Fic Masterpost

Current Main Fandom(s): Transformers

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ben-learns-smth:

I always bring a book just in case but today I forgot and now I’m bored on the train, so

what is the one (1) thing you always bring with you that isn’t your phone, wallet, or keys?

a book

a snack

a drink

a fidget toy

headphones/earphones

an extra piece of clothing (jacket, sweater, ..)

a hat/cap

none of these, it’s actually… (tags pls!)

actually two or more are integral to my survival (tags pls!)

show results

reblogs appreciated!

(via violaceum-vitellina-viridis)

01018000:

I want you to write for pleasure—to play. Just listen to the sounds and rhythms of the sentences you write and play with them, like a kid with a kazoo. This isn’t “free writing,” but it’s similar in that you’re relaxing control: you’re encouraging the words themselves—the sounds of them, the beats and echoes—to lead you on. For the moment, forget all the good advice that says good style is invisible, good art conceals art. Show off! Use the whole orchestra our wonderful language offers us! Write it for children, if that’s the way you can give yourself permission to do it. Write it for your ancestors. Use any narrating voice you like. If you’re familiar with a dialect or accent, use it instead of vanilla English. Be very noisy, or be hushed. Try to reproduce the action in the jerky or flowing movement of the words. Make what happens happen in the sounds of the words, the rhythms of the sentences. Have fun, cut loose, play around, repeat, invent, feel free.

Ursula K. Le Guin, Steering The Craft

(via iguessyouregonnamissthepantyraid)

andhumanslovedstories:

andhumanslovedstories:

Would your twelve year old self like who you are today, and sorry no nuance allowed you have to pick one

Yes

No

And you can make the rubric for this question whatever you want. My personal one was that young me would be horrified to know she became current me, but that’s because I imagine it’d be quite horrible to a child learning and growing to no longer get to wonder who you’ll be when you grow up, and I think if she and I just like met somehow, she’d think I was a cool adult. Like one of those teachers you get to banter with a little.

(via violaceum-vitellina-viridis)

whilomm:

hm. poll. bc a streamer i watch mentioned “getting dressed” to spend all day at home playing a video game

when youre just chilling at home (like on days off) do you “get dressed/put on real clothes” after u wake up or stay in pajamas

no, pjs all day

i might put a bra on (or st) but otherwise nah, pjs

sometimes, depends on the day

yes always. do other ppl. not change when you wake up??

bitch i dont even comb my hair im not putting on real clothes

im one of those freaks that sleeps in blue jeans so guess im already dressed

change from night comfy to day comfy (pjs to sweatpants)

i sleep in blue jeans AND change into diff ones (extra freak option.)

secret third option in the tags idk

(NOTE: for the purposes of this poll “real clothes”=whatever u would wear outside normally, pajamas=whatever ur comfy sleep clothes are. could be actual fancii pajamas could be boxers and a big shirt i dont care. if you sleep naked idk man)

(via ruffboijuliaburnsides)

alexseanchai:

melondy-rose:

Got into an argument at work so help me settle the debate

Lying, Wrong, and Mistaken are all interchangeable

Lying and Wrong are the same but Mistaken is different

Mistaken and Wrong are interchangeable but Lying is different

Lying, Wrong and Mistaken all mean something different

“wrong” can mean the same thing as either “mistaken” or “lying” or a couple other things, kind of like how blue can mean the same thing as several things such as cerulean or navy

“mistaken” requires not being aware the thing one said is not true, sometimes with and sometimes without an implication that one should have known better

“lying” requires knowing the thing is untrue and saying it anyway, usually with intent to deceive (though also usually knowing something is untrue and saying it anyway without intent to deceive is called something else, such as a shitpost, or whatever the word is for collaborative performance art projects such as Goncharov)

(via jackironsides)

catgirlcowboy:

rb this n tell me what is the same and what is diff abt ur relationship to ur gender n sexual identity compared to urself 7 years ago :3c

(via redwinterbloom)

asha-mage:

What is your Toxic Writer Trait?

it’s not a run on sentence if I use enough commas

better to capitalize to much then not enough

I dare not repeat this single word to often, to the thesaurus!

better my prose read like a text book rather then have someone call it purple

feedback WILL include “the setting feels like a character” so help me GOD

their is no such thing as to much fun with italics and bolding

so what if my barely literate farmboy talks like he got a high school education?

i had to think up socioeconomics for this STUPID world, you WILL hear about it

it’s my story and I’ll include my thinly veiled fetish if I want too

other (specify in tags)

(via eighthdoctor)

Reblog if you’ve found friendship because of your fandoms.

(via crushcandles)

Tags: yeah!

idealism-sits-in-prison:

In connection to my hobbies poll and making it a little positive, which physical activity are you MOST likely to enjoy*? *I am STRESSING on the fact that competition is NOT a necessary part of enjoying a physical activity as a hobby (unless you genuinely enjoy that, then go wild)

Running/jogging 🏃‍♂️🏃

Wilderness exploration (Hiking ⛰️, rock climbing 🧗, camping)

Team sports (Football, hockey, roller derby ⚽️🏑)

Water-based sports (surfing, swimming, water volleyball 🏄🏊🤽‍♀️)

Individual sports (archery, biking, skateboarding, bowling 🚵‍♀️)

Cold/ice sports (ice skating, sledding, ice hockey ⛸️🎿🛷)

Martial arts (karate, MMA, judo🥋)

Gym activities (weightlifting, cardio, pilates, zoomba)*

Niche physical activity in my area //Not in other categories

I can’t/don’t do (any) physical activities

The categories are extremely arbitrary and most likely incorrect. Bare with it.

(*) - activities that tend to be done in a gym studio of sorts

(via iguessyouregonnamissthepantyraid)

sophia-sol:

A “don’t need to know canon” rec list

I was having a conversation with some folks on mastodon a little while ago about the practice of reading fics for fandoms you’re not familiar with, and why it works for some people and not others. I understand both approaches, but I am firmly in the camp of being happy to read a fic whether I know the fandom or not, as long as it looks interesting to me!

The particular pleasures are different, but both ways are good: fic about fandoms you know is pleasurably wallowing in an ongoing conversation about something you love (…or love to hate), whereas fic for unfamiliar fandoms is having fun eavesdropping on someone else’s conversation and working out a puzzle while enjoying a good story.

But some fics work better than others for reading without canon to contextualize them, and although I’m up for some challenges, you don’t actually have to play this game on hard-mode. So I’m here to provide a rec list of fics I have enjoyed without canon knowledge that I think are more broadly successful for that purpose. I hope you find some to enjoy here too!

Arranged alphabetically by fandom.

The Improbable Future, by marycontraire

6k words, not rated

The fandom: crossover between Boy Meets World and Girl Meets World, which are presumably related to each other, though I don’t even know what medium they are in.

The fic: A story about family, especially the relationship between a preteen girl and the surrogate father figure in her life. Extremely heartwarming!

Sentimental Reasons, by Frostfire

16k words, rated T

The fandom: Casablanca, one of those famous classic black and white movies, about war

The fic: focuses on the story of a character who is a minor character in the original movie, which allows you to follow the story easily without knowing the original. All Sam wants to do with his life is play music, but racism and war have a tendency to intervene. The story revolves around his relationship with another man, Richard. I love Sam, and I love his pov in this fic. It’s an incredible read!

One More Time With Feeling (or, Charlie Brooker and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day), by marginaliana

50k words, rated E

The fandom: british comedians rpf, ft. comedians I’ve never heard of

The fic: Timeloop! The classic groundhog day experience! And this was a really impressively done timeloop fic. I was particularly impressed with how well the character arc for the protagonist went from totally-an-appalling-asshole to only-normal-level-sympathetic-asshole, and how it shows some of the ways that being in a timeloop can be really awful. And yet - happy ending! Impressive.

