#this goes beyond me hating this pov but it's actively making me uncomfortable | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rushingheadlong · 4 years

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3 and 6 for the writer's asks ❤

Thanks!! I just answered 6 so I’m just gonna copy and paste the same answer here:

6. What character do you have the most fun writing?

Probably Brian or Roger, tbh? They both give really great POVs for stories, though in vastly different ways, and it’s easier to find their voices for me than Freddie or John.

3. What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway)

afsdlkfjakslfkakl GOD THERE ARE SO MANY OF THEM

I keep playing around with various ideas for a sequel to the corset fic that deal with more kink negotiation and relationship details... specifically that Brian really loves the corsets and wants to get more and possibly expand into using them publicly, and the reader is just “woah woah woah, let’s pump the brakes here and figure this out”. and then talk of balancing competing kink needs and wanting to wear the corsets out of scenes and a whole bunch of stuff like that? but that is so much to deal with and I do not have it in me to write another 20k corset fic at the moment.

The potential sequel to Haul Away, You Rolling Queens is going to need a lot of set-up for how exactly Brian’s and Freddie’s magic works, and tbh it’s set-up that needs to happen over one or two separate fics before we actually get into the proper sequel so I’ve put all of that on the backburner until I decide how I want to handle it. (The long and short of it is that I just need to flesh out the abilities that sirens have in this series, and then Brian’s defensive magic isn’t actually “defensive” it’s the ability to hold things together - that’s why his wards weren’t working in the beginning of the fic, but why he could enchant The Rhapsody and the raft during the storm. And there’s a specific scene I have in mind where Brian is working with other sea witches and they realize that that’s how his magic works, but it’s not a scene I can fit into the proper sequel so... *shrugs*)

I have a fic that I’ve been playing around with for months now that focuses on Brian immediately after having surgery to fix his ulcer, specifically dealing with the resulting scar and body image issues because of that? I’ve actually gotten quite a bit written for it too, but the problem I’ve now run into is that I have an opening section that I love but the bulk of the fic would need to take place a year later at Ridge Farm and I can’t be bothered to figure out how to bridge that gap in the timeline to actually make this work adlkfjaslkdlak (but here’s the beginning snippet that I’ve been sitting on for like the last year, in case that’s of interest to anyone)

Brian gets released from the hospital with a strict dietary plan and a bottle of vitamin E oil to massage into his surgical scar, and the uncomfortable feeling of being a stranger in his own body. He’s lucky to be alive, he knows that, just like he knows that this surgery was the only way to save his life - but he still has moments, when he looks down at his disfigured stomach, where he wonders why this is the price he had to pay.

It’s not that it hurts anymore, although it certainly did at first. There were days in the beginning when even breathing would make Brian painfully aware of every stitch holding his stomach together, but that had faded until it only hurt when he laughed, and finally until it didn’t hurt at all.

No, the problem is that it doesn’t feel like anything anymore. It’s a jagged slash of nothing, twisting from below Brian’s navel up to his solar plexus. He runs his fingertips over it, feeling every bump where his skin now puckers together, and there’s no sensation on his abdomen at all. It makes him feel light-headed and a little sick and sometimes, when he touches his scar, he thinks he’s not touching his own body at all.

The doctors had told him to massage it to break down the scar tissue and help it heal smoother and Brian wants that, he really does, but touching this part of himself becomes something that he actively dreads. He doesn’t like feeling the rigid mass of scar tissue beneath his skin, and every time his thumb slips into a crevice that he can’t see his stomach lurches unpleasantly. He hates how it leaves his hands sore, his skin tacky with oil, his fingers twitching from the sensation of touching skin that should be smooth but never will be again.

So Brian stops massaging the scar, and eventually stops touching it at all. He masters the art of getting dressed without looking at his stomach, and then changing his shirt without touching it at all. There’s no avoiding it when he showers but Brian is no stranger to hating his naked body and with enough mental preparation he can scrub himself down without wanting to scream.

His bandmates are understanding, at least as much as they can be considering that Brian doesn’t let them see the scar and refuses to talk about it beyond, “It’s fine, it’s healing well.”

(It’s not entirely a lie, because on the days when Brian can stand to look at his scar he can see the ways in which it is healing. It’s less red, less irritated, but it’s no less scarred and no less numb - and no amount of improvement makes Brian feel more at ease in his new body.)

The Sheer Heart Attack cover gets changed to partially-clothed, rather than fully shirtless, allowing Brian to show up fully dressed while the others debate how much skin they’re willing to reveal, shuffling out of shirts and undoing more and more buttons with an ease that Brian has never felt, and now knows that he’ll never feel again.

