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#i should probably take out the adhd part it’s extremely obvious just from reading this whole thing
READ BEFORE DOING ANYTHING ON HERE
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Right. So-
First of all, hello! My names are Leo or Chris! Most people just use Chris on me, but I do like Leo. My art signature is typically 'Chris' with a hairpin underline or T.E.T. though. Online you can call me Extra if you want!
My pronouns are: He/it/ze. I'm transmasculine.
My sexuality/Romantic orientation is: Aromantic and asexual. Perhaps autoromantic? I'm not fully sure.
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POTENTIALLY IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: my blog is sfw, but may contain suggestive jokes (though I’m not a huge fan of those myself so it probably won’t happen often), and (graphic) blood/gore. If you feel uncomfortable about any of those, you may refrain from following me or filter those particular tags.
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Extra:
haver of autism/inattentive ADHD comorbidity (just got officially diagnosed woohoo‼️)
Proud Pinterest Pin Hoarder to the extreme
I'm Hungarian, but I was made in England. I'm currently in neither country, but I'm not giving away my current location yet. Just in case. I speak English and Hungarian.
I’m below 18!!
I'm secretly a lump of slime taking on a human form :) (/j)
My MBTI type is INTP and my enneagram is 5w4.
This doesn't matter at all, but I'm a Virgo for anyone who cares.
I like to draw! And procrastinate! And rarely post my art!
I believe in the extra-terrestrial, can you tell
Atheist
Silly posts are tagged as #silly
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My fandoms include (may change in the future):
Will Wood
MCR
Invader ZIM
Don't Hug Me I'm Scared
Splatoon (Pearl holds a special place in my heart)
Deltarune (?) currently I'm distant from it, but I refuse to let go.
Lemon Demon (Neil banging out the tunes April 13 2006)
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If you are a part of this list do NOT FUNKING INTERACT
irken x child shippers (ZaDr, TaGr, etc). Zim and Tak are like 100 years older than Dib and Gaz, who are 12 and 11 years old, respectively.
krusie or kriselle shippers, suselle is pretty much canon
Proshippers. No exceptions, no excuses.
P3dos/MAPs. And lolicons/shotacons. You're invalid and should feel awful about yourselves.
Zoophiles. Like, what the hell? That crap just isn't right.
Any other similar orientation that's just plain bullshit and/or makes me uncomfortable ('dreamsexual', 'r@pesexual', 'animesexual', etc. This should be obvious.)
People who invalidate xenogenders.
Transphobes, Homophobes.
Ableists.
Racists.
Sexists.
Basically standard DNI criteria.
DSMP fans. You're all problematic. All of you.
Boyfriends webtoon fans.
LGBTQIA+ exclusionists.
Fujoshis/Fudanshis. Take a shower, PLEASE.
Anyone who supports Shane Dawson, Elon Musk, JK Rowling, or any other shitty person of the sorts.
Radfems.
Thankies!
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Now here's some casual stuff:
My comfort Characters
Spinach Can, Fridge, Lamp, Tony and Colin from DHMIS
Pearl, Marie and Frye from Splatoon
Jevil from Deltarune
Dib Membrane from Invader Zim
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❗️Small but important addition❗️: I don’t really care if you like media often considered to be problematic like South Park or Danganronpa or whatever. I just want you to acknowledge the problems with it and why people may be against it, so don’t defend it with your life around here. Dsmp fans, though, like I said, please get out of here.
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Current account status:
I haven't the foggiest idea
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wisteria-lodge · 3 years
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lion primary + slightly burnt lion secondary (badger secondary model) (bird secondary model)
i hope you’re having an amazing day!! here’s my SHC dilemma:
i know my primary is lion, and it feels a little exploded, at that, but at least i know what’s up. but im still extremely confused about my secondary. i tried looking through other submissions, but i didn’t really find anything i vibed with 100%, but then again i have adhd and im really struggling going through all that text, it just kinda blurs together at some point
so, my secondary. taking the test, i always get burnt, often with a vague hint towards bird. at first i immediately adopted that and decided i was a burnt bird, but the more i go the less that feels right to me and i think it might be some sort of model.
Yeah. “doesn’t feel right.” Definitely see the Lion in your sorting.
working by elimination, im pretty certain im not a snake secondary. that ish doesn’t even sound real to me, i know there are people like this because i know a couple, but it’s just so weird to me that some people are just able to improvise so effectively, and seemingly change themselves like that, and they?? enjoy it?? it does sound dope, like i admire it, but wtf. 
Lion secondaries can get very *does not compute* when trying to get their head around Snake secondaries. I’m considering Lion for you. 
i do act differently in different situations or with different people, but i don’t think i have “personas” as much as degrees of awkwardness 
I see the burnt secondary. You’re definitely talking yourself down here. But the way you talk about “degrees of awkwardness” does make me think about the way Lion secondaries “change faces” by modulating intensity. 
depending on how much my anxiety is acting up, and the more anxious i am, the more i act like a doormat and revert to the proper manners i was taught, but like… that’s not me, and it’s not done on purpose, i don’t enjoy it. 
Looks like somebody’s got an unhealthy Badger secondary model.
it feels gross not to be able to act like myself, whatever the hell that is.
And you didn’t vibe with the Lion descriptions? This is the first time I’m reading though this and… very interested to get to the part where you talk about why you think you’re not a Lion. 
im also convinced im not a bagder - my mother is, and there are a lot of those in my community, so i was raised thinking that was the best way to be, an ideal to work towards, but it’s just not comfortable for me, i don’t wanna do it.
Yeah, this would that  unhealthy Badger secondary model you were talking about. ^
i don’t even think i *can* do it. i mean, “showing up and doing the work” is pretty hard with adhd, and not even the most efficient way of getting stuff done (at least for me), and thinking of the group and what i can do in that group is annoying. also i get that asking for help is important sometimes but it still feels like that’s just admitting i can’t figure out how to do it myself, which, yikes (don’t come at me i know it’s unhealthy)
Hey, breathe. It’s okay. Nobody is going to make you be a Badger secondary. Clearly you’ve spent enough time struggling under the weight of a model that doesn’t suit you, and now you’re pushing back against everything Badger extra hard. 
id rather find a group im a good fit for instead of molding myself to please others. 
See, that’s an exaggerated, caricatured way of conceptualizing how a Badger secondary works… but I’m not surprised that you think about it that way.
whatever i do, it needs to come from me.
… you’ve got a very loud Lion secondary. 
anyway im somewhere between lion and bird, and at first i thought i was a bird because i do in fact fricking love learning everything i can, i wouldn’t naturally call it “collecting”, i’m just doing whatever’s interesting in the moment
You mean you learn by improvising? :) Like a Lion? :) 
but sure, why not - i like collecting languages, knowledge about different cultures, books, music, space, countries, medicine, anything and everything, and i sometimes spend hours researching random stuff that im never actually gonna use “just in case im stranded in the wilderness and need to make soap” you feel? but it’s not actually because i think it might be useful (though i do get random bouts of anxiety over not knowing how to do certain stuff “in case” even though the probability id need them is infinitesimal).
Loving knowledge does not make you a Bird secondary. I’m hearing you talk about about a thing you do for fun, and - this is key - a thing you use as  a mechanism to cope with anxiety. ADHD can sometimes make you feel very scattered, going too fast, and your Bird is giving you [the illusion of] control. And I’m not going to knock that. The illusion of control is important. 
i just like knowing things and being able to use those things to do stuff. i wanna be “that guy” you can come to with the most obscure problem and they’d have some way of dealing with it. doesn’t that sound pretty bird?
Okay. Here’s the deal. You like Bird secondaries. You think they’re cool, and badass. Maybe you’d like to be one. But I’m still not at all convinced you are. I haven’t heard you use it to solve problems. 
but i can’t actually do that stuff. i think i used to, when i was a teenager? but depression and undiagnosed adhd kinda kicked my ass, among a few other things, and now i don’t really have the brain power for it and i feel like im not actually able to learn things as well, or to even think straight.
Wow. That is some burnt secondary talk. I can’t do things. 
(I promise you, people with ADHD have absurd brain power, and can learn things crazy well, although not in the same way as neurotypicals. You are right about not thinking straight, which I am interpreting as “in a straight line.” ADHD people think in webs and corkscrews and I love it.) 
 or if i did, i can’t learn as *many* things as i need to feel accomplished? which idk what you think but it kinda just sounds like burnt bird to me. 
Feeling like the secondary you have isn’t good enough can be a Burnt thing... but feeling like you need to manifest a specific secondary *more* (which is what this feels like) is usually a sign of a model. 
but here’s the thing. all of those sound real nice. and cool. and a good way of doing things, maybe even the “right” way, even though i know that’s subjective. but lion just feels more comfy, and idk if that’s because im a burnt bird modeling lion or if it’s smth else.
… you mean… like being… a Lion?
cause the “collecting skills and knowledge to solve problems” thing sounds cool, but it’s actually more just the first part that i vibe with? the part where i get to learn stuff! but when actually solving problems, i don’t usually think too long, i just vibe. i see where my instinct is taking me and i apply reason *after* that, or like, as a secondary, support thing. im not a dumbass either, im good at puzzles and logic problems, i can totally think things through and use my skills! but that’s not really how i approach problem-solving. i just jump into the situation and see what part of it is closest and start there, or what’s convenient, or what just feels right or nicer or whatever.
This is a perfect description of a Lion secondary with a supportive Bird model. Like a LOT of neurodivergent people (hi!) you built yourself some scaffolding using the Bird toolbox.
and on one hand it could be that im not confident in my skillset enough to do things the bird way, but on the other hand, thinking back to my childhood and teenage years, when i had better executive skills and i wasn’t as completely scatterbrained as i am I now (i was, but not as bad in some ways), i still did this? like, all of my major life decisions where made on the spot based on instinct and nothing else
I’m definitely seeing the Lion primary come though as well. 
whenever i have a problem of the interpersonal sort i just face it and talk to the person and don’t bother hiding or sugarcoating things even if it means hurting that person because i don’t want to lie or come off as something i’m not, when i need to work on a project i don’t bother planning, i just jump in and a strategy forms in an organic way as i go, you know what i mean? isn’t that what this “charging” business means?
Yes.
anyway i have no idea which one is a model and which one is actually mine. i love learning things but i don’t care about actually using them. i mean i like it, of course, but it’s whatever. planning is tedious and it kinda gives me validation because im meant to be “smart” and i guess planning is what smart people do, but it’s annoying and nothing ever goes exactly to plan anyway so you just have to pause and plan again or whatever, and that’s just so boring and frustrating??
I get that you like Bird secondaries, and I get that the picture of “smart person” in your head looks like a Bird secondary but just like… come on…
why not just do the damn thing?? and then what you have to do will be obvious anyway?? and sure, if you planned ahead, maybe you’d already know what you need to do and you’d have prepared it and you’d do it better, but who’s got the time for that?? i can’t use my brain like that! i need to live the thing before it actually feels real enough for me to think about solving it.
I have never read anything more Lion secondary in my entire goddamn life.
i hope this actually made sense and i gave enough relevant information, my head kinda feels jumbled right now. i mean it makes sense to me but i don’t know how this reads from an outside perspective. maybe i should have planned this like an essay or whatever lmao
thanks a lot for answering these & running this blog!!! it’s dope and you give really good insights and you’re just a super cool person!
<3 <3 <3 
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erbferbatinlerb · 4 years
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sorry for the long post, i'm on mobile and cant put a read more but.... drumroll please.... due to popular demand here it is! Phineas Has ADHD: The Essay.
Hyperfixation on building/inventing things: Even more specifically amusement park rides ("Rollercoaster", "Rollercoaster The Musical", "One Good Scare", "Leave The Busting To Us", "Don't Even Blink", "Cheer Up Candace", "Delivery Of Destiny", etc.) Now, you can argue that he's a kid, and rides are fun, so of course he likes them, but if you look at it from a building standpoint, from an engineering standpoint? Phineas' interest lies in fun, of course, but he also must have an extreme interest in the engineering aspect of a ride in order to be skilled and knowledgeable enough to build them, and to be able to focus on the task so wholly.
He also gets incredibly attached to very specific things that some people often find strange, which seems like evidence of hyperfixation to me. (E.g.: aglets in "Tip of the Day", dental hygiene in "Bully Bust", Bulgarian folk dancing in "The Beak", detective movies in "Finding Mary McGuffin") hot tubs in "Bully Bromance Breakup", "Lotsa Latkes", "Swiss Family Phineas")
HYPERFOCUS: He and Ferb will dedicate their whole day to just one idea that they have. Phineas is able to weaponize his hyperfocusing talent incredibly well and stick to one task, but only if it is something he is extremely interested in — for example: In "Bully Bromance Breakup", he becomes almost unable to function without the stimulation of inventing, to the point where climbing a mountain with his friends—something he, by all accounts, should enjoy—becomes a difficult task for him.
He displays forgetfulness: In "Mom's Birthday", Phineas forgets it is his mom's birthday until he hears Candace mention it, and then he feels extremely guilty. We then see a montage of him, during various situations from the previous episodes (on the rollercoaster, etc.) telling Ferb: "We can't forget mom's birthday." Even though this was of course, a bit, if you take this as being canon (which there's no real reason not to), it means Phineas was constantly talking about their mom's birthday for weeks leading up to the event because he really didn't want to forget it and he was worried that he would (and in the end, he did), implying he may have a consistent tendency to be forgetful.
Phineas has an intense love of summer, and is implied to have a dislike for school—  which is natural for any kid his age, but it's not hard to imagine that he might feel cooped up and creatively stifled during school. Especially if we put his attitude towards school next to that of Baljeet, with whom he shares a love of learning and knowledge, it's hard to ignore the difference. Being as we've seen Phineas get agitated when he's not able to build and invent freely and on his own terms ("Bully Bromance Breakup", "Summer Belongs To You"), it's easy to imagine he may struggle in a public school environment.
He has impulsive and thrill-seeking tendencies, which are evident in many of the big ideas. ("Escape From Phineas Tower", "Rollercoaster", "Ain't No Kiddie Ride", "The Beak", "One Good Scare", "Phineas and Ferb-Busters", "Leave The Busting To Us", ETC.) Adrenaline-seeking behaviour is common in individuals with ADHD and goes hand-in-hand with a low tolerance for boredom which Phineas explicitly states himself to possess in the very first episode of the show. ("Rollercoaster")
However, on the flip side to his aversion to boredom, he can also spend literally hours just standing in the backyard, not even talking, if that's just what he feels like doing that day. ("Best Lazy Day Ever")
He is highly energetic and is the most talkative one of his friends. He has also suggested having an awareness and perhaps an insecurity that he talks too much in some situations. ("Misperceived Monotreme")
He sometimes has trouble with listening, and interrupts people, especially when he's excited: in "Ready For The Bettys", when they stumble upon Perry's lair, Phineas assumes Ferb built everything and doesn't listen, constantly interrupting when Ferb tries to protest; in "Hail Doofania", he assumes that he knows what Isabella is talking about (not having seen a rainbow before) and makes it his mission for the day to do what he thinks she means, and doesn't take the time to hear her out when she tries to explain otherwise because he's too invested in/excited about the project he has in mind.
Obliviousness / missing of social cues: The most obvious example is Isabella's crush on him, which he consistently fails to notice. ("Chronicles of Meap", "Meapless in Seattle", "That Sinking Feeling", "Happy New Year", "Summer Belongs To You", "Happy Birthday Isabella", "Doofapus", "It's No Picnic") He also seems not to understand that Candace wants to get them in trouble, nor that he actually probably would get in trouble if his mom knew what he and Ferb were doing. In fact, he gets excited about sharing their endeavors with Linda, clearly oblivious to the potential repercussions. ("Traffic Cam Caper", "What'd I Miss", "Suddenly Suzy")
Highlighted Episodic Evidence
Chronicles of Meap/Meapless in Seattle
Phineas's dismissal of Isabella's "cuteness" comments shows again his difficulty picking up on social cues, especially when distracted by a mission. He does not seem to understand, or at least does not acknowledge, Isabella's clear frustration with him. He does not understand that he is dismissing Isabella's feelings, because to him it feels obvious that she is cute and he doesn't think he needs to say it. Followed up in "Meapless in Seattle" with the "You think I'm cute?" "It's a scientific fact!" interaction—Phineas is not understanding that this isn't really how to give a compliment; he does not seem to realize that by not acknowledging Isabella's cuteness he could be hurting her feelings/nurturing her insecurities.
That Sinking Feeling
Once again, he misses cues from Isabella about her feelings for him, or if he understands them, he does not outwardly acknowledge them. He also tries to create romance for Mishti and Baljeet by taking "scientifically" romantic things, based upon his research (mostly the movie Titanic): candles, live music, the situation of a sinking ship... He over-does these things in a calculated way to try and curate the most scientifically romantic situation possible. This also mirrors Candace's opinion about his cold, calculated methods in "Perry Lays an Egg".
Cheer Up Candace
Phineas cares about Candace and when he sees her upset, he wants to help her, and he makes it his goal to do so. He hears the first step from Isabella's magazine is a makeover and he immediately thinks of a clown. He sets off to execute his plan without consulting anyone (except Ferb) and after it goes, as you can expect, not well, he realizes in hindsight that his impulsive idea was built on flawed logic. However, rather than dwell on this, he decides to dive right into the next step and he continues to do wildly over the top, fantastical versions of the magazine suggestions. I think this demonstrates a lack of understanding for social cues as well as impulsivity and impatience. Furthermore, he doesn't even wait to hear step two before setting out to achieve step one, and he doesn't ask Isabella her opinion or even listen to her suggestions once he has entered his own Idea Zone. Also, the Mix 'n' Mingle Machine is a great example of his unconventional and greatly efficiency-focused thought processes—  
he thinks of it as the most efficient way to meet as many people as possible in a short time, demonstrating a clear misunderstanding of what the actual intent of "meeting someone" was in the magazine. He is also basing this idea on his personal notions of what he finds fun, not what Candace would necessarily want.
Summer Belongs To You
When stranded on the island, Phineas shows an intense frustration when he's unable to put an optimistic spin on things. He also has a clear discomfort when he is without any tools to build with. Again, we see his hyperfocus on inventing (in this case: fixing the plane) get in the way of Isabella trying to have a romantic moment with him, and in the way of relaxing in general. She sees the sights of Paris, alone time with him, and chances to enjoy themselves, whereas Phineas sees things he could use as airplane parts, single-mindedly focused on his mission. And again he misses or does not acknowledge Isabella's frustration with him in the "It seemed like romance was a foregone conclusion" scene. This is strong evidence for Phineas' hyperfixation because he gets so caught up in his own world when it comes to inventing/building/working that he doesn't even notice what's going on around him, then he fails to see the irony of him identifying Candace&Jeremy and Ferb&Vanessa as romantic interests while entirely missing the fact that Isabella & him are also "a boy and a girl, alone in the city of love."
Also of note is his complete focus on completing the Summer Solstice goal. Because, despite the fact that they made it back to Danville safely after being in a pretty perilous situation—which should have become their main concern being as they were just stranded on an island with no food or way to call for help—he cannot be satisfied with that. Needing to get home before the sun sets for the sake of winning his bet and symbolically representing his worldview, he yells at candace when she doesn't want to get on the trike, because he's determined to still get there on time, intensely focused on both proving a point and upholding his personal values.
Happy Birthday Isabella
Isabella does not want an over-the-top surprise party, all she wants is to spend time alone with Phineas, but Phineas is so focused on his idea of her perfect birthday party that he does not seem to realize what her wishes are. He sends her away from him so that she won't know about the surprise, and does not even do so very gently (getting Buford to carry her away in a sack) instead of even asking her what she wants.
Bully Bromance Breakup
In this episode, Phineas is shown to get extremely distressed when he has to go even a short period of time without building/inventing anything. This is representative of a need for constant stimulation (which would explain why he is so adamant that he cannot put up with boredom). This also evidences his hyperfixation on building/inventing. The whole time that they're climbing the mountain with Baljeet, Phineas is completely preoccupied by his ideas for inventions, and after Baljeet rejects his ideas a few times, he gets increasingly agitated, eventually gets to a point where he is unable to climb anymore and has to get pulled up by the others, and he is shown rambling to himself about all of the invention ideas he has.
This is by no means a definitive list, and I'm sure there are many more moments in the show that provide evidence of these ideas, but this is the ones that stood out to me. Anyway, in conclusion, Phineas has ADHD. If you're still reading this incredibly long post by this point: uhh, thank you, I guess! Have a nice day. 💖
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gogyposting · 3 years
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reading social situations over the internet when you aren’t in person with someone is incredibly difficult when you’re neurodivergent and i don’t think we need to hold it against dream and call him selfish if he just straight up couldnt tell george didn’t want him to post them— george makes it incredibly obvious when he’s being serious on stream and it didn’t seem like he was being serious to dream, even if he was
really? do you even believe this yourself?
