soft hands, Kacchan.”

“It’s some shit with my Quirk, I don’t get it,” he mumbled, “Don’t get me started on the suppository shit, that made me so pissed to find out.”

“What’s the suppository stuff about?” (Y/n) quirked a brow, looking to her boyfriend despite his eyes being closed.

“Anal fissure rectification,” Katsuki pressed his lips into a thin line, knowing he’d have to rephrase or his girlfriend wouldn’t understand, “Tears in your asshole get healed with nitroglycerin and since my sweat’s so similar, I bet it’d work too.”

“Gross,” the girl fake gagged, still drawing circles in her boyfriend’s palm, “That sucks. I’m sorry you had to learn that.”

“Helps with chest pain too, so it’s not complete shit,” Katsuki huffed, shifting so he was even closer to his girlfriend, “But that was horsecock to find out.”

“I love the way you phrase things.”

“I try.”

~~

“Man, Bakugou,” Denki murmured, watching as (Y/n) and Momo battled on the other side of the gym, “I didn’t know (L/n) was so strong. Kind of inspiring, now I wanna be more like her.”

Katsuki’s brows furrowed, he loved (Y/n) - dearly - but, “I saw her drop a pizza and cry about it for thirty minutes last night.”

~~

“If I illegally download a movie in the Bahamas, does that make me a pirate in the Caribbean?” (Y/n) suddenly asked as Katsuki was doing his homework.

Pausing, the blond turned in his chair to look his lover in the eyes, blinking at her twice before sighing, “Did you take your Adderall today?”

“...maybe…”

~~

“I hope I get run over,” Katsuki grumbled, reading off the pairings for the newest team-building exercise.

“Aw, don’t say that!” (Y/n) cheered, patting her beau’s back, “Kaminari isn’t all bad, he’s super nice!”

“You’re just lucky you got Ponytail, she’s the only useful extra here,” the boy huffed.

“Hey,” (Y/n) puffed out her cheeks.

“Stop whining,” Katsuki rolled his eyes, ignoring the calls of his name from a certain electric blond, “You’re not an extra, I don’t see why you’re pissed.”

“I’m not?!”

“Fuck no, I wouldn’t date a nobody.”

~~

“If a whole zoo escaped, what would be your top priority?” Mina suddenly blurted out.

Just as (Y/n) went to say ‘ducks’, Katsuki answered, “Tigers and lions, duh.”

“Right,” the girl nervously chuckled, “Obviously.”

~~

“Katsuki?”

“What?” the boy turned to his girlfriend, slightly disturbed as she never called him by his proper legal name since realizing she didn't have to.

“I’m scared,” (Y/n) fiddled with her fingers, “I threw a boomerang a few years ago and it didn’t come back, what if it hits me and knocks me out while I’m in class? Or while I’m on a mission?”

Katsuki’s face dropped into a deadpan, “Are you joking?”

“No.”

“Alright, come here, I’ll tell you a secret,” he waited for her to come closer, “I destroyed the boomerang,” at (Y/n)’s shocked face, he nodded solemnly, “It came in while you were sleeping a few weeks ago, I didn’t say anything cuz I knew you’d flip the fuck out.”

“Wow!” (Y/n) smiled brightly, taking her boyfriend into a tight hug, “You’re so cool, Kacchan!”

