Born one of two, intrigued too much to perish

Jonathan:

you have to be kinder to people who are slow processors.

you have to be kinder to people who don't understand your jokes.

you have to be kinder to people who forget important dates.

you have to be kinder to people with cognitive decline.

you have to be kinder to people who were always this way, too.

But he doesn't know who Bad Bunny is, and Bad Bunny doesn't know who Shane is... So they're both just making small talk with this hot guy they met at the bar while they wait for their drinks. They're enjoying talking to someone who doesn't know their celebrity status. And Shane is getting a little flustered despite being married, because damn if this guy isn't his type, and Bad Bunny is lowkey flirting with him.

And then Ilya shows up and has a heart attack. Alternating between fanboying over Bad Bunny and wanting to fight him. Just standing there frozen with this bonkers expression on his face.

The system intrinsically abuses poor people.

To recover, you literally need to manually learn skills that most people learn as a toddler

You need to learn what makes your body uncomfortable, and what to do to fix it

If you are high-masking, that usually means that you have learned to ignore every distress signal your body sends unless it is a distress signal that a neurotypical person would recognize. People have likely been unintentionally gaslighting you about your lived experience your entire life

If you feel bad or panicked for no reason, stop and try to pay attention to your body. Are you tense? You are likely feeling physical pain somewhere. If you've been gaslit about your pain your entire life, you might not be able to identify it.

Go through a sensory checklist.

SIGHT: Try closing and covering your eyes. If this gives you relief, the lights are probably too bright. You may also need differently-colored lights

SOUND: Cover your ears. Does this give you relief? If so, you may need earplugs or noise canceling headphones. You may also benefit from a neutral or pleasant background noise, like soft music or brown noise.

TOUCH: Are your clothes uncomfortable? Your chair? Your body? Do you feel greasy, like you need a shower? Do you need softer, sensory-friendly clothing?

TASTE: Do you need to brush your teeth or tongue? Would chewing on something help?

SMELL: Is there a strong or unpleasant smell in the room? Do you need to clean or empty a trash can? Would an air purifier help? Would a pleasant smell like a candle help?

INTEROCEPTION: Are you hungry? Thirsty? Tired? How is your posture? Are any of your muscles tight or sore? Scan your body slowly from head to feet, tensing and loosening each group of muscles. Going for a walk or doing a series of quick stretches may help a lot.

Learning how to do this stuff is not intuitive, if you've had an entire lifetime of gaslighting telling you that everything hurting you isn't a big deal and you're being dramatic over nothing.

This takes time, it takes work, it's not intuitive, and it's hard. Most people forget how hard it is, because they learned this as toddlers.

Good "slowly gaining trust and forgiveness" arc: a formerly villainous character is still distrusted by the good guys and those around them, has to gradually convince them all that they're not that person anymore, earn their trust, and gain their forgiveness

Notice how those two things CAN coexist in the same character but are not the inherently same thing.

I am SICK of people saying that characters who instantaneously became good and overcame all their major character flaws overnight but had to spend a long time gaining people's trust and forgiveness had a better redemption arc than characters who were basically adopted by the main characters and forgiven overnight but who had a long road to gradually changing and becoming a better person and shifting away from their former worldview.

take it easy but take it <- litany against burnout/apathy cycle

fuck it we ball <- litany against perfectionism

(Other shows are allowed too ♡)

Jonathan worries that it'll be a dark piece about Lonnie's abuse.