:readmore:
what part of george saying, “no dream, no, don’t post those. i don’t want them posted,” makes it unclear he didn’t want them posted? there was about a 5 minute period from when dream first mentioned the pics to when he actually posted them where george was just telling him not to OVER AND OVER AGAIN. like do we need to start using tone indicators irl now? does george need to say /srs out loud for dream to take him seriously, because him saying ‘no, don’t’ is too ambiguous?
and i can count on one hand the number of times george has completely shut down a bit on stream. because it’s hard and uncomfortable to do that in front of hundreds of thousands of people live, especially because it’s george and his closest friends seem to have trouble respecting his boundaries and privacy anyways. like for every moment george has verbally made it 100% clear that he wants someone to stop, there’s 1000 more moments where he is obviously uncomfortable and EVERYONE CAN TELL but he doesn’t say anything anyways. for every, ‘no quackity, tell them it’s a bit,’ there’s 1000 instances of dream or sapnap being subtly-not-so-subtly homophobic or mean or whatever else. just because george doesn’t explicitly pull out the ‘i did not give my consent for you to post this’ (which he actually said something along these lines regarding the hoodie pics, lol) doesn’t mean dream has the right to be selfish and post these pictures of him all over the internet, of a private moment, for whatever weird perverted “look how close i am to george” reason he has?
and i know some people are probably gonna say ‘oh well george said afterwards that he was gonna post them himself eventually’ which is such a dumb point anyways, because it means that even if george was going to post them he was going to do it on HIS OWN TERMS, and he said on stream that he was not going to post those specific 2 pictures that dream released. also i think it’s abundantly clear that george actually had no intention of ever doing that, he probably only said he would to get dream off his back who was ribbing on george for “putting it off.”
also this line of thought that dream has ADHD and therefore he cannot tell when george or anyone else for that matter is joking and therefore should not be held accountable for being a fucking weirdo and violating his friend’s privacy is garbage, just utter garbage. and even if that were true, which it’s not, but i’ll entertain that thought for a moment, then that doesn’t sound like george’s problem!!!!!! it’s not george’s responsibility to kill the mood and make everything awkward by being extremely stern about his boundaries, because him saying ‘no no dream stop don’t post those’ is a perfectly adequate substitution, don’t you think?
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afoolforatook · 4 years
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A RWBY V7 Ep12 rant.....When I say this is long..... Legit was fucking 37 pages double spaced at one point. Sorry....
Before this gets started I want to warn you, this is long (even longer than I thought it’d be going in). It’s probably too long ... actually it is definitely too long but if I agonize over editing it down again and again I won’t get it up before the finale. It’s probably repetitive at times, and most certainly not anything I’ll be showing off as an example of my top essay writing. And I want to be able to say that the length pays off because I have some grand hopeful insight at the end. I want to say I know things will be okay. But the fact that I can’t is exactly why I’m writing this, and why it’s so long. So if you need this to have a hopeful ending, I’m sorry, I don’t have one for you currently. I want to, so badly. But to me false hope would be even worse.  So if you can’t handle another long post that doesn’t end with a way to fix things, it’s okay, take care of yourself. But maybe the most hopeful thing I can tell you, and tell you up front, is that you aren’t alone in your pain. 
I want to preface this all with one more thing: I don’t hate CRWBY. I respect them, support them. I’ve wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt as much as I could.  That doesn’t mean I can’t criticize them or expect more from them or just be plain angry with them. I can be vocal about all of that without harassing them, without hating them. I don’t think they’re just plain evil or homophobic. I still want to believe that they can do things that will allow me to trust them again. Maybe it’s naive, but I want to, at the very least, still have hope that this wasn’t malicious, just very poorly conceived and executed. 
And I know that other people who are hurting like me are lashing out towards CRWBY. And while I don’t at all condone that kind of reaction, I can understand it to an extent. Because I’m very, very hurt and angry and it would be so easy to let loose and say all the awful stuff I want to in my anger. To yell and call people out and not care how I come across. It would definitely be a lot easier than spending all week writing this long thing and agonizing over making it perfect. There is nothing wrong with venting and being raw and open and angry, but just as we want CRWBY to be aware that their actions can truly hurt people, we need to be conscious of the fact that so can ours.  Many people are very hurt right now. And whether or not you think it was queerbaiting/BYG or not, or even whether or not you just think it was bad writing, no one has the right to invalidate the people who are hurting right now, many of whom are queer people dealing with personal traumas and mental illness. 
The few people who are attacking CRWBY and other fans (and there is a difference between being angry and vocal about that anger and just attacking them) do not invalidate the hurt people are feeling. If you are hurt or angry you have every right to be. You have every right to stop watching the show or leave the fandom, or communicate your hurt to CRWBY. But communicate means just that; communicate. Talk. You can be as angry as you are, you don’t have to temper your pain to be more tolerable to the people who caused that pain. But there is a difference between being harsh and honest about how hurt you are, and harassing real people. And I won’t say “harassing real people over a fictional character/show” because I know it’s more complicated than that. My hurt this past week isn’t over a fictional character or a ship. It’s about me and what I’ve been through and the fact that the very thing that gave me strength in hard times was turned into something that confirmed my biggest fears and hurt me immensely. 
The world always gets so sentimental when we see things about fictional stories giving people some comfort, and we celebrate that. But as soon as people say they can be hurt just as much by media, we lash out, say they’re overreacting, that they’re just getting upset over fictional characters. But you can’t have it both ways. We can’t want fiction to be important and inspiring to people and then belittle people who are negatively impacted by the same material, especially when often that vulnerability comes from a history of trauma and/or being neurodivergent. I am extremely hurt. I feel betrayed and abandoned and angry. And it will take time for me to process all of that and move past it. But I can be all of those things without attacking CRWBY or the people who might disagree with me. 
To me, this isn’t about disagreeing. We can argue forever about whether or not this was queerbaiting or bury your gays or poor writing (and I honestly at this moment don’t even know what I think about all of that because I’m not in that headspace currently) but the fact is that there are many, many people who feel it was, and who are hurting because of that, and whether you believe it was or not does not give you the right to invalidate the real pain that they are feeling.  Who is right is less important than the fact that people, people who were already vulnerable, have been hurt. So, please. Respect each other. Respect those who are hurting. Respect those who aren’t and don’t understand, and respect CRWBY. You can still be angry and speak out without attacking others. 
With that said, to fully understand why this has affected me so much, and why it’s going to take a long time for me to get back to where I was, regardless of how the volume ends, there are things you need to know about my history. It’s a lot of background and this is already going to be a longer post than I’d really like, but it’s important to understanding why RWBY is so important to me, and thus able to have such a negative effect on me. So please, bear with me. Also, fair warning, though at this point it’s probably obvious, but my story isn’t happy. I still haven’t found my own positive ending to it. If it’s too much for you to read right now, please, like I said before, take care of yourself. 
I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Farley. I’m 24, nonbinary (they/them), biromantic, demisexual. I have MDD, GAD, ADHD, Panic Disorder, OCD, Comorbid PTSD, and am trying to get an official autism diagnosis. I’m a full on alphabet soup. I struggle with imposter syndrome, intrusive thoughts, self-isolation, dermatillomania, and multiple trauma related phobias. My queer and neurodivergent identities are huge parts of my life and I try to be as open as possible about them, in the hopes of helping end the stigma around them. One of the main ways I cope with my mental health issues on a day to day basis is through hyperfixations. While it might not technically be the healthiest method, it’s what I’ve found to work for me when I’m in a really bad place and unable to practice more active coping skills. Through stories and characters that I relate to, I can separate my problems from myself a little and both escape from them for a while when needed, and view them a little more clearly from a new perspective.  
That’s some important info about me, but what really matters here is the past five years of my life and the trauma within them. 
In October of 2015, a few months into my sophomore year of college, I went into a deep depression, mostly brought on by multiple family deaths and stresses over the past summer that I had not properly had time to process and recover from. I quit my job as an RA and withdrew from school and moved back home with my parents.  While this was the right decision at the time, it wasn’t easy. I left a very close group of friends at school, and didn’t really have a strong support system at home aside from my parents. My friends from high school had all gone off to college themselves, and the few that still lived in town were often busy with work or school. And because I have an intense fear of driving and needed time to get myself in a better place before starting a job, I ended up spending most of my time home alone. I became more and more isolated, to the point of verging on agoraphobic, and my parents and I started thinking about ways I could basically get my life started again. 
 But isolation messes with your head, and makes you want to just isolate more and more. In mid February of 2016 I started to really work on being social again. Mostly because I started talking to my best friend from high school, Emma, regularly again. She knew I was struggling, and while I’ve always had a hard time keeping in touch with people, Emma has always been the person I never felt self conscious about going to. We talked everyday. After high school, Emma’s mom and younger brother had moved to Ohio (I live in NC) and Emma had gone to school in Oregon. Her father lives in Germany. So between visiting her family in Ohio and Germany she didn’t have a lot of time during breaks to come back to NC to visit friends. Since we graduated I’d only seen her once for about 12 hours during that awful summer. But now we were skyping and chatting everyday. And slowly I started to be less and less scared of being more social. I wanted to hang out with friends. I was excited about going back to school in the fall. 
Something important to understand about me and Emma is how close we’ve always been. We’d been best friends since 8th grade. We told each other we were soulmates, soulfriends, when we were 15. Nearly everyone in our small high school thought we were dating at one time or another. I always knew I loved her. I was fine with our relationship being “only” platonic. Because platonic wasn’t “only”. It was absolutely perfect. It was having her as one of the most important people in my life, and me in hers, and that’s all I wanted. But I also knew that if she ever wanted to try a romantic relationship, I’d be open. 
Around the time I left school Emma had been going through a lot herself. She was finally getting help for her own mental health issues and she was, for the first time, really thinking about her identity and sexuality. On May 4th 2016 she texted me like always, but this time she was nervous. She wanted to tell me something. She said she was still confused about her sexuality and didn’t know where she fell. But when she tried to think of being with someone, the only person she pictured was me. And I told her basically what I just told you. So we started talking about testing out us being a couple. She had already been planning to come to NC to visit after she went to Ohio later that month for her brother’s high school graduation. And my parents were going on a two week vacation around that time as well. So we decided that she would come and stay with me for two weeks. We would keep this to ourselves until then, so that we could see if this was really the best thing for us. And if so, then we’d tell people. We’d always talked about living together after school, but now we wanted to see exactly what we wanted our relationship to be. She bought a bus ticket for May 26th and would stay through June 10th or so, which would mean she’d be there for her 20th birthday on June 5th. We talked everyday about our plans for her visit. How excited we were, how we could cook dinner together and dance around the house in our underwear, and just get to be Us again. We talked to friends, planning to visit friends from high school and maybe even my friends from college.
On May 18th I texted Emma around 11 pm. I hadn’t heard from her all day which was unusual but she was in Ohio celebrating her mom’s birthday and getting ready for her brother’s graduation that weekend, so she was probably just busy. We’d told each other goodnight every night for months at that point. So I told her I loved her and was so excited to see her in just over a week.
The next morning it was a bit odd that she still hadn’t texted me back but again, I just assumed she was busy with family. And then the mail came, and the last part of a birthday present I was making for her arrived. So I got to work, giddy. 
Around 2 pm my other best friend from high school, Juli, called me. For some reason I decided I’d just call her back later, I was too engrossed in making Emma’s present. About 20 minutes later I heard a knock on my door and turned to see my parents standing in the doorway to my room. I vividly remember spinning around happily and saying “Hey! Everything okay?” even as I noticed the tears on my dad’s face and how pale my mom was. My stomach knotted and I stood as my mom said “N-no. Honey…..” and walked towards me. I took a deep breath, preparing myself for her to say that a grandparent or aunt or uncle had died. But as she got closer and put a shaking hand on my shoulder, I got a little more confused, a different kind of scared. One of my cousins? One of my baby cousins?  
Nothing could have prepared me for her telling me that there’d been an accident in Ohio. That Emma, and her mom, and her brother, and her aunt had been in a crash…. And that all four of them had been killed on impact. The only thing I remember about the rest of the night is the pain of continuously screaming, punching the wall until my dad stopped me, and calling my friends from college, trying to have someone to talk to, someone who I could call who wouldn’t also be mourning. I couldn’t handle my own grief, let alone anyone else’s at that moment. 
There’s a lot more to that story. There’s the memorial service in Ohio and meeting her dad and stepmom for the first time. There’s the service we put together at our high school and seeing our friend group all together again, except not. There’s the panic attacks every time I saw a garbage truck, or my parents drove off to work. 
But most importantly for what you need to know right now, is my sliding back into isolation. I barely ever saw my friends from home and every time I did for the next two years it had something to do with mourning Emma. I saw my college friends a few times; them coming to visit or me taking a bus to stay the weekend. But eventually they went back to school and I stayed at home. I drifted away from high school friends because I didn’t know how to handle being with them when everything we did together reminded me of what I’d lost. I didn’t know how to talk to them because I needed their support but knew I didn’t have it in me to be supportive of them, and that wasn’t fair. I drifted away from my college friends for the same reasons, and even more so as the group dynamic that I had left slowly changed and faded until I didn’t know who was talking to who anymore and I again felt bad for dumping my shit on them when I couldn’t do the same. I began to think that all I brought to any social interaction was my pain and hopelessness. I would just bring everyone else down. They shouldn’t have to deal with my pain. So a year after I left school I was even more alone. I’d lost or pushed away all the people in my life that I’d expected to be lifelong friends, family. And I didn’t know how to begin to fix that. I didn’t know if I wanted to. I didn’t know if I deserved to. 
The only reason I was even still alive was because anytime I even got close to thinking about hurting myself, I could just sense Emma glaring at me, yelling at me, telling me that I couldn’t let this stop me from living out all those dreams we’d talked about. And I knew that my life wasn’t just mine anymore, that all those dreams, that bond, the parts of my favorite person that only I knew, would be lost if I died. 
But I didn't have my friends to vent to, and as supportive as my parents were (I’d told them and a few close friends about me and Emma that first terrible week) I needed friends. But I didn’t know how to reconnect and I was too scared to go out and meet new people, especially knowing that at some point I’d have to drop the “dead girlfriend” bomb on them, and who’d want to stick around after that?  So I tried to use media and hyperfixations to pull myself out of spirals, like I always had. But it was hard. Because most of the things that had been comforting before were all things I’d shared with Emma, and so now they were just more reminders of her absence. And even new things I found soon turned rotten because I couldn’t help but think about how I wish I could show it to Emma. Everything that made me happy for even a moment would pretty soon make me sad. 
Eventually I found things that comforted me and helped me be creative again and that led me to starting school again, nearly three years after I’d left, at SCAD.  I loved the classes. I wanted to be there. I’ve always been a fiction writer but now there was so much in my head that I needed to get out, to process, and to share with people, especially people like me dealing with an unimaginable grief. Those past few years had been made even more difficult by the lack of representation I found in grief material. Everything was either about grieving the elderly, not someone who’d barely even gotten to live. Or if it was about someone young it was due to suicide or disease or violence; in other words things that at the very least, left the grieving with some cause to care about, or something to be angry at, some real world outlet. I didn’t have that. I didn’t relate to that. And even harder was finding anything I could relate to that included the complexities that my queer identity put on my grief; there were people I could and couldn’t tell about our relationship. Did I say I lost my best friend or my girlfriend? What if her family didn’t approve and wouldn’t talk to me, wouldn’t let me have any of her things, wouldn’t want me around? And one of the biggest things I kept thinking those first few months; why had my life become a ‘bury your gays’ soap opera plot line. Was Emma supposed to just be my tragic backstory now? Was I just supposed to use this as angsty fodder for the rest of my life? What about her? What about her dreams, her potential? What about her progress? She’d just gotten to a place where she was accepting herself. Where she was overcoming her mental health issues, where she was proud of who she was. Why was I allowed to keep going and she wasn’t?  I couldn’t find any support for these feelings. Not books or groups or forums. So I decided to make them myself. I started writing and drawing, putting together what I called my Grief Scrapbook. I was working towards the thing that mattered to me more than anything; telling our story. I was getting the chance to create the content I’d so desperately needed. 
But I was still alone, even at school. I was 23 living with mostly 18/19 year olds. And while there wasn’t anything wrong with them, I was struggling with a strong sense of dissociation. Everywhere I looked I saw Emma, forever 19. And there I was, continuing to age and getting further and further away from her. 
My first year at SCAD I made two friends, and while I love them, they didn’t fulfill the hole left by the large close knit groups of friends I’d lost. I tried to get back in touch with my best friend from college, only to find that she was no longer talking to me. And I don’t blame her really. Yes I’d been going through things, but so had she, and I hadn’t been able to be a good friend for her. So if she needed to move on for her own good, no matter how sad that made me, she had every right to do what was best for her, just as I had been trying to do. 
I’m now in my second year at SCAD and recently started hanging out with a new group. And they’re great and I’m slowly feeling more confident and secure around them, but I still struggle. I still miss the relationships I held so dear, the relationships I let dissolve. I still worry I’ll never have that kind of connection with people again, and that if I do somehow manage to find it, I’ll mess it up again.  Some days are particularly rough, when I sit with my thoughts too long, or see something that reminds me of any one of the many people I miss, and I ache for the happiness I had. And it’s those moments when I turn to hyperfixations (I do promise this is getting to RWBY). 
This past February the final How To Train Your Dragon movie came out. The HTTYD franchise holds a very dear place in my heart, as it was my main hyperfixation during high school, and something I shared with Emma and other friends. The second film came out the day of my graduation. It was the last movie Emma and I saw together before she moved to Ohio and then went to school in Oregon. It was the last movie we saw together at all. I knew it was going to be very emotional for me to see the final movie, alone now. But I had to see it opening night. And (spoilers for The Hidden World I guess) the movie ended up being about the reality of having to let go of the important people from your childhood as you grow up. About dealing with the fact that sometimes the people you expected to always be a part of your life, aren’t. I loved the movie, but it destroyed me. A few months later I had to get through May, the 3rd anniversary, away from home for the first time. And it was extremely difficult. I’d had to take a break from HTTYD and process things. 
So my main hyperfixations weren’t helping me get through a really difficult time. But around the time HTTYD 3 came out I happened to get back into RWBY. I’d watched the first season or so when it first came out, but then had just kind of forgotten about it. And so, in the absence of HTTYD, I got caught up. And I can’t say there weren’t things that hurt, that made me have to take a moment and collect myself.  Watching the end of volume three, watching Pyrrha and Jaune finally kiss, and then watch their relationship die with her before they even had a chance to be together, hit way too close to home. Logically I should have projected on Jaune more than I did but I think I couldn’t, because it wasn’t just similar, it felt like I was literally watching the worst moment of my life play out. He was too much like me to handle. But there was Qrow. And at first I just kind of latched onto him because I liked him. I like his characterization, his design, and I was a fan of V*c ( I hate to even mention him here for fear of causing a totally different discourse, but Emma and I were big fans of his and high school and met him and when everything happened with him it was just another thing that felt like a good memory of Emma had been tainted.)  
And so I was watching while the last half of volume six was airing. And I was watching Qrow slip further and further into his depression. I watched as he felt betrayed by Oz after grieving him and then getting him back. I thought more about how he’d basically lost his sister, about how he’d grieved for Summer (regardless of whether it was platonic or romantic), how he lost hope in having strong relationships ever again. How he felt cursed and how he pushed people away to protect them and himself from more pain. I saw how the Apathy affected him and how close he was to giving in before Ruby and Weiss snapped him out of it. I saw him struggle to get himself back together for Ruby and the rest of the kids, but not know how. I saw every single fear I’d struggled with those past few years in him. I related to Qrow more than I’d ever expected to. And so my hyperfixation on RWBY grew. His addiction was my isolation. His insecurities of hurting others and thus pushing them away was my fear that for the rest of my life, I would be alone because I was always going to be too broken to be worthy of friends and love. 
And then everything happened with V*c and for a bit everything hurt again and I had to get away from RWBY and the toxicity within parts of the fandom. And when I was able to come back I was excited but worried. I hoped that Qrow would continue to develop, continue to progress alongside me, that I would like his new actor enough to finish healing the sting I’d felt over V*c.  I just wanted Qrow back, I wanted this character to be there to help me again.
Because Qrow Branwen gave me hope. He gave me hope that I could get better. He gave me hope that even with my insecurities and trauma, something I’ll never be fully free from, I can deserve people who care about me, and that there are actually people who will care about me. He gave me hope that good things can still happen to broken people. And not just people who were once broken and have healed, but people who are still figuring out how to heal, who know they will never fully heal, but also know they still are worthy of support and care. And then volume 7 started and I got more than I’d ever dreamed. 
