The smell of money... Tea, incense, and sweet foods... All of this to be found in FuMuCha. A tea shop in San Francisco Chinatown, FuMuCha was a safe place where immigrants and their descendants could coexist in peace. The Lees, a Korean immigrant family, moved in many years ago with their toddler son. Their son, Vincent Lee, was easily impressionable and very outgoing. He easily made friends because he was taught to help and be helped to survive. "Money isn't everything, but take the opportunity to live", his parents told him. His parents were smart, they befriended and learned Chinese culture to make life easier to start. Time passes, preschool, ESOL, elementary, then... Middle school.
A loud thud. Blood on the ground. The silence of fear... And trembling...
"Go back to your country!" "You're not welcome here!" "Look at this loser trying to be normal."
Vincent is on the ground, bloodied nose, bruised face, cracked ribs... "I'm... Sorry...". He regretted living. He had no purpose. Living day to day just like the other kids... Until they were taught world history. No matter what he did, the kids bullied him for being the same ethnicity of those who did terrible things or were under the foot of another. Nanking, The railroad, comfort women, the boxer's rebellion, the cultural revolution... He was blamed for all of that just for being born. Isolation, growing his hair out because he refused to go out. This torment lasted until 8th grade.
Vincent walked home from school... The last day of 7th grade, he heard something... "Hiya! Ha!". He turned to look. A man on the television, a weird hairstyle, funny clothes, but... Amazing fighting skills. Vincent immediately wanted to fight like him. He found someone... Someone who could save him from his hell. He used the last of his savings to buy all of the kung fu dvds he could. He spent all summer on his own watching, learning, training... To be like the men... No, the heroes, that saved his life. He found purpose. Being someone else was so... Different. But he needed to be. When he confronted those bullied him, they couldn't win... Vincent was like a bat out of hell. Sloppy techniques, but fast, dedicated... Eventually, with each opponent he defeated, he got a bit better each time... Less bruises, less bloody noses, but... More heart. Too much. His parents decided that America may not be safest... After all, Vincent attracted the attention of the underworld Chinese Mafia. They were going to induct him once he got into highschool because of his knack for violence... So they moved.
"Korea? Why? Why're we moving? I'm getting better, Ma! I'm strong now!" Vincent didn't understand... Not until his mom held him close and said, "that's right, you're very strong. You're my strong baby boy... But ma and pa are not like you... Make sure you protect us too, okay? Protect your family in Korea."
Vincent understood that his new hope wasn't meant for just him... Fighting? Is that all there is to power? No... There's gotta something out there that will teach him what it is to be strong... Something like four schools...

I want to share all my thoughts so this is going to be extremely long
​
Normal thing I want to see in LBY (Life By You) :1. Laugh

1. Cry
   
2. Blink
   
3. Yawn
   
4. Dream
   
5. Sing
   
6. Dance
   
7. Hug
   
8. Talk
   
9. Think
   
10. Create art
    
11. Show empathy
    
12. Memorize
    
13. Solve complex problems
    
14. Invent
    
15. Have free will (sometimes)
    
16. Procrastinate
    
17. Fall in love/crushing
    
18. Daydream
    
19. Try not to make eye contact when shy
    
20. Disabilities
    
21. Feel real emotions
    
22. Write ideas
    
23. Make plans like going to get a couple drinks or something
    
24. Set goals
    
25. Forgive each other after fighting
    
26. Reflect on the past
    
27. Learn from mistakes
    
28. Have a conscience
    
29. Make choices
    
30. Reflect on oneself
    
31. Adapt to changing environments
    
32. Learn new unique skills
    
33. Express gratitude
    
34. Share knowledge
    
35. Seek companionship
    
36. Practice relationship
    
37. Engage in sports and physical activities
    
38. Experience nostalgia by looking at old objects
    
39. Procreate
    
40. Use technology
    
41. Cook and prepare food
    
42. Express opinions
    
43. Grieve
    
44. Seek knowledge and education
    
45. Explore the world
    
46. Offer help to others
    
47. Listen to music
    
48. Travel and go on adventures
    
49. Reflect on the meaning of life
    

​
Other Age groups:
​
Babies:

1. Smile
   
2. Giggle
   
3. Coo
   
4. Reach for your face
   
5. Hold your finger
   
6. Blow raspberries
   
7. Play peek-a-boo
   
8. Dance or wiggle when they hear music
   
9. Close their eyes tightly when sleeping
   
10. Suck on their toes
    
11. Babble
    
12. Clap their hands
    
13. Blow kisses
    
14. Copy facial expressions
    
15. Snuggle into your chest
    
16. Play with their toes
    
17. Try to eat their own feet
    
18. Explore their surroundings with their hands and mouth
    
19. Attempt to crawl or scoot
    
20. Make funny faces
    
21. Play with their own reflection
    
22. Touch their own hair
    
23. Point at objects they find interesting
    
24. Make funny sounds when eating
    
25. Make silly noises with their mouths
    
26. Play with their own shadow
    
27. Laugh at silly sounds or actions
    
28. Show excitement by kicking their legs
    
29. Mimic sounds or gestures
    
30. Babble in their own baby language
    
31. Try to mimic speech by repeating sounds
    
32. Look adorable in tiny outfits or costumes
    
33. Show curiosity by grabbing at objects
    
34. Practice grabbing and grasping toys
    
35. Tilt their heads in curiosity when hearing unfamiliar sounds
    
36. Make kissing sounds
    
37. Reach out for a hug
    
38. Show surprise by widening their eyes
    
39. Stick out their tongue
    
40. Blow bubbles in their slobber
    
41. Play with their own feet
    
42. Show joy by jumping up and down in their crib
    
43. Tug at your clothes or hair
    
44. Sit up and play with their toys
    
45. Show affection by giving a high-five or fist bump
    
46. Wave their arms and legs in excitement
    
47. Kick their legs when lying on their back
    
48. Make cute pig snorting sounds
    
49. Smile and laugh while being tickled
    
50. Doze off with a cute little snore
    

​
Toddlers:

1. Learning to walk and taking their first steps
   
2. Babbling and attempting to communicate
   
3. Trying to mimic sounds and words
   
4. Discovering new words and expanding their vocabulary
   
5. Learning to eat independently
   
6. Showing affection by hugging and giving kisses
   
7. Attempting to feed themselves with a spoon
   
8. Laughing at silly things
   
9. Imitating animal sounds
   
10. Learning to jump
    
11. Blowing kisses
    
12. Dancing to music
    
13. Making funny faces
    
14. Pointing out objects and people they recognize
    
15. Recognizing their own reflection in a mirror
    
16. Singing nursery rhymes
    
17. Trying to put on their own shoes or clothes
    
18. Pretending to talk on a toy phone
    
19. Exploring by crawling into small spaces
    
20. Showing excitement when seeing a favorite toy or character
    
21. Copying actions they see others do
    
22. Learning to share toys with other children
    
23. Showing empathy by comforting others
    
24. Imitating household chores like sweeping or cooking
    
25. Trying to brush their own teeth
    
26. Climbing onto furniture for the first time
    
27. Trying to draw with crayons and markers
    
28. Mimicking the gestures of people they observe
    
29. Bringing you random objects as gifts
    
30. Waving hello and goodbye to people
    
31. Playing pretend and pretending to be different characters
    
32. Imitating the actions of their parents or siblings
    
33. Trying to put together simple puzzles
    
34. Pretending to read books by turning pages and babbling
    
35. Blowing bubbles and chasing them
    
36. Looking at themselves in the mirror and smiling
    
37. Showing delight when discovering new textures and sensations
    
38. Splashing in puddles or water
    
39. Trying to catch bubbles with their hands
    
40. Learning to count to a few numbers
    
41. Pretending to talk on a toy phone
    
42. Making up their own songs and rhymes
    
43. Imitating simple animal movements like hopping like a bunny
    
44. Trying to put on hats or accessories by themselves
    
45. Learning to use their imagination during playtime
    
46. Discovering cause and effect by pushing buttons on toys
    
47. Trying to blow their own nose
    
48. Clapping their hands when excited
    
49. Showing curiosity and asking "why" questions
    
50. Smiling and showing happiness in simple moments
    

​
Kids & Teens:

1. Play video games
   
2. Read books
   
3. Play outdoor sports
   
4. Solve puzzles and riddles
   
5. Walk a pet
   
6. Go rolle ice skating or skateboarding
   
7. Start a collection (e.g., stamps, coins)
   
8. Paint or draw
   
9. Go on nature hikes
   
10. Join a club
    
11. Ride a bike or scooter
    
12. Learn a new instrument
    
13. Build with blocks
    
14. Try cooking or baking
    
15. Have a picnic in the park
    
16. Play board games or card games
    
17. Create DIY crafts
    
18. Start a garden or grow plants
    
19. Take up photography
    
20. Volunteer for a charity or community service
    
21. Explore a museum or art gallery
    
22. Write stories or poems
    
23. Go camping or have a backyard sleepover
    
24. Learn magic tricks
    
25. Play with pets or visit an animal shelter
    
26. Collect and trade trading cards
    
27. Go geocaching
    
28. Try a new sport or activity
    
29. Build a treehouse or fort
    
30. Have a karaoke or dance party at home
    
31. Try yoga or meditation
    
32. Record funny videos or create a short film
    
33. Learn to skateboard or rollerblade
    
34. Have a fashion show with friends
    
35. Create a scavenger hunt
    
36. Play with remote-controlled cars or drones
    
37. Have a book club with friends
    
38. Join a local theater group or acting class
    
39. Learn a new language
    
40. Have a movie night with homemade popcorn
    
41. Play with slime or make DIY slime
    
42. Try out different hairstyles or nail art
    
43. Learn to juggle or hula hoop
    
44. Try out different science experiments
    
45. Have a water balloon fight or play with water toys
    
46. Learn card tricks or magic tricks
    
47. Play with Play-Doh or kinetic sand
    
48. Try out different DIY face masks or beauty products
    
49. Have a photo shoot with friends or family
    
50. Learn to build and fly a kite
    
51. Spend hours on social media platforms
    
52. Participate in online challenges or viral trends.
    
53. Take and post numerous selfies.
    
54. Listen to music on phone, headphones, maybe airpods
    
55. Post aesthetic photos of their meals or drinks.
    
56. Binge-watch popular TV shows on streaming services.
    
57. Use Emojis extensively in their texts and social media posts.
    
58. Engage in video game marathons with friends.
    
59. Attend virtual hangouts or parties due to maybe an introverted trait.
    
60. Create and upload content on video platforms.
    
61. Experiment with different makeup looks and fashion trends.
    
62. Attend high school dances or proms.
    
63. Share memes and funny videos with their friends.
    
64. Follow and support their favorite influencers or celebrities.
    
65. Join or create group chats with friends to stay connected.
    
66. Express their opinions on various social and political issues.
    
67. Take part in virtual school activities or clubs.
    
68. Share routines or challenges on social media.
    
69. Explore new hobbies or interests at home, such as painting or playing musical instruments.
    
70. Discuss and recommend books, movies, or TV shows in online forums.
    
71. Take part in online shopping and showcase their purchases on social media.
    
72. Create and customize their personal websites or blogs.
    
73. Coordinate and plan online game nights with friends.
    
74. Advocate for environmental or social causes.
    
75. Share their artwork or creative projects with others.
    
76. Engage in DIY projects or crafts.
    
77. Post motivational quotes or affirmations on social media.
    
78. Support and promote local or small businesses.
    
79. Take tours landmarks.
    
80. Plan and participate in book clubs or reading challenges.
    
81. Share and review music playlists or albums on social media.
    
82. Take virtual or real classes or workshops to learn new skills.
    
83. Collaborate with friends on online creative projects.
    