The Retirement of Gabriel Argent, by Sixthlight

5k words, rated T

The fandom: Daniel Blackland, which is, I believe, a book series?

The fic: is about two characters who are not Daniel Blackland. It’s about finding a way to live a peaceful life that actually makes you happy, when you never thought such a thing would be possible. It’s lovely!

go pick out a white dress, by novembersmith

1k words, rated G

The fandom: Deepwater Bride, by Tamsyn Muir, which I’m guessing is a short story.

The fic: a delightful uhhhh one-sided romance about an eldritch sea monster who is really into a human, much to the dismay of, well, everyone. But the eldritch being will not be disheartened! Such a charming voice.

Hesitation Waltz, by cranialaccessory

20k words, rated T

The fandom: From Eroica With Love, which I know literally nothing about

The fic: Two cold war era spies have to pretend to be married for a case. One of them is flamboyant and foppish, the other is grouchy and bad at acting. Together they learn things about teamwork and trust! (and that they’re into each other.)

confirmation bias, by novembersmith

14k words, rated E

The fandom: Integrate, which I’m guessing is a book

The fic: This is the fic that instantly came to mind when I first thought of making this rec list. I love it. It’s a totally adorable alien/human interspecies romance, from the pov of the alien, who of course finds the human the alien one. Every single thing in the fic is a delight.

Get Up, and Go Forth, by Frostfire

15k words, rated T

The fandom: the tv show Kings, which I once tried and failed to watch, but is loosely based on the biblical story of David and Jonathan

The fic: Hey, it works just fine as bible fanfic instead! (I’m afraid I don’t know how it would read if you aren’t familiar with the biblical story. My parents were rigorous about making sure I would be biblically literate.) The fic focuses on the Jonathan character, here called Jack, as he explores what it means to be on David’s side instead of his father’s. I have reread this fic so many times. It’s just so well done!

A Divinely Attractive Arrangement, by Fahye

6k words, rated T

The fandom: the movie Love and Friendship. I’ve read the book Love and Freindship [sic] but the movie, despite the name, is not actually based on the book!

The fic: featuring the pov of the most amiably oblivious person in the absolutely entire world as he settles into his recent marriage. He’s so genuinely happy about everything in his life! Even as it is obvious to the reader how much the other characters in the story are manipulating him. I love him very much.

This Episode Brought To You By, by ryfkah

6k words, rated T

The fandom: a kdrama, Mr. Queen. Going in I did in fact know a very slim amount about the actual canon, which I believe is a useful starting point for reading the fic: it’s a show about a modern chef who transmigrates into Korean history, into the body of a queen; the queen, meanwhile, ends up in the future in the chef’s body.

The fic: is about both the chef and the queen, as they explore their identity and their desires through the medium of food, and it is a complete delight.

Sweet In the Gale Is Heard, by Toft

11k words, rated T

The fandom: Pegasus, by Robin McKinley, a novel I’ve never read despite generally being a McKinley fan because I heard it ends on a cliffhanger and the sequel was never published.

The fic: A fixit for the cliffhanger! Interspecies romance between a human and a pegasus, and absolutely lovely.

Things Which Catch the Eye, by petrichoral

3k words, rated G

The fandom: The Pillow Book, by Sei Shonagon, which is a book I have heard of often over the years but have never actually read.

The fic: ships Sei Shonagon with another woman who presumably appears in the book as well, showing the arc of their relationship in short snatches that come together skilfully. Truly excellent.

you wait and you wonder who’ll take on your odds, by paperclipbitch

138k words, rated E

The fandom: The Queen’s Gambit, a tv show which I gather is about chess

The fic: An “exes to friends to spouses to lovers” marriage of convenience story. I love how well balanced this is between all the different aspects of things going on: the feelings between Beth and Benny, the working out how to make a life together (separate from the feelings), the chess, the simmering sexual attraction, the other people in Beth’s life who are important to her, and Beth’s understanding of herself. Really good!