There was the hug with Ironwood. And even though I shipped Ironqrow, the idea of there being a romantic aspect to that hug wasn’t what made it important. It was the fact that we got Qrow connecting with an old ally (and an adult), finding that he even still had an old ally. That despite everything that had happened with Oz and Lionheart, despite all the trust he’d had broken, maybe he wasn’t actually alone yet. And then we got Clover. I’ll admit I was wary of him at first. I was worried about the traitor theories, the death theories, and then the theories that he’d negatively affect Qrow, making him feel worse about his semblance. But then he grew on me so quickly. Because he smiled at Qrow. He got him to talk about himself, called him out when he was putting himself down, told him how well he was doing. And while it’s wasn’t because of Clover, he was sober, and Clover had to at the very least help him stay that way. Qrow was hunching less when he walked, opening up, being more vulnerable and social. He was smiling, laughing, making jokes. He had a steady partner that he trusted and worked well with, likely for the first time since team STRQ. And yes, I shipped them, but honestly while I would have still been disappointed if it was never canon, given how blatant it really seemed like it could be, it would ultimately have been okay. Because again, it was less about Qrow finding love and more about him finding support.   And then I saw Qrow and Clover and Robyn team up, and whether it was canon or just fandom I felt represented. Not just in the way I had with Qrow about my mental health, but as a queer person struggling with complicated grief; the exact thing I had never been able to find and had taken upon myself to create for others. I saw Qrow being loved (again, whether platonic or romantic isn’t as important) and healing. Even if Fairgame never actually happened, I could still see them as queer characters helping each other process trauma. And maybe I set myself up in a bubble part of the fandom that fully convinced me that Fairgame was possible, but at the very least I truly, undoubtedly thought that Clover would side with Qrow. 
And as I watched episode 12, I could feel my stomach sinking. Okay Clover didn’t side with Qrow at first, but maybe he’ll come around. Okay maybe he won’t come around, but maybe he’ll take Qrow in and they’ll have time to talk, maybe even with Ironwood. But then Clover abandons the ship, abandons Qrow and I was scrambling even more for hope that things would be okay.  Maybe he’s trying to get away to diffuse things. But then “Never pegged you for the manipulative type” the first sign of Qrow doubting their entire relationship, of feeling betrayed again. And then Clover calls Qrow cynical? Maybe I’m forgetting something, cause I haven’t gone back and analyzed every scene with them, but I can’t remember Qrow ever being cynical around Clover this volume that we’ve seen. Self-deprecating yes, but this is legitimately the happiest and most secure we’ve ever seen Qrow. But okay maybe they’ll reason and Clover will come around. But then “We don’t have to fight, friend.” and it’s friend not Qrow. And then “You don’t know my friends. That’s how it always goes.” and I broke. I almost stopped there, a part of me wishes I had. Because it was already so broken, this thing that had even in the past few weeks, been a main pillar of hope for me. But maybe they’ll come together to fight Tyrian. And then Qrow goes after Tyrian and Clover keeps attacking Qrow. Well maybe he’s really trying to protect him, or has some plan. But then they continue to fight each other. And they don’t have even a moment of “who’s the bigger threat here? Us or the serial killer?” And then Qrow works with Tyrian?! Tyrian the serial killer? Tyrian the unstable maniac? Tyrian who tried to take Ruby? Tyrian who nearly killed Qrow? Tyrian who fucking worships Salem, who Qrow has spent most of his life fighting, has lost Summer to, and countless other traumas? (and I get the possible reasons, realizing that Clover won’t lay off of him so Tyrian is his best bet and then he can take care of Tyrian, but I still don’t like it. But this isn’t even about whether or not I think it’s good writing or characterization and it’s too long already to get into that.) And then Tyrian and Qrow fight so well together and I honestly felt sick. We haven’t seen Qrow work that well with anyone. Not RWBY, not Ironwood, not Clover.  And now we see it with fucking Tyrian? And maybe it’s a stretch but it honestly felt like another nail in the “Qrow attracts bad” coffin that is his insecurities. Qrow and Tyrian fight nearly perfectly together and it felt so damn wrong. Clover’s wrong here, Qrow’s wrong here, and it all feels so very very wrong based on the entire progression of their relationship throughout the volume. And then Qrow takes down Clover’s aura and I’m just empty.  There’s no hint of him trying to just beat Clover and not kill him. He has no reason to think that Tyrian won’t actually go for the kill during this fight. But they continue to have these snippets of “We don’t have to fight” or “I want to trust you” while showing no signs of holding back and still caring about the other’s well being. And then Qrow’s voice breaking during “Why couldn’t you just do the right thing…”. We’ve literally never seen Qrow this emotionally compromised, let alone during a fight. He’s crumbling because he finally had someone who made him think he could get better, that he could have close relationships, that he could be good for the people around him. And now he’s losing it. 
I was broken here, I was already spiraling. I knew Clover would get hit. I knew I would be struggling to deal with this episode because I had so fully expected a different course. But I thought there could still be hope. There had to still be hope. CRWBY wouldn’t give us all that development, wouldn’t show Qrow finally happy without leaving some hope for things turning around in the finale. He’d get hit by Tyrian’s stinger and Qrow would have to work to save him and they’d work things out. But then “I trust James with my life… and I wanted to trust you.” And I’m sobbing. Because I get it, Clover’s loyal, but when Qrow’s face hardens I know what he’s thinking. What he’s trying not to think but it’s so hard to fight: “Maybe it is me. Maybe I can’t be trusted. Maybe I’ve ruined things again”. Even though he knows what James is doing is wrong. But he trusted James, he trusted Clover. And he thought they trusted, cared for him. And now they’ve both turned against him and no matter how much he knows he’s doing the right thing, he can’t help but worry that he’s still the thing broken here, that he still messed up somewhere and ruined the relationships he needed so much. I was breaking more and more as I watched this source of my own hope lose all hope. 
And then Harbinger. The weapon Qrow built himself. That he modeled after his hero. The literal extension of his soul. And only moments before, Qrow destroyed the one thing that might have protected Clover. Clover’s emblem falls. Tyrian with “Like you killed Clover”. And yeah yeah Qrow being framed is heartbreaking. But it’s more that he’ll believe it. He did. He fucked everything up again. He tried so hard to do the right thing and still managed to hurt the person he cared about. And if Clover, the foil to his bad luck, could be destroyed by his semblance, how does anyone else stand a chance? And then blaming James. Swearing to make him pay (I honestly don’t remember if he says make him pay or kill him but I physically can’t rewatch that scene to see which it was). And yes he blames James. He hates James. It was the last straw breaking on someone he wanted to trust so much, wanted to have as a friend. But he still blames himself. He still knows he’s cursed and all the progress he’d made with Clover’s help is ripped away. 
And then “Good luck”. I’ve seen people saying it’s sweet, that it’s a moment of reconciliation, of Clover showing he still cares. And I don’t necessarily disagree. But I hate it. Because Qrow won’t take it that way. It’s just another reminder that good luck is out of his reach. And then the goddamn sky and the bi flag colors. And then we see Qrow cry for the first time. And then…. The scream…. I literally nearly vomited and that was the thing that sent me over the edge into full blown panic attack. Because I know that fucking scream. I know how it feels. I hear it ringing in my ears, I feel my throat getting raw. I could hear and see and feel myself in the same position. The nightmare I’d fought off for years; kneeling over Emma’s body and there being nothing I can do but scream and scream as the last of the hope I was clutching to faded with her… with Clover’s eyes.
It wasn’t that Clover died. It wasn’t that my ship won’t happen. It was how traumatizing it was. It was that Harbinger was now defiled. It was that Qrow set it up to happen. It was the sky. It was seeing the light go out of Clover’s eyes. It was Qrow’s scream. We’ve never seen a death like this on RWBY before. Yes we watched Pyrrha’s death. But there was no blood. We didn’t see her bleed out. We didn’t see the exact moment the light left her eyes. We saw Adam stabbed and some bleeding and then hitting the rocks, but we weren’t right there, seeing the exact moment of his death close up. If Clover had been stung by Tyrian and died I’d be upset still, and many of the issues I have would still be relevant. But using Harbinger like that, playing directly into Qrow’s own insecurities like that, after having him do things that felt extremely out of character in order to set things up for Tyrian to kill Clover like that and blame Qrow? It felt vile. 
It didn’t just feel like bad writing or different narrative choices. Hell, it didn’t even just feel OOC. It felt malicious. It felt like twisting established plot and characterisation completely in order to make it fit some tragic climax that was only chosen because it would have the biggest emotional impact, not because it was the best way to continue the plot. And they can’t say that they didn’t expect people to be so attached to Clover. Because if they didn’t expect that to be so emotional for viewers, then why do it like that in the first place? Why put in the climatic cinematic shot that mirrors when Yang lost her arm? Why have Qrow screaming over Clover’s body be the final shot?  If Clover was never meant to have significance to both Qrow and fans, why make his death so painful? They can’t say that they didn’t know fans would get so invested at the same time that they say that it was necessary to make it that traumatic. It’s not that you can’t kill off beloved characters, no matter how long they’ve been in the show. But if you do, it’s got to feel important, it’s got to feel necessary, and it’s got to make sense for those characters, or else it just feels like you’re playing with peoples’ emotions for no reason other than shock factor. 
I’ve seen a bunch of theories and discourse. Arguments over whether or not it’s queerbaiting or bury your gays. Over whether or not it’s bad writing or out of character. And I’m sure I’ll eventually have a stronger, more thought out opinion on that, but right now I can’t even get there. 
I’ve seen theories as to why CRWBY did this, why it’s important to the plot. And maybe I’m wrong, maybe I’ll be just as surprised in a good way next week as I was in a traumatic way this week. But it will take a lot, and I will still need time to recover and dig myself back out of my own intrusive thoughts that saw this episode and rejoiced because “See!? See, good things can’t happen! You’ll always lose whatever good you find. You’ll always ruin whatever good you find.” And none of the theories I’ve seen make that better. Maybe they’ll bring Clover back with the Staff of Creation or some other method: doesn’t matter, the damage is still done. Qrow still is betrayed and traumatized. And even if Clover came back and Ironwood realized he was wrong and stopped, even if everything went back to exactly what it was, Qrow still would have lost all the progress he made this season. Because even if everything was fixed, Qrow would still have to fight down the newly boosted fear that everything will fall apart again. And similarly even if I come back to RWBY and things are good, I will still have a hard time trusting the show, and will still have to climb my way out of a hole I had just gotten out of, except this time I won’t have the comfort of RWBY to help me. 
Or maybe Clover won’t come back and Qrow will relapse and try to kill Ironwood and lose his mind like the scarecrow he is. And what will that do but reinforce the fear and idea that “broken” people can’t escape their vices? That they’ll always come back to pain. Yes, it’s important to show that people can relapse and still get better, that relapse doesn’t mean all hope is lost. But there’s a difference between a relapse and new trauma that directly undercuts all the progress you’ve made. That’s not inspirational, it’s exhausting. Yes, you can come back again, but what about the next time and the next and the next? When will you just get to be secure in your happiness without worrying that at any moment you’ll thrown back to square one?
If it turns out there’s some great plot point this creates, some big revelation that fixes things, I still think it wasn’t done properly. Fine, have that, have that pain. But don’t end on that and leave people for a week. It’s not about it being a cliffhanger. It’s about people who are traumatized being abandoned. (Again, I’m not even getting into how, if this did happen, how episode 12 would still feel off from a characterization standpoint and whether or not it was poor writing. It’s an analysis I can’t currently do.)
And maybe my least favorite theory and the one that I might see as most likely; that Qrow won’t relapse. That he won’t completely lose it and instead Clover’s death and influence will be what keeps him going. Because yeah, that sounds great, that sounds heroic and strong and like the progress that came from knowing Clover did make a difference. But it feels wrong in this instance. Qrow’s had that. He’s had loss that hurt him but he kept going to finish something or honor them. He kept going after Summer died. He kept going for Ruby and Yang and Tai. If he didn’t have that, why would he have kept going when things were so bad? But Qrow doesn’t need that again. He doesn’t need another pain to spur him on. He needs support. He needs proof that his hard work, his struggle, has been worth it and that he still has allies. And not just the kids. Because as much as he respects them, as much as he believes in them and their abilities as hunters, he’s still protective of them, they still aren’t on an equal level. He still feels responsible for them. And that’s good for him, but he needs adults too. He needs people who aren’t his responsibility. He needs adults who can call him out on his shit. He needs adults he can lean on, who can take care of him. And now who does he have? Summer is gone. Raven is gone. Tai is back at home. Oz is gone. Lionheart betrayed him. James has now betrayed him. Winter has sided with James and might not be alive much longer? Robyn is there, but also hurt, and we haven’t seen anything to suggest that they are particularly close. And now Clover is dead. Clover, the only person we have ever seen Qrow let his guard down around like we did this season.
And it’s not that the “Staying alive for the person you’ve lost” is a bad plot line, and if I’d trust any show to do it I would’ve thought it’d be RWBY. But I can tell you from fucking experience, forcing yourself to keep going in honor of someone? Yeah, it might keep you alive. It might give you meaning and even lead you to do great things. But when it’s just you and your head? When you’re alone because you’ve lost everyone who kept you going and now you have to keep going without them, for them? It fucking sucks. It’s not poetic. It’s not this heroic strength that lifts you up. It’s a crushing weight of fear that you will fail again, that you’re the only one who can carry this burden, but this time you’ll let down the person most important to you.  And then not only will you have fucked up your life but you’d have made their suffering and loss meaningless. 
And I can see why CRWBY might take this route, what their message might be, and maybe for them and for some people it’s good, but personally it’s crushing. Because it can be a good thing to have the desire to honor someone spur you on, that’s literally why we still have RWBY. But if that’s the only thing you have? It’s toxic. You have to have other support and motivations of your own to keep you going without becoming hollow inside. And right now, Qrow doesn’t have that. Right now, if Qrow uses this to push him forward, it’s not recovery, it’s not avoiding a relapse; it’s falling into a new, much harder to spot, addiction.
Yes, shitty things happen regardless of whether or not you’ve recovered from previous shitty things. Yes, life isn’t fair and sometimes it feels like you just get hit down over and over. And yes, people die in war and it’s ruthless and unfair. But RWBY is still a show. It’s still a show about hope. It’s still fiction, an escape from the cruelty of reality. And to me there were multiple other options for the plot to create conflict and sacrifice without doing it in a way that seems so needlessly cruel.  
This is complicated and layered and I think there have been mistakes made on multiple sides, and in the end, we still don’t know what CRWBY has planned and how things will go from here and why they chose this. Because everything has a meaning in RWBY. At least I want to believe that. But right now it’s very hard to think that all the meaning that was what made this my favorite volume, was anything more than a trap to make the end that much more painful. And that hurts. I want to believe that’s not the case. But it’s very, very hard. And like I said before, even if they pull it off amazingly and everything makes sense after next week, damage has still been done. No matter what happens, there were ways things could have been handled either throughout the volume or in this episode that, while still having emotional significance and sacrifice, could have been less traumatizing to a large portion of the fandom who supports CRWBY specifically because they trust them not to do something like that to them. 
In the end I’m hurt because right now it feels like the entirety of this volume was just a build up for the shock value of tearing Qrow down again. And I’m just tired of it. I’m biased I know, and maybe for some people it’s an important narrative. But to me it just feels like angst just for the sake of being cruel to a character who can’t catch a break. Since Emma’s death I understandably haven’t been a big fan of really angsty fanfiction. At first seeing fics where a character lost their partner made me irrationally angry. Because why can’t good things happen in fictional worlds? Why do characters I care about have to suffer like I do just for the sake of being angsty? Why would someone do that to a character they love? Why inflict that absolute agony onto a character when you could just, let them be happy? Yes conflict and sacrifice are crucial to good storytelling, but you still have to leave a character some hope, or else what’s the point of just watching them linger in misery? This kind of pain isn’t just a plot point that gets addressed for one or two episodes and then is fully dealt with. It’s a part of who you are now and will be for the rest of your life. 
I’ve been sad over shows before. I’ve thought plot lines were bad and like I’d lost a character that deserved better. But I’ve never had something take me from a (relatively) stable mindset to a truly frightening spiral like I’ve been in this week. If this had happened when I was younger (granted if it had happened before Emma’s death it wouldn’t have had the same meaning), if it had been during that first year? It really might have been a breaking point for me. The final straw. The only reason I’m able to know that as truly devastating as this has been for me this week, I’m not in actual danger of getting to a critically low space, is because I’ve learned how to deal with those low places these past four years. I’m still in a dangerous headspace but I know how to handle it.  I know to reach out, to vent, to ask friends to keep an eye on me, to keep an eye out for critical signs that I’m getting worse and I need more professional help. But if I’d had this trauma as a teen and saw this, or if I’d seen it before I’d built up this method of keeping myself safe even when in the worst headspaces?  I don’t know that I would have been able to deal with it. 
There’s a loud part of my head that is berating me for letting this affect me so much. For letting a show and fictional characters be the catalyst for me having to actively ask my friends to keep sharp instruments away from me for the first time in years. I’ll have a moment of clarity of “It’s not that bad, you’ll get past it” before being swallowed back up by the hopelessness. I have moments of “How could you let a fictional character’s death put you in this place, but not Emma? How is he more important?” 
But it’s not about RWBY or Clover or Qrow. It’s about my brain, and how I as a neurodivergent person deal with things. It’s about this how thing that I use to filter parts of my life through so that I can handle them in more reasonable chunks, is now a trigger itself. I currently don’t have any other hyperfixations, which means every time I have a moment of silence, or start to get feeling down again, my brain goes to RWBY, because usually that’s how I pull myself out. But that just reminds me of the loss RWBY currently represents. Not just the trauma this has brought up, but the fact that I’ve lost this source of comfort. And then I’m left scrambling for anything as I spiral further and further. I’m at the point where unless I am having constant outside stimulus to keep my brain occupied I go right back into a nosedive. And there’s nothing I can do on my own to stop it. So I just have to ride it out, fight back dozens of overwhelming intrusive thoughts, and try to think that I won’t always be this miserable, even though the current thing that was helping me believe that has just shown me the opposite is true. 
And no, creators can’t be held responsible for the mental states of fans of their work. But when things are done that directly hurt so many people, that even if not intended to, feel so calculated and malicious, they have to acknowledge the part they played in that trauma. 
The point of whether there was queer baiting/byg, and mlm representation and how its handled, is very important, but it is also something I just can’t even begin to look at right now from an analytical viewpoint. I can’t begin to come at this from an activist place right now. And I know there are plenty of other people who can speak on it better than I could currently.  My queer identity is largely wrapped up in my grief and how it affects me, but that also means that when I’m spiraling, it is very hard to focus and make good points about things that are not issues I’ve directly experienced. The only reason I can write this at all is because these are really just emotions I’ve dealt with for years that were dragged back up.
RWBY has always been about finding hope when it feels impossible. But this feels like it’s becoming “keep finding new hope but know you’ll lose it too and have to start over”.
RWBY has been what gave me hope that even when bad thing after bad thing happened, there was a reason to keep going, that eventually something good would come your way and you don’t have to live in fear of losing it. That you can still be broken and be worthy of good things. But this episode ripped that all away and told me that sometimes a person is never meant to be happy no matter how hard they try. 
A big reason I have clung to RWBY so much, and admired CRWBY so much, and in turn been so forgiving of plotlines or details that I maybe wasn’t the biggest fan of, was because I see myself in them. They lost Monty so suddenly and tragically and I understand that as much as anyone who isn’t them can. I understand the drive of keeping the show going. When I’m working on my own writing and art about my story and my loss, they are a huge inspiration to me to keep going even when it feels impossible. I can barely listen to Indomitable because, much like Jaune losing Pyrrha, it is uncanny how close to home it hits. They have been through more than we as fans can or should ever expect to know. Because even as someone very open about their grief, who wants to get rid of the stigma of expressing grief, I know that everyone deserves to keep as much of their grief and pain private as they need. And I can't even begin to imagine how hard it is to work on a show that is literally a feat of love and honor to a person you’ve lost, and then have people attack it and you, and make huge accusations, even try to use your loved one’s memory against you. It’s my biggest fear in creating something so incredibly personal but so important. 
And I know that everyone handles grief differently, and no matter how many people you have to support you it can be an extremely isolating thing. I know that no one has the right to tell someone else they are grieving wrong, and I would never dare do that to them. Because I know that the ways I grieve and the things that piss me off about grief and people’s reactions to it, will not line up with everyone else’s, and that’s okay. So the exact things that hurt me so much may be the things that CRWBY find cathartic. 
But I still think it’s important to talk about something that hurts you. To help people understand a facet of grief that might not be what they’ve experienced. Because even people who want to help, who want to provide representation to those hurting, can never please everyone, and even can even hurt people. I want to trust CRWBY. I want to believe they care about the queer community (even if they don’t always succeed in providing good representation), I want to believe they wouldn’t purposefully try to hurt queer fans with queerbaiting or byg. I want to believe they don’t actually hate mlm. 
Narrative is complicated and sometimes things are done that will unknowingly cause harm, or that were topics that the writers didn’t understand enough to properly execute. Things that may seem so obvious to the people who were hurt could truly be things that hadn’t occurred to the writers. And that’s not to excuse those writers from acknowledging their mistake, but to give them a chance to learn and improve. I think a great example is The Adventure Zone (slight spoilers ahead), and how Griffin McElroy handled the fans’ reaction after Sloane and Hurley died in Petals to the Metal. He hadn’t wanted to hurt anyone but he made a decision that was very upsetting for many people and that wasn’t okay. But he listened and apologized and from there on not only tried to provide better representation, but asked about how he could do so, consulted the people he was trying to represent in order to do everything he could to not cause that kind of pain again. Creators are human and deserve second chances, as long as they show they are actively trying to improve.