“I know.”

~~~

Looking over her study guide for the upcoming economics unit, (Y/n)’s brows furrowed, “Inflation? Isn’t that like… a kink?”

Katsuki’s head snapped over to his girlfriend as she sat at her desk, “Tell me you’re joking right now.”

~~

“If I was hiding from a killer, I’d just hide in the pantry!” (Y/n) beamed, “That way, I could eat while hiding, it’s simple.”

“Yeah, then the killer could hear you opening loudass chip bags, it’s genius,” Katsuki sighed.

~~

“I hate everyone in this school,” Katsuki grunted.

(Y/n) frowned, “Even me?”

“I said everyone, (Y/n), not every ten.”

~~

“Someone’s gotta talk to Denki about the birds and the bees,” Hanta shook his head, “Not gonna be me.”

“Huh?” Denki queried a brow, “A talk about what and who?”

“I’ll teach you about the birds and bees,” (Y/n) nodded sadly, placing a hand on her friend’s shoulder, “They’re disappearing at an alarming rate.”

~~

“The recipe says to beat three eggs,” (Y/n) read off the box of brownies.

“At what?” Katsuki snorted, “Hand-to-hand combat?”

“Has to be,” his girlfriend seriously replied, “Aizawa banned Quirks in the kitchen.”

~~

“Wanna hear a sad joke, Kacchan?”

“Why fuckin’ sad?”

“Oh, autocorrect, I meant dad.”

Katsuki’s eyes narrowed at (Y/n), “This is a verbal conversation.”

~~

(Y/n) looked up from the bed sheets in the nurse's room, “You can call it a near-death experience, Recovery Girl, but I call it a vibe check from God.”

Katsuki immediately shook his head, “Stop… please stop.”

~~

“Stress is not good for the baby!” (Y/n) shouted, gripping at the sides of her head.

Katsuki looked over, “What baby?!”

“Me!” the girl sniffled slightly, looking on the verge of tears with her study guide and notes spread out on her desk, “I’m the baby.”

Awkwardly looking away, Katsuki clenched his eyes shut before throwing his arms open and wrapping them tightly around his anxious girlfriend, “Tell me when the stress levels are down, you big baby.”

“Thanks, Kacchan.”

“Whatever, nerd.”

~~

“Hey, does it smell like gas in here?”

(Y/n) pat herself down before pulling out a lighter and igniting it, “Nah.”

Katsuki’s eyes widened as his girlfriend casually placed the lighter back in her coat pocket, “Oh my fucking God.”

~~

“Careful with my emotional baggage,” (Y/n) reminded Eijiro as he loaded her things into the trunk, “It’s designer.”

“He knows,” Katsuki rubbed at the bridge of his nose, “You say it every time.”

(Y/n) nodded, as if her boyfriend was stupid, “Because it’s funny every time, Kacchan.”

#katsuki bakugou #katsuki x reader #bakugou x reader #bnha x reader #i just love writing airheads so much

[bo0zey]

my friend who doesn’t have adhd and just wants an adderall perscription: i definitely have adhd like i never pay attention and i’m such a procrastinator omg lol btw i’m at the library studying and doing homework that’s not due until 3 days ugh what are you doing have you started studying yet we have those worksheets due tomorrow remember and it’s already 6pm! omg what do u mean u haven’t started the paper yet it’s literally due in 3 hrs omg no it’s ok i’ll just send u mine bc i’ve been working on it all day haha and omg i’m trying to pay attention to the lecture can u stop talking to me why r u reading online manga in class the exam is in 2 days pay attention! also i need caffeine to stay awake i love monster energy drinks they work so well i won’t be able to sleep tonight oh no also i took adderall 3hrs ago and now i’m super anxious but it’s not the adderall lol ugh i won’t be able to sleep tonjght ughh

me, someone who actually has adhd, pre-diagnosis: studying is so hard and i don’t want to do it and i literally can’t until hours before the exam and by then i’m so exhausted bc it’s like 3am but if i drink coffee or monster or bang i just get sleepier also i procrastinate entire research papers including the research hours before the due date even tho i knew abt the paper for a month and i wrote it in my assignment notebook every day knowing i needed to do it and i drink coffee before bed bc it relaxes me n makes me sleepy im constantly moving and shifting in my seat in class and i got paid 4 hrs ago and bought $500 worth of amazon products and now i don’t have any money for groceries for the next 2 weeks my thoughts go so fast and they’re so loud i can’t follow a conversation let alone a class lecture paying attention to anything i don’t care abt but am supposed to is impossible if i don’t write everything i need to do down i will forget about it and if i put my keys or vape or anything somewhere besides it’s designated spot for 1 minute i will literally forget where it is and if something isn’t directly in my line of sight i will forget i have it so i have to place everything in my line of sight for me to remember to use it and ok i’m at work i have a 14hr shift and a set of tasks i need to complete omg i’m so overwhelmed and frazzled i write down the list of tasks every shift and check off boxes to remember to do things but even then i still fall behind and why am i overwhelmed i know what i have to do please don’t ask me to do that thing i’m already trying to remember to do one thing ahhh ok i’m so exhausted it’s 12am and everyone’s asleep i have 3hrs left of my shift omg i’m so bored and tired ok i will have coffee and an energy drink to wake up bc i don’t wanna fall asleep here and i have an hour drive back home and oh wow i am now driving on the way and dozing off i am so sleepy sleepy sleepy why can’t i stay i awake i had 300mg of caffeine like 2hrs ago i’m going to crash the car why isn’t this energy drink working and hmm ok it’s now monday night i have school tmrw it’s 11pm i guess i’ll try n sleep i have class at 9am oh wait what is this sudden wakefulness i feel i am very awake i think i will maybe try to do homework to get tired actually no i think i will go on the internet instead hmm look at those cool show i think i will watch it ugh ok that was the longest 30min of my life i will not be able to watch another episode for at least 2 days probably oh it’s 3am i need to sleep but i can’t shut my brain off ugh oh no this sucks i hate myself why can’t i just get my shit together i know what i have to do but i just can’t fucking do it it’s so frustrating i’m trying so hard but i keep self sabotaging why why why

me, after being diagnosed w adhd and starting medication: wow for the first time in 8 years i’m actually paying attention in class and actively following what my professor is saying. i think i will do some homework now so i am not overwhelmed later. uh oh my dishes are starting to stack up i think i will clean them instead of starting a new pile. hmm my room is getting a little messy i think i will put things away including the clean clothes on that chair i’d been avoiding putting away for a week. i am following our conversation and i will wait until you are finished until it is my turn to speak instead of blurting out or interrupting you. oh i just got paid! hmm do i really need all of that online shopping stuff..? i think i will wait for a little bit and come back to it if i rlly want it bc what if something happens during the week and i need money to pay for it? oh i have to go to work it’s a 14hr shift; i am able to complete the tasks i need to do with ease bc i know what to do and when to do them and am no longer overwhelmed. i don’t need to drink that energy drink bc i know it will just make me more sleepy and i’ll doze off at the wheel on the highway and i don’t want that! ok i’m home yawn i think i will try n go to sleep it’s 11pm and i am genuinely tired.

#like just say u want an adderall perscription and go don’t fucking claim to have adhd its so invalidating to ppl that actually have it #and then she has the nerve to say i don’t have it when i literally check off almost every symptom and she doesn’t even actually check off 1 #also my mom had it and my lil brothers also definitely have it like it runs in my family no one in hers has it #it’s just so frustrating and invalidating bc stimulants honestly changed my life im so grateful #and she’s like lol how r u going to have adderall n NOT give it to me wtf our other friend does and im like bitch because #you and that other friend don’t actually fucking have it that’s why she’s so willing to give u her meds #but i literally need mine to function on a daily basis #also ever since i started adderall my DPDR is waaaaay less prominent now like i barely have episodes anymore unless i’m in a depressive epi #ok sorry rant over lol #ramblings #actually adhd

[luidilovins]

Some thoughts on gendered ableism when it comes to autism specifically because April is around the corner again.

The topic of gendered autism diagnositics is important to me because I wasn't quiet. I wasn't shy. I didn't cry a lot. I was an "austistic girl" with "autistic boy" traits. I was violent. I was opinionated, I had meltdowns. I bit teachers. I screamed when I was upset and threw things at people when they touched me. Back in the late 90s autistic girls were considered rare and their qualifications had to be developnentally drastic and fit a very exact criteria.

Quiet and Shy autistic girls get underdiagnonsed but Violent and Agressive autistic girls get misdiagnonsed. I was put on ritalin when I didn't need it. I was put on lithium when I didn't need it. I was rediagnosed every few years and I was put on medications that changed my fucking brain development forever. I don't get that shit back.

I'm not bipolar. I'm just not. Lithium should be a last ditch effort medication because it's a course first wave antipsychotic directly after the creation of thorzine and a salt that builds up in your brain system and should ONLY be taken by the people who don't produce lithium on their own. It was maybe one of the worst points of my life. I was a misdiagnonsed autistic kid and I was put on lithium and here's what they don't tell you: It makes you ANGRY. I had constant violent homicidal intrusive thoughts and they only got worse the longer I was on lithium. I was miserable, my skin hurt and I was so stressed I was biting chunks out the side of my mouth and pretending I was biting into whoever was standing in front of me until i drew blood. I shredded at the corners of my fingers and punched walls to make my knuckles hurt and then pick at the scabs. I finally started spitting the pills out into the sink once I discovered I was lactating. I was 11.

People were using ritalin on every child suspected of the mysterious terrifying plauge known as ADHD in a late 90s scare around the same time as the satanic panic and hotly debated children's television censorship and these medications and it was a methylphenidate that was pushed by pharmaceutical companies at the time. Kids were getting diagnosed by doctors endorsing the company and they suffered onsets of psychosis and suicidal tendancies.

The first time i tried to commit suicide I was on ritalin. I walked into oncoming traffic and my mom yanked me by the shirt and asked me what the hell I was thinking it was dangerous and I replied "because it's better this way." I was seven.

The company underwent and lost two lawsuits and people are still getting financial comepsation from the long term effects the meds had on their bodies.

I was on Abilify when my PE teacher clled my mom telling her that I was refusing to participate and when she asked me why I started crying told her my joints hurt every time I did a jumping jack on the blacktop. She looked and saw my at my wrists and ankles were swollen and I had skin rashes and took me to the hospital. I was suffering with sever fluid retention and I had water around my heart to the point where it was teetering on fatal. I was given a perminant excuse from PE for the rest of the year to recover. Abilify is used to treat psychosis, which I didn't have. My mom chalked it up to a dye allergy. I was 10.

I wish I could say it's gotten better since i was a kid but the amount of erasure and speaking over autistic people has not laxed since the discovery of autism in girls and minoreties. The sentiment remains a common practice and shows no signs of changing in the near future.

The moment you add gendered criteria to diagnostics you are glazing over the people who don't meet the status quo and condemning them to both negligence and medical malpractice at the same time.

I am talked over by autism parents and unliscenced ABA therapists and doctors who don't even specialize in behavioral psychology or psychiatry. I am still disected and categorized for my disablity and an arbitrary construct that I neither fit the criteria of NOR believe in and I'M the one who has to live with other peoples ignorance, prejudice and mistakes.

I'm not arguing with warrior moms and #Autism$peaks and child phisicians anymore about their beliefs of what an autistic child looks like in comparison. I want my fucking brain back, I want my childhood back, and I want parts of my cheek back and if you can't do that for me then shut the fuck up and never speak on the subject ever again.