Lebenswerk, by Serena

10k words, rated T

The fandom: Sunset Boulevard, a classic movie about movie-making

The fic: A director’s relationship with his star actor, and the things he does and doesn’t choose to prioritize over the years. It is interesting, and also rather uncomfortable in places, in ways that are entirely fitting to the story. I was really captivated by it!

Moab, by Parhelion

13k words, rated G

The fandom: an old-school sci-fi book series called The People, by Zenna Henderson

The fic: reads like a lovely, quiet, thoughtful, and kind original scifi story itself, about a human-looking space alien orphan stranded on earth with supernatural powers he has to hide, raised by a woman he calls Aunt, as he finds his place in the world of the early 20th century.

Transformers Works, by astolat

331k words, ratings ranging from T to E

The fandom: Transformers. A tv show (or multiple?) and toys and possibly other media as well? About robot war.

The fic: this is actually a link to all of astolat’s fics about transformers. Pretty much every transformers fic Astolat has written is basically: given different base assumptions about how the universe works, how to end the war. And I love all of it, omg, both the different choices of worldbuilding in each fic and also the commitment to ending the war. Pick and choose between the fics for what you want to read!

Variations on a Theme from Turandot, by Ada Hoffman

7k words, not rated

The fandom: Turandot, which I’m guessing is an opera, or maybe a ballet?

The fic: A professionally published story which also happens to be fanfic. Does what it says on the tin! I’m not quite sure I followed the ending, but somehow it works like that even so. I found it so interesting.

A Good Bargain, by Neery

11k words, rated E

The fandom: Word of Honor, a wuxia-genre tv show that I have heard goes as hard on gay themes as it possibly could within the censorship rules it was produced under.

The fic: Does the thing where someone enters a marriage of convenience, but takes their marriage vows seriously and is now firmly working on the side of their spouse. And in this case the spouse knows this about them and planned it on purpose! DELIGHTFUL. I adore it.

(via eighthdoctor)

play-now-my-lord:

least favorite genre of post on here has gotta be “having mental illness doesn’t excuse bad behavior” from people with depression/anxiety, who mistakenly believe everyone with psychosis is simply suffering from distorted thinking like they are.

i have the kind of bipolar that causes psychosis under the wrong conditions and it is radically different from the distorted thinking i have when manic or depressed. “distorted thinking” is “there’s nothing wrong with stealing those groceries from a stranger’s car, they won’t catch you and you need it more than them”. “psychosis” is “you’re not stealing those groceries in that stranger’s car, they belong to you and those people are just holding them”. (never mind that “i haven’t eaten in days and they can afford a car” morally complicates either situation for a moment.)

i have been in a state where i earnestly believed things that were radically untrue and they lead me to cause harm to others. these were not minor distortions in an otherwise accurate picture of the world, they were fundamentally incorrect pictures of the world. some of them were fairly innocuous and are largely water under the bridge. some of them were serious and i still feel shame about them now. but i have also seen people hounded to the ends of the earth over shit they did in a delusional state which would be utterly out of character while compos mentis and it feels cosmically unfair.

(via eighthdoctor)

nothing hits like that one part of Holst’s Jupiter

theminecraftbee:

you ever accidentally create a recurring theme in your writing. you start putting together an outline for something you’ve never written before and get partway through planning, rearrange the pieces, and go “GODDAMMIT THIS IS ABOUT GRIEF AGAIN”? because let me tell you,

(via violaceum-vitellina-viridis)

findingfeather:

cassandrasimplex:

echofromtheabyss:

So, if you want to understand the history of ND stuff in any useful kind of way you have to know that we talked about these things differently. Gen Xrs have a different generational experience and Boomers’ is different still.

Prior to the 80s, NDs were really not a thing. The optic was almost entirely in terms of learning disability and intellectual impairment in the 70s.

ADHD - not autism - is really the first we see of anything resembling the modern ND consciousness, as “autistic” was a label reserved for children presenting with severe disability or at minimum, delay.