Things will be learning experiences, but the people who are hurt in those learning experiences, and who are often the ones hurt in such things over and over, are still allowed to be hurt and upset. Intent is not effect. And for creators who want to be inclusive and supportive, it is their responsibility to accept criticism and work to avoid making the same mistakes. Like I said at the start of this, criticism is not harassment and harassment helps no one. Be as angry as you are, be as open as you need, but cruelty to people who are honestly trying to do good but will still make human mistakes just creates more pain and conflict. You don’t have to like it or forgive it but you can’t invalidate the people who are hurt, who do. 
I love RWBY. I want to love CRWBY. I want to keep watching. I want to keep supporting and trusting them. And maybe I’m letting a show have too much influence over me. Maybe it’s unhealthy to project so much on a character. Maybe things will prove to be necessary to tell the story they want to tell. But speaking as a neurodivergent, traumatized, grieving, queer person, I still feel betrayed and hurt by something that I trusted enough to be vulnerable about and I don’t want to sugarcoat or hide that. 
I can’t say I hate CRWBY or I’ve lost all hope in or respect for them, because I’ve related to them so much and know how complicated things like this can be. And because I don’t think I personally can write someone off while still in such an emotionally raw space. I’ll have to take some time to see if I’m able to watch the finale this weekend, but I will most likely watch it, if not just a bit later than I usually would. And RWBY has thrown big surprises at us before, and I can’t know what will happen in the finale and how it will feed into or try to heal some of the pain we’re feeling. But regardless of what the narrative intent is in Clover’s death, it needs to be acknowledged that episode 12 alone, ending on such an intense scene that wouldn’t be resolved for at least a week, hurt people. And CRWBY needs to acknowledge and take responsibility for it. I can’t say that I’m the most up to date on social media and what each person involved with volume 7 has said in the past few months. But I know that numerous official twitter accounts posted things that led people to put more credibility in Fairgame, myself included. And that even after seeing how big the ship had gotten, and knowing what the outcome was, some of CRWBY continued to seemingly feed into the excitement, even teasing about how hard episode 12 would hit us. 
That’s honestly one of the reasons I think this feels not just like bad writing or something, but betrayal. Of course RT can’t control everything everyone involved with RWBY posts, but for a company that has tried to seem so supportive of lgbt and mentally ill fans, they should have, at the very least, not have fed the flame and given people hope and supposed credibility that they knew would crumble after this episode. It feels like, even if they hadn’t intended this entire plot point to come across the way it has, they saw us going down this path and egged us on for added shock factor. 
And even if somehow the finale fixes everything, it doesn’t undo that hurt. It makes me think of the trailers for Insatiable when it first came out. How toxic and fat shaming they seemed and how people reacted poorly to it, but then all the people involved responded with how positive the show was, and that people shouldn’t judge it before they saw it. Or those “joke” videos or posts of kids coming out and the parents getting angry but then it’s about some stupid other thing. It’s meant to trigger a very sensitive issue, that people who have gone through traumas related to those issues are all too familiar with seeing over and over. So why would they have faith that this wasn’t just another one of those times when everything they see points to the opposite? Why trigger people who have already been hurt, for the sake of shock factor? It’s poor and callous writing. 
And that’s what this feels like. It feels like we were exploited in order to make this hurt more. And maybe that was a very unfortunate accident. But CRWBY still needs to acknowledge that they made mistakes, and do what they can to prove to the fans that they still deserve our trust. And that’s not going to be an easy one and done thing. For some it may never be enough, and that is completely valid. 
Of course everyone has different histories and issues that can lead them to be drawn to a certain show or character. And creators can’t ever know for sure that they won’t bring up painful things for any of their fans, and often trying to do so can make the content and message suffer. But even though everyone might not have a story that is as “obviously” traumatic as mine, might not have things they so directly relate to in Qrow and in Clover’s death,  they’re all still valid in the pain they’re feeling. One of my least favorite things about living with grief is people thinking that their traumas and struggles aren’t as big or important as my own. 
This week I’ve told people how hard a time I’m having, and why. And the people who know my backstory understood. The people who didn’t know though, brushed it off as crazy fangirl, tumblr discourse drivel. Even to my face after I told them how much I was hurting, they would groan about people getting so obsessed with fictional characters. You shouldn’t have to know why something negatively affects someone the way it does in order to respect the fact that it does. And I’m not more valid in my pain than people with “smaller” reasons. The fact is that a lot of people are hurting. A lot of queer and mentally ill people are reliving trauma. And like me, many of these people trusted CRWBY to be supportive, to be a comfort in a world where it’s hard to find sometimes. And that makes it hurt all the more.
I wasn’t in the fandom when Monty died, so I don’t know a lot about how CRWBY handled it, what they said publicly, what inevitable fandom discourse there was about how to navigate things. The only reason I bring him up at all, (because I’ve seen people mention him in discourse posts before and it’s usually hurtful and out of line and I truly hate it) is because he, and how CRWBY continues to honor him by keeping his creation going, is a huge part of why I feel so attached to it. My creative focus is on talking about Emma, about honoring her, telling her story, about sharing my grief with people. And while it’s extremely important to me, it’s also terrifying to think about people one day saying I let her down, or that because I made certain decisions I ruined the work or anything like that. And whether or not I am currently happy with every member of CRWBY doesn’t affect the fact that I will always keep in mind that RWBY is something directly tied to someone they’ve lost and it can be extremely difficult to have that kind of work criticized and not get defensive or angry (that’s not to say we can’t criticize things that are made in honor of someone, but that we need to remember there are still people dealing with grief on the other end of what we say). They’ll react poorly to certain things, they’ll say the wrong things, they’ll but heads with opinionated fans. And that’s not to excuse them for that, or to say we shouldn’t hold them accountable and communicate our problems with them and expect them to learn from past mistakes. But they aren’t faceless monsters in some big corporation who just make this for the money. They have real emotional investment in their work and I honestly believe they are well intentioned and want to support lgbt and mentally ill fans. But good intentions don’t ensure there won’t be negative impact, and if they truly want to keep, or regain fans’ trust and support they need to show they understand that. 
It may be naive and there may be things I don’t know that might have changed my view but until now, even with some writing choices I didn’t love, I've really liked CRWBY and trusted them. I personally can’t say I hate them and write them off right now. I understand if you can, if this was the last straw or just proving your view, and that’s all valid. But I want to, as much as possible, believe that they’re well intentioned. RWBY is far from perfect. CRWBY is far from perfect. But that’s ok. As long as there’s effort to improve and acknowledge mistakes and try to make amends
It’s possible that things I’ve said here may anger some people, and unfortunately, as much as I tried to avoid it, may hurt CRWBY. Because as hurt and angry with them as I might be right now, I don’t want to hate them or hurt them.  I’m human as well, and I’m very passionate about this and have a very personal attachment to it. So I acknowledge that it is totally possible that I have said something here that I could have handled better. If so, please, let me know. Constructively. If you need to, privately. Don’t attack me for it. I know when a conversation is toxic to me and I will not put myself in that position and will block people. But I want to be open to criticism, just as I want CRWBY to be. I want to know what I did wrong and how I can work to do better in the future. There are also certain things that I firmly believe that I know not everyone will like. And that’s okay. I have my own ways of dealing with grief and pain that will inevitably conflict with others. In those cases, while I won’t apologize for being honest about how I feel, I will understand and listen to how I may have hurt you. Different opinions and ways of coping will always be a part of grief conversations and it is less about making others agree with you and more about giving people a place to express their pain. 
This is ridiculously, stupidly, long and honestly I’m not sure there’s a clear point and if you read through it all the way, you’re a saint. But I just needed to get this out, and I hope that maybe, somehow, through the ranting, it might help someone feel less alone in their pain, or feel validated. I started writing this on Sunday and wanted to post it before the finale. It’s now Friday and who knows if there’s really any point to posting it now, but still. 
I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. I don’t know how I will handle it. I’ve seen discourse that made me anxious all over again all week. I’ve seen jokes or edits or trolls that made me sick. But there are people out here for you. There are people to talk to who will just listen. You aren’t alone. And while I can’t promise you that everything will be okay, I can promise you that there will be people here to help you get through it. There are ways to get through it. They’re not always fun or ideal, but they’re there. And eventually you’ll be able to feel okay again. The pain might not be gone for good, but you’ll have good moments again. You’ll learn how to create good moments. I still want to believe that “broken” people can be happy again, even though the world may try to show me otherwise over and over. It’s not easy, and sometimes I honestly just don’t see how it can possibly be true. But I keep trying to get back to those good places and appreciate them, for as long as I can. 
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well, if my first ADHD-related appointment with a therapist was kind of validating in confirming that I have this thing I think I have and yes it’s a problem, today’s appointment with a nurse practitioner who can actually prescribe stuff was...kind of invalidating? not even materially so, I mean she said I meet the criteria for ADHD and she wrote me a prescription for Adderall with instructions to start at a very low dose and gradually increase to see what happens, and she scheduled another appointment with me in a few weeks to check back, and it basically all seemed fine at the time, but--
well, she also said it didn’t sound like a severe case, and that at least some of what I was describing was just kind of what modern life is like for everybody, and when I said I figured my ADHD is at the root of a lot of my anxiety and depression she was pretty quick to tell me that’s not how it works until I explained the--in hindsight pretty fucking obvious--connection that a lot of my depression stems from feeling like a failure in ways that are probably caused by ADHD, and a lot of my anxiety stems from how I’m constantly forgetting things and sometimes I can’t hold onto a thought long enough to write it down and I get overwhelmed easily because I can’t prioritize, etc. etc. etc.
and like, again, I don’t think it really...matters? she’s not the one I’ll really be talking with, for the most part, and they’re in the same office so if my actual therapist is picking up on things that the nurse practitioner isn’t, they can, should, and probably will discuss my case between themselves. all I really need from the woman I saw today is the willingness to write prescriptions and work with me to find the right dose/medication and I have that, I literally have an Adderall prescription now and she perfectly willing to do medication management with me. so that’s all good. 
but basically as soon as I left the building, my brain started chewing on it and wouldn’t let go, because shit, I didn’t really emphasize my procrastination and perfectionism enough, did I? especially with examples from college and grad school? I mean I talked about it but did I talk enough about how my brain just kind of divides things into “now” and “not now” and if something either can’t be done now or isn’t due now, I can’t feel the urgency needed to make me actually do it? or the self-loathing spiral I get into every time I fuck up? or how I do fuck up, all the time, except now I can’t think of concrete examples? I said I had a hard time falling asleep and staying asleep and I never feel rested but did I say that it’s at least sometimes because my brain won’t shut off? or how something relatively minor but negative will happen and my brain sinks its teeth in and won’t let go? or how slow I am at work? did I emphasize enough how much I need to externalize my brain or I completely forget things, I mean I know I talked about it but apparently it sounded somewhat normal? I should’ve told her how often I get hit with interest charges and late fees on my credit cards because I can’t remember to pay them, or...how I got this character in a game and I had two entire months to level her up but doing so involved active playing so I kept putting it off and when time was running out I really sincerely meant to do it and then I just kept forgetting, and obviously that wasn’t a genuinely important thing but maybe it still would’ve been a good illustration? or how my room is a disaster and part of that is because of the earthquake way back in Nov. 2018? or how I keep buying posters and prints but never putting them on my walls, and starting projects I never finish even when they’re relatively quick and easy? (wait, I did talk about that though, didn’t I?) or how I have to write everything down in my planner but there are times when I still somehow forget to look at it, or how I write tons of to-do lists but never cross off most of the things on them and after a little while I forget the to-do list exists in the first place unless it’s constantly in front of my face? or how sometimes extremely basic shit just straight-up doesn’t occur to me until it’s too late? or how I think I don’t regulate my emotions very well? or how miserable it makes me that I feel like I never finish anything or accomplish even very basic goals? or how I am almost never on time, ever, in part because my sense of time is just kind of terrible? or my executive dysfunction, fuck, that’s definitely a thing and I never used those words either, I mean I talked about how I can’t get myself to fucking start things but maybe if I’d used the term...? and fuck, maybe she’s right and my brain is actually not that fucked up, it’s actually way closer to normal than I’ve been thinking, which I guess just means I’m a lazy piece of shit who can’t accomplish anything...but she said I meet the criteria for ADHD, and I keep reading all these articles and posts about it and going “oh shit that explains so much about my brain,” and obviously I’ve had like two decades to figure out some coping strategies so my various dysfunctions don’t completely ruin my life all the time, and sure I haven’t been fired because of things I can confidently blame on ADHD but that doesn’t mean it isn’t negatively affecting my life, and it’s not like she actually said “nah you’re making this up, fuck off” or anything, she said I meet the criteria and she wrote me a fucking prescription for Adderall, but if she thinks it’s a relatively minor case and a lot of the things I struggle with sound normal to her, then maybe I’m making a big deal out of nothing and I need to just suck it up and be better somehow, and maybe medication isn’t even going to help because there’s nothing that wrong in the first place except for me being a fuckup—
and around and around it goes. it’s...I mean, again, it’s probably not really a huge deal. I have another appointment with her for medication management, and I have the prescription, and I have more appointments with the therapist who did seem to take it more seriously. and this one did say I meet the criteria. but honestly the way my brain has been chewing on this for the last few hours is...well, probably indicative of something.
oh, you know what else was funny actually, she also informed me that if I was prescribed Adderall in grad school then I had to have been formally diagnosed, because otherwise it absolutely couldn’t have been prescribed to me. and I guess when the original dose didn’t seem to do much for me I just...stopped taking it and didn’t go back for more, and we didn’t really revisit the issue, and the records probably didn’t get transferred to my next counselor because I guess it never occurred to anybody to ask, and she eventually thought maybe I’m on the autism spectrum because I said I don’t like eye contact but ADHD didn’t occur to her either, and I just. fucking forgot? that I was formally diagnosed with ADHD probably an entire decade ago? so over the past 2-3 years as I’ve become increasingly convinced that ADHD hellbrain causes a lot of my problems, I was coming to it as brand new information because I literally fucking forgot that I had already been diagnosed? like...fuck, man, I’m no expert but that seems like kind of a weird memory thing too! which she definitely knew about because I was surprised when she told me I had to have been diagnosed! so I mean! if we’re talking about a disorder that involves memory issues, forgetting about an entire diagnosis because it wasn’t right in front of my face seems like pretty fucking good evidence that I have memory issues!
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adhdtoomanycommas · 4 years
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Emotional Abuse and ADHD
Ok, first real post on the ADHD sideblog, so lets dive straight into the heavy stuff.   TW/CW for emotional abuse, gaslighting, and probably some other things too (please feel free to let me know if I should add additional tags).
I had trouble sleeping last night because my brain kept insisting I needed to start this blog, like immediately, despite it being clearly not an opportune time to do anything of the sort. Or at least, it insisted, I needed to jot down all the essay/ramble/whatever topic ideas I had complicated thoughts on so I could start the blog today. I managed to resist doing both of those things, and get to sleep eventually, but here I am.  The first topic that brought this on was wanting to talk about my experience in an emotionally abusive relationship and how many aspects of that were exacerbated by various symptoms of my (then undiagnosed) ADHD. 
I’m going to assume a certain amount of baseline familiarity with some terminology and whatnot here, if you’re confused by any of the ADHD terms I use here I recommend heading over to theadhdmanual.com and reading their very helpful “three pillars” articles which do a great job of explaining Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) and emotional hyperarrousal (also elsewhere called emotional disregulation, I’ll be using both terms interchangably but won’t be abbreviating the latter for hopefully obvious reasons).  On the emotional abuse terminology front, there’s a couple great articles on gaslighting on everydayfeminism.com that I recommend seeking out. 
It is possible I am slightly stalling here by providing all this context.
At this point damn near ten years ago, for most of my senior year of college and for a good few months afterwards (I don’t remember how long exactly since adhd brains suck at timelines and I don’t feel like logicing it out right now) I was in what I later realized (with help from the aforementioned everydayfeminism articles) was an emotionally abusive relationship.  My then-boyfriend, who I will call Al, was insecure and jealous. I had more sexual experience than him going into the relationship, and he used that as an excuse to guilt-trip, manipulate, and ultimately control me.  I realize now, that the primary weapon he would use against me was my own RSD. 
Whenever I did something that upset Al, (typical infractions included things like accidentally mentioning one of my exes, correcting him about something,  “flirting with” --read: talking to-- any of my friends who were more my friend than his, or singing along to music) he would generally make his displeasure known by ignoring me--withdrawing all physical affection, coupled with the silent treatment.  If you’re familiar with RSD, you can already guess how effective this was.  If you’re not, then for comparison you should know that ADHD people can spiral very quickly into completely irrational “they hate me, don’t they?” thought spiral from something as small as a delayed text.  Al would almost never tell me what I did to upset him, and in my guilt-spiral I would usually tearfully beg forgiveness for everything I could think of until I guessed correctly and/or he arbitrarily decided I’d had enough. 
As an aside,  he would often do this silent treatment toward me in public while being perfectly cheerful and whatnot with our other friends, often making it seem to others like he was just joking or messing with me. On one memorable occasion he refused to say anything to me but the word “spoon” with varying inflections for the better part of a day--a pretty skillful gaslight because to everyone else around this just seemed like goofy ol’ Al being his silly self, but from context I knew this was part of a punishment, and I couldn’t express any kind of being upset about this, even annoyance, without looking like I was overreacting to a dumb joke.
Ultimately much of what he actually did (or didn’t do) in public didn’t look like much to an outside observer, but he knew my (RSD fueled) insecurity would make it hurt, especially when I wouldn’t be able to address anything with him until we were in private later. 
Also (and I intend to write a whole different post about this later) my particular brand of emotional disregulation takes the form of crying extremely easily.  I cry when I’m sad, when I’m tired, when I’m happy, when I see something too cute to handle, and (most importantly, in this instance) when I’m angry.  Because of this, every time I tried to address some relationship concern I had with him, whenever I tried to call out some of his shitty behavior or bring attention to my own emotional needs, it was extremely difficult--nigh impossible--to do so without crying.  This gave him a massive amount of gaslighting ammunition--it made it very easy for him to say I was overreacting, overemotional, irrational, trying to manipulate him, et cetera.   And it was hard to defend myself against that, even to myself. After all, lacking the ADHD diagnosis and resources about emotional disregulation that I have now, I had pretty much internalized the idea that I’m just “oversensitive” when it comes to crying, so I rationalized that I was also being oversensitive about whatever concern I started with in the first place. So every time a conversation started with me telling him he hurt me some way, it inevitably ended with me apologizing to him instead of the other way around.
Just to add to the already nasty cycle, Al also considered crying over something he didn’t deem worth crying over a punishable offense, so it often triggered the previously discussed silent treatment. 
A third aspect of ADHD I haven’t discussed yet also played a major part in how I was abused--Memory.  I don’t have a good resource to link on this one (I’m pretty sure there are some good howtoadhd videos on it on youtube but I’m not going to go dig for them right now), but ADHD people, on the whole, have terrible memories, especially short term/working memory.  Mine in particular might be even worse for some kinds of things  for unrelated reasons (aphantasia, which I might write about later but this is already really long and it’s not actually that relevant here).
Al was perpetually convinced that I was cheating on him, and any time we were apart he would quiz me afterwards on where exactly I was, what I did, for how long, and in what order.  Any inconsistency in my account, or any “I don’t remember”s would mean he would accuse me of lying about the whole thing.  I am pretty sure I have in common with most ADHD people that between time blindness and bad working memories, giving a consistent and accurate account like that is basically impossible, so this rarely went well for me.  Just to further complicate matters, being accused of lying when I’m not is practically guaranteed to make me cry, and trying to keep from crying (to avoid angering him further) means I swallow a lot, and somewhere Al had heard that excessive swallowing is a sign that someone is lying, so again these various ADHD symptoms would combine to just make everything worse.  
 I eventually got out of that relationship, and not too long afterwards got together with my now-husband, who is wonderful, so that’s a happy ending. Getting diagnosed with ADHD a few months ago, learning about these symptoms, and figuring all this out has made this make much more sense to me than before.   But in addition to my ADHD symptoms making me more vulnerable to these emotional abuse tactics,  I’m pretty sure the leftover baggage from the emotional abuse may have made those very same ADHD symptoms worse, and while my new meds seem to help immensely with the executive disfunction aspects of ADHD, they don’t do a damn thing about RSD spirals or emotional disregulation.  Healing and processing it all is slow going, but it has gotten a lot better over the years, and knowing now that even another aspect of this isn’t my fault helps too.  And taking my meds today did help me motivate myself to write all this out, so maybe that will help as well. 
I’m not sure what the takeaway is here, other than I strongly suggest everyone learn what gaslighting and emotional abuse in general looks like, but especially if you have ADHD or suspect you might have ADHD because we might be more vulnerable to being on the receiving end of it than most people.  If anything I talked about here sounds a little too familiar, I strongly recommend reading up on gaslighting, and consider getting the heck away from anyone who sounds too much like Al.  Maybe us ADHDers will inevitably get into some nasty thought-spirals or bad emotional places sometimes, maybe we’ll cry over nothing or worry too much that something we said will make everyone hate us, but if anyone tries to use any of that against you, uses it to get you to do what they want, or intentionally makes you feel worse, they’re not someone worth being around, and I promise you deserve better.
