三時

(These are incredible)

Life's been fucking me and the 1600-pages cardio-endo exam is still pushing it against my bare aft. I'm literally fighting for my life craving bugs. I miss my wives Tails, I miss them so much. So yea, next thing I'll write is going to be something about the bugs.

I had envisioned intermissions for Hive For A Wolfpack, some one-shots that take place here and there and function as Missing Moments for the fic. One of @transformers-spike's moots fueled my will to live so now, I have a decision to make.

Once the exam is done raw-dogging me, what should I write first?

Note: this is ONLY about the insecticons! I miss them and I wanna write about them first.

You know some of the main questions that go around when neurodivergent folks speak up about their struggles on human interaction? I am not yet diagnosed nor do I dare appropriate of a diagnosis before undergoing accurate tests, but I've struggled with some of the following social situations and came out with answers of my own. These come from a purely personal space and are based on simple empirical observation (aka, how I lived the situation and the way I've learned to face it best). Take everything with a grain of salt. I hope this may at least give some insights on how to deal with the following social situations :)

How to I comfort someone who's complaining about something that happened to them? I try to offer empathy by recounting a similar experience that happened to myself, but I've been told I come off as "trying to make it about me". What do I do? This may sound quite obvious because most of the time, you try to see things under a purely logical lens. Sharing experiences builds community and empathy, right? Well, not in this situation. When someone is telling you about something that happened to them and wants to be comforted about it, it's purely their experience you need to focus on. Dissect the situation, and most importantly, focus on FEELINGS. You might feel the need to recount a similar situation to make the other person feel less alone, but by doing this you're cutting out the most important part of the conversation, which is, emphasis on feelings. What you should do is, remember that moment, remember how you felt, and generalize it. Instead of saying "I understand you, last time I didn't pass the x exam either because the questions were too hard" (which shifts the conversation to you and makes it appear like you're expecting sympathy from the other person), say "Well I see, it's one of those moments when you feel like you've given your all and the system has cheated you. It freakin' sucks." This way, you not only make the other person see that you understand what they mean, but you also allow them to verbalize a feeling that they otherwise wouldn't be able to express to its fullest. Create empathy not by storytelling, but by expression of feelings. In that moment, that person wants to feel safe, heard. You may proceed with telling them about a story of your own only after you've made them feel heard first. You may also ask if they want advice about it, but don't give unprompted advice. Most of the time, people just want to vent.

It's far from perfect but I'm proud of how this little cardboard box came out. I made it in a few hours between yesterday and today with some fabric from old flower wrappings and a bit of paper.

I must admit I've been feeling very stressed in the last days and overall weeks, which normally prompts my brain into a forced creative break in which I do some DIY or tidying up to distract myself from purely academic matters. My mind has been mostly occupied by this (and well, some personal stuff here and there).

I've figured out I might take this opportunity to announce that chapter 7 of Hive for a Wolfpack might come out in June or even July, because during these current months I'll have a massive load of studying to do and very little time to dedicate to chapter priming and writing itself.