Autism in the 70s and 80s and before was not culturally adjacent to ADHD or giftedness, it was adjacent to conditions of severe intellectual impairment.

It’s possible to be an 80s ADHD labeled autistic who gets good interventions *because lots of how ADHD was understood at the time, got absorbed by autism later.*

This is basically my story as a matter of fact, a lot of helpful support I got early was via the ADHD pipeline, and so ADHD *is* my “recognized early enough to get meaningful self understanding and meaningful support* narrative, which is a big reason I was ABLE to shrug off autism as a label for about 15 years, until the changing autism stereotypes caught up with me.

ADHD and early issues with visible LD etc are WHY I didn’t end up in the "normal until hospitalized” optic that some autistics I knew ended up in, if they had *only* been seen as gifted. I was very aware of my stuff very early even if it was called something else and even if it will be called something else in the future, and it shaped my social choices, my career choices, etc.

Also there was the optic to Boomers and older that you really could just be a “normal” person or even a high performing “genius” who was just “a little slow as a kid.” (There are many historical figures this actually applies to. “A little slow as a kid” may just be within a *normal* range of child development.) This is actually part of where many Boomers are coming from when they think a certain degree of autism is just normal.

Early labels in adults (whom we would now understand as high masking ASD-1) were more personal history than identity.

To Boomers and older, you were “mentally well” until you presented “mentally ill.” There really wasn’t anything like being ND as we presently understand. Also, the *very same optics* that got boys seen as gifted, invested lots of time and support into, etc, got girls into the clinical pipeline early. The real dx discrepancy between girls and boys in my generation and older is the degree to which cis het white rich boys were just allowed to not be anything at all while girls were immediately tagged as mentally ill or developmentally disabled with the very same presentation, even within the same family. My grandmother who was a victim of this, and heavily and deeply abused from early childhood, is the sister of my physicist uncle who was on the Manhattan Project and was odd but successful, had a wife and family, never labeled anything at all.

Lots of people we now see as autistic were just considered normal gifted people who then had a “nervous breakdown” after high school/entering the adult world.

It was possible to be totally ego-syntonic as an odd person until diagnosis, if you were in the 80s gifted pipeline, because if you were in a social set that was actually ALLOWED to be intelligent let alone gifted in the first place (i.e., an upper middle class person, with more weirdness optic allowed for boys) you likely weren’t going to be diagnosed with ANYTHING unless you were Weird with a Capital W.

That I had any kind of optic besides just being Gifted is *because* despite high IQ, I was a poor academic performer, and *couldn’t* mask well inside a school setting.

These are people without even that optic.

They literally were just seen as gifted, and it was assumed that - of course - highly gifted people were a little weird. Gifted optic in school meant access to a whole different social and academic pipeline consisting hugely of other people we would now understand as ND, so it’s actually possible to come out of that being totally ego-syntonic, and never ever even seek diagnosis until something breaks.

If you’re like my ex husband who ended up just going away to sea for years, and then becoming a programmer in a basement at a university, you might never get diagnosed with anything, especially if you never see yourself as the problem in any of your interpersonal interactions, and that was a FAR more common optic with gifted white Gen X and Jones ASD-1 boys than early dx was.

The thing for my generation isnt the degree to which boys were diagnosed over girls… quite the opposite, it’s the degree to which smart white rich boys were just *allowed* to be odd and given tons of concessions *without* being labeled ANYTHING, because of the degree to which the culture saw that boy was probably a future curer of cancer or a future astronaut.

A chunk of the “NT [more likely, high masking autist] woman miserably married to ASD man” narrative on those websites like FAAAS is actually referring to men who don’t have any diagnostic label whatsoever and don’t understand themselves as the problem, if you actually read the stories.

Those guys don’t get diagnosed until something actually breaks - like, their wife hauls them into couples counseling, or they have finally exhausted their supply of good will (many social compensations of gifted children stop working past one’s 20s and that’s actually when my dx happened too).

Interpersonal problems weren’t enough for dx unless they actually bothered a person enough to seek help. Something has to break. You don’t end up with a diagnosis because you’re happy and adjusted, no matter how odd you are.

Please ask Boomers about nervous breakdowns because half the time this is referring to what we now understand as autistic burnout.

This describes exactly the Gen X AuDHD background I come from. I was read as female and “weird” to a degree initially acceptable to adults (for a gifted child) but even though testing in 3rd grade indicated I DEFINITELY had some kind of learning disability, it was shrugged off as irrelevant because “her strengths can more than make up for her weaknesses, so some things will just be a little harder for her.”

Then I spent another decade in school being resented when I did well (because “everything’s so easy for her”) AND resented when I did poorly (because “it’s about time she had to learn how hard everyone else has to work” or possibly just “we know she’s smarter than that so obviously she’s just not taking this seriously and needs to learn a lesson about real life”).

I was FINALLY diagnosed with a specific learning disability right before my senior year of high school, the first semester after the ADA went into effect. Which is another thing OP didn’t go into – up until about halfway through Gen X, you’re looking at neurodivergent people who went through their ENTIRE school year without any protection from the ADA because it didn’t exist yet.

I was diagnosed with Central Auditory Processing Disorder (now just auditory processing disorder, but at the time, “central” was used to indicate that this was a central nervous system, aka brain, issue, rather than a problem with the physical apparatus of hearing). The support offered me was… Well, wait until we get there.

I was also diagnosed with “general learning disability” and “math specific learning disability”, later recognized as ADHD and dyscalculia. Neuropsych testing suggests I’m also dyslexic, but that’s an area where most of the time my cognitive strengths DO make up for my weaknesses; I don’t encounter difficulty reading until something else is taking up a HUGE swath of spare processor cycles, like a migraine or autistic burnout.

First semester post-ADA, my high school’s response – keeping in mind I’d been in their gifted/talented program since the third-grade testing, taking “honors” (g/t) or AP courses all three previous years of high school, had a GPA around 5.5 thanks to honors/AP classes continuing for more, and was by all measures an academically gifted student “with an attitude problem” (that “needs to work hard like everybody else” bias) – my high school’s response was that they could put me in the Special Education program, which would completely remove me from the normal curriculum and prevent me from graduating with a high school diploma, replacing it with a “intellectually disabled person ready for basic menial work at less than minimum wage” certificate, or they could just pretend they didn’t know I had learning disabilities and GRACIOUSLY ALLOW ME to keep taking classes with my “normal” peers.

This is the kind of thing that leads to the “mental breakdown”/burnout stories OP refers to. Would you rather be labeled uneducable or TRY HARDER to keep the school from noticing you have learning disabilities, which in this case means not just doing as well as your peers (because you’re GIFTED!) but consistently better, in order to hide your disabilities?

My neurodivergence became a lever the school system used to force me to work harder and harder with less support than my peers because I was “too gifted” to be taking attention away from my “less blessed” peers.

It wasn’t until after I’d already struggled through a third semester of college and been asked not to “embarrass [my]self” by enrolling for a fourth semester that my parents sprang for more testing and I was diagnosed with ADHD.

It was the year before Asperger’s Syndrome entered diagnostic labels with the DSM-IV, and my psych was reluctant to give me the only label available – autistic – because that would only serve to bar me from re-entering college, not gain me support and ADA accommodations. I was diagnosed as autistic, just not with a diagnostic code that could be used to force schools to provide accommodations.

Migraines recently ended my FIFTH attempt to finish my degree, which I’ve been working at on and off for 30 years. This last time, I hit a new record, making it five semesters in before the school told me to “take some time off” (require less support), this time immediately after the end of the term in which I finally submitted the audiologist’s report documenting my auditory processing disorder because my counselor insisted on weekly phone calls I could barely follow and refused to communicate by email or chat, which would have provided the text record I needed. I mean, they changed my counselor to one from the disabled student services department for the rest of the term; that was just the last term they let me take.

So its still going on. The individual ableism and systemic ableism reinforce reach other. I had one teacher my senior year of high school who actually gave a shit about my diagnoses and started doing things like handing out written lists of problems to do for homework, just to everybody, the entire class, without saying why – just so I didn’t have to struggle with the auditory and math disabilities simultaneously to write down the correct problem numbers when she read them out loud.

But by far the more common experience was that when teachers found out I had learning disabilities, they didn’t drop the resentment about things that came easily to me; they just forgot I was capable of them while holding onto the idea that I never “took school seriously” and adding the idea that I was ineducable and fundamentally incompetent.

The main difference is that during high school, I had no words to fight back with, to keep those attitudes from sinking into my own self-image and convincing me that since everyone else seemed to believe these things of me, they must be true. I truly believed I was a waste of teachers’ time both because I could not learn and because I could not work hard enough.

Meanwhile, fellow gifted/talented students who were definitely fellow autistic and/or ADHD students but also read as male were just “quirky”. You know, as geniuses are expected to be! And of course things came easily to them, since they were geniuses; that was only to be expected. Not a character flaw to find things easy. And most of them didn’t need to seek diagnosis, because there was an immediate understanding that being AMAZING at one thing, like math, didn’t automatically mean they had the same savant capabilities in all their classes; they were allowed to be ready for calculus as juniors or seniors while still struggling with history or art. They were allowed to be good at only a few things, and even bad at one or two.

Which is, of course, deeply ironic since the diagnostic criteria were BASED ON THEM to a degree that prevented girls and women from being diagnosed with anything but mental illness or “attitude problems”.

I will also note that an awful lot of those “quirky” boys and men were still incredibly isolated socially, deeply unhappy thru depressed, and often did meet very abrupt end to tolerance of their “quirks” when they didn’t “deliver” on the “promise” that they supposedly showed - which OFTEN happened after HS and the awareness of which was something the ones that managed to stay on top were aware of: that the minute they weren’t Special Enough anymore, they were Fucked.

They aged out into substance abuse (often alcohol) and depression; into social and interpersonal isolation and its usual damages. They absolutely became miserable partners or even That One Asshole Bachelor Uncle. And that was shit for anyone around them, but it was also shit for them, and their context of internalized ablism is so intense that figuring things out around this context is often anathema.

and this part: “they were allowed to be ready for calculus as juniors or seniors while still struggling with history or art. They were allowed to be good at only a few things, and even bad at one or two.”?

That only applied if they were good at the RIGHT things. Which were of course whatever things the adults and culture around them valued: sure, fine if it was calculus you were good at and history you weren’t, but not if it was art you were good at and science you failed miserably with, or specific areas of social history that were fascinating and everything else terrible. Or if you could be good at all of them but only if you weren’t made so anxious you couldn’t think…While most of the world is making you anxious.

I note this mostly because it’s easy to read these kinds of things (which are not wrong!) and get the idea that the intense ablism didn’t hurt These Guys; that because the scenario that OP describes (accurately!) happens, that this means they turned out okay, or that even if they were a PITA to deal with, they were happy.

They were mostly miserable and the range of boys who “got away” with being that way is even narrower than “white, straight/cis presenting and gifted” already implied. The rest of us absolutely caught even MORE shit, but it wasn’t actually okay for these guys either.

(via eighthdoctor)

ruffboijuliaburnsides:

max-anxiety:

theminecraftbee:

you ever accidentally create a recurring theme in your writing. you start putting together an outline for something you’ve never written before and get partway through planning, rearrange the pieces, and go “GODDAMMIT THIS IS ABOUT GRIEF AGAIN”? because let me tell you,

Maybe it has something to do with some deep seeded problem your subconscious is cry out about.

…I mean or maybe it’s just that OP finds the exploration of grief compelling? Like many people do, regardless of if they’ve experienced it or not?

Not everything’s about personal trauma.

Also like. Even if it is about personal trauma, that doesn’t make writing about it bad.