[scggy]

                                  ‷ watch out , connor “soggy” braxton has crash-landed into roswell !! they look twenty - six and celebrate their birthday on 02/october. they are from roswell, reside in greystone complex and are currently working as a cashier at feel good records. one thing you should know about them is he once dressed up in an eleven costume from strangers things to impress a girl, but he’s never seen stranger things. ‷ 

                 rewriting my bio for the depressed dumb ass stoner who thinks he’s funny ..          FULL BIO HERE.       rundown under the cut !  tw.  drugs  & mental illness

born to abigail and benjamin adams ! two lovebirds with addictions who definitely should not have had a child but oh well.  they were okay for awhile and then they weren’t.   soggy was in and out of the foster system starting at age four and was SEVEN YEARS OLD when he finally got adopted by  brenda and lori braxton.   the complete opposite of his biological parent!!!   LITERAL ANGELS:   brenda (a first grade school teacher) and lori braxton,   a nurse   those are his moms!!!!! he has never used the term “adopted parents” in his life.   yes i based them off of lena and stef from the fosters.. same fc too? maybe.  

some days he was a very uppity kid and his moms were convinced he had ADHD.  when he was sixteen he was a little d*pressed and made a dumb decision and eventually was admitted to a psychiatric hospital until they thought he was better (he was there for a week and they were like: well he’s fine now)  his parents were iffy about it,  thinking it was too soon so they got him a therapist and kept an eye on him.    he got pills he would take every now and then and they were certain he was fine for awhile.   got a beautiful girlfriend named matilda laurent that his moms loved, started doing better in school, getting out of bed more.   he’d get irritable but not as often,  he’d get excitable but it was for shorter periods.

but when he was eighteen, turning nineteen in just a few months it all boiled over again.  they weren’t sure what triggered it but it started with a loud  shut the fuck up, mom  scream from his bedroom and ended with a snow globe thrown across his room.   bipolar rage,  his therapist described it.  it wasn’t completely shocking:  it made sense to them considering his shifts in mood.    he got admitted again and since it was his second time in less than three years,  he and his parents decided it would make sense for him to stay longer.    so he did something really cool and clever and cut off communication with all of his friends (including his longterm girlfriend) and literally just dipped. no goodbye,  only unsent letters and lies from his parents about him deciding to study in alberquere because they knew that his mental health was his story to tell, not theirs.

        OH AND HE GOES BY SOGGY NOW.

              PERSONALITY     &       EXTRAS 

now diagnosed,  properly medicated,  and moved out of his home.

soggy has literally ALWAYS been the “class clown.” his moms believe it’s because his biological mother was such a mess that all soggy wanted to do was make her happy. going to foster homes he believed that was his responsibility as well but whatever blah blah blah,  he tries to be funny.   never a dull moment with him because he’s very bad at being serious like ever

IS A MOMMA’S BOY!!!!    likes to smoke weed in his car but has one of those sprays to get rid of it because he doesn’t want his moms disappointed in him.  calls them a few times every week.

skateboards all of the times even in the most inconvenient of places like why are you skating in cosmic candy, soggy.        smokes weed probably more than he should  !  support your local drug dealer though.    petty drugs always,  he can give you MJ / cannabutter,  and pills but anything harder than that he’ll hesitate.... but also how much are you willing to pay bc he knows a guy.

sarcastic, goofy, dumb ass who likes to get high!  will give you a hug when he’s drunk

got nicknamed soggy bc he got super drunk on rum at a high school party once and made really gross soggy ramen noodles.. he was the only one to eat them

there are three braxton kids.   one is a younger sister and i haven’t decided on the other but possible wanted connections? 

#is literally the same dummy as before but i workshopped his backstory a little !! #roswellintro #drugs mention tw #drugs tw #mental illness tw

[iclaimedtobethebetterbard]

it was always you (falling for me) - chapter 2

Fandom: Sanders Sides Characters: All the sides Rating: Teen & up (for swearing) Relationships: Prinxiety, Moceit, and QPR Intrulogical (eventually this will develop into Intrulosleep!) Warnings: Language; Remus being Remus; Shakespeare fans will probably hate my interpretation(s) of the plays I reference here, if the English major friend I showed this to is anything to go by, and I’m very sorry about that 😂 Word Count: 9042

Read on AO3!

My writing masterpost

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Summary: In a world where you and your soulmate swap dreams once a month, seven young adults enter the same college as freshmen. Each of them is wondering when they’ll find their soulmate and what that will mean for them.

Notes: Secret Santa gift for sanders-sides-fics!

Chapter 2

Roman had a problem. A person-shaped problem. Specifically, a problem shaped like his brother’s excessively pretty roommate, who seemed to take pleasure exclusively in needling Roman every chance they got.

Roman groaned, burying his face in one of the pillows on his bed.

“Hm?” his roommate, Patton, said sympathetically.

“I swear Virgil has, like, an agenda against soulmates, or something,” Roman said, rolling over and staring despairingly at the ceiling.

“Now, kiddo, I’m sure that’s not true.”

Roman lifted his head to look at Patton. “Aren’t I older than you?”

“Only by a few months,” Patton said serenely. “Spiritually, you’re my kiddo.”

“Pat, that makes no sense.”

Patton blinked up at him with a too-innocent face. “If it feels dad to you, just don’t think about it any father.”

“Oh my god.”

Patton giggled, a noise of pure delight, then circled back to Roman’s original topic. “What makes you think he’s got something against soulmates?”

“Uh, the way ze rails against them at every opportunity, for a start?” Roman sat up. “We have argued five times in the last two weeks about soulmates, and only three of them were even about Shakespeare like usual!”

“Haven’t you only known Virgil for, like, three weeks?”

“Well, yes, but that’s not the point.” Roman climbed down the ladder to the ground. “Also, I feel like that makes it worse?”

“Hmm, maybe.” Patton seemed amused. “You talk about them a lot, you know?”

“He’s so annoying!” Roman said defensively. “Ze gets this stupid smirk like ze knows something I don’t and he doesn’t even seem to care about constructing sound arguments half the time!” He put his laptop into his backpack.

“Going somewhere?” Patton asked.

“Yeah, Virgil and Remus invited me over to their dorm to study.”

“Oh,” Patton said, a funny sort of look on his face like he was trying not to laugh.

“What?” Roman asked.

“Nothing, nothing.” Patton waved him away, still smiling to himself. “Have fun studying with Virgil.”

“I will,” Roman said brightly, heading out the door.

***

“I want to go get ice cream,” Remus announced suddenly, hopping to his feet. “Who’s coming with?” It was late, almost midnight, and Roman was sitting on the floor in what had been a nice triangle with Remus and Virgil until Remus had stood. The three of them had been alternately working on homework and arguing about Disney characters.

“Sure,” Virgil said with a shrug, tugging their hoodie up onto their shoulders—they’d been wearing it dangling off their body, with only their wrists in the sleeves holding it on. “Let me fix my eyeliner first, though.”

Remus nodded distractedly, looking around the room and turning in a circle.

“Whatcha looking for?” Roman inquired, getting to his feet as well.

“My wallet,” Remus said, gaze still roving around. “I don’t know where I—”

“By your chapstick,” Roman said.

“Ah!” Remus dove under his desk, scrabbled on the floor, and emerged with his wallet clutched triumphantly in one hand and his chapstick in the other. “Thank you.”

“How the fuck did you know that?” Virgil asked, turning away from the mirror hung on the door with their eyeliner in their hand. They’d reapplied it to one eye, in a perfect, pointed wing; the other eye still had the only slightly less perfect, barely faded wing they’d been wearing this whole time. It matched their black lipstick and the carefully blended eyeshadow on their upper eyelids.

“He put it down there when he was telling the story about trying to collect dried gum off the street,” Roman explained. “And the chapstick was already there right next to it. So that’s how I remembered.”

Remus nodded. “I would have gotten there in a minute, probably,” he agreed.

“I still don’t understand how the fuck you knew that, but good for y’all, I guess,” Virgil said, turning back to the mirror.

“ADHD solidarity,” Roman explained.

Remus made finger guns at him, nodding. “ADHD solidarity,” he agreed.

Virgil paused halfway through drawing the other wing on. “Oh, that makes sense.” They picked up the line again, their hand perfectly steady, drawing it out to a fine point. “I thought you said you were autistic?” they added after a moment, their face holding perfectly still as they filled in the eyeliner with a practiced hand; their monolid eyelids allowed them to draw the wings of their eyeliner wide and dramatic.

“Yeah, I’m both. There are high rates of comorbidity, and also they’re both genetic, so neurodivergence runs in families,” Roman explained, the sentence rolling out of his mouth without him stumbling over the words once or having to think about it at all. “Did you know about ten percent of the population is probably ADHD?” he went on eagerly. “It’s super underdiagnosed. Especially because of race and gender biases in doctors who diagnose it, and the misconception that it’s only something children have. I only got diagnosed because Remus did when we were little, and we’re twins, so then they tested me too. Even though we aren’t identical. It’s super frequent for identical twins to both have ADHD if one of them has it, though.” Roman bounced on the balls of his feet, tapping the tip of his finger against his thumb. “I wish we were identical, I think it’d be so funny. Like, impersonating each other, and things. We could make such good video skits.”

“We make fantastic video skits already,” Remus protested.

“Okay, fair. But you know what I mean. And we could switch places for a day and see who noticed. All the stuff twins do in stories. Twins are always identical in stories, it’s so annoying, I wish there were more stories with fraternal twins.” Roman paused for a second, his mind hovering for an instant between a not-fully-realized train of thought about the gender politics of twin representation in stories and the question of what animals were most likely to have twins. He chose, almost before he was aware there was a choice, the animals question, his emotions nudging him away from the energy talking about gender representation would take up. “Do you think kittens dream?” he asked, only a second or two after he’d stopped talking in the first place.

“Yeah, probably,” Remus responded without missing a beat, likely following his train of thought. “Better question, do other animals have soulbonds, and how do they know if so?”

“Maybe it’s a scent thing,” Roman said thoughtfully.

“Ooh, like with glands or some shit?” Remus looked thoughtful. “That could make sense. I wonder—I bet there’s answers on the internet. I’m going to look this up later. Are you coming, too, by the way? To get ice cream?”

Roman thought it over. “Sure,” he agreed.

“I’m ready,” Virgil announced, capping their eyeliner and setting it down on hir desk. “Also, I got whiplash about five times just listening to that conversation.”

“Good, my chaos is overtaking another victim and soon I shall rule the world. Let’s go!” Remus led the other two out the door and started walking towards the end of campus.

“Where are we going, exactly?” Roman inquired, shoving his hands into the pockets of his red letterman jacket to keep them warm.

“There’s an ice cream shop that’s open till one in the morning about ten minutes away walking,” Remus said over his shoulder. “Logan and I found it the first weekend here.”

“You two went in search of sweets without me?” Roman put a hand to his heart. “I’m hurt,” he declared in his most dramatic voice.

“Oh, shut up, we would have gotten around to telling you about it eventually. I mean, I’m telling you right now, so.” Remus shrugged. “Virge, aren’t you cold?”