Not sure if anyone will read this, much less any fellow ADHDers because yeah, it’s a big ol’ wall of text and I get that can be hard, but if you made it this far, thanks for listening and I’ll try to go not quite so heavy with my next post, (assuming, of course, that I have a next post and this blog doesn’t become yet another started-and-abandoned project).
That’s all for now.
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setmeatopthepyre · 4 years
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Mental Health Tips
So, I was looking through my mood tracker recently and realized there’s been a gradual but undeniable increase of good days and a decrease of bad days, and it hit me that yeah, I have been doing better and better. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say that getting my ADHD diagnosis in January was a life changer. There’s a (great) book on ADD called You Mean I’m Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy? and that was exactly how I felt. Wait, all the things I’ve been struggling with, all the times I beat myself up over my lack of discipline or worried that I had a brain tumor because I’d forget things in seconds or thought I might be bipolar because I could go from the highest highs to extreme lows multiple times a day, that was all because of one thing? Amazing!
Anyway, realization is one thing. Then there was medication (also a life changer), and therapy, and look where we are now! Over the past year I’ve learned a few things that have had a huge positive impact on my mental health, and I thought they might be useful for others struggling with their mental health, whether it’s ADHD or something else.
You’re not the only one
Just to start off nice and cheesy, but it’s true. The reason it might feel like you’re the only one dealing with what you’re dealing with and struggling to do what seems so easy to others, is because mental health is still stigmatized and not something people generally talk about. But that doesn’t mean they don’t know it.
When I got my diagnosis, I talked about it a lot. Part of it was hyperfocus; it was something that was on my mind a lot so it became my one subject to fall back on. However, another part of it was knowing that if I’d known what ADHD really was earlier, my life would have been so much better so much sooner. At times I was sure I brought it up too much, but I’m glad I did. Being open about my mental health issues made people around me open up about theirs. Whether it’s people you know IRL or a tumblr page with mental health memes, that affirmation that other people have the same quirks and struggles as you do helps so much.
The bare minimum is better than nothing
Yes, it’s obvious. It’s still something I struggle with because there’s that little voice that goes ‘yes, but I should be able to do more’. Guess what? That there thought qualifies as not one, but two negative thinking patterns: should-statements and all-or-nothing thinking. Just because you think you should be able to do something doesn’t mean that’s the best choice for you, or realistic. Besides, who says you should? Society? Society knows nothing.
Thinking you should just be able to do all your dishes but getting overwhelmed at the prospect of doing so isn’t helpful. Washing a single dish, or even just rinsing one because that’s all you can manage? That’s still better than nothing.
That said, yes, strive for progress over perfection, but remember that progress is not the bare minimum. Sometimes, the bare minimum is maintaining the status quo, or even just making sure things get slightly less worse than they could have. And that is okay.
Remove steps & automate
Speaking of which: often it’s possible to make the absolute minimum easier. How? By removing obstacles, simplifying things so that they don’t take as many steps or spoons to complete. If your laundry basket is in the bathroom while you tend to undress in your bedroom, that’s where you move your laundry basket. Personally, even having a laundry basket with a lid on it is too many steps for me most of the time. If I can’t chuck my dirty clothes right in, they end up in a pile on the floor. Solution: my laundry basket is within throwing range and doesn’t have a lid.
It only has to work for you
Sure, society dictates that clean clothes go in a wardrobe or a dresser. That’s just the way it’s done. But guess what? When clean clothes start piling up all over my room because I can’t bring up the energy or focus or whatever to put them away, I break out boxes. One box for clean laundry. One box for clothing I’ve worn but isn’t dirty yet. And then the laundry basket goes right beside those boxes in my room, in plain sight. That’s my system until I feel better. If I’m feeling up for it, there’s an extra box so that I can divide my clean clothes up between ‘large’ (aka pants and shirts) and ‘small’ (underwear and socks) to make it easier on myself when I get dressed. Did my laundry? Clean clothes go in the clean clothes box. Wore something but it still smells okay and there’s no stains? Toss them at the ‘worn’ box.
Is it how “things are done” normally? No. Does it mean my clothes are even more crumpled than usual? Yes. However, it also means that there’s less clutter in my room, it’s easier to find something to wear, and there’s less risk of me just living in a pile of trash because my room’s a mess anyway.
Your idea of progress may be different from others. Your coping mechanisms might not work for other people. Your adaptive behaviours may not line up with societal expectations, and that’s fine! In fact, that’s more than fine, because they shouldn’t. They only have to work for you.
Remove forks
So the whole spoon theory is fairly well known in mental health circles, but reading about the Fork Theory was an eye-opener for me. It’s explained here, but because reading that article is another extra step (ooh, so meta), here’s the most important bit:
You know the phrase, “Stick a fork in me, I’m done,” right?
Well, Fork Theory is that one has a Fork Limit, that is, you can probably cope okay with one fork stuck in you, maybe two or three, but at some point you will lose your shit if one more fork happens.
A fork could range from being hungry or having to pee to getting a new bill or a new diagnosis of illness. There are lots of different sizes of forks, and volume vs. quantity means that the fork limit is not absolute. I might be able to deal with 20 tiny little escargot fork annoyances, such as a hangnail or slightly suboptimal pants, but not even one “you poked my trigger on purpose because you think it’s fun to see me melt down” pitchfork.
This is super relevant for neurodivergent folk. Like, you might be able to deal with your feet being cold or a tag, but not both. Hubby describes the situation as “It may seem weird that I just get up and leave the conversation to go to the bathroom, but you just dumped a new financial burden on me and I already had to pee, and going to the bathroom is the fork I can get rid of the fastest.”
It’s close to the whole ‘removing steps’ thing, but less about making a task easier and more about giving you space to deal with things.
What this means for me is that when I’m having a less than stellar day mentally, I pay extra attention to what clothes I put on in the morning. Nothing too tight, nothing even slightly scratchy. It may be a tiny fork in the morning, but if I’m in a socially difficult situation, it might be a tiny fork too many that will lead to me being overwhelmed or overstimulated. I need to make sure I’m as comfortable as absolutely possible, aka remove as many forks as I can. Sometimes this means shaving my legs even though I think it’s bullshit that I care about that, or wearing clothes that draw as little attention to me as possible. No, I don’t want to care about what others think, but the truth is that part of me does, and I can’t change that right that instant. What I can do is minimize the chance that I get overwhelmed on an already stressful day.
Forks don’t have to be annoyances. They can also be tasks you keep putting off or something you keep reminding yourself of. Sometimes having a self-care day for me means doing all the easy things I’ve been meaning to do for ages but haven’t gotten around to. Sometimes it’s writing down all the things that are buzzing around in my brain, just so that I can assure myself I don’t have to remember them anymore because they’re on paper now. Sometimes it’s turning off notifications for specific apps because seeing them pop up makes me feel guilty when I’m not in the right frame of mind to respond.
Sometimes removing a fork costs spoons, like when I’m at a restaurant with a friend and I know that sitting in a spot where people walk by behind me is a pretty big fork for me, but removing it means asking them if they mind switching spots. That’s when it helps to be open about what you’re dealing with, because most of my close friends know by now that I always prefer to sit with my back to a wall, and I don’t even have to ask.
Compromise and automate
Back to the should-thinking. Sometimes removing forks means throwing all the shoulds out the window because they just aren’t working right now, and you’ll get back to them later. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t think I should care about what other people think, but I’m not there yet, so sometimes making life easier for me means compromising on that and conforming to societal standards if I know I’m going to need everything I have to get through a day. Another example: I feel like I should buy whole vegetables and cut them myself and cook my own meals, because pre-cut and prepackaged things are often more expensive and just contribute to more plastic waste. Okay, cool, but that ideal version of me who has the time and energy to do that hasn’t shown up yet, and in the meantime I need to eat. Buying a pre-packaged meal with actual vegetables in it is still cheaper than ordering pizza because I can’t get myself to cook, and it’s still healthier than trying to fill up on crackers because I couldn’t deal with the social aspect of opening the door for the pizza delivery. 
Sometimes, in order to remove steps, you have to compromise. Sometimes, in order to remove another worry (aka fork), you have to automate. When I first started on meds, I would write down the time I took them, calculate when I’d need to take my next dose, and set an alarm. It made me procrastinate taking my next dose, because it was too many steps. There was an app that did all that for me, but I thought it was ridiculous to pay for an app that did exactly what I should be able to do myself. 
I bought the app. I tap one button and my phone sends me a notification when my next dose is due. I have my phone on silent/no vibrate all the time, because notifications are overwhelming to me, so I have an activity tracker watch that lets me reroute only specific notifications to my watch, and now my watch vibrates when I need to take my next dose. I know this isn’t an option for everyone because obviously those things cost money (and it just goes to show how life is so much easier for the rich because they can automate so much), but if there’s any way to turn something you have to do often into something that will do itself mostly on its own, it may be worth looking into. Yes, even when you think you should be able to do it yourself. 
Are you sure the thing you’re worrying about is a problem?
This may seem super simple and obvious, but I legit had to change the ‘worry flowchart’ my therapist gave me to have an extra first step: ‘Do I have proof the problem exists?’ Spoiler: most of the time the answer is no.
I’m running late, I’m not sure if I’m going to make my bus to work. I’m stressing out about what will happen if I’m late. Maybe my superiors will get angry at me. Maybe this will be one too many times. But guess what? I don’t know if I’ll miss the bus. I might still make it. Until I know for certain that I’m going to be late, there’s no use worrying about what might happen. Even if I end up being late, I don’t have any proof that my superiors will be angry with me. I don’t know yet if the problem even exists, so why act like it does?
Another example: I can beat myself up over the fact that people think I’m lazy because I need to take a break. I feel terrible. I don’t want them to think I’m lazy! I can’t relax even though I desperately need to take a break. I told my therapist, and he asked me for proof. Do I have irrefutable proof that people think I’m lazy? Of course not, that’s an assumption I make. Am I a mind reader? No, I just tend to assume the worst. Okay, so why am I worrying about it if I’m not even sure the problem actually exists? Right.
This is not a moral failing and it does not affect your worth
Building on that: even if people think I’m lazy (and I don’t have proof that’s true!), that doesn’t mean their opinion is fact. Their perception of me is not a moral failing on my part. My therapist made me provide proof for and against the hypotheses that I was lazy, and there was way more proof against that statement. At the time, I was in school four days a week, working three, and had two other projects on the side. If, for example, my parents thought I was lazy for having no energy to do chores on my one free day in two months, (again, I had no proof they even thought that), they would’ve simply been wrong. They could’ve thought it all they wanted, but it did not mean I was lazy.
A lot of symptoms of mental health issues can be perceived by others as negative character traits, and that’s one of the reasons it’s so difficult to discuss sometimes. The thing is: their perceptions and opinions do not actually reflect on you or in any way determine your worth. Your brain going about things differently than theirs is as much your fault as needing glasses is (it isn’t).
And last but not least:
Emotion comes first (and goes last)
That sounds nice and cryptic, right? What I mean is that knowing your immediate reaction to something is unnecessary and that things aren’t as bad as they seem is different from feeling it. Your knee-jerk reaction is going to be emotion. Likewise, it’ll take a while before your emotions catch up with where your brain is going when you reroute your thoughts away from negative places.
The RSD, or Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, that comes with ADHD means that sometimes I have extreme negative emotional reactions to situations. When someone responds a little less enthusiastically than what I’m used to, for example, or when friends talk about something they did without me (even if I wouldn’t have wanted to do that particular thing and they know that), or even when someone didn’t hear what I said, it can cause this void to just open up in my chest and swallow every sense of happiness I may have been feeling. It happens suddenly and drags me straight down to my lowest point.
Lately, in those moments, I’ve been able to check in with myself and analyze what it was that triggered this meltdown. Thanks mostly to therapy I can rationalize that things aren’t so bad, and I can claw my way out of that pit, but that always comes one step after that first instinctual emotional reaction. Likewise, knowing things are fine does not mean the negative emotions disappear straight away. They take some time to dissipate, and I’m a little more emotionally vulnerable for a bit while they do. Emotion happens first, and leaves last.
It can be disheartening. It can feel like progress isn’t being made, but that very realization is progress, even if you’re not feeling it yet. Emotions follow the path they know best, and if for you, like me, that path is automatically assuming the worst, you’re gonna feel the emotions associated with that for a while, even when you rationally know it’s all crap. The thing is, practice makes perfect, and redirecting your thoughts into a more positive direction will, eventually, make that path the easiest one to find. Your feelings may take a little while to figure it out, but they’ll find that path eventually.
I’m not saying I’m cured. I’m not saying I know everything. I have bad days and struggles and all that, but I have been doing better. 
I mentioned it briefly at the beginning of all of this, but I started tracking my mood in July. It’s just one general mood a day, which obviously doesn’t quite display the ups and downs I deal with, but I tried to log the average for the day. I started doing so because I sort of knew I was doing better and better but of course once you get used to something, it becomes the new normal and it’s hard to tell when progress happens, so I tracked it:
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myfandomrambles · 5 years
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C-PTSD & BPD DOctor
(Doctor Character Study part 3c)
An analysis of The Doctor as having Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD) along with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).
If you read my ADHD & Autistic doctor posts you will notice some symptom overlap mostly with impulsivity. I chose to put C-PTSD and BPD as one post because symptom overlap is strong, and the disorders are highly comorbid.
11th Doctor:
The Eleventh Doctor is a character that is the perfect representation of instability. He oscillates from generally childish, a cold force of nature and a chaotic man broken from anger and grief. It’s a compelling characterization because it gives some unpredictability in a show that can be formulaic. This doctor also is driven by a fear of abandonment and lack of attachment, probably because everyone Ten came to care for left him or got left behind him, this is shown in the 0 to 100-way Eleven acts within relationships. He is very alien and doesn’t do much to try and blend in a normal sense but does to cover up why he does thing still aching for acceptance. 
Eleven has the common Doctor trait of just running so nothing can touch you and avoid staying still in a very extreme state for much of the run, up until he has no other choice. It's a large part of the character’s arc stopping long enough to make a difference. 
Lack a sense of internal identity/stable self-image and he uses the idea of The Doctor as a mask (TV: Eleventh Hour, TV: Victory of The Daleks, TV: The Wedding of River Song, TV: Dinosaurs on A Spaceship). The Doctor references this phenomenon “Look, three options. One, I let the Star Whale continue in unendurable agony for hundreds more years. Two, I kill everyone on this ship. Three, I murder a beautiful, innocent creature as painlessly as I can. And then I find a new name because I won't be The Doctor any more.”(TV: The Beast Below)
When introducing himself to Craige Eleven says;“ I'm The Doctor. Well, they call me The Doctor. I don't know why. I call me The Doctor, too. Still don't know why.” we know that there are reasons, like his promise that he chooses to use this title Eleven feels a disconnection from the word (TV: The Lodger) Being The Doctor is built on being that hero (TV: The God Complex)
The construction of the identity is remarked upon in TV: The Day of The Doctor, The Doctor itself is a construct they try and hold themselves to, the name is a “promise” a way they want to be. That promise was “Never cruel or cowardly. Never give up, never give in.” 
Connects his identity and emotions to inanimate objects like his Bow Tie, Fez, and Sonic (TV: The Eleventh Hour, TV: The Hungry Earth, TV: The Snowmen, TV: The Rings of Akhaten, & TV: Hide)
Eleven also changes his affect and personality around other for example River. Amy points this out saying “You're letting people call you sir. You never do that.” (TV: Time of Angels) 
The Doctor hates himself to a large degree even when talking himself up periodically. His self-concept often comes as a very powerful view of a god-like entity. This view is based on actual action and the way others see him, it can cause a huge dissonance and adds to his feelings of responsibility to everyone. (TV: The Eleventh Hour, TV: The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang, TV: Day of the Moon, TV: The Wedding of River Song, TV: The Time of The Doctor & TV: The Day of The Doctor)
When Eleven, Amy and Rory get the psychic pollen in their brains The Doctor comments on the “dream Lord’; “No, no. No. Sorry, wasn't it obvious? The Dream Lord was me. Psychic pollen. It’s a mind parasite. It feeds on everything dark in you, gives it a voice, turns it against you. I'm nine hundred and seven. It had a lot to go on.” Amy is disturbed by this idea because the dream lord was both the villain of the dream and openly insulted Eleven like saying “If you had any more tawdry quirks you could open up a Tawdry Quirk Shop. The madcap vehicle, the cockamamie hair, the clothes designed by a first-year fashion student. I'm surprised you haven't got a little purple space dog just to ram home what an intergalactic wag you are. Where was I?” (TV: Amy’s Choice). 
In TV: A Good Man Goes to War Eleven explicitly states he does not believe he is a good man. Eleven literally says “Oh no, no, no, no, no. Give me someone I like.” referring to when the TARDIS offers a holo doctor as the voice interface. This shows he does not have a positive opinion of himself. 
In TV: The God Complex Eleven speaks the Minotaurs last words “An ancient creature, drenched in the blood of the innocent, drifting in space through an endless, shifting maze. For such a creature, death would be a gift. Then accept it, and sleep well. I wasn't talking about myself.” Eleven doesn’t seem to disagree, is caught off guard but seems to hit home. While Eleven doesn’t actively want to die and does try and live, but we can see that there are times when this does fail. He does view himself as broken down.  
 The Doctor’s rules are used as a kind of system of maintaining the idea of the ‘Doctor’ and a way of coping with the wrongs he has done, and a shorthand of communication (TV: The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood, &TV: Let’s Kill Hitler) These rules are also used in his own mind to try and give moral guidelines as part of this identity maintenance and to try and not hurt others. We see this in the comment Eleven makes “Good men don't need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many.” (TV: A Good Man Goes to War)
The Doctor has a lot of guilt in his life, he is willing to let himself die for others, his imposed isolation and his rules all reflect this. (TV: Amy’s Choice, Minisode: Night and The Doctor, TV: A Good Man Goes To War, Prequel to Let's Kill Hitler, TV: Let’s Kill Hitler, TV: The Girl Who Waited, TV: The God Complex, & TV: The Power of Three, TV: The Name of The Doctor, TV: The Time of The Doctor, & TV: The Day of The Doctor) We see this really explicitly when he has the chance to find more time lords in TV: The Doctor's Wife and Amy reminds him what they thought he did to the others. 
Eleven says “I can explain. Tell them why I had to.” Amy then says “You want to be forgiven.” The Doctor then replies, “Don't we all?”. In that same story, Eleven says “Another Ood I failed to save.” when the Ood dies, referencing his history of letting Ood die in fights like in TV: The Satan Pit. 
After seeing the effect his story has had on those around him and the way it hurt people he cares about we see him delete himself from history out of guilt. (Home Video: The Inforarium, TV: Asylum of The Daleks and TV: Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, TV: The Angels Take Manhattan, & TV: The Nightmare in Silver).
Guilt often leads to him raining in his outward shows of strength to not invoke more guilt or memories of things like his believed use of the moment. However, it’s not always the case when Karlah-Jax triggers his trauma the guilt manifests in hurting others. The Doctor justifies his actions with a combination of trauma-based guilt and his moral system saying: “But they keep coming back, don't you see? Every time I negotiate, I try to understand. Well, not today. No. Today, I honour the victims first. His, the Master's, the Dalek's, all the people who died because of my mercy!” (TV: A Town Called Mercy) 
In TV: The Day of The Doctor we see how guilt is a huge diver of most of what they do throughout the show. Even to the point, the War Doctor wonders if without the guilt he would even become the same man that 10 and 11 are. However, it is important to note that using the moment isn’t the only guilt The Doctor carries. What he did to his companions is another one. Guilt and responsibility also drive a lot of the behaviour in TV: The Time of The Doctor. 
Eleven has extreme difficulties with handling his impulsive behaviours (TV: The Eleventh Hour, TV: Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone, TV: The Beast Below, TV: The Vampires of Venice, TV: Vincent and The Doctor, TV: The Curse of The Black Spot, TV: The Lodger, TV: The Doctor's Wife, Minisode: Space/Time. TV:Asylum of The Daleks, TV: Dinosaurs on A Spaceship, TV: A Town Called Mercy, TV: The Power of Three, TV: The Angels Take Manhattan, TV: The Rings of Akhaten, TV: Hide, TV: Journey To The Centre of The TARDIS, TV: The Name of The Doctor, & TV: The Day of The Doctor) His mind and thoughts get so ahead of himself he’ll do dumb things like baiting the armed people in the white house to shoot at him (TV: The Impossible Astronaut).
The Doctor has obsessive thoughts and behaviors connected with the impulse control and preoccupation with trauma (TV: Vincent and the Doctor,TV: The Wedding of River Song, TV: Closing Time, TV: The Power of Three, TV: The Rings of Akhaten, TV: journey to the center of the TARDIS & TV: The Time of The Doctor).
 Puts himself in deadly and dangerous situations. Often a combination of hero complex and a lack of regard for his own well being in dangerous moments. (TV: Victory of Daleks, TV: The Big Bang, TV: Let’s Kill Hitler, TV: The Angels Take Manhattan, TV: Hide, & TV: Journey To The Center of The TARDIS)
This behaviour can become almost suicidal in nature taunting and getting to close other enemies. In TV: Flesh and Stone he puts himself in more danger than necessary. One of his plans amounts to suicidal actions. We can see similar actions in TV: The Rings of Akhaten, TV: Nightmare in Silver and TV: Cold War where he is willing to kill everyone to save others. 