“You sure this is what you want?” Mick asks as he adjusts his camera settings and the four of them pile into position. “More skin will sell more albums.”

“We’re sure,” Freddie says firmly. He gives Brian an encouraging wink before adding, “Besides, what about always leaving them wanting more?”

Brian gives Freddie a weak smile as Mick snorts and mutters, "Whatever you guys want."

And from there… it actually goes alright.

Brian still tires far too easily, but it doesn’t take any effort to lie on the floor and make different faces as Mick snaps photo after photo of them. His scar still pulls uncomfortably when he goes to readjust his position, but it doesn’t hurt when Roger makes him laugh and that’s more than he had dared to hope for when he was still in the hospital. They wrap on the shoot and for the first time in a long time Brian thinks he might actually be okay.

“Hey, Bri, you wanna jon us for some drinks?” Roger asks as him, Freddie, and John get changed out of their now-wet clothes and Brian hovers awkwardly near them, refusing to change out of his shirt despite the fact that there’s now vaseline smeared around the neckline.

Brian offers him a half-hearted smile and says, “Sorry, can’t. I’m still not supposed to have any alcohol.”

Between the damage that the hepatitis did to his liver and his still-delicate digestive system, Brian has been dry since the beginning of the summer. He’s never been a heavy drinker so he doesn’t mind, for the most part... but there are moments where he’s forced to interact with his scar and the wrongness of it all makes him feel outside of his own body, and he wishes then that he could get drunk - just a little, just enough to pretend that the haziness in his mind is because of the alcohol, and nothing else.

“Shit, sorry, I forgot,” Roger says, and Brian shrugs in acknowledgment.

#long post //#askgame #fic talk #quirkysubject

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theexistentiallyqueer · 5 years

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Sorry to bother, but where do autistic and adhd brains overlap? Because both are neurodivergent (and beautiful, I agree) But how can I find out which behaviour belongs more to me being autistic (got diagnosed this year) and which is adhd? (No Matter What Deadline, after several years in hostile environment (failed university, then call center work) I panic. Hard.) How do I disentangle adhd and autism to find out what strategies to use to function better?

Please don’t feel like you’re being a bother, because you’re not! Honestly the fact that someone is coming to me to ask ADHD questions makes me teary-eyed, because I’ve fought so hard to learn to function with ADHD that people Asking Me Things like I’m a trusted expert just makes my heart grow three sizes, the opposite of the Grinch.

I’m probably not the best person to ask about how ADHD and autism overlap specifically, especially if you’re taking this from an autistic POV. And I’m also not a behavioral expert, which is a very strong preface. But I can (and am very happy to) talk a bit about my experiences with ADHD and how I’ve learned to make things work for my brain.

I’m going to put this under a cut, if that’s okay with you, anon. It got kind of long and I don’t want to overrun anyone’s dash. And you can always, always ask me ADHD questions, and I’ll try my best to answer.

My ADHD tends to manifest specifically in the following ways:

Extreme hyperfixation that has its own varying degrees (e.g., I’m really into Fire Emblem: Three Houses, but I have so lack of interest in Byleth/Claude that my lack of interest feels like an actual void)

An inability to process feelings regarding things other people care strongly about that I don’t. If we’re using the same fandom example: I could rant forever about how Byleth/Edelgard gives me ALL THE FEELS, but if I friend I care about started to talk about Byleth/Claude, I would immediately lose all interest in the conversation and struggle to react in a way that doesn’t present me as a selfish monster who doesn’t care about the person I’m talking to.

I tend to monopolize conversation if I’m given the opportunity because I LOVE getting the chance to talk about my hyperfixations. If someone cuts me off when I’m really into a topic, I get incredibly irritated and have to try to restrain from myself from acting petty in response. The number of times I have smiled my mouth is a knife and said, “ANYWAY, as I WAS SAYING…” is beyond count.

I don’t recognize or remember people until I have something meaningful to associate them with. I also don’t tend to notice things that don’t clock themselves as Important in my brain. I usually describe this as “background furniture.” Even PEOPLE become background furniture. A girl I work with mentioned a person on her team had quit, and I’d literally walked by that person’s desk earlier that day and didn’t notice it was empty, because that person and the entire space they occupied was background scenery.