“Yeah, but I’m pretty, so it’s worth it,” Virgil said, tossing their head so the long hair on the top of their undercut swished. They were wearing a distressed band tee and a black skater skirt over fishnet leggings and a pair of doc martens. It was quite chilly out, and even though they were wearing a hoodie too, Roman understood why Remus had been concerned.

“You are very pretty,” Roman told them seriously. Even aside from their clearly carefully chosen outfit, this was true. Their eyes were round and curious and a captivating shade of dark brown. Even with the boost from the platform of the shoes they were wearing, they were tiny. Roman was sure they couldn’t be more than 5’2” without the boots. The hair on top of their undercut was very long, almost down to their waist, contrasting with the closely-shaved back and sides of their head. About six inches on the ends of their hair were dyed purple. Their makeup, of course, was flawless, as was their golden-brown skin, which was just a little bit darker than Roman’s. He made a mental note to ask them about their skincare routine sometime; no matter how much care he treated his skin with, the acne on his cheeks refused to go away. It was his least favorite side effect of taking testosterone. “But you can be pretty and warm at the same time, if you want. I hate being cold. But I respect your decision to be pretty and cold if you want to,” he added quickly.

Virgil let out a slightly nervous laugh, rubbing the back of their neck. “Thanks, I think.” Their eyes widened as they looked past him. “Oh, my god, Remus, shut up!”

“What?” Roman asked, looking over at Remus, who was giving Virgil an evil grin.

“Nothing,” Virgil snapped.

“I didn’t say anything,” Remus said innocently.

“Shut up!” Virgil repeated, flipping the hood of their hoodie up and dragging it over their face.

“What’s going on?” Roman asked, confused, while Remus burst into cackles of laughter.

“Nothing!” Virgil repeated with great emphasis.

Roman let out a sigh of frustration, but Virgil seemed genuinely upset about whatever Remus had done when Roman wasn’t looking, so he dropped it. Maybe Remus would explain later.

Remus did not explain later; however, he did turn around to walk backwards after the silence had stretched on long enough to become awkward. “Is the ocean a soup? Discuss,” he commanded.

“Oh, not this again!” Roman groaned. “No, absolutely not!”

“Yes,” Virgil said, almost as soon as Roman stopped talking.

“No!” Roman stamped his foot. “That makes no sense!”

“It makes lots of sense. Explain how it’s not soup,” Virgil challenged.

The resulting argument lasted them all the way to the ice cream shop and halfway through their treats.

“Aren’t you going to take a side?” Roman demanded of Remus at last.

Remus looked up from his cone. “Oh, no, this is very entertaining for me, I could watch you two bicker all month. Please keep it up.”

“You’re a terrible person,” Roman told him, trying not to laugh.

“I never claimed to be anything else,” Remus said happily.

***

“—and that’s how you do it. It’s really easy, but it’s so fun, I could balance chemical equations for hours,” Remus said, bopping the tip of his dry-erase marker against the giant whiteboard in the library for emphasis. He and Roman and Virgil had all met up here to study; it was a sunny afternoon, and they’d gotten a nice spot by the window. The marker left a little black mark next to the diagram Remus had spent the last ten minutes drawing; he wiped the dot away with his finger. He was wearing a turtleneck with horizontal black-and-white stripes and a pair of faded jeans with paint splatters all over them and huge rips in the front that ran from his mid-thighs almost down to his ankles; he’d finished the outfit off with socks in sandals and a black felt beret. His outfit—vaguely artistic, but mostly just terrible—contrasted comically with the intensely technical pseudo-lecture on chemistry he’d just given.

Roman nodded without looking up. “I remember balancing those was fun,” he agreed. He hadn’t taken a chemistry class in a couple of years now, but Remus was majoring in it, and the best way for Remus to study was to explain it out loud, so he’d gathered Roman and Virgil in the library. They’d even been able to snag one of the coveted whiteboards. Roman was able to focus on his notes better with Remus’s animated talking in the background, and Virgil preferred quiet but was willing to put on his headphones to block out Remus’s noise, so all in all this arrangement worked out well for all three of them.

“Yes!” Remus agreed with a happy wiggle. He picked up his water bottle off the table and took a long sip. “Okay, next I have a bunch of molecules I have to memorize the structures of. Do you need anything first?” He addressed his question to both of them, but Virgil seemed pretty focused—or perhaps his music was loud enough to drown out other noises.

Roman, however, thought the question over. “Yes, actually, can you help me go over my lines for this one scene? It’s not very long.”

“Mmhm.” Remus held out his hands expectantly, and Roman handed him his script. Remus began fiddling with the dog-eared bottom corner of the page it was open to, folding it back and forth.

Roman dug in the pocket of his cargo shorts—he liked cargo shorts, partly for the shape but mostly for the pockets—and handed Remus a star-shaped fidget toy made of sequins that could be flipped back and forth. He’d rather the corner of the script didn’t get torn off by mistake.

“I think I’m off book, I just want to make sure,” he said as Remus accepted the toy and began fidgeting with it.

Remus nodded, scanning the page. “Sounds good. It’s just this one page?”

“Yeah. Ready?”

Remus nodded, and Roman launched into the scene. His character had most of the lines; it was essentially a glorified monologue. Remus interjected the two lines from other characters, using a hilarious nasally voice that made it hard for Roman to stay in character without breaking to laugh, but he successfully made it through the final line before dissolving into snickers.

“You’re word-perfect, kid,” Remus proclaimed as Roman got ahold of himself, handing him back the script.

Roman grinned. “Thank you!”

Remus nodded and took another sip of water before wiping down the whiteboard and launching into a ramble about the molecular structures he had to memorize.

Roman had just about tuned Remus out again and slipped back into the headspace where he could focus on his work when Remus broke off. “Logan!” he exclaimed, sounding delighted.

Roman looked up, and so did Virgil, pulling off hir headphones. Roman followed Remus’s gaze, and there indeed was Logan, his flat top haircut and dark academia outfit unmistakeable. He was stepping out of the stairwell that led down from the floor above, adjusting the strap of the leather messenger bag they used instead of a backpack. Even at this distance, the pins he kept on the bag were visible, neatly affixed in alternating rows on the bag’s buckle straps—a demiboy flag, an aromantic flag, an enamel pin shaped like an open book, and a handful of other pins Logan had collected from the university’s cultural centers during orientation. Roman had a few of that last category on his backpack himself; he knew he and Logan had matching land acknowledgment pins now, but he wasn’t sure if any of the other pins they’d chosen matched.

Remus darted across the wide open floor, weaving his way around a few students. “Logan! Hi!”

Logan looked up, a small smile finding its way onto his face as he saw Remus. He said something—presumably a greeting—but was too far away for Roman to hear, since he was speaking at a normal tone.

Remus seized Logan by the hand and dragged them towards Roman and Virgil. Logan laughed and said something in protest, pushing his square glasses up his wide nose as he followed Remus.

“Remus, I have to go to class,” Logan was insisting as they got close enough for Roman to hear. “Hello, Roman. Virgil.” They adjusted their already-immaculate clothing, the tendons in their thin hands flexing as they smoothed their mustard-brown cable knit sweater vest and tugged on the rolled-up sleeves of their periwinkle button down shirt.

Virgil gave a two-fingered salute. “Sup.”

“Hi Logan,” Roman said happily. “We’re studying!”

“Very nice,” Logan said, raising Remus’s hand—which was still clasping his own—and gently pressing it with their other hand. “I am always glad to see you, Remus, but I can’t stay long.”

“Okay,” Remus said. “I just wanted to say hi.” He gave Logan a quick, tight hug around the ribs before releasing them just as fast as he’d darted in.

Logan smiled again. “Hello, then. I hope your studying is going well?”

He received nods from the group, and gave them his own nod in return.

“You’ve got to go,” Remus reminded him. “You don’t like to be late.”

“True. I’ll see you later, dear.”

Remus nodded. “Wanna hang out tomorrow night?”

Logan considered this. “Maybe. I’m going to the Black Student Union meeting tomorrow evening. So it would have to be after that.”

“Okay, I can do that! I love you!”

Logan smiled. “I love you too, Rem.” They made as if to leave, then paused. “Roman, while I’m thinking of it—are you and Patton still free for lunch tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Roman confirmed. Logan and Patton had two classes together, and so together with Roman they’d formed a tight-knit little friend group very quickly; the three of them tried to make sure to meet up for lunch at least once a week.

“Wonderful. I’ll text our groupchat about it. See you then.” Logan tugged his hand out of Remus’s grip, waved, and set off at a brisk pace back towards the stairs.

***

“I’m telling you, Virgil, Oberon and Titania are a really good example of how soulmates can make it through rough patches!”

“Bullshit. They’re obviously not a metaphor for soulmates, why would the fae even have soulmates? Their story is a cautionary tale,” Virgil said languidly, lying on their back on the floor of their room.

“No!” Roman pounded his fist on the floor. “Why do you always do this?”

“Because it’s funny,” Virgil replied with a snicker.

“But you always bash on soulmates, specifically!” Roman said.

“Yeah, because I think society’s emphasis on soulbonds is dumb.” Virgil shrugged. “Anyway, if you think Oberon and Titania’s relationship is a good example of anything, I have some concerns.”

“No—no, stop! I didn’t mean it like that! They’re fae, like you said. I obviously don’t condone any of the ways they treated each other! I’m just saying that viewing them as a metaphor for soulmates makes a really interesting lens to view the other couples in the play! Right, Logan?” He turned expectantly to Logan.

“Wh—no,” Logan, who was sitting on Remus’s bed and combing their fingers through Remus’s hair, his head in their lap, responded. “You are both, objectively, wrong. Horribly so. Painfully so.”

“Hey! You’re not allowed to tell me I’m wrong about Shakespeare,” Roman countered quickly.

“Why did you ask me for my opinion, then?” Logan asked, rolling their eyes.

“I don’t know,” Roman grumbled.

“Wait, why can’t they talk to you about Shakespeare?” Virgil asked.

“Because they always win!” Roman crossed his arms.

“Oh, and I don’t?” Virgil demanded. “What am I to you, Roman? I thought we had something special here,” they went on playfully. “You make dumb arguments, I make worse ones, and then I win. I thought that meant something to you.” They pouted at him.

“That’s different!” Roman protested, stifling giggles at the mopey puppy dog eyes Virgil was sending him. “You just don’t care what I say. Logan actually refutes my arguments! It’s very humiliating!”

“I only do it because your logic is physically painful to listen to,” Logan said.

Roman crossed his arms and pointedly turned away from Logan, nose in the air. “Anyway. As I was saying. Puck’s role in all of this is really interesting, if you consider the question: are the fae supposed to be able to truly alter soulbonds, or are they only messing with feelings?”

“Dear,” Logan said plaintively, looking down at Remus, his fingers still carding through Remus’s curls.

“Hmm?” Remus responded, not opening his eyes.

“Make them stop,” Logan said beseechingly.

“Sorry fellas, you heard them. Stop torturing Logan, he’s already an English major, so he’s plenty tortured already. Or else I’ll have to dissect your spleens.” Remus wagged a finger in Roman and Virgil’s direction.

“What a terrible fate that would be,” Roman commented, flopping over to lie on the floor beside Virgil.

Seconds later, his phone buzzed; he pulled it out to see a text notification from Virgil.

Virgil: oberon sucks btw

Roman: Oh, it is ON!

Roman grinned as he sent the response, already anticipating the thrill of the argument that was about to ensue. He felt a warm thrill in his chest at Virgil’s answering chuckle—it was good to know Virgil was having fun with this too.