After seeing The Doctor die Amy, River and Rory discuss what the next thing they should do is. We get this dialogue: 
Rory: “We're not all going to arrange our own wake and invite ourselves. So, The Doctor, in the future, knowing he's going to die, recruits his younger self and all of us to, to what, exactly? Avenge him?” 
River: Uh-huh. Avenging's not his style. 
Amy: Save him. 
Rory: Yeah, that's not really his style either.” 
In this conversation, we see that they recognize that Eleven one doesn’t want his friends to act violently, and Rory also recognizes that The Doctor is willing to die for, whatever the astronaut was about. (TV: The Impossible Astronaut)
Has very strong and reactive emotional states. The emotional reactions are shown very visibly in his face, voice and actions. (TV: The Eleventh Hour, TV: The Victory of The Daleks, TV: The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone, TV: The Beast Below, Minisode: Space/Time, TV: The Doctor's Wife, TV: A Good Man Goes To War, TV: Let’s Kill Hitler, TV: The God Complex, TV: Asylum of The Daleks, TV: Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, TV: The Power of Three, TV: The Angels Take Manhattan, & TV: Journey To The Center of The TARDIS ) We also often see extreme rapid cycling emotions and affect (TV: Amy’s Choice, TV: The Pandorica Opens, The Rebel Flesh / The Almost People, TV: Closing Time, TV: The Doctor's Wife, & TV: The Rings of Akhaten)
We see an example of this when Eleven is talking his effect going from slightly annoyed, excited and falls down to tired and then cold derision all in one paragraph length of speech “Home. Well, you two are. Off you pop and make babies. And you, Doctor Song, back to prison. And me? I'm late for a biplane lesson in 1911. Or it could be knitting. Knitting or biplanes. One or the other. What? A mysterious summons. You think I'm just going to go? Who sent those messages? I know you know. I can see it in your face. Don't play games with me. Don't ever, ever think you're capable of that.” (TV: The Impossible Astronaut)
In TV: The Doctor's Wife we see an expression of cold and extreme anger. He slips in an expression of cruelty in the way he talks to the people who live on House threatening them and telling them to run. Ith the TARDIS they kill the house with only callous anger and disregard. We see a similar show TV: Dinosaurs on A Spaceship when his anger at the lack of morality that Solomon shows and his treatment of the Silurians and Nefertiti he kills the man to save the others. He does this showing very little regret a combination of severe anger and his ability to shut down and dissociate from his emotions. 
Another act of his anger common out in an act of manipulative violence is the TV: The Bells of Saint John by using the Base station to threaten to bring down and scare people into action and ends up using it. 
An extreme example of how strongly his anger can run is seen when he learns of the actions of Kahler-Jex. He comes back angry at the lies and feeling deeply upset at the lies. It escalates with Jax telling The Doctor he doesn’t understand when The Doctor absolutely understand what position Jax was in. All of this peaks and when Kahler-Jex references The Doctor’s own trauma and actions in his history of not only the Time War but the other actions he’s had to take, along with the all the death he blames on his inactions as well. It pushes him to the edge of violence yelling and acting out physically. However, unlike other examples of The Doctor being willing to hurt others to protect something and/or someone he loves this time it’s out of a trigger to the past, he loses control of the anger he feels. 
Jax “You wouldn’t” 
The Doctor replies “I Genuinely don’t know.” 
This shows that being so disconnected to the emotions his trauma brings makes this scene confuse him. (TV: A Town Called Mercy)
After Amy is captured Eleven shuts down his emotions, a strong emptiness comes over him which is different from Rory who has a level of desperation and love for Amy. 
Rory says “Amy, can you hear me? We're coming for you. Wherever you are, we're coming, I swear.” 
The Doctor answers; “She can't hear you. I'm so sorry. It's one way.”  
Rory replies “She can always hear me, Doctor. Always. Wherever she is, and she always knows that I am coming for her. Do you understand me? Always.” 
(TV: The Day of The Moon)
The Emotional shutdown can even form a block in his empathy, much like rage he sometimes swings the other way trying to not feel, TV: The Snowmen, but being unable to manage these he often starts lashing out to others by trying to act on feelings. 
In TV: A Good Man Goes To War when Vastra points out he is seen as a weapon his emotions go from sadness to an episode of dissociation. We can see this as he loses the ability to register what the others are saying and has to be brought out of it. A similar event can be seen after an anger outburst and discussions truly close to his traumatic history his friends have with Kahler-Jax. Eleven goes almost blank facially and folds into himself emotional;y and physically. He isolates himself by stepping away and he completely loses the thread of the events around him. We see this when he says “Hmm? Yes. I don't know. Whatever Amy said.” It also melds with his wildly changing emotions as he flies into anger right after this. (TV: A Town Called Mercy). We also see dissociation in TV: The Girl Who Waited, The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone & TV: The Snowmen)
We can see a physical manifestation in the way The Doctor physically acts as well. When he experiences dissociation and/or emotional shutdowns he curled into himself. (TV: The Day of The Moon, TV:The Girl Who Waited, TV: A Town Called Mercy, TV: The Angels Take Manhattan, TV: The Snowmen, & TV: Journey to The Center of The TARDIS ). 
We can see another physical manifestation of the disconnection he feels from himself and the dissociation he has with his table identity when he gets dressed without his own knowledge, Seen in this exchange
The Doctors: “No, you didn't, because I don't. Because this isn't the sort of thing I do any more. Next time you're in trouble, don't expect me to” 
(The Doctor is distracted by his reflection in a mirror.) 
Clara “What is it? What's wrong?” 
The Doctor: Sorry, it's just. Didn't know I'd put it on.  
(TV: The Snowmen)
Memory gaps are also seen in TV: Hide when he doesn’t even know what’s in the console room and TV: The Day of The Doctor as he has lost track of his own age and timeline [Not remembering the events with the moment doesn't count] Also seen in TV: The Lodger
His emotions and trauma can bring Eleven to the point of pretty dramatic outbursts. When the Daleks are seen for the first time by Eleven expresses an episode of range attacks the Dalek with a wrench (TV: Victory of The Daleks) Fear and Anger lead to a panic and rage episode including throwing things around and losing focus (TV: Flesh and Stone). We see these trauma, guilt and anger based breakdowns screaming and pushing others away, saying “Nobody talk to me. Nobody human has anything to say to me today!” (TV: The Beast Below). We see a physical breakdown again in TV: The God Complex and TV: The Angels Take Manhattan. 
A trauma-induced Panic Attack can be seen in TV: Asylum of the Daleks. He shows all the physical attributes and calls out for help a very uncharacteristic way of reacting showing a more heightened fear response. After this reminder of his trauma during the war, we see him struggle to return to the normal emotional level struggling to show compassion he normally has for human hurt by the Daleks reacting with rage at the Dalek shell that Oswin is trapped into. And panics again when she starts to move. 
In TV: Nightmare in Silver just seeing a Cyberman he goes into protect mode his easily triggered survival and protective manner. 
The Doctor is a show-off and is very dramatic to project the appearance he wants and hid a lot under it/ (TV: The Eleventh Hour, Minisode: Meanwhile in the TARDIS 2, TV: The Vampires of Venice, TV: The Big Bang, TV: The Doctor The Widow and The Wardrobe, TV: Day of The Moon, TV: The Doctor's Wife, TV: Let’s Kill Hitler, TV: A Christmas Carol, TV: The Wedding of River Song TV: The Asylum of The Daleks, TV: A Town Called Mercy, TV:The Snowmen, TV: The Bells of Saint John,TV: Journey to The Center of The TARDIS, & TV: The Day of The Doctor ). 
Often done to people he wants to like him like Amy, saying: “A forest in a bottle on a spaceship in a maze. Have I impressed you yet, Amy Pond?”(TV: Flesh and Stone) When Eleven finds himself in the oval office he goes on a rant, flaunt his intelligence and sits in the president's chair. Enjoying Putting on a show for his friends as well it works to refocus control and attention to him. (TV: The Impossible Astronaut)
In TV: A Good Man Goes To War we see a huge example of this. It is a combination of the way using confusion and manipulation is The Doctor's signature method of fighting enemies but it also is a way he enjoys getting positive and negative attention. 
Amy Pond is His favourite person and they both have a codependent relationship to a very high degree. Both being a defining part of the others life. Eleven while not really wanting a romantic relationship with Amy still experiences worry around Amy wanting to leave him some jealousy with Rory (TV: The Vampires of Venice) Is deeply protective over Amy even when he does bring in to dangerous situations (TV: The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone, TV: Victory of The Daleks, TV: Vincent and The Doctor, & TV: The Pandorica Opens). Eleven struggles to attach healthy to others wanting this full 100% or 0% love (TV: The Eleventh Hour. TV: The God Complex, & TV: The Power of Three)
We this complete or zero attachment in action again in TV: The Snowmen with Clara. Going from a lockout of people in general to trying to make her come with him and feeling a deep connection in the matter of a day. Even when he doesn’t trust River Song yet he becomes jealous when she gives attention to others like saying “What? You two engaged or something?” when the father follows her around (TV: Flesh and Stone)
His extreme connection to his companions magnifies his own grief tenfold causing pretty deep reactions when losing his FP in the form of Amy. (TV: The Angels Take Manhattan & The Snowmen). His general problems with attachment magnify grief and loss in general, he struggles to form normal relationships and has deep abandonment issues that we see starting a few doctors back. This is further compounded by his long lifespan meaning he can see the way people are eventually going to lose them. In TV: The Power of Three he explains the way he knows loss is coming and tries to lose it, but when hitting this realization hard on he actually attempts to severe the bond before getting really hurt but that doesn’t work. He then pushes everyone again when the loss does it. (TV: The Snowmen). Clara points out that she is competing with a ghost in TV: The Rings of Akhaten, which while he rebuffs this she was actually right, one because he only picked her up based on a past loss but also because for a very long time the companions are competing with the ghost of past loss as it informs how protective and guilty The Doctor is with everyone. 
This struggle with grief can also be seen in TV: The Time of The Doctor when The Doctor as he sends Clara away to not deal with losing her even though that isn’t what she wants. 
Likes to be in control of everything to feel like he can manage a world that constantly throws pain and disorder. (TV: The Eleventh Hour, TV: The Vampires of Venice, TV: The Hungry Earth/Cold Earth, TV: The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang, TV: The Power of Three, TV: The Curse of the Black Spot, TV: The Crimson Horror, TV: Nightmare in Silver, TV: Cold War, & TV: The Name of The Doctor) 
Eleven takes control no matter who is around them, up to and including the president of the united states (TV: The Impossible Astronaut/Day of The Moon). There is also often the need to try and protect people, though this often bothers the people as it takes their choice from them. (TV: A Christmas Carol, TV: The Doctor's Wife, TV: The God Complex, TV: Asylum of The Daleks, & TV: Name of The Doctor). 
In Prose: Touched By an Angel Eleven comments that Rory is "disconcertingly full of surprises" when he alters the plans Eleven is trying to work through. In TV: The Snowmen we see another example of his control issues verbalized by Eleven when Clara attempts to lead him saying “No, I do the hand grabbing. That's my job. That's always me!”, a telling example of the way Clara not listening even more than normal throws him off balance. 
In TV: The Time of The Doctor The Doctor takes control of not just the battle but ends up essentially running the entire planet, based on a hero/god complex along with his warranted feeling of responsibility. In TV:Day of The Doctor we see this control and god complex in an extreme form as they feel a responsibility to save the entire universe, it’s also connected to guilt born from trauma The Doctor experienced throughout the time war even before the use of the moment, as the War Doctor feels the same responsibility/god complex. 
Eleven tries to control the entire situation of the adventures and the situations around those he loves. It’s not trying to really hurt them, and often works but he still wants to try and make everything work right. (TV: The God Complex, TV: Asylum of The Daleks, TV: The Crimson Horror)
 We see an example of this also TV: The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People in the way he doesn’t tell people what he’s doing so no one interferes with his plans, even willing to lie to people by omission and right out no telling Amy which doctor is made of Flesh and which is the Time Lord. Similar to this situation in TV: Journey to The Center of The TARDIS The Doctor manipulates the salvage crew withholding information, using intimidation and his superior understanding of the TARDIS to get what he wants so he can save Clara. The Doctor also lies to Clara here and scares her once he does lose that control, the lies and information he had been hiding for long can’t keep in under stress. 
Lacks any ability to trust almost anybody (TV: The Beast Below, TV: The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone, TV: The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People, & TV: Journey to The Center of The TARDIS). TV: The Impossible Astronaut gives us to rather good examples of this, the person he trusts number one is himself over anyone who has been with him over time. Also when talking to River he says “Trust you? Sure. But, first of all, Doctor Song, just one thing. Who are you? You're someone from my future. Getting that. But who? Okay. Why are you in prison? Who did you kill, hmm? Now, I love a bad girl, me, but trust you? Seriously.” a cruel statement of his trust issues, and acts as a way to push her away and keep at arm's length even when he does enjoy her company. 
The Doctor struggles to understand and communicate ideas and emotions. Forming new relationships are hard for him his ability for healthy attachments in non-existent. We see this with Rory a lot. Rory doesn’t quickly fall in line with The Doctors normal way of functioning. Eleven doesn't have a good ability to communicate their issues. This makes relationships pretty volatile with River, Amy and Clara even when they are what he loves most 
Experiences splitting mostly with River Goes back and forth being very flirty and then pushing River away (TV: Flesh and Stone, TV: A Good Man Goes to War, & TV: The Day of The Moon)
Eleven avoids talking about trauma trying to not remember or discuss it while it also clearly affects everything he does (TV: The Beast Below, TV: The Doctor's Wife, TV: A Good Man Goes To War, TV: Day of The Doctor, TV: The Snowmen, TV: Hide TV: The Name of The Doctor, TV: The Day of The Doctor & The Time of The Doctor) Distraction used as a coping mechanism (TV: Amy’s Choice, TV: The hungry Earth) When he does talk about it he struggles to then stop (TV: The Rings of Akhaten, TV: The Day of The Doctor).
The Doctor isn’t in touch with his emotions (TV: A Town Called Mercy, TV: The Doctor The Widow and The Wardrobe, TV: The Power of Three, TV: The Angels Take Manhattan, TV: The Snowmen, & TV: The Bells of Saint John). In TV: A Good Man Goes To War he comments “Oh, look, I'm angry. That's new. I'm really not sure what's going to happen now.” However, The Doctor often shows anger to the point of outbursts of violence. This shows a profound disconnect from his own emotional state. 
Eleven like the previous incarnations is deeply lonely and feels like he is alone and disconnected (TV: The Beast Below, TV: The Doctor The Widow and The Wardrobe, TV: The Doctor's Wife, TV: Night Terrors TV: The Bells of Saint John) We see this in his trying to connect with the Krafayis “Well, no harm trying. Listen. Listen! I know you can understand me, even though I know you won't understand why you can understand me. I also know that no one's talked to you for a pretty long stretch, but please, listen. I also don't belong on this planet. I also am alone. If you trust me, I'm sure we can come to some kind of, you know, understanding. And then, and then, who knows?” (TV: Vincent and The Doctor) 
The most extreme example of this is of course seen in TV: The Snowmen where for what is implied to be years The Doctor isolates himself from almost everyone and stops trying to help others. 
The Doctor experiences hypervigilance and general hyperarousal symptoms about him always on edge and looking for danger. It also causes him trouble staying still and enjoying any calm (TV: Amy’s Choice, Minisode: Night and The Doctor, TV: The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood, TV: The Lodger, TV: The Impossible Astronaut, TV: Closing Time, TV: Asylum of The Daleks, TV: Dinosaurs on A Spaceship, TV: Closing Time TV: A Town Called Mercy, TV: The Power of Three, TV: The Angels Take Manhattan, TV: The Bells of Saint John, TV: The Rings of Akhaten, & TV Nightmare in Silver)  
We see this in his conversation with Amy Saying; “Oh, lovely. You're a cheery one. Never mind dead, look at this place. Isn't it wrong?” Amy is confused by this “What's wrong?” Elven seems genuinely surprised that she doesn’t see what is happening the way he can “Come on, use your eyes. Notice everything. What's wrong with this picture?” (TV: The Beast Below) 
Even when in a calm environment like a museum The Doctor is on the lookout. When viewing Van Gogh art he stops to investigate danger having noticed it everywhere “Yes. And not a nice face at all. I know evil when I see it and I see it in that window.“ (TV: Vincent and The Doctor)
The Doctor deals with catastrophization (TV: The Beast Below, TV: Vincent and The Doctor, TV: The Curse of The Black Spot & Prequels: Prequel to The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe) The Doctor also struggles to view the world with an active hope more using it an idea to focus his thoughts, it takes extreme emotions to push through that, and not much to bring it all crashing down. (TV: The Doctor The Widow in the Wardrobe, Minisode: Meanwhile in The TARDIS, & TV: The Angels Take Manhattan)
Other people tend to understand and see his erratic behaviour. In TV: The Time of Angles. 
Father Octavian asked River “Doctor Song, I've lost good Clerics today. You trust this man? “ 
She replies “I absolutely trust him.” 
Octavian asks “ He's not some kind of madman, then?” 
All River does is repeat “ I absolutely trust him”. 
A comment on the very noticeable erratic behaviour and presentation of his feelings and dysregulation, his own friends who trust him can’t even pretend he isn’t like that. Clara makes a similar comment in TV: Nightmare in Silver.
Multiple times people who knows him warn against getting to the emotional breaking point. In TV: The Doctor's Wife  Amy says “Don't get emotional because that's when you make a mistake” In TV: Forest of The Dead River warns Ten against it when he generally has a slightly higher boiling point to Eleven to experience full emotional breakdowns. 
Rory finds The Doctor to be dangerous in his ability to be magnetic and the way his own recklessness plays of each other. (TV: The Vampires of Venice)
The Doctor’s interactions with Van Gogh is really interesting we see to a large instance I think he understands what he is going through but trying to use his own coping mechanisms on Van Gogh proves to not be very effective. He tries to make Van Gogh focus on the task at hand, ignore people calling him crazy don’t think about the pain. But of course, this doesn’t work for Van Gogh who has slightly different problems than The Doctor and can’t function on denial. 
We also see his difficulty with communication here talking about his or others feelings being a struggle. He does try and offer kindness with mentioning hope, and then lets Van Gogh he will be remembered kindly a truly kind act. Eleven is also distinctly less surprised than Amy that one kind day can not make someone not struggle with suicidal thoughts, something I think comes from both his knowledge of time travel but personal experience with mental illness. (TV: Vincent and The Doctor)
In TV: Hide we see Emma Grayling being able to read The Doctor because she is an empath, this ability makes her distrustful of The Doctor overall but also works with him because she can tell he does want to save people. Emma warns Clara about the fact the Doctor’s history has left him deeply damaged she says“Don't trust him. There's a sliver of ice in his heart.” 
Professor Alec Palmer also reads The Doctor in this same episode, he can tell the Doctor has seen traumatic events of war and death just like he as. They are similar people and they can see it in each other. 
Eleven has become so used to the chaos and violence that he cannot change and disconnect. Adventure and violence are the only way he knows how to function, also I sort of an addiction to chaos. (Minisode: Night and The Doctor, TV: The Lodger, TV: Amy’s Choice, TV: Dinosaurs On A Spaceship, TV: The Power of Three, & TV: A Town Called Mercy) 
We see The Doctor has a breakdown in being able to enjoy a normal life and things, even some of the less violent of the things in space like stars or general life (Minisode: Meanwhile in the TARDIS 2)
While The Doctor is addicted to violence he has a deep moral problem with the concept of war and hurting other creatures. The Doctor also tries to ensure that other people don’t have to live in the war as he did. It is hypocritical as The Doctor will cause harm for the greater good. However, opposition to war is as much a part of the identity as a moral concept. This hatred of war actually dates back to the early doctors and carried through till this point, now with the layers of trauma and having continuously broken the morals himself. (TV: The Beast Below, TV: The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood, TV: The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People, TV: Dinosaurs on A Spaceship, TV: A Town Called Mercy, & TV: Nightmare in Silver)
Other soldiers and actors of violence can always read this past in The Doctor (TV: Hide, TV: Nightmare in Silver, & TV: The Name of The Doctor). This is seen in TV: Cold War when the other soldiers can see that The Doctor understands the battle, River also comments on this in TV: Let’s kill Hitler as she was taught that he understood “all forms of war.'' He is confronted with the way he’s been acting as a violent force when he learns the Gamma forest uses the doctor as the war for a warrior (TV: A Good Man Goes to War). 
TV: The Day of The Doctor shows us this understanding of battles and violent politics, and how much this is splitting to his character as The War Doctor refuses to even call himself The Doctor. It shows how much he understands about war. This carries into TV: The Time of The Doctor where he can wage a hundred years of war and win. 