84. Decorate their bedrooms or living spaces according to the latest trends.
    
85. Organize and participate in online fundraisers or charity events.
    
86. Produce and release their own music or podcast episodes.
    
87. Connect with peers from different countries or cultures.
    
88. Attend concerts or live-streamed performances.
    
89. Share their fashion and style choices through outfit of the day posts.
    
90. Discuss and engage in deep conversations about societal issues.
    
91. Create and share memes or parodies related to current events.
    
92. Collaborate with friends on virtual art projects.
    
93. Share travel photos or reminisce about past vacations.
    
94. Share recipes and cooking videos on social media.
    
95. Take part in fitness challenges or workouts.
    
96. Follow and engage with local or global news updates.
    
97. Engage in debates or discussions.
    
98. Post and react to throwback pictures or memories.
    
99. Connect with friends and peers through online gaming communities.
    
100. Document and share personal achievements or milestones on social media.
     

​
Now that's out of the way let's get to the icebreakers
Pets:

1. Dogs
   
2. Cats
   
3. Birds (parrots, budgies, canaries, etc.)
   
4. Fish (goldfish, betta fish, guppies, etc.)
   
5. Reptiles (turtles, snakes, lizards, etc.)
   
6. Small mammals (hamsters, guinea pigs, rabbits, ferrets, etc.)
   
7. Amphibians (frogs, salamanders, newts, etc.)
   
8. Invertebrates (tarantulas, hermit crabs, snails, etc.)
   
9. Exotic pets (sugar gliders, hedgehogs, chinchillas, etc.)
   
10. Farm animals (chickens, goats, pigs, ducks, etc.)
    
11. Horses and ponies
    
12. Bearded dragons and other larger reptiles
    
13. Rodents (mice, rats, gerbils, etc.)
    
14. Monkeys and primates (depending on local regulations and specific laws)
    
15. Ferrets and other members of the weasel family
    
16. Hedgehogs and other spiny mammals
    
17. Sugar gliders and other small marsupials
    
18. Tortoises and other land turtles
    
19. Tarantula and other arachnids
    
20. Scorpions and other arthropods
    

​
Weather:

1. Snow
   
2. Rain
   
3. Clear Skies
   
4. Warm
   
5. Sunny
   
6. Blizzard
   
7. Heatwave
   

​
House Types and community lots:

1. Single-family homes: These are standalone houses designed to accommodate one family.
   
2. Apartments: Also known as flats, these are individual units within a larger building, typically-sharing common areas.
   
3. Condominiums: Similar to apartments, these are individual units within a larger building. However, unlike apartments, condos can be bought and owned by individuals.
   
4. Townhouses: These are narrow, multi-level homes that share walls with adjacent properties.
   
5. Duplexes: These are houses divided into two separate units, often with each unit having its own entrance.
   
6. Farmhouses: Traditional rural houses typically found on farms or agricultural lands.
   
7. Bungalows: These are low-rise, single-story houses, often with a wide porch or veranda.
   
8. Mansions: Large, luxurious homes typically owned by wealthier individuals or families.
   
9. Tiny houses: Compact, minimalist homes usually under 500 square feet, designed to maximize functionality and minimize space footprint.
   
10. Mobile homes: Generally affordable, prefabricated or manufactured homes that can be moved from one location to another.
    
11. Log cabins: Homes built using interlocking logs or timber, usually found in rural or wooded areas.
    
12. Floating homes: Houses built on pontoons or other floating structures, often found on rivers or in marinas.
    
13. Straw bale houses: Houses built using natural and sustainable materials like straw bales, offering excellent insulation and energy efficiency.
    
14. Geodesic domes: Unique, spherical-shaped structures made from interconnected triangular panels