***

“—so I was hanging out with Virgil the other day at the library cafe, and he said The Tempest was dumb because magic solves everything.” Roman was lying on the floor of his dorm, tossing a bouncy ball up in the air and catching it over and over again. Logan was sitting at Roman’s desk, legs up and crossed on the seat of the chair as he worked on readings for an English class, half-listening to Roman’s rambling. “And that since it solved all the problems, it made no sense for Prospero to give it up. Which was completely ignoring all the bad stuff magic had done and the symbolism of him throwing it away!”

“What did Remus have to say about that?” Logan inquired with a small laugh, not looking up from the copy of Frankenstein in his hands.

“What? Oh, nothing. Remus wasn’t there.”

“Oh?” Logan blinked, glancing up from the book.

“Yeah, we were at the library getting Starbucks, we do that on Wednesdays now. Remus was in his history class, I’m pretty sure.”

“I didn’t know you and Virgil hung out together,” Logan said, raising their eyebrows.

“Oh, we don’t, we just get coffee on Wednesdays, it’s different,” Roman said.

Logan stared at him. “...What?”

“Like, we only hang out on our own time to get Starbucks and then argue about Shakespeare. It’s really fun! It’s a great system, honestly. And this way, you don’t yell at me about Shakespeare or text Remus rant essays about what you think I’m getting wrong!”

Logan looked away, a very called-out expression on his face. “You weren’t supposed to see those…”

“Oh, Remus didn’t show me, I just broke into his phone the other day and it was open to your texts,” Roman said reassuringly.

“Why would you break into—” Logan began, not seeming reassured in the slightest.

“I needed to check his calendar to see if he was available to come with me to the grocery store,” Roman explained. “You know we’re really good at guessing each other’s passcodes. He doesn’t mind, we break into each other’s phones all the time.” He paused, assessing Logan’s face, trying to gauge if their expression was upset or not. “I’m sorry I read the texts, though,” he added, just in case it had hurt their feelings. “I only saw the very end of it, it wasn't on purpose or anything. Promise.”

Logan sighed. “I know. It’s alright.” He reached across the space between them to press the back of Roman’s hand.

Roman grinned. “Only you would come up with a whole essay in a text,” he teased. “Dunno what I expected, really.”

“It wasn’t an essay,” Logan said defensively. “Technically speaking.”

“I dunno, it sure looked like if you formatted it with MLA, you could turn it in for a grade.” Roman giggled. “But hey, what do I know?”

Logan opened his mouth to reply, but stopped as the doorknob rattled with the sound of keys.

Patton stepped in. “Hey! If it isn’t some of my favorite people!” he greeted the two of them with a smile. His dark, wavy hair was a little ruffled. Normally he combed it to the side, but Roman remembered it had been windy today, so Roman guessed that was responsible for the irregularity. “How are you doing?” Patton asked the two of them.

“Better now that you’re here,” Roman told him with an answering grin. “How’s your day been?” He’d noticed that Patton really liked being asked how his day had gone.

Sure enough, Patton’s smile spread a little wider. “Pretty good, thanks! I haven’t had too much to do today, which is nice. How are you doing, Logan?” He sat down on the floor beside Roman, sliding his backpack off his shoulders.

Roman immediately sat up and scooted over to lean against Patton—he was an excellent cuddler; he was tall and chubby and he ran warm, and Roman liked cuddles. He tended towards understimulation rather than overstimulation, and hugs were one of his favorite things. Patton was always happy to supply.

“I’m alright, thank you,” Logan said as Patton wrapped an arm around Roman’s shoulders. “A little underslept, but otherwise good.”

“Good, good. You should sleep more. Are you both busy?” Patton asked.

“No,” Roman said, because Patton always had fun ideas.

Logan pursed his lips, glancing down at the book in his hands in consideration. “I can finish this chapter later. Why?”

“Oh, I was just wondering if either of you wanted to play a board game,” Patton said. He and Roman had each brought a couple from their homes, and together they had quite the little collection.

“Yes!” Roman agreed eagerly, breaking away from Patton and crossing to the shelf where they kept the games. “How about Clue?”

“I will decimate you both,” Logan said, deadly serious, adjusting their glasses and scooting to the floor.

“All part of the fun, Specs.” Roman pulled out the box and set it down between them. “Dibs on the red piece!”

***

“—so I told him that was utter bullshit—not in so many words, of course—and listed off the reasons why, and he simply did not seem to recognize how completely nonexistent his logic was, he just kept repeating his original points louder and louder.” Logan punctuated his rant about a classmate with hand gestures as he walked next to Roman on the sidewalk.

“I hate guys like that,” Roman said, making a face.

Logan nodded. “But I got full credit on my discussion post when I typed up my argument and I cannot imagine he got the same, based on his talking points. So.” He shrugged, clearly trying not to look too smug with himself.

“Good job!” Roman told them.

“Thank you.” Logan’s happiness was palpable. “How have—”

“Logan!” Remus’s voice shouted.

Roman looked in the direction of the noise; they were almost an entire block away still from the quad, where they’d agreed to meet Remus, but he seemed to have spotted them. He was sprinting at full speed directly towards them.

“Oh, dear,” Logan said, the exasperation in his voice belied by the grin on their face. They took a step back and braced themself, just in time.

Remus full-on tackled Logan in a hug, colliding into him at full speed. Logan stumbled back a couple of steps, but successfully avoided falling over. “Hello, Remus,” he said composedly, wrapping their arms around Remus and returning the enthusiastic hug. “How are you?”

“Much better now. I missed you,” Remus said into Logan’s shoulder. “Normal people get all weird about it when I tell them cool murder facts. You're much cooler than normal people.”

“It has been twenty-seven hours and about thirty minutes since you last saw me,” Logan informed him. “And thirteen minutes since we last texted.” They rumpled his curls, which fell messily in loose spirals about his face; they were mostly about chin length, although some of them were choppily trimmed shorter than others. Remus was very insistent about cutting his own hair. It was always mildly disastrous, but he insisted he liked it that way. He’d dyed it himself, too; he’d bleached a streak at the very front of his head and dyed it silver about a month before college started, with a surprising amount of success.

“Yeah, and I missed you.” Remus stepped back from the hug as Logan released him. “Also hi Roman, I guess.” He tossed Roman a grin.

“You are a terrible brother sometimes,” Roman informed him. “Hi.”

“Uh, I think you mean all the time,” Remus corrected him. “I’m joking,” he added. “C’mon, I got Starbucks for us! I have extra meal credits!” He seized Logan’s hand and reached invitingly for Roman’s.

Roman let Remus grab his hand, too, and his brother immediately began dragging both Roman and Logan at a slightly breakneck pace down the sidewalk. Several students dove out of their way until he dragged them to a halt by the food truck, bouncing on the balls of his feet and waiting expectantly.

Not even a moment later, the barista placed three cups on the delivery window tray and called out Remus’s name.

“Yes!” Remus pumped his fist, darted over, and picked up two of the cups—Roman recognized Remus and Logan’s go-to coffee orders, a trenta mango-dragonfruit refresher and a grande vanilla sweet cream cold brew with extra ice. Roman picked up the last cup, a warm drink in a grande cup; he sniffed to check what it was even though he knew what Remus usually got him. Steamed apple juice with a sprinkle of cinnamon on top—his favorite as a kid and still one of his favorites now. He wrapped his hands around the warm cup and followed Remus and Logan over to a sunny patch on the lawn.

Remus sprawled out, taking up more space than seemed humanly possible for one person to fill; Logan tucked their legs beneath them as they sat beside Remus and began pulling out a textbook, a dog-eared novel, and a handful of pens and pencils from their messenger bag.

Roman sat so that he completed the triangle between the three of them, his legs crossed so he could lean his cup against them between sips and not worry about knocking it over.

“Thank you for the coffee, Remus,” Logan said, his cup halfway to his lips as he flipped through the worn novel.

Roman nodded in agreement, breathing in the warm cinnamon scent of the apple juice.

“Of course!” Remus said exuberantly, taking a noisy slurp of his drink.

Roman and Logan both winced slightly.

“Could you be a little quieter, there?” Logan asked mildly.

“How dare you.” Remus clutched his heart, leaning back so far Roman was surprised he didn’t lose his balance and fall over.

Logan sighed, reaching over and placing a hand over Remus’s, gripped around the edge of the cup’s lid. “At least please be careful not to splash,” he said, guiding Remus’s hand downwards until the cup came to rest on the ground. “This textbook cost rather a lot and I’d like to sell it back in a decent condition at the end of the term.”

Remus let go of the cup, leaving it to rest where it was, and leaned forward. He took Logan’s face in both of his hands and looked seriously into their eyes. “Hey. You are my best friend in the whole world and you mean everything to me. I love you and I’m so glad we’re soulmates. But I draw the line at stopping my annoying behavior for anything less than a natural disaster.” He released Logan and picked his drink back up. “I promise I won’t spill on your book, though,” he added lightly. “Roman gets no such promises.”

“You wouldn’t dare, you know I hate being sticky—” Roman began heatedly.

“Okay, okay. Jesus. You two are really conspiring to foil all my chaotic little gremlin dealings today. I’ll order an ice water to spill on you instead, will that make you happy?” Remus snickered.

Roman frowned. “If you must,” he begrudgingly agreed, since this seemed the closest thing to a compromise he was likely to get out of Remus. He suspected it might be a joke anyway, but he wasn’t sure about that and didn’t want to take any chances.

But Remus didn’t return to the food truck, so it seemed likely that it was a joke after all. Instead, he devoted himself to more noisy slurping, crossing his eyes and looking like he didn’t have a care in the world.

“You’re the tallest one of us,” Roman said after a moment.

“Huh?” Remus looked up at him.

“He has a point, dear,” Logan said, turning a page.

“Like yeah I know I am, but what’s the point?” Remus asked.

“You said we were foiling your chaotic little gremlin dealings,” Roman elaborated. “You’re, like, fucking… six two.”

“And a half,” Remus added. “Emotionally, I am a chaotic creature of spite who’s about three five and can sneeze fire, though.”

“That makes no sense,” Roman protested.

“Does too,” Remus responded, crossing his arms.

“It does,” Logan agreed. “For example, emotionally, I punch that one classmate in the face twice a week, but we can’t always embody what we want to be. And you, Roman—emotionally, you’re very invested in Shakespeare, but in actuality, your interpretations are painfully bad.”

“Hey. You talking about me and Shakespeare is off limits. We’ve discussed this.” Roman waved a warning finger at them.

“I still think that’s unfair and have raised a motion to reject and overturn the ban.”

“Unfortunately for you, the judge and jury are my feelings, and you hurt them, Logan. Shakespeare and I have something special. You need to stop trying to come between us like this.”

Logan glanced up from his book to give Roman a singularly unimpressed look. “You are preposterous.”

Roman beamed at him and made a heart shape with his hands, holding it up like a picture frame to look at Logan through. “But you loooooove me,” he singsonged.

Logan nodded. “This is true.”

“You’re both nerds and Shakespeare isn’t even that good,” Remus put in, a shit-eating grin on his face.

“I’m divorcing you,” Logan said immediately.

“Noooo, come back!” Remus dramatically grasped at the air as if reaching out from afar for Logan.

“Fine.” Logan shrugged. “Then Roman’s disowning you.”

“Hey, that’s my line!”  

“He can’t disown me, he’d miss me,” Remus said confidently. “Y’all are stuck with me.” He looked very pleased with himself.

There was silence for a beat, then all three of them burst into laughter.

“I’m really glad we’re all friends,” Remus said happily, leaning back and taking another long sip of his drink.

“Yeah,” Roman agreed.