Insomnia: (TV: The Lodger, Minisode: Night and The Doctor, TV: The Bells of Saint John)
Disordered eating: (TV: The Eleventh Hour, TV: The Power of Three, TV: The Time of The Doctor)
Eleven is a character built on contradictions bu as highly magnetic as the other doctors. His arc is similar to 9s in being bittersweet, he dies with those he loves having saved people but is also sad because his last days were spent in war when that’s the last thing he wanted to do, they were also tainted by feelings of guilt for his part in what happened. He changes some over time in relation to loss but has less profound shifts than many other New Who doctors. 
[Also Posted on my Archive of Our Own page in a series with the other doctor study posts]
Shout out to @3lianav for requesting/reminding me to get this section up
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bryanfaganlaw · 4 years
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Creative solutions to problems regarding parental rights in Texas
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Houston Family Lawyers: If you are going through a difficult child custody or divorce case and are in need of practical solutions to the problems that you are facing, you have come to the right place. The Law Office of Bryan Fagan achieves successful results for our clients in part because we are able to arrive at practical solutions for our clients using negotiation and our experience in Texas family law.
In every family case, there is an issue that seems like it will be nearly impossible to solve. While it may be unavoidable that you will have tough circumstances in your case, it does not have to be true that those tough circumstances will invariably lead to a trial.
Parenting decisions related to the education, physical health and mental well-being of your child are among the most important rights that you will have in relation to your child. How those rights are allocated between you and your child's other parent can determine a great deal of how happy, productive and healthy your child will be in the future. Given the importance of this subject, I wanted to devote today's blog post to discuss how you can arrive at a desirable outcome and not have to see the inside of a courtroom in order to do so.
Educational Decisions
We touched on this briefly in yesterday’s blog post but I think that it bears repeating today. Parents in Texas family law cases no longer have to assign the right to designate the primary residence of their child to one parent in particular. It is possible for you and the other parent to agree that your child’s residence should be restricted to a specific geographic region, instead. This can go a long ways towards making you and your child’s other parent satisfied that neither of you will be a primary conservator of your child, it still opens up some questions about where your child will attend school.
Children in Texas are allowed to attend a school in the school district in which either of their parents resides. If this is the case and either you or the other parent are within your rights to have your child attend the schools zoned to your residence, what we need to figure out is how are the educational rights going to be divided between you and your child's other parent as far as decision making is concerned.
What school will your child be attending? How will it be possible for you and your child’s other parent, when you are not in agreement with one another, make educational decisions together on behalf of that child?
In many cases, the two parents will eventually agree that one of them should be able to make decisions regarding education exclusively. The parent who holds this right would have to seek out the counsel and opinion of the other parent but would not be bound in any way by those opinions. If this option is not chosen, what can you all do to avoid stalemates when there is a disagreement on a particular issue?
In the search for a tie-breaker, a therapist, counselor or other trusted individual is oftentimes sought to fill this role. The counselor could select the appropriate school for your child at the beginning of each school year. If not a therapist, a pediatrician or school administrator/official can fill these shoes if necessary.
Medical decisions that involve surgery
The term "invasive medical procedure" is the language that you will see used most often in reference to medical procedures that closely mirror surgeries. However, you and your child's other parent will need to figure out for yourselves what an invasive medical procedure is. Do dental procedures count as an invasive medical treatment? What about a tattoo? Look to the terms of your settlement agreement and ultimately the order in your case to see what you all define an invasive medical procedure as.
On a more practical level, you and your child's other parent will need to figure out how you are going to manage the scheduling of doctor's appointments. Can this be done without consulting with the other parent? Can both parents be present in the doctor's office during an appointment? Hopefully, surgeries and other invasive procedures are not that commonplace for your child, but a doctor's appointment probably will be.
Another major issue that you will need to get squared away is which doctor is going to be your child’s primary care physician. Once you figure this out you will need to decide how specialists are going to be considered and selected if the need to do so arises. What some families will do is agree to maintain primary care with a particular doctor for as long as practical. If that physician moves, retires or a parent wishes to change to another physician, that primary care doctor should be consulted and their choice for a replacement should be used.
A good rule of thumb for your attorney to use with you in this sort of setting is to try and have you think about this decision in the way that you would have you and your child's other parent never separated in the first place. How would you all have arrived at a solution in this setting if there were a disagreement between the two of you?
If you are like most families, you would sit down at the dinner table and discuss the issues once enough information has been collected to have an intelligent discussion. From there you would decide what arrangement, as far as parental decision making is concerned, would be the best for your child.
Psychological or psychiatric treatment- who calls the shots?
Houston Family Law Attorney: The same type of analysis can be done for psychiatric and psychological decisions that we just wrapped up in our previous section on invasive medical procedures. These are also very important rights that will need to be divided between yourself and the other parent to your child. Consider just how often medications are prescribed for children or the role that specific diagnoses (like ADD or ADHD) can have on your child in school and other places. You need to arrive at a parenting structure that benefits your child.
Consider why you and your child’s other parent are no longer in a relationship. Could it be that issues like this helped to drive you both apart from one another? It is probably not the case that one of these disagreements was the driving factor that led to the breakup of your relationship, but it could very well be that the disagreements on these sort of subject contributed heavily to the decision to end the relationship.
Drug use among children is a problem in our country. There are all sorts of facts and figures that I could cite here, but I think we would all agree that any amount of drug use by a child is too much. As such, if you find yourself in a position where your child is abusing drugs or alcohol it is extremely important that you be able to see to it that the child receives treatment. However, not every family can agree on how best to handle it.
Consider a situation where your child was caught smoking marijuana. Your ex-spouse may just think that it is a phase that he or she is going through. Nothing to be all that concerned with, certainly no need to send your child to a doctor or other medical professional for consultations. However, you may take the exact opposite point of view. You could see the situation as a cry for help from your child and a long-lasting problem that you have to nip in the bud while you still can. When you all hold such divergent views how can you possibly arrive at a solution that is acceptable to both of you?
What your attorney should be working to help you avoid is a situation where you seek expensive medical care for your child over the objection of your child’s other parent. Your child’s other parent could then reverse course a week later without consulting you. What you are then left with is a child who is not really receiving any consistent care for their problem(s), a bill for medical care that provided no benefit to anyone, and two upset parents. Sounds like a perfect storm for a family law case.
Your attorney should be working with you to answer a few, important questions. First of all, which parent should be making the decision on whether or not to have your child formally evaluated for a medical/psychological problem?
Once that decision is made you need to decide which parent is going to be the one to make a decision on what course of action to take on behalf of your child? What happens if it becomes obvious that it may be necessary to consider inpatient care for your child? If nothing else, a tie-breaker would be good to have inserted into the court order in the event that no conclusion can be reached on these subjects.
What about other rights not included in the Texas Family Code as necessary?
Divorce Lawyers in Houston: The three rights that we just finished discussing are the big-ticket items that you and your attorney will focus heavily on when it comes to negotiating final orders in your family law case. However, there are other rights that can be important as well that are not always discussed in family cases ... Continue Reading
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aroworlds · 6 years
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Aro-Spec Artist Profile: Alex
Today I have the delight of introducing Alex, better known to aro-spec Tumblr as @arotaro and @mutant-jojos!
Alex is a bisexual, half-Puerto Rican multi-disciplinary aromantic artist and creative with severe ADHD. You’ll find her prolific fanworks on AO3 as EmeraldTrash666, writing primarily for the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure fandom. Her bold, colourful art for the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Fullmetal Alchemist, Hetalia, Pokemon and Vocaloid fandoms is also available on Redbubble under the name StellaHagane.
She writes, she creates digital art and she dabbles in music, sewing and fashion design, single-handedly proving that there’s no such thing as too much creative awesome for any one aromantic!
With us Alex talks about finding the word aro, the power of fandom and creative fanworks, her love of aro Jotaro, the challenges of creating with ADHD, the struggles of being an aro gen writer in fandom and the importance of expressing our aro headcanons. Everything she says is absolutely on point, so please let’s give her all our love, encouragement, gratitude, kudos and follows for taking the time to explore what it is to be aromantic and creative.
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Can you share with us your story in being aro-spec?
I guess in some ways my “story” starts out pretty typical. Got older, kept waiting for my First Crush™, never got it, started worrying and trying to force myself to develop crushes. I actually was in a relationship with another girl on a forum I was part of as a teenager, but eventually I realized that I didn’t really like her romantically, and the relationship started to become really unpleasant for me. I eventually felt so miserable that I didn’t even want to talk at her at all, even though we were close friends, but I didn’t want to break up with her - partly because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, partly because we were everyone’s “OTP” and I didn’t want my friends to hate me for ruining that. But eventually I did break up with her, and I’m happy to say she took it with grace and we’re still close friends today! (She’s ace and a great writer/artist herself, too!)
I was part of a very nice LGBTQ+ group as a teenager, but I could never figure out my identity. I felt really ashamed and alone. Whenever I brought up how messed up I felt because I’d never had a crush on anyone, everyone was like, “Oh, sounds like you must be asexual!”, but I knew I wasn’t, and that was the worst part. Even though I knew aromanticism was a thing, nobody ever talked about it. It was only ever in the context of aroaces, so I didn’t know I was aro. I thought I must have had some sort of mental illness or something, but certainly not a legitimate orientation, nothing to be proud of like everyone else.
During that time, I found myself connecting on a deep emotional level to characters like Alphonse Elric, Fujiwara no Sai, the X-Men in general (although I’ve been an X-Men fan since I was literally a baby), basically anyone who was somehow “different” from the rest of humanity, even though I never understood why, since I was a fairly privileged kid who had never experienced much bullying or anything. Weirdly enough, it was Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure that helped me realize I was aro and come to terms with it; I saw an interview with Hirohiko Araki, the author of JJBA, where he was asked what type of girls Jotaro Kujo likes, and replied that he didn’t think Jotaro liked girls. The obvious interpretation would be that Jotaro’s gay, but somehow, one way or another, I decided to go with the idea that Jotaro’s aromantic. Jotaro also happened to be a character I really related to for reasons I couldn’t quite articulate, so around the time I was 18 I put two and two together and was like ... oh shit…
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Please click keep reading to continue Alex’s story!
Can you share with us the story behind your creativity?
I’ve always been weird in the way I’m very creative, but tend to kinda bounce around from hobby to hobby. Other people draw, or write, or sing, while I draw for a month, and then write for a month and sew for a week and play video games for a week, and then I draw some more, and then I try out something completely new, and then I write again. I think it must be an ADHD thing, idk. In any case, I’ve just always been really passionate about making stuff, whatever that stuff happens to be.
I’ve also always been very much fandom-oriented. Ever since I was a toddler, I used to dictate fanfiction to my mom (back then it usually involved Winnie the Pooh, the Powerpuff Girls, Godzilla, and my dog). I mostly draw fanart. I find that I’m not really capable of writing original stories, but I’m great at getting fanfics in character, and I love writing them. I love taking stories I already love and reinterpreting them, seeing what it would be like if the characters were put into different situations, etc.
Because of my ADHD, I really struggle with actually finishing things. I try really really hard, I really do, and I’ve been trying to push myself even harder these past few years. I’ve made progress, but it’s still extremely difficult, so I’m very sorry for all the projects I’ve abandoned over the years. Sorry I still haven’t finished the fic that was supposed to be done in early March. I’m trying, really. I promise I’m working on the next chapter of BLaD, too.
Are there any particular ways your aro-spec experience is expressed in your art?
Of course, pretty much everything I write is gen. Even if I include romantic relationships in my fics, I never write about romance, just stories which also happen to include some characters who might be dating someone. And obviously I always write Jotaro as aro! That’s really important to me. No matter which AU I’m writing, he’s always aro. (And autistic, but that’s off topic.)
I’m also not really into shipping because of my romance repulsion, but I ship Joseph Joestar and Caesar Zeppeli. The thing is … I’ve always viewed it as a unique relationship, sort of difficult to define as being strictly romantic or platonic or sexual, just kind of their own thing that defies words. That’s how I’ve always written it. I had the sudden realization recently that this strange view on the only ship I really actually like (at the moment, anyway) is probably due to my being aro, lmao.
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What challenges do you face as an aro-spec artist?
People don’t read gen fics, and people aren’t interested in aro stories. That’s just the way it is. I do have some dedicated readers, whom I love deeply, but in general… I could post something with a deep plot, something funny and dramatic and witty and touching, something I poured my heart and soul into for months, and it’ll get very few hits/comments/kudos, while someone else could post the same generic 2,000-word romance fic everyone’s seen a dozen times over, with no editing or anything, and get twice the amount of traffic my fics do in half the time. It’s really crushing.
How do you connect to the aro-spec and a-spec communities as an aro-spec person?
I dunno… The aro community feels so small. Online, I have a small circle of aro mutuals who all kind of vent collectively, and I’m part of Arocalypse and a few aro/aspec Discord servers, but I still feel like there isn’t really much of a larger community to be part of in the same way that there is for other orientations. Offline, I’ve never met another aro, or even anyone who actually knows what aromanticism is prior to me explaining it to them.
I also don’t feel like there’s a very unified “aspec community”. As an allo aro, I feel very rejected by the ace community - not to say that I feel like I should be part of the ace community, since I’m not ace, but I feel like they throw aros under the bus a lot. I mean, we’ve all seen the “asexuals can feel love, just like anybody else! … oh, except for aroaces, I guess. But the rest of us are normal, so you should accept us!” rhetoric. Both within and outside the aspec communities, aros are rarely treated with the same priority as aces, even though we’re arguably in a much more difficult position than your average allo ace.
That being said, I’m glad there is an aro community at all. I don’t know where I’d be now if I were still questioning. Probably not in a very good place.
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How do you connect to your creative community as an aro-spec person?
As I mentioned, there’s a general lack of interest in gen fics or sympathy for romance-repulsed people in general. It’s really difficult being romance repulsed in fandom spaces, because nobody cares about anything other than ships. There are very few gen fics, and even less that are a decent length, not abandoned, or cater to my specific interests, so I have to write my own. I don’t often have anything good to read; most of the big fics, the ones with cool plots and long word counts and ongoing updates, are ship fics. If I’m lucky, maybe two gen fics will be posted in one week, and maybe one of them will be longer than a few thousand words. Maybe one might even have my favorite characters. But usually genfics are few and far between, and kind of random in terms of what you’ll get. Sometimes I get so bored that I read ship fics anyway, and then I always wind up feeling really awful afterwards.
I’ve written, over the course of the past two years alone, over 20 gen fics. But whenever I vent that sometimes I’d like to actually get to read something, I always get someone telling me, “Well if you want gen fics, write some yourself! You have to make the change! You can’t demand people write stuff for you!” And of course, at the same time it’s totally acceptable to request ship fics from your favorite author, and if you complain that there aren’t enough fics for your rarepair, it’s seen as relatable and totally valid.
Fandom is just … really, really amatonormative, tbh. I hate it. I’m trying to make a difference (I did organize Gen Jojo Week along with my friend Rachel last year, and hopefully will again this year), but there’s only so much I can do.
How can the aro-spec community best help you as a creative?
Aside from reblogging my art and promoting my fics? Talk about stuff. Talk about aro stuff in fandom. Seriously! I know it seems obvious that aro people would like aro headcanons and gen fics and all that, but we need to talk about them more. Nobody outside the community gives enough of a shit about us to have aro headcanons, so let’s get them popular. Talk about your favorite aro headcanons. Talk about your favorite gen fics. Talk about how such-and-such character is totally aro; talk about how excited you are to see aro characters in fics. My dream is for aro headcanons to become just as common and popular as any other type of headcanon.
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Can you share with us something about your current project?
This is old news to most of the people who already know me, but my current big project that I’ve been working on for several years now is Between Life and Death, a drama/horror/supernatural JJBA fic.
(WARNING: PHANTOM BLOOD AND STARDUST CRUSADERS SPOILERS BELOW.)
The plot of the fic is that Dio wins at the end of Stardust Crusaders, and after realizing that he has no hobbies other than harassing the Joestars, he decides to bring Jonathan back by sticking his head (which… we’ll just assume Dio preserved for plot purposes) onto Jotaro’s body. Obviously, Jonathan is NOT happy with this arrangement, but it also turns out that Jotaro’s still alive, just not in control of his body. He can still use his stand, so he essentially uses Star Platinum as a sort of proxy for interacting with the environment around him, even though he only comes out when Jonathan’s alone since he doesn’t want Dio to know he’s alive.
Basically, it’s the story of a depressed vampire and a traumatized ghost. It’s a very introspective fic; most of the story consists of conflicts between Dio and Jonathan, and Jonathan and Jotaro struggling to come to terms with their new existences - Jonathan being unable to reconcile vampirism with his personal morals, and Jotaro having one hell of an identity crisis while also mourning the deaths of his friends and family. The plot is picking up, though, and there is an end goal in mind, as well as an eventual sequel!
As for where the story-in-progress is at right now … well, the next “stage” of the plot is hamon training for Kakyoin and Avdol, which will be fun. This chapter also includes several dream sequences, including an extended appearance by Mary Joestar (Jonathan’s mom), and a very serious and dark scene which I almost ruined by having dream!Will Zeppeli refer to Jonathan as his padawan. Yeah.
Have you any forthcoming works we should look forward to?
As mentioned, I’m working on chapter 9 of Between Life and Death! And working on and off on some stuff for the mutants AU. Most recently, on a whim I rewrote the lyrics to Handbeat Clocktower by MOTHY to be about Jonathan Joestar. Somehow this went far enough that I’m making an actual UTAU rendition of this “parody”, and hopefully it’ll be done sometime in the next few weeks. I’m really having fun with it and I hope people like it!
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surveyhoursss · 3 years
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150.
Character survey:
Your name is unusual where you live.
People often say you are attractive.
You tend to deny compliments that you get.
Other people of your same gender are jealous of your looks.
Your natural hair color is unusual or rare.
Your natural eye color is unusual or rare.
You strongly resemble a certain famous person.
Despite poor eating and/or exercise habits, you are still thin.
Sometimes people worry that you're anorexic, but you're not.
You are cross-cultural. (your parents are from two different countries).
You are half- or part -Oriental.
Even after getting dirty or sweaty, you still look good.
You smell good without cologne, perfume, et cetera.
You have at least one scar with an interesting story behind how you got it.
You have at least one scar or birthmark that is plainly, obviously visible, but doesn't make you look ugly.
When you stare at people or off into space, they almost always (A) feel like you're staring into their soul or reading their mind, (B) think you're up to something, or (C) feel like you know something they either don't know or don't want you to tell.
You don't often get sick.
You often dress impractically (i.e. show up looking gorgeous to a charity event or marathon, somewhere you'd usually dress sloppy and casual).
You stand up for others, even if it means risking your own well-being.
You are brave or daring to the point of recklessness.
Your beliefs are extremely, radically liberal.
You are sarcastic and witty.
You are disrespectful to authority, but only when they deserve it.
You are punished more harshly than others.
You have Antisocial Personality Disorder.
You have ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) or ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyper Disorder).
You are SELF-DIAGNOSED with ADD or ADHD.
Animals love you.
You have a pet cat.
You consider yourself above average intelligence.
You have a glamorous occupation (i.e. lawyer, executive, anything artistic or theatrical, et cetera).
You are a legal adult, have not reached retirement age, and don't have to work for a living.
You fit a certain stereotype (nerd, goth, hipster, "popular" person, et cetera).
You have a very good singing voice.
You play at least one musical instrument.
You have exceptional artistic talent.
Sometimes it seems like you're psychic or telepathic.
You are fluent or near-fluent in more than one language.
You succeed at almost anything you put your mind to.
Your Plan A usually works.
Most everyone underestimates you.
People are jealous of your abilities. (only linguistic skills, I'm not the talented goddess that my close friends are lol)
You have learned martial arts (any kind).
Your parent(s) or guardian(s) aren't (or weren't) very strict.
You possess an important family heirloom.
Your parents trust you, for the most part.
You have a lot of friends and/or are "popular.”
You are angsty.
Certain circumstances of your childhood were strange or unusual.
You suffer "rebellious princess syndrome" (feminism, extreme tomboyishness, et cetera).
You have lied, exaggerated, or de-exaggerated in some of your answers in this quiz to avoid seeming like you're bragging.
TOTAL: 24/50
~ ~ ~
RESULTS
1-9: CAMEO
You're not the sort of person who could be the protagonist of a book or movie, but you're certainly the sort of down-to-earth, matter-of-fact person I'd like to be friends with. You're the "filler characters" who make books and movies possible and probably have their own cool stories going on in the background that we don't know about (but we sure would like to!). Unless you answered "yes" to the bonus question, in which case, you liar, go take the quiz again.
EXAMPLE: Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter, Mai or Ty Lee from Avatar: The Last Airbender
10-19: PROTAGONIST'S BEST FRIEND OR ANTAGONIST'S RIGHT-HAND (WO)MAN
You're more the "protagonist's best friend" than the "protagonist." But that's okay, because the "protagonist's best friend" usually ends up being everyone's favorite character anyways. Why? Because you're the guy everyone can relate to - and, more importantly, you're often the comic relief AND, at times, you're what keeps the plot chugging forward. This category also contains the heroes who have to try extra hard to save the day, like, harder than the average hero (an offhand example of this is Megamind).