If something affects or touches me personally, it hits me Very Personally. I had a complete fucking breakdown watching the video of Philando Castille’s shooting, because I heard his daughter crying while she watched him getting shot and went down onto a spiral of personal loss over my own father to gun violence and started to immediately correlate the two. Separating ADHD brainness from my whiteness is complex and hard and (said sarcastically) so, so much fun.

The direct inverse of that are things like: I’m talking to my mom, who’s telling me about a high school friend of hers just got into a horrific vehicle accident and is in the ICU. My mom then goes on to give me regular status updates on this woman I don’t know. I get out of work, and she talks about this woman’s surgery. I get out of work, and she talks about this woman’s family’s attempt to find an adequate rehab center. They find a rehab center, and my mom shows me how her friend decorated her daughter’s room. My mom shows me a video of the girl working with a physical therapist, who gets her to push herself upright with a walker and take her tentative steps. “Awesome!” my brain thinks. “Great!” my brain thinks. All of it spans over several days, weeks, months. I have nothing to do with this constant influx of information. I don’t know how my brain should file it. I don’t know this woman who was injured. I feel for her in theory because no one should ever have to go through that even though so many people do, but I haven’t ACTIVELY PRETEND like I personally am invested in the situation or else my mother gives me Concerned Eyes because I seem to be In A Bad Mood Today.

When it comes to organization, I tend to lean towards hyper-organization rather than hypo-organization. By which I mean I over-organize to combat the fact that ADHD often results in disorganization, and disorganization results in chaos, and chaos gives me COMPLETE PANIC ATTACKS. At work at one point, I had my emails auto-tagging every incoming email based on the email type, on top of tagging for my clients. Every label had a different color, and it all made sense to me, because I’d made it. When my team had cover my stuff on a day I was out, my inbox was such a horror show that it left them feeling drained and distressed.

Let’s talk about socialization! I have a rocky relationship with my childhood best friend. When I discovered social justice in college, I started picking fights with everyone over everything Problematique. The first major fight I had with my best friend at the time was because she felt I was over-aggressive towards a mutual male friend of ours. She was probably right, because I know the kind of bullying behavior I later developed. I thought I learned from it. After the 2016 election, I messaged her on FB, thinking I had a sympathetic ear, to say that seeing her mother post constant messages of support for Trump and sharing stuff dismissing Trump’s sexual assault allegations was particularly hurtful considering I’d told my friend that my mom had been sexually assaulted.. I’m not going to share what she said, but she wasn’t in the wrong. We didn’t talk for several months after that.

Speaking of her! When she started dating the guy she’s now married to, at one point I asked her if they’d had sex yet. I asked it because I thought it was a thing you were Supposed To Talk About as friends, and also because I was, in a way, morbidly curious, because I’m grey-ace and queer. She confirmed that they had, but I still felt so icky and uncomfortable about that for so long afterwards. It was only after I started to understand that I’m not cis and not allo that I really understood why: I was forcing myself to perform what I thought female friendship was based on how it’s portrayed in media, and it’s only once I began to understand that I’m on the ace spectrum and that I’m nonbinary that I really started to understand how forced mainstream conversations of attraction are.

I’m loud! I’m loud! I’m loud! I’m loud all the time! I live with my mom and I socialize with my mom and when we’re in public spaces and I’m talking about something that interests me, she always, always, always feels like she has to shush me. What makes it ironic? If there are other people being loud around me, I can’t function. I can’t process the noise. It’s EVEN WORSE if they’re speaking in another language, because if it’s English I can process the words at least, but if it’s another language, it’s just pure, inescapable sound that I know has meaning but can’t intuit, and if I can’t understand something, that’s as bad as dying.

From what I’ve read about autism, here are ways I THINK my ADHD traits overlap with autistic traits:

I can’t read facial expressions. I think I have a better concept of emotional nuance in facial expressions than someone who’s strictly autistic, but I’ll still panic when I see a smile that isn’t bland enough. RDS (rejection-sensitive dysphoria) will kick in. They hate me, they hate me, they hate me, is the track my brain will play on repeat until I’ve drunk myself into oblivion. Whenever someone smiles, I mistrust it immediately.

Eye contact is incredibly fucking frustrating. I understand that it’s expected, but it’s SO UNCOMFORTABLE. Why do we need to stare into each other’s eyes to understand one another? How can you people write whole treatises on the sanctity of locking gazes and finding an instant intellectual bond without realizing that eye contact that’s not called for is personally invasive?

I can’t understand flirting vs not flirting to the point that I’m absolutely paranoid someone is flirting with me, at which point I usually become hostile if I think they ARE, because DON’T FLIRT WITH ME. TALK to me!