“I don’t know,” Logan said, holding back a smirk. “Sometimes I think about a world where I don’t have to deal with a pair of himbos every day of my life.” He maintained his faux-serious face for all of the three seconds it took both twins to start pelting him with ripped-up blades of grass, then devolved into helpless laughter again.

***

“Patton, you good? You’ve been kind of spaced out all day.”

“Huh?” Patton looked up, blinking through his round gold-rimmed glasses. “Yeah, I’m okay! Just… boy problems, I guess? Which is… it’s new.” He wrinkled his nose for a second in a face of dissatisfaction before smoothing his face back into a smile.

“Oh? Want to talk about it?” Roman asked eagerly, leaning forward and resting his chin in his hands, interest definitely piqued.

“I don’t know…” Patton glanced away. “It’s complicated. And it’s probably not a big deal.”

“Patton. We are friends. The main purpose of friends is gossiping about crushes.” Roman crossed his arms. “I am offended that you would ever doubt my capacity for talking about boys in a gay way.”

“I don’t think that’s the main purpose of friendship,” Patton said, but his smile looked more genuine.

“Shush, I know that, I’m being dramatic. How about a movie night and you can spill the deets in a cozy setting with popcorn? And Logan?”

“I mean… okay,” Patton relented. “It’s probably not as exciting as you’re hoping for, though, I’m sorry.”

“Nonsense. You are perfect and so is everything you do,” Roman said absently, pulling out his phone and FaceTiming Logan.

“Roman! You’re sweet, but you know you shouldn’t go around passing out compliments that should go to you,” Patton said.

“Oh, stop,” Roman said, grinning wide.

Logan picked up on the second ring. “What do you need, Roman?”

“To see your gorgeous face, nerd. Also we’re having a movie night at me and Pat’s, attendance mandatory. Seven works, right? Pat’s having boy problems.”

Logan stared at Roman with a blank face for several beats. “And… you want me there to help… why?” he deadpanned.

“Shut up, you have a nonromantic boy toy, you’re basically qualified to help.”

“Don’t call Remus that! He’s a person, not a—wait, he’s your brother, Roman, that’s worse, that’s so weird—”

“—Anyway, I can more than handle giving Patton plenty of terrible advice on his love life,” Roman interrupted. “You’re there to tell him everything I say is a terrible idea and let me throw popcorn at you. We can watch Big Hero Six. C’mon, it’ll be fun!”

Logan heaved a sigh. “Fine. But you have to put your dad’s curry powder on the popcorn.”

“What kind of man do you take me for, Logan? Of course we’ll have curry popcorn! See you at seven, love you, bye bye.” Roman blew a kiss and hung up.

After his English class, Roman grabbed a burrito from the dining hall and hurried back to the dorm, making it there at half past six. Patton was already back; he made hot chocolate while Roman microwaved popcorn and tossed it in a bowl with curry powder.

At precisely seven o'clock, there was a knock on the door; Roman let Logan in and the three of them climbed into the nest of pillows and blankets Patton had built on the bottom bunk, pushing aside the bi pride flag and the Puerto Rican flag Patton had hung like curtains around his bunk.

“So,” Roman said eagerly as the movie’s opening bot fight began on the laptop screen, turning to Patton and bouncing (Logan grabbed the popcorn bowl out of Roman’s lap as it jostled), “spill!”

Patton squirmed under the attention, a half-hidden smile ghosting its way onto his face. “I don’t know… what should I talk about?”

“What’s he like?” Roman asked. “How do you know him? Is he cute? Have you got his number?”

“Oh, wow—that’s a lot.” Patton giggled nervously.

“Okay, start with is he cute?”

“He’s really cute,” Patton allowed, biting back another smile. “He’s got all these freckles all over his face and neck and hands, and his eyebrows are really expressive—he gets this really serious face when he’s thinking, and it’s… really pretty.”

“Eyes?” Roman demanded. “How are his eyes?”

“I mean, they’re eyes? They’re this kind of greyish blueish color. I don’t know, I try not to stare, especially when he’s looking, you know?”

“Okay, that’s fair,” Roman relented. “What else? Is he fashionable?”

“I—not really, honestly. He mostly just wears longsleeve tees and jeans. Sometimes beanies. He has these really cute yellow converse that he always wears, though. He, like—oh, gosh, I’m not sure how to describe it. He’s not, like, fashionable like you asked, but he—kind of the way he holds himself makes it seem like he is? He wears his clothes well, I think is maybe the phrase.”

Roman nodded. “Alright. Do you know whether or not he’s queer?”

Patton hesitated. “Um… I’m not sure. I don’t know either way. But he was the only one that laughed at a bi pun I made one time, and he wore a pink shirt and yellow belt with faded jeans one time, which I might be reading way too much into but it sure looked like a sneaky pastel pan flag.”

Roman nodded very seriously, taking mental notes. “All good signs. Anything else? Any stickers on his laptop or water bottle? Pins on his backpack?”

Patton shook his head. “They’re, like, super empty. He doesn’t really do anything that tells people about his personality. His outfits are usually really plain, like I said, and everything. It’s weird, because he’s got such a distinct personality, and he really doesn’t seem like someone who’d leave his stuff unpersonalized. It’s like he’s afraid of something, or something.” Patton was silent for a moment, chewing on the inside of his cheek. “But then, he seems kind of nervous around me in general.” He looked away, a worried expression crossing his face.

“Maybe he likes you back?” Roman suggested. “Plenty of people get nervous around their crushes.”

Patton shook his head quickly. “No, I don’t think that’s it. I think I know what the thing worrying him is. I just… don’t know how to talk about it with him.”

“You do realize you’re being super vague here, right?” Roman queried; he couldn’t parse what on earth Patton meant by that, but his curiosity was piqued.

“I know.” Patton bit his lip. “I, um, don’t want to talk about it yet, I think. It’s complicated. I don’t think it would be fair to him to discuss it with others.”

“Oh.” Roman did his best to hide his disappointment. “Okay, that’s fine. How do you know him?”

His attempt to change the subject didn’t seem to ease Patton’s discomfort, based on the way his shoulders drew up even closer to his ears. “...Kind of from a class we’re in together?” he answered after a long pause. “We’re partners on a group project.”

“Sounds like a meet cute to me,” Roman said, searching again for new lines of questioning that would hopefully not be as upsetting for mysterious and unknown reasons. “What do you like about him?”

Patton lit up. “He’s really sweet, actually. It takes some looking to see it, because he’s got a lot of walls up, but you can tell he’s really thoughtful and observant, and he’s really warming up to me, I think—he’s being much nicer to me than most people, and I’m starting to think he really means it and wants to be nice to me just to be nice, not because he feels like he has to.”

“Well, of course he’d be nice to you, you’re like the sweetest person I’ve met in my life,” Roman said, feeling bewildered by this line of reasoning.

“No, I—oh, nevermind. I was worried he wasn’t genuinely being nice for a while, but I’m really starting to think he means it, is my point. Anyway, he’s really smart—he’s so good at like, you know, synthesizing stuff? He’s really good at finding the information we need and paraphrasing it in a way that works really well for our project. I have such a hard time wording things how I want, you know? So it’s awesome that he can do that so well. And he’s good at puns, too! He tries not to laugh, but he scrunches his nose up and gets really red cheeks so you can always tell, it’s really cute. And one time I was trying to explain to our professor he was wrong about something, but I was kind of having trouble getting my point across, the teacher didn’t seem to get it, and he just spoke up and pointed out exactly where the misunderstanding was. It was really nice and reassuring of him. He just seems really protective of people he cares about, you know?”

“He sounds great, Pat!” Roman agreed.

Patton nodded, giving an excited little wiggle.

The brief silence was broken by a quiet crunching noise. Roman looked to his other side to see Logan, eyes fixed on the movie, who had worked their way through a solid third of the popcorn.

“Oh, you fiend!” Roman cried, seizing the popcorn bowl back since he was sitting in the middle.

“What?” Logan defended himself exasperatedly. “You two seemed to be handling that just fine! I like this movie! Neither of you asked for the popcorn back! What did I do?”

“...Okay, technically nothing,” Roman admitted after considering this defense and finding it to be unfortunately solid and covering all of Logan’s bases. God, they knew him too well. “But we are supposed to be doing this as a group.”

Logan rolled his eyes. “Fine. Patton, he’s probably queer. You should ask him out and see what happens. Happy now?”

“Wh—how are you saying that with such confidence?” Roman demanded.

“Which part?”

“That he’s queer. I agree Patton should definitely ask him out at the first opportunity, we just hadn’t gotten to that yet.”

“I mean, I can’t say for sure, but being the only person in a classroom to react to a queer joke is pretty telling.” Logan shrugged. “Any other relevant details?”

Patton shrugged. “I don’t know. Janus—that’s the guy—he doesn’t talk about himself very much—”

“Hold on, Janus?” Logan interrupted. “Lanky white guy? Constantly acts like he’s just swallowed a lemon? Kind of a twink? Looks incredibly uncomfortable in his own skin? Growing his hair out?”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Patton admitted. “You could maybe be nicer about him, though.”

“I’m sure I could,” Logan said, seeming unconcerned. “Yeah, I know him. He’s queer, I’m pretty sure he’s compatible with you. No idea if he’d be interested, or frankly what you see in him, but go for it.”

“Wh—how do you know him?” Roman demanded. “I feel left out now!”

“We met at the Aspec—at a pride center identity group. Also he’s Remus’s roommate’s best friend. They’re practically attached at the hip. I’m surprised you haven’t met him yet, with how much you hang out over there lately.”

Virgil had a best friend? A best friend here, at college? That was news. Surprisingly unpleasant news—Roman wasn’t quite sure why. It wasn’t like he disliked Virgil to the point of not wanting them to have friends! Of course not! Frankly, he was glad to hear the tiny emo had a social life. It just kind of stung that this was the first time he was hearing about someone evidently so important to Virgil. And not even from hir own mouth. He’d kind of thought they were closer than that. That he’d have learned basic facts about what and who was important to Virgil by now. Learning otherwise was a remarkably unpleasant experience.

Logan took another handful of popcorn out of the bowl in Roman’s hands, startling Roman out of his thoughts.

“Stop!” he yelped. “I want some, too!”

“You have more if this bag runs out,” Logan pointed out. “I have some extra popcorn in my dorm too. And you’ve been holding out on me with your curry powder.” He popped another handful into his mouth and crossed his arms.

“If you just asked my parents, you could have some of your own! They’d even give you the recipe! Now share with Patton!” Roman leaned himself and the popcorn bowl away from Logan, trying not to laugh.

“I don’t mind,” Patton put in. “It’s very tasty, but I’m not as attached as Logan is.”

“No, you have to take some, he’s been hogging it,” Roman insisted.

“I don’t mind!” Patton insisted. Roman shoved the bowl in his face, and he relented and took a handful.

“Let Logan have some more now,” Patton said, gently pushing the bowl back into Roman’s lap.

“Thank you,” Logan said primly when Roman relented.

“You’re welcome!” Patton said with an easy smile. The smile fell away after a moment, though, and he looked thoughtful. “I’m not sure about asking Janus out, though,” he said hesitantly.

“Why not?” Roman asked. “You really sound interested in him! What have you got to lose?”

“It’s more complicated than that,” Patton said, worrying the edge of a blanket between his fingers. “I’m not sure if he’d be comfortable with it. I don’t—I don’t know.” He looked away. “I’ll figure it out, I guess.” He looked back at Roman and Logan, forcing a smile onto his face. “Thank you both for the advice, though. And for listening.”

“Patton—” Roman began, concerned.

Patton shook his head. “Let’s just watch the movie now, okay? Really. Thank you. But I’m good for now. Can I have some more popcorn?”