EXAMPLES: Hermione Granger or Ron Weasley from Harry Potter, Jack Harkness from Doctor Who
20-29: PROTAGONIST OR ANTAGONIST
You're a good, healthy medium. In a nutshell, you're worth paying attention to: dramatic, but not melodramatic, and different, but not overwhelmingly so. I...should really write a longer description for this, but I'm really tired, so I won't. Just...skip to the examples.
EXAMPLES: Aang from Avatar: The Last Airbender, Dan Phantom from Danny Phantom
30-39: EPIC HERO
An "epic hero" is the protagonist of a story that fits the general "hero's journey cycle.” Epic heroes tend to act a tad more on the unrealistic side (maybe melodramatic, perhaps not always reacting to situations like a normal human being, doing arguably stupid things for the sake of a good cause and in the name of courage / honor / love / family / friendship), but they make up the bulk of really good stories out there. Why? Because epic heroes are interesting, they're dynamic - epic heroes are who we wish we could be, but never actually could be.
EXAMPLES: Harry Potter from Harry Potter, Luke Skywalker from Star Wars, any protagonist who falls into an obvious trap in order to save someone they love
40-51: MARY SUE
Congratulations - you are a perfect (or near-perfect) specimen of human being. Can I have your autograph? But really. Mary Sues are annoying as hell in fiction BECAUSE they're perfect - they're that person you'd give anything to switch lives with. You know. THAT person. There's only one person in existence who generates more jealousy than a Mary Sue, and that is Batman. Because he's Batman!
EXAMPLES: Lily Evans from Harry Potter, Astrid from How to Train Your Dragon, Annabeth from Percy Jackson & the Olympians
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mediocrereview · 7 years
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LEGO Deadpool Review + Comparison to Fake
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by Simple Cash
The year was 2012. LEGO released set #6866-1 “Wolverine’s Chopper Showdown” as part of their Marvel Superheroes line. Meanwhile, a 15 year old me was reading Deadpool comics in high school, loving the character more and more as I read.
Why is this relevant? Because, it is. Deadpool is one of the most influential characters in my humble opinion; he’s a mixture of wisdom hidden behind an extremely thick layer of madness and insanity. Growing up with ADHD (and still, to the day) I always found comfort in Deadpool’s way of being, he’s been a hero to me in that way. Anyway, you guys probably know by now that I absolutely love LEGO mini figures, specially those based on characters I love.
I found out a couple of years ago that there was a LEGO Deadpool minifigure, but by the time I found it, the set was long retired and discontinued. Bummer. If you didn't know, discontinued LEGO products (sets, minifigures) can get really pricey, and over time, prices only get higher.
By the time I started looking for the minifigure online prices ranged from $60-80, so that was a big “NO” for me. I had been looking for this minifigure everywhere, I even joined several online communities of people who sell, trade and look for minifigures. Nothing. I ended up giving up and buying a replica for my sake, but it wasn’t what I was looking for.
This week, while browsing such communities, I found what I had been looking for. There was this guy selling the original LEGO Deadpool minifigure at a price I couldn’t resist: $20. I was kind of skeptic about it, I thought to myself “$20? It must be beaten up and deteriorated”, but I messaged the guy anyway. He was really friendly and sent me pictures quickly, and I was convinced. Sure, there’s some very discrete wearing on the printing, but it’s minimal and it was (in my opinion) in a great condition. 
So, after closing the deal, I picked up the little guy today, and I’m extremely happy. I wish I could give this to 15 year old me, he would love it. Now, without further ado, I will be reviewing my new treasure and comparing it to the old replica I got before, just for comparing sake and to make sure you guys get the real deal if you ever purchase a LEGO Deadpool minifigure, since there have been many cases of people ordering the real one and getting a fake one delivered, paying full price.
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Ah, the simplicity. As you guys can see, this iteration of Deadpool is based off the comics and is actually very faithful to his original design. The mask printing is splendid, and while it would have been nice to get a more “expressive” set of eyes, I’d rather have these; it gives Deadpool a more neutral look for both play and photography. 
The torso is fantastic, it has the classic LEGO Marvel Superhero six-pack, and of course, Deadpool’s utility belt with his signature Deadpool buckle. Speaking about the belt itself, its pretty simple, yet detailed enough. We get two pouches on each side, and I’m actually surprised at the level of detail of such pouches. We get some nice waist printing that continues with his leg printing, and on the right leg, we get two more pouches, but these are silver colored rather than red.
Here’s a front look at Deadpool without his swords or sword holster on:
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Now, let’s take a look at the back:
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When it comes to Deadpool, there’s no such thing as too much pouches (he even jokes about this in Ultimate Spider-Man’s “Ultimate Deadpool” episode!) so I’m really glad that LEGO decided to put so much love into this design and continued the belt at the back with more pouches. We get some nice back muscle printing, and I think it would have looked weird if it didn't have it.
Ok, now we’re going to take a look at the fake Deadpool minifigure:
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Ok, so straight out of the box, the differences are obvious to the observing eye (wow, that’s deep). Let’s start from the top: the eyes. The one thing I can’t seem to look past is the way the eyes end in the top, it looks really sharp while it should be rounded, just like in the original. Now, the torso has some clear differences. First of all, the fake Deadpool’s muscle details, aside from not being proportional to the original, are printed in a more lightish red, whereas the original one has dark red detailing, which, in my opinion, is more fitting. The belt printing in the fake minifigure is nowhere near as good as the original, it looks blurry and cramped up. Oh, and you can clearly see that it is missing the “top line” that is supposed to show where his pecs start; odd, cannot unsee.
We are also missing his waist printing, which makes the black printing on his legs look weird and out of place.
Now, let’s take a look at the back:
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Again, we’re missing the top line that defines Deadpool’s scapulas, and the details are printed in that weird light red (almost white) color. The pouches on the back look blurry and cramped up just like the front ones, which is something I can't oversee. Also, if you take a close look, you can see that the back printing is off to the right side (at least on this particular minifigure, I haven’t seen any more of these copies). 
Quality wise, no-one can beat LEGO. This replica feels too light, and the plastic used is, to a certain extent, translucent. The sword holster is choppy, getting the swords in and out is a difficult task.
Bottom line: if you find a good deal on the original, be sure to take it. Nothing compares to it, specially if you are fascinated with it the way I am.
This is it for this review guys, thanks a lot for reading through all of my blabbering, it’s just that I’m really passionate about Deadpool, he holds a special meaning for me.
Take care guys, until next time!
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kietamitai · 7 years
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An extremely long vent and personal thoughts post
I have to title it because it is what it is. And honestly, I’m going to explain everything that’s been going on with my personal feelings, mental/emotional state, and current situation. 
I have somewhat vented/talked about this on twitter but making a long post on my blog seems to be much better. This is likely to be my last resort of anything. Nothing bad will happen but this is to tell you that I am currently not in a good mood.
All I ask is that if you read the post, just like the post. And maybe give it a few days before asking if I am alright. DO NOT REPLY TO THIS OR SEND ME A MESSAGE I BEG OF YOU (I am not saying it to be avoidant like I will end up sounding angry if you do).
Don’t read it if you’re not in the right mood to read it. It has some questionable bits but yeah.
OK so on the first and forefront of current situation cause it’s probably the shortest.
Personally speaking, nothing is happening at home, however, I am left with a vague sense of I have to do something because everyone in the family sees me as lazy and undisciplined.
I am worried that if I started to move, that everything is going to go pretty bad. This fear is completely normal on any standard, but the problem is that this feeling is immensely different from what people may think.
Since I had recently learned about people with ADHD having Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD), everything I have experienced up until this point finally makes sense.
It is that fear of unwanted “rejection” and “negative response/feedback.”
Needless to say, some things have happened in the past that drastically shaped who I am today and my rather laid back personality, but this fear of failure came as a result. It can sometimes make me immobile.
When I get paranoid over whether or not I fuck something up, I LITERALLY FREAK OUT SOMETIMES OK?
But aside from this foreboding feeling about needing to do something (which will come in due time because I have a feeling that I’ll take that step out there sooner or later), here’s the more social part of the situation.
After what feels like I offended a friend and some what apologizing and owning up to my own reactions, I sorta ended getting slapped in the face with them implying that they don’t care. Like, I have a feeling that it’s not what they actually meant, but it’s also quite obvious that if I tried to ask for clarification, I will get yelled at for being stupid and I HATE THAT THE MOST CAUSE I GET THAT A LOT.
And this is just on the personal side of things— I dunno what their intentions or implications are. They just don’t seem to want to say that it is possibly their fault that it happened, even when I pointed it out that it is. And well, they seem to have misinterpreted the whole point of my message as well, but I just gave up on even trying to clarify myself any further cause I just woke up from a nap at the time and I almost didn’t even want to respond to that with the way they word it.
I’d rather not go into detail about that since it is an insanely minor thing, but with the way they sorta avoid me in general, it just feels like they’re scared of me or something. I’m not one to push on to make someone uncomfortable for answers so if they read this and recognize it’s them, good job I guess? 
I’m probably not on their radar anyways cause they got their own shit to worry about, so really, I’d only be surprised if they ended up reading this pile of mess and then going up to my IM/ask and be like, “You fuck ass are u talking shit about me?”
On that, it is only complicated feelings coming from me. I’m not here to shit on someone for their circumstances, but in the meantime, I’m avoiding them cause like I feel like if I start talking again, I WILL FUCK UP REALLY BADLY or even worse, THEY WILL FLAT OUT JUST IGNORE ME.
My answer will most likely not be positive with them specifically if questioned in such a rude way.
And RSD likes to make things worse on the social side of things even if I simply just want to check up on them and ask if they’re doing alright. Similar situations has happened before, and when that happens, trust me, that’s when I know a friendship isn’t meant to be. I am not distant because I don’t know how to get close to people.
It’s happened too many times. Really, even if it hurts, I have to stop caring and let it go.
But on that regard, after talking to some more people, I end up getting this feeling of... isolation. I had read somewhere that ADHD may make it so that it ends up feeling like I can’t connect to people.
It sorta reels in the whole experience.
It isn’t like I want their kind of friendship, but in any friendship, I can tell that I don’t get a lot of attention. It’s like seeing a friend connect to another friend better than you can connect to either of them. I’ve always been left alone a lot so honestly, it’s nothing new.
I don’t like it when people are too too clingy to me but when they’re insanely distant, it makes me feel like my existence is just around for them to waste time.
In most cases, I just end up asking for people to say hi to me or something and get no response. Well, I know everyone has lives to run, but it doesn’t stop me from feeling insanely bitter or even bad to the point where I feel like I’ve been annoying and trying too hard and people are just FED UP with my antics and choosing to ignore me. 
After a while, you get used to the feeling and you stop caring.
But in summary, if I had done a small mistake that warranted a negative response (or in a way I perceive it as negative) then I will remember that for a long time and my fear is that you’ll bring it up again cause by that time, you’ve already seen me in a different light and you’ll probably subconsciously remember it and maybe bring it up subtly where I’ll be like “o fuck did I fuck up again” and PARANOIA ENSUES.
Another summary is that I’ve been feeling like I’m lacking a sense of self again.
This isn’t an uncommon dilemma. I’ve never given it much thought as long as I can make it believable to an extent. I stopped caring because I’ve been disciplined a lot for smaller things and been compared.
Not to mention a big part of it happened when the grandma I live with decided to berate me one day. That was the day I felt like a stranger to my own family.
I’ve been living with constant less praise and more reprimanding. When people praise me, I am happy, but I am always left feeling that I am deceiving them.
People call me one thing but I dunno which am I. I have come to find out that it is who I am. I am probably like a chameleon lol
But really, I have a terrible sense of self and sometimes when I really think about it, I have no idea what really makes up me. I’ve been collecting and amassing different personalities and stuff like that.
Perhaps that knowledge is how I come to understand people fairly easily.
The more I try to find out more about myself, the more I end up losing a sense of who I am. The less I try, the more I end up feeling like nothing.
My feelings of being worthless isn’t because of any emotional reason, it is a fairly logical reason. I am simply not someone that resources should go to.
In fact, sometimes I wish I can suffer, but apparently, I can’t have that either. It takes too much time for me to just make myself suffer, it’s just easier to do nothing. I don’t even have the energy to make myself hated enough to want to be forgotten. 
From drifting between being worthless and having my mistakes rebound on me, making it more than enough for me to want to stab myself, to feeling just slightly better about my day, it has been kinda tough.
Sometimes it’s not that I want to think about it and sometimes it just happens as a thought. But sometimes, something triggers my thoughts.
I’ve been having a lot of thoughts and well I’ve started to notice that it’s making me less likely to do stuff I wanted to do or just to do anything at all.
I am for once getting in to a unstable state of mind.
It could be that I am drained from watching my other grandma for the past month and a half, or that I feel like I’m being RUSHED to do something people expect me to do.
I don’t know if what I’m thinking about doing is the right choice.
I’m not sure if I’m important to people anymore. I feel like an expendable. Do people even care about me enough to understand how I feel? Do people know me enough to tell me, they know me? Do people really know who I am?
I’m beginning to wonder if I’m joking about dying or not. It sometimes feels like it’d be better if I can somehow die and be forgotten.
None of these feelings are new, perhaps maybe thinking that death is a fiscally better and logical option might be something a little more new.
I don’t know any more at times. My feelings tend to fluctuate daily and I have days where I’m a little better off then most lol
It’s probably also this bad because jet lag and some stuff making me really anxious??
I dunno but since I was getting distracted, I have no idea what I wanted to type by the time I got to this point. But I’ll end off with something—
I’ve always felt pretty meh about life. Perhaps MAYBE due to ADHD, it may influence my own ability to stay emotionally attached/devoted for too long. It’s almost like feeling you’re both half full and half empty when I’m not feeling anything really. But I guess it was better than the me before I turned 20.
Perhaps that’s just me. I haven’t been feeling like... myself.
It’s a little hard to explain, but what else can I do than to wait it out?
I never experience a feeling for long anyways lol
My days have been feeling kinda dreadful and tiring. Idk if I can keep up with people in general anymore.
This is probably what I get for being who I am.
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it took me a little while to write anything summarizing the past decade (more impressive than just the previous year) and then I still meant to write something about goals for 2020, and now it’s February and I only just finished writing this post but you know what, that is fine, especially given that I’ve been thinking about some of this stuff for...I don’t know, a while.
so...goals. I don’t think I’ve ever made actual New Year resolutions because I know myself well enough to know I’d be setting myself up for failure, but I’ve usually had some vague goals in mind anyway. and if I focus on specific things, most of it really isn’t new. it’s like…finish more fics (especially short fics). finish more games (especially short games, free games, and walking simulators, double-especially when those categories overlap). get ADHD help. exercise consistently. figure out more stuff to list on Etsy that hits the magic sweet spot of reasonable effort-to-profit ratio (ideally, something I can make a lot of and then just sell, which I was hoping the Pride Cap stuff would be but there hasn’t been a lot of interest). somehow get my room into functional shape, which means organizing but also requires getting rid of a ton of shit so I actually have room for things. finish more personal customizing/craft projects, particularly more Loki figures. do what I can for the 2020 elections, gulp. but also, get enough sleep so I’m not exhausted ALL THE TIME, and try to manage my stress levels better, so basically if I want to do all of this, it boils down to “learn to manage my time perfectly, somehow”.
and like…those are good goals, in theory. I will definitely at least do some of those things. ideally I will do all of them, although that seems kind of unlikely, given that “more” is really not specific enough (but being specific is also hard, because it requires a lot of thought and decisions ahead of time and that’s also stressful…and it means I can concretely fall short, instead of being able to decide “no, actually, I did do enough to qualify for my vague goals so guess what brain, you can shut up”). on one level or another these are all things I want to do, even.
but the thing about a list like this is…well, it’s a list of goals, first of all, not a plan for achieving those goals, and that’s hard for the same reason being more specific is hard. Trying to make plans and concrete goals kind of makes my brain panic, which I hope is part of the whole ADHD thing so maybe I can get help for that, who knows. The bigger thing is that this list of goals isn’t really new, as I mentioned, which indicates I haven’t done too well in recent years at knocking off anything on the list, and it’s also...missing the bigger picture.
I have this idea, right, that if I let myself get away with not doing things I should do, I’ll have no motivation to do the things. in theory that sounds kind of reasonable, but what it means in practice is that when I fuck up, I hate myself for it. I’m a little better about this than I used to be–back in college I distinctly remember that I would berate myself for stuff as small as not finding the closest parking spot, and I recognized how ridiculous that was and mostly managed to stop. but I still do it with the chronic issues I can’t seem to get away from, like always being tired because I never get to bed at a good time, or often being late to appointments, or getting stressed over deadlines because I wait until the last minute to do most of the work, or how my room is a disaster and I hate the fact that I can’t find anything but I don’t know what to do about it because there’s not enough room for everything and I want to keep all of it, or meaning to work out but instead scrolling Tumblr on my phone for a while until it’s so late I just need to go home, or frequently getting charged interest on my credit cards because I don’t stay on top of paying them off, or spending a ton of time re-reading fic or scrolling Tumblr and using up all the time I could’ve spent on things I actually needed or wanted to do, or losing money because I didn’t think of something obvious or slacked off on preventative measures or forgot about a good coupon/deal until after it expired, or missing out on an opportunity because I forgot about it or kept putting it off, or getting awful headaches every weekend because I spend too much time in bed and then too much time just kind of fucking around on the computer or my phone and let myself get dehydrated, or having big plans of actually accomplishing things over the weekend and not doing them for the same reason, or…well, any of the other ways I fall short. and if the specific instance is unusually bad/consequential, or my brain is already bad from something else and I get into a spiral of fixating on all the ways I fall short, I basically just…get stuck on the self-loathing. and even when I recognize I’m doing this and it’s not good, I think part of the reason I have such a hard time breaking out of the spiral is that idea that I can’t just let myself get away with fucking up and failing to do things because how else will I learn to stop?
there’s probably a lot of mess in my upbringing (conservative evangelical/fundie stuff in general, my family specifically, and then the ways all those issues were exacerbated or at least perpetuated by my two years at a private Christian school and four years in a weird leadership track of the Honors program in college) that could be blamed for this, and it’s the sort of thing I’ve unpacked some with therapists and should do so again, assuming I can ever find a long-term therapist lolsob. and again, there’s a kernel of a reasonable idea in there: there are loads of things I don’t necessarily want to do but that are important to do anyway, and other things where the process isn’t necessarily the most fun but the end result is genuinely worth it, so I can’t just...decide that it’s fine if I never do anything. like, for extremely obvious reasons, I can’t decide I’m going to practice self-care by quitting my job and spending every day on the couch playing video games, or that I’m never going to walk my dog unless I feel like it, or that I’m going to stop doing the exercises that might help my neck/head pain in the long term because I dislike them in the short term. equally, I don’t want to quit every game I play the second I get a little frustrated, because then I would literally never finish any of them, including all my favorites; I don’t want to quit writing just because some parts aren’t actively fun; I want to complete more customizing/craft projects even if that process also isn’t always actively fun. and sometimes it’s tough to recognize the difference, when it’s healthy to say “actually I’m not going to push myself on this” and when it’s important to say “yeah, this isn’t fun, but the result is worth it so we’re gonna push it anyway”. it’s often really tough, in fact! probably trying to figure out this difference is something else I need to bring up with a therapist, because obviously I have a very hard time identifying it!
but. but. engaging in what is essentially (mostly subconscious, but still) self-harm by hating myself for fucking up–well, even if we’re looking at it from a solely practical perspective, there’s a big and obvious problem that you may have noticed from the long list of things I keep doing even as I know I shouldn’t:
if punishing myself with self-loathing is a necessary deterrent for various ways of fucking up, but also I keep fucking up in the exact same ways, then obviously it doesn’t fucking work. not only that, it’s actively counter-productive, because when I start hating myself for fucking up, I become incapable of doing pretty much anything—all my energy gets absorbed into the spiral of self-loathing. and honestly I’m probably also teaching my brain to associate these things I need to do with the pain of hating myself for not doing them, which makes my negative response to those things even stronger.
this boils down to something really simple that I’ve been trying to get through my skull: I cannot hate myself into becoming a better person. I shouldn’t, for many reasons, but I also just can’t, as in it literally isn’t possible, and I think I’ve pretty conclusively proven that, based on the fact that...you know...I’m still fucking up in all the exact same ways. so I can’t hate myself into becoming a better person. and that leaves, maybe, trying to forgive myself more, and work with myself instead of focusing on how I should be doing things, and trying not to feel apologetic or guilty for having preferences or not being “good enough” or what the fuck ever.
I want to work on a lot of things, yeah. I’m dissatisfied with a lot of things that are, in theory, within my power to fix, so I would like to do what I can to fix them. but instead of constantly getting down on myself for being slow with everything, for instance, maybe I can say that I tend to be methodical and I like to take my time. (and also for instance, instead of shitting on myself for posting this at the beginning of February, I can just shrug because years are a human construct and it seriously doesn’t matter.) instead of feeling like I should preface anything I say about most of my interests with a disclaimer that I know it’s silly, maybe I can...not do that, and just have hobbies and preferences. instead of hating myself every time I fuck up, maybe I can forgive myself and try again.
so. that’s what I want to try to do more in 2020. apologize less for existing. forgive myself more. maybe get some shit done in the process.
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