I hate, hate, hate unsolicited physical contact. If I’m in a state of over-expression, I hate it even more. I’m not physically withdrawn, because I love hugs, and cuddles, and human touch. But when I’ve spent the entire day listening to other people talk and I have to walk into a room where people continue to talk, if someone touches me, it’s fucking No-Oh-One.

Someone is interested in a thing I’m interested in. We’ll use Persona 5 as the concept, because this honestly happened recently. I talk with the guy whose desk is across from mine about Persona 5 all the time. He’s also excited about Royal. I started going into my Sophia theory that I’ve really only lobbied at @softspokensansa. I could see, I could viscerally see, the interest drain from his expression. BUT I HAVE AN IDEA SO I WILL TALK ABOUT IT ANYWAY, and then afterwards I felt incredibly resentful that I was being filtered through a cookie-cutter drain.

It’s painful–it’s really painful!–to try to talk about my spiritual ideas with other people. I have a side blog I just started and am preppy myself to share, and I’m absofuckinglutely TERRIFIED everyone is going to write me off without looking at what I have to say. IT’S THE RSD AGAIN! Nothing I ever said has actually mattered before, so why should it now?

I feel, constantly, like I’m halfway between a point of reality and a point of something. What that something is is indefinable, but regardless of it, I exist.

I’d like to direct you to two very positive youtubers I know; I meant to do this earlier, but now feels right in terms of how I’ve written: How To ADHD and Amethyst Schaber.I credit both of them in helping me find a safe place with ADHD before diagnosis. There are stories other than yours that matter.

I wish you the best, anon! If you think you’re autistic and ADHD: given the comorbidity between the two, you probably are! And ADHD is just as beautiful, complicated, and misunderstood as autism is.

If anyone reading this can speak to living as both autistic and ADHD, please respond so I can lift your voice. And to my anon: you’re beautiful completely. I hope my story has helped you in its anyway, and I hope that you find yourself at a place of peace. It’s a struggle to get there, but it’s worth it, every step of the way.

#anonymous #thanks for coming to my teq talk #gaydhd

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aros001 · 3 years

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Read through light novel vol. 13. Random thoughts.

There's a fun meme I've seen every now and then where the Harry Potter books are renamed. I'm tempted to do something like that for the Rising of the Shield Hero novels.

I hereby dub volume 13: Naofumi Iwatani and I just wanted a goddamn boat.

Maybe I'm just not paying enough attention but I feel like the Bow, Sword, and Spear have a lot less unique abilities compared to all the other Holy and Vassal weapons we've seen so far in the story. I mean, that could be deliberate, as the other three heroes didn't bother finding out a lot of what their weapons could do because they thought they knew everything already. But sometimes it feels like their weapons are just straightforward attacks, with the more unique abilities coming from their respective Curse Series. Naofumi's shield has many abilities relating to medicine, crafting, and maturation of slaves and monsters. Kizuna's hunting tool has trapping and attraction abilities, as well as unique monster-only effects. Ethnobalt's boat allows for near unparalleled travel. Syne's sowing kit allows her to teleport between the the pins she drops and create spider-web traps with negation abilities. With Motoyasu, Ren, and Itsuki, it feel like all their abilities are just attacks and bigger attacks. I suppose the same maybe could be said of Raphtalia's katana, but she also hasn't had it for very long. Maybe I'm looking into things too much. After all, I can't remember offhand what abilities Glass's fans or L'Arc's scythe had beyond attacks too.

Melty blushed. I’d only stated the facts. I guess she might not have been used to being complimented. Her mom was the queen, after all. She’d probably received a really strict upbringing too, since her sister had turned out so rotten.

I can kind of see that actually. One of the epilogues was from Melty's POV and it was clear that the king was the one spoiling Malty. The Queen, being the true power on the throne, was probably often busy with running her nation and doing matters of diplomacy, so the responsibility of raising her daughter fell mainly on her husband. Because of his own issues after the loss of his old family, Trash was too lenient and Bitch ended up spoiled rotten. Realizing how shit her oldest daughter had become, the Queen took a more active hand in raising her second daughter, thus why Melty is more often along with her on ventures outside of Melromarc.

I forgot to bring this up with the last couple of books but it is interesting how Naofumi apparently sees himself. He doesn't really believe he's a good person. Despite having understandable reasons behind buying slaves and putting slave crests on people, he still sees himself as a slave owner, which to him is a bad thing. He was surprised that he never unlocked a curse series related to greed, since he sees himself as greedy and a bit of a money-grubber. He makes a comment that he "knows he acts like a dictator" (but at least he wasn't a tyrant...yet, and then later on calls himself a tyrant). And here he thinks that a slave who cooked for him is always glaring at him when he cooks because she hates him for being so critical of what she made, while Raphtalia repeatedly tries to assure him that the girl actually really respects him and is just watching how he cooks so she'll know how to improve, and Naofumi still doesn't really buy it. It's just funny how fans have pointed out that Naofumi isn't always the most reliable narrator and how that applies even to himself. He thinks he's a bad person, thus why he doesn't feel it's a big deal when he's going to do something bad, while Raphtalia does see him as a good person and often is the one trying to keep him from doing bad things that'll hurt his reputation and image.

The very first thing I imagined happening when Naofumi entered the bath and saw the harem was that he'd cast Shield Prison around himself and roll backwards out the door without a word. Still, I like the line after he used Shooting Star Shield, that the old weapon shop guy had saved him once again. Also good credit to Sadeena, that even with all the sexual harassment she always left him with the option to say no. Here, it was just scary, and I don't think you'd even have to have suffered through a betrayal like Naofumi did to be really uncomfortable in that situation. Surrounded by seemingly endless very aggressive women you don't know, some of whom are literal children (in that they look like Melty to Naofumi), all of whom want to have your baby for political and religious reasons that stem not from who you are but what you are (the Shield Hero). If Naofumi had been summoned to Siltvelt he'd be a dried up husk by now. Switch the genders and it's a lot harder to deny how horrifying the situation is.

So Kyo is the equivalent of Bitch, Trash #2 is the equivalent of, well, Trash #1, and now we have Jaralis as the equivalent of Armor (are we ever going to see Itsuki's old party again?). Motoyasu #2 (old guy's master) is a bit of a stretch, since even Motoyasu #1 wasn't that pushy when trying to hit on a girl (though admittedly he was going to keep Filo and keep her from transforming back into her real form after he "saved" her from Naofumi's brainwashing).

Also, gotta love Jaralis' drug high from his super steroid, calling himself a god in a world that has Fitoria and the freaking Spirit Tortoise. Yes, random doping, cannibal lion. I'm most certain you are the god of this world. Way more so than the mountain-sized monster that shoots lightning from its mouth and re-grew its own head.

Looking forward to finding out more about Raphtalia's family, including the Heavenly Emperor. I assume he has some kind of ties to the monsters he doesn't want killed.

I keep bringing up Overlord since it was my gateway into Isekai anime and light novels, but reading Naofumi's experience in Siltvelt made me really appreciate how lucky Ainz is with the servants he has. His minions always genuinely listen to him, the problem is just that they don't always understand what he really wants. They do genuinely respect Ainz as their ruler and want his happiness. Here? They're purposely trying to avoid Naofumi being allowed to say what he wants. What he wants doesn't matter unless it goes along with what they want. The Shield Hero is basically their tool to gain more power. He'd be just slightly above a figurehead since Naofumi does have actual power that could protect Siltvelt but in the end he'd basically just be getting used nonstop until he has nothing more he can give. Now I'm just wondering if the Shield Hero who died in Siltvelt a month into his time was murdered or if he overindulged himself with the harem and bit off more than he could chew? Because according to these people the previous Shield Heroes (plural) were all about that harem. In a way, I kind of like that history. It shows that the Shield Hero isn't that unique or special among the four heroes. The Shield Hero is just as susceptible to being a good-for-nothing egotist and that it's Naofumi himself and his experiences that make the difference.

“Ugh . . . I feel . . . so weak,” he said.

He moaned and did everything he could to try to stand up. I was feeling pretty beat too.

“Allow me,” Atla said.

She jumped up onto Fohl’s collapsed body and held her arms up in the air victoriously. Umm, why did she feel the need to stand on her brother’s body again?

“This is your reward, Brother. You actually managed to follow through,” she said.

“Atla! S-stop that!” Fohl cried out.

Why the hell did he seem to be halfway smiling?!

“What are you doing?!” Raphtalia snapped.

“Oh my . . .” Sadeena giggled.

“Rafuuu?”

“Hm?”

And so our duel in Siltvelt came to an end.

...What was she doing?! I feel like I'm missing something funny and inappropriate!

Original Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/shieldbro/comments/fkqpw7/read_through_light_novel_vol_13_random_thoughts/

#rising of the shield hero #random thoughts #reddit repost

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