Logan wordlessly held out the bowl and Roman allowed himself to be mostly distracted by Big Hero Six. He felt better when Patton leaned on his shoulder, a genuine smile on his face as he watched Fred goofing around on the screen. Whatever the issue Patton was dealing with was, at least it didn’t seem big enough to keep bothering him after putting it aside.

***

“So,” Remus said with an evil grin.

“Whatever it is, I don’t want to know,” Roman said. They were both sprawled on Remus’s bed, sharing earbuds as Remus swiped through TikTok.

“It’s nothing!” Remus protested.

Roman gave him a suspicious look. Remus’s face was entirely too innocent.

“I was just wondering when you’re going to get your shit together and do something about your crush on Virgil,” Remus said, the evil grin back.

“My what?” Roman did a double take. “I—I don’t have a crush on Virgil, we barely even get along!”

Remus rolled his eyes. “Oh, please. The tension between you two is so high I’m surprised something hasn’t snapped yet. And you definitely have a crush.”

“I do not!” Roman grabbed Remus’s pillow and threw it in his brother’s face. “We’re barely even friends!”

Remus shoved the pillow aside and rested his chin on top of it, making a skeptical face.

“I mean, are they really pretty? Sure. But that’s not a crush,” Roman insisted.

“Mmhm. Okay. So what makes it not a crush?” Remus pressed.

“I—well—” Roman stammered, flustered by the very question.

“Uh-huh.”

“No!” Roman snapped, voice cracking. “I just—that’s a hard question to answer right off the bat! How do you define a crush? It’s just not, okay?”

“I mean, I define crush as, like…” Remus paused. “Huh. Okay. You have a point, or whatever. I guess… a crush is, like—huh. No. Okay. You’re distracting me. I’m teasing you about your crush that you totally do have, we are not veering off topic.”

“I do not have a crush on Virgil! I just want to be his friend! Okay?”

Remus made a skeptical face. “Sure, whatever you say. I’m still going to tease you about it.”

“Oh, whenever you find that third soulmate, I am getting so much revenge.”

“Eh.” Remus shrugged. “Like, go for it, but I dunno if you’ll have that much time to tease me about it before we get together. You know? Like, think about me and Logan.”

“Logan knew you were soulmates for two and a half years before you got togeth—”

“Yeah, because he’s smart, but I didn’t figure it out until thirty minutes before we got together. Or like. Thirty minutes before we started talking about it. You know this.”

Roman crossed his arms. This was unfortunately a very good point; the day Remus had figured out that Logan was one of his soulmates had been a pretty memorable one even for Roman. Logan and the twins had grown up next door to each other, and had been best friends since elementary school. One Saturday morning near the end of their senior year of high school, Remus had bolted upright in bed while Roman was brushing his teeth, blurted out something nigh incomprehensible, and taken off at a sprint; he’d slammed the front door behind himself on his way out and he hadn’t answered any of Roman’s texts for two hours, only to show up by sprinting back into the house and screaming at the top of his lungs “Logan and I are soulmates!”

This had prompted a lot of confused questioning from Roman. He’d learned that yes, Remus and Logan were definitely soulmates; Logan had figured it out in sophomore year but hadn’t said anything; Remus had only just figured it out; yes, Logan was still aromantic; yes, Remus was still allo; no, neither of them felt like either of these facts was an issue; and Remus was very happy.

“We’re going on, like, a date, but platonic,” Remus had announced to him that day, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “I’m really excited, this is so cool! Who’d have thought, right? Logan and me!”

Roman had smiled and tried hard to just be happy for Remus and Logan, and not jealous of them. Particularly about two months later, when they’d made their relationship official and become queerplatonic partners. He was happy for them! He was!

But Remus had never cared that much about finding his soulmates. Roman had. It didn’t feel fair. Remus, who didn’t care, got two soulmates, and one of them was literally his childhood best friend. Roman, who’d been daydreaming about finding his soulmate since he was too little to remember, and had learned just about everything there was to know about how soulbonds worked, seemed to have just the usual one soulmate. His soulbond hadn’t even developed until he was sixteen—admittedly, that was an expected side effect of the puberty blockers he’d been on for a few years before he’d been approved for T, but he was still salty about it. And when his soulbond finally had developed and he’d started tuning into his soulmate’s dreams, they were so creepy! He wasn’t sure he’d had a single souldream so far that wasn’t a nightmare. They ruined his sleep for the night whenever he got one. It was irritating and frustrating and all sorts of bad things; he’d actually cried over it a couple of times, not that anyone but Remus knew.

But as annoying as it was for him, it had to be worse for his poor soulmate—if these nightmares were what was making it through the soulbond, he could only imagine how much worse their nightly sleep must be.

He hoped he’d find them soon. He was ready for a proper romance, thank you very much!

#sanders sides #thomas sanders #thatsthat24 #sanderssidesgiftxchange #prinxiety #moceit #intrulogical #qpr intrulogical #roman sanders #virgil sanders #logan sanders #remus sanders #patton sanders #janus sanders #creativitwins #ts fic #it was always you (falling for me) #intrulosleep #qpr intrulosleep #ts roman #ts virgil #ts remus #ts logan #ts patton #ts janus #my writing #soulmate au #trans roman #trans sides #ace janus

[secondpubertyscene]

8.14.21

This year has been one of major change. In Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, there’s this quote, “God is Change. Beware: God exists to shape and be shaped,” and I think for the first time since reading it, I get what was being said. While I subscribe to the idea that there is a higher power of some kind, I also believe that we (as in, us as individuals) have great power as well. That power lies in our ability to change, to grow, to persevere. This year has been one of major change, and we really have to talk about it.

It is easy to look at this last year and think, “Well, that fucking sucked” because frankly, it did indeed fucking suck. I could write you a list of things that brought me great pain this year, unbelievable, undeniable, unrelenting pain that still lingers now. But, see, the beauty of it all is that none of that pain happens in a vacuum. Along with the pain, I’ve come through it all with more wisdom, more compassion, more empathy, more gratitude, more peace, more love, and more confidence. I’d like to share how those things all are connected, but first I would like to acknowledge something.

While I don’t know for sure if this is just an American thing, it does seem very clear that Americans aren’t fantastic at processing grief, death, and pain collectively. We often are encouraged to suck it up, to shut up about it, to not make others uncomfortable with our tears and trauma. I believe this is in large part due to the fact that American Exceptionalism doesn’t quite allow us to acknowledge when our systems have failed us or when we are suffering in the “greatest country in the world.” I don’t intend on participating in that toxic positivity or to dismiss the seriousness of the year past. I simply intend on acknowledging the nuances of my experiences, the complexity of it all. Now, let’s begin.

Without recounting every moment in large detail (in part because that would be far too much and also because I don’t need to relieve my traumas today), the events of the last year have been as follows: 1) COVID hit, 2) I had a severe emotional breakdown that resulted in a short stay at the hospital, 3) my grandma passed away, 4) I broke up with my partner of a year, 5) I was officially diagnosed with adult ADHD (inattentive), 6) I got into a PhD program for sociology (fully-funded), and 7) I moved to Ohio (two weeks ago now). So much happened in what feels like a blink of an eye. When you’re a kid, you think a year lasts forever. Now, a year feels like a couple months!

Anyhow, all of these things had super intense negative impacts on my life and most of them had super intense positive impacts on my life. Let’s talk about how. I won’t say that COVID had any “positive” impact on my life, because it’s still currently making things difficult and it is still destroying lives (full worlds) every day. The emotional breakdown that I experienced shortly after COVID began, however, was the impetus for some of the greatest change I would ever make in my life. It began with new therapy, medication for the first time ever to treat my mental illnesses, and a new relationship with boundaries.

Out of this breakdown, I came to realize a few things. 1) I wasn’t really feeling most of my life up until that point. That isn’t to say that I didn’t feel at all or that I wasn’t aware of my feelings all the time, but to say that most of the time, I numbed everything out that was too hard to bear. I didn’t cry, I didn’t write, I didn’t even take the time to try to identify exactly what emotions I did feel. I just lived through it and waited until I felt better. Or, I would breakdown with rage and then feel better. Therapy, especially the group therapy I participated in for a couple weeks after leaving the hospital, changed that in huge ways for me.

Because I was able to sit in my pain, in my discomfort, I was able to actually work through some of my issues. I began to identify the areas in my life that made me genuinely unhappy and began to grant myself permission to feel disappointment. I granted myself the permission to expect more, to want more. I granted myself the permission to set boundaries without guilt or shame. I granted myself freedom. It is an ongoing journey of mistakes and back-peddling and trying again, but it is mine and I am proud of it. Had I not had that breakdown, I don’t know that I would be where I am now.

My grandma dying is one of the most painful things I’ve experienced and honestly, I haven’t dealt with it all the way yet. I didn’t get to say goodbye to her in person, I still am battling the feelings of guilt despite knowing that there likely was nothing I could have done, and my chest still feels heavy thinking about her. Even as I write this, I feel that pain. I know she is not truly gone and that she lives within me, but oh, I do miss her physical presence. The nagging, the phone calls, the hugs, the cooking, her soft hair and beautiful hands. I miss her. Because of her, though, I have been able to rehabilitate another relationship in my life. The relationship I share with my mother.

My mother is a lot of things, but for whatever reason I continually forgot that she too is a victim of hardship brought on by nothing but sheer luck. In this last year, she lost her mother, the man that she loved, multiple cousins, friends that went back to childhood, and who knows who else. She suffered a lot this year and she has suffered a lot over the course of her 61 years of life overall. For the first time, I have been able to really acknowledge her as a full being with a complex history and understand her as a person, rather than just as a parent. I’ve set new boundaries with her as a result, boundaries that have completely change the dynamic of our relationship and will continue to do so as we both learn more about each other. Gone are the days where she relies solely on me for emotional support or financial support. Gone are the days where she feels comfortable talking down to me and then expecting any kind of favors from me. She understands and respects that I am an adult, that I am independent, and that I can terminate our relationship should it get to a point where I feel unsafe again. While this might sound like a threat or even negative, it is in fact quite the contrary.

We now share the belief that I deserve better from her and that my continued relationship with her is founded upon our mutual growth. That’s a beautiful thing that arose from us being pulled together by the loss of someone we both loved more than we maybe even loved ourselves. Thankfully, though, I have come to love myself more than anyone else on this planet. This newfound self-love and respect resulted in the severing of my relationship with my partner.

I won’t pretend like my ex was this horrible person because she wasn’t. She was kind, loving, intelligent, hilarious, unique, complex, and so many other amazing things. I still love her with all of my heart and have thought about her every single day since we broke up. It is not for lack of love that our relationship came to a close. The issue was that I needed more than what she could give. I needed someone who could really sit in my shit with me without invalidating my feelings jokingly because they didn’t know what else to say. I needed someone who could make me feel safe and secure, not fearful and insecure. I needed someone who understood boundaries as openings for futures, not closed doors. I needed someone who could show up for me the way I showed up for them, even when they hurt me, even when they lied out of fear. She wasn’t able to do that. She wasn’t able to stick beside me during the worst days of my life. She wasn’t able to see me beyond our relationship. When my grandma passed and our relationship was on the rocks, she made it about us. She didn’t stop pestering me about our relationship for long enough to give me support on losing someone who meant the world to me. I couldn’t trust her after that and I also realized, I wasn’t required to.

Boundaries in that relationship weren’t healthy. I felt unseen, unprotected, and sometimes even unloved. While I am sure that she has grown even more since we have parted, the reality is that when I ended things, I knew that doing so was the most fair thing I could do for the both of us. This is because I deserve someone who sees my value inherently. I deserve someone who takes the time to understand me, to love me, to see me. Not just see me and them together, but me as an individual separate from them. More importantly, I needed to be able to ask for those things without feeling guilty or bad. As of now, I still don’t know that she sees me as me, as a singular person, and maybe she never will. That is okay. I still love her anyway. I just love me more now. As a part of that love I’ve grown for myself, I also now have sought out more help for myself. This seeking of resources led me to realizing that I was ADHD and helped me change my life.

Being diagnosed with ADHD at 21 felt absolutely ridiculous. How could I be ADHD when I can sit still most of the time and have a pretty decent amount of impulse control? The answers came from my psychiatrist, breaking down the stereotypical understanding of ADHD and allowing me to find myself within the diagnosis. Finding the right combination of medication has been difficult, but what hasn’t been hard at all is finding more resources that help me manage my symptoms. It’s because of some of these resources that I am able to sit here and write this.

A huge part of ADHD is this perfectionist mentality that makes it nearly impossible to start or complete some tasks. Every time I sat down to write in the past, I told myself that I absolutely had to write every single day, once a day, or I should just not do it. When it came to this blog especially, I had so much shame when I failed to post for a long time or had a lull, that I would either consider deleting the whole thing to start over, or just never posting again. I realize now that those were just cop outs for my brain, that I can write as little or as much as I want because it is for ME. It doesn’t have to be perfect; it doesn’t have to be anything but what I need it to be. Waiting for perfection would have me waiting forever because it’s simply not how my brain works. Accepting that is a large part of how I got into my PhD program.

I’m not going to lie. I am still trying to figure out all of the feelings I have regarding this PhD program. I am shocked that I got in, shocked that I got full-funding, shocked that I am now in Ohio, shocked that I am in my own apartment, and overall shocked that I’ve made it this far in general. While I do not believe that I am stupid or not capable of greatness, I am realizing that I’ve always seen myself pursuing something more straightforward. When I was younger, I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted to do even as those things changed. I knew what was required of me, I knew what I would ultimately do, and I took refuge in that. Doctors go to medical school. Chefs go to culinary school. Forensic anthropologists get masters degrees and do field work. It felt clear cut, straightforward, safe. This is uncharted territory. What do you do post PhD? What do you do DURING PhD years? I suppose I’ll just have to find out!

Anyhow, this year has been intense. Change is always present in our lives and sometimes it brings with gifts that we can only receive when we’re healed enough to take them. I’m hoping to keep healing, keep growing, keep loving, and keep going. I’m learning so much about myself and about the world. I’m loving myself more than I have in the past. I am incredibly proud of where I am. And I’m not done yet.

#personal blog #vent blog #black ftm #black transman #black tpoc #black mental health #personal writing blog #sociology #sociology phd program #covid #grief

[foxgloveinspace]

Andrew Minyard is ADHD:

I said I would only really write this if people were interested, but I lied, lol. WAIT One person liked the og post while I was typing this, so there's interest and it’s justified! Lol.

Ok, I’ve seen other posts talking about this, but some of them used some things that I didn’t agree with, so I’m gonna do my own.

I wanna set the preface of, if you see Andrew as ADHD, awesome! If you don’t, that's great too! In reality, this is all speculation, and self projecting, and my desire for actually good representation of ADHD characters that are not stereotypical, so if you see Andrew as something different, that is completely and totally a-okay.

-ADHD has three types, inattentive (formally known as ADD), hyperactive (previously just ADHD) and combined type. Some people prefer calling it Executive Function Disorder (EFD), because Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder describes how it affects people around ADHDers, more than it affects ADHDers. For the sake of this, I’m going to refer to it as ADHD, because it’s more commonly known, and it’s what I call it for myself. I also acknowledge that according to the timeline, Andrew would probably be diagnosed with ADD (if he ever got diagnosed, that is, which I don’t know if he would or not). Please keep all this information in mind.

Things that would be explained if Andrew was ADHD:

Instead of reason’s I think Andrew is adhd in canon, I mostly have thing’s I think could be explained if he was:

-Why he ‘hates’ exy:

This is a big reason in my mind, he is very insistent he doesn’t like exy and I can explain why he actually doesn’t with him being ADHD.

He started playing in juvie, as something to do, it’s a good way to completely clear his mind and concentrate on something that he is actually good at, which is instant gratification, it's something ADHDer’s experience a lot. It’s one of the main reasons ADHDer’s love video games (if your curious there are videos on youtube explaining this. I am ADHD and this is already overwhelming enough for me than trying to explain this as well).

Andrew only tries at exy when he is in the goal, otherwise he couldn’t give less of a fuck about it. He doesn’t care about stats of other teams, or watching other peoples games, it’s only interesting to him when he’s in the goal or when other people make bets/dares with him; “can you shut down the goal?” “pick a number” playing while coming down from his meds for a long period of time, things like that. Making it interesting, keeping himself engaged with it, is a big thing for him. Again, instant gratification. And also an explanation for why outside of the court, when people try to talk to him about the sport, he doesn’t care, he ‘hates’ it. Cause he does. He hates talking about, that doesn’t interest him. It’s boring and not what gives his brain satisfaction within the sport itself.

-Spending habits (TW: Not sure how to tag this tbh, but Andrew being prepared to die? I’ll put it in double parentheses, just incase):

((While I am of the firm belief that the number one reason that Andrew bought the first car is cause he completely wasn't expecting to live through the crash and then had no idea what to do with that amount of money when he wasn't expecting to live)), ADHD would also explain why he buys such expensive stuff. Again, it's instant gratification. It's like trying to tell yourself to wait for something you really want as an award. What's the point when you can have it now? He goes out and buys the most expensive cars he can cause it scratches that itch in his brain.

- Subcategory to spending, Daredevil:

It could also have to do with going fast. Most 'daredevils' are actually ADHDers. Going fast and doing daring things triggers chemicals in our brains, same as hyperfixations and instant gratification. In fact, that could also be a reason for sparing with Renee as well.

-Zoning out:

Ask any ADHDer about maladaptive daydreaming, and dissociating. Andrew has been known in canon to lose himself in thought a lot, and stare out in space for extended periods of time. This is very common with ADHD, and while it’s a small thing, it’s something I think about quite a bit, and so I included it.

-Loud Music:

Another way to drown out your own thoughts is to listen to music, and a lot of ADHDers like loud music. Andrew likes loud music while driving fast. This is very ADHD to me.

-His major:

I think this is something else that can be explained with ADHD, as a hyperfixation. Its not something he wants to do with his life, but it's something his brain lets him concentrate on, and therefore, something to do with his time in college, something he doesn't necessarily want to do, and is doing it out of necessity.

-His memory:

Something about adhd is that it is almost always paired with a different thing. Autism and dyslexia are the two most common. So his perfect memory would be something else neurodivergent that could be paired with his ADHD.

-Attachment issues/RSD:

Andrew keeps everyone at arm's length, and while this can be a part of his past, it can also be combined with RSD, or Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. Which can mean any sort of negative attitude towards you can send you into a spiral. So Aaron not being understanding of their deal/promise and pushing him away would be devastating to him on a whole other level, one that feels right for how he acts in canon. But on the other hand he can't let go of Aaron because he is already attached to him. 

Again with Nickey, he's someone that's been in his life for so long it would be devastating for him to just up and leave, especially to an eighteen year old. He would never tell him this, because of RSD, and if Nickey decided to leave despite that, it would have been very devastating to him and Nickey would have never been allowed back into his life, so that would be the number one reason for Andrew to get Nickey into college with him.

ADHDers are also very quick to get attached to people, something we see with Andrew is that once he has decided someone is 'his' he is unshakable in his loyalty.

I hate going into it, but that would be another reason for how he is with Cass, why he is so desperate to stay, despite what is happening in the back ground.

-Emotions:

I know Andrew has reasons for being emotionally distant, but when he feels emotions in canon, anger, he is quick to it, and feels it fully to the point he can't control it. It's very common in ADHD to have no control over how you react to your emotions unless you spend a lot of time doing it, like Andrew has.

-Long Weird Conversations:

The way he talks to Renee, and then Neil, where they jump around from subject to subject, with no discernable connection to the subjects. Like, that's stereotypical ADHD, but one that actually ADHDers relate to. 

-Sensory things:

Things in canon that Andrew does/likes that scream sensory issues or stimming:

-Stimming:

Likes extreme foods (sweet and spicy things).

Has comfort objects (arm bands, while I know they were to hide his scars, I feel like the fact that they don't bug him even in extreme weather is a major factor in them being a weighted stim for him).

Smoking (I don't know how to describe how this is a stim for Andrew, but it is?).

-Sensory Issues (I know most of these have canon reasons, but I wanna say they could be heightened by ADHD, so keep that in mind):

Not eating around other people/eating in small bites. (Hating food textures is a common thing for ADHDer’s).

Being a light sleeper/taking forever to fall asleep. (Brain won't shut off/be quiet).

Wanting a routine but simultaneously hating it. (His love/hate relationship with exy. He never complains about getting up for practice, that Neil mentions, but is constantly hating how repetitive it is. Going to Eden's almost every Friday, where it's the same place but different every time without being too different.)

That's all that I can think of right now. I tried to not mention anything that happened while Andrew was on medication, so the whole 'keep my attention' doesn't really count in my opinion.

Thank you for reading, and maybe I might come back to this and add more someday, but for now it's finished.

In conclusion: Andrew being ADHD makes a lot of sense within canon.

#Andrew Minyard #tfc #aftg #adhd stuff #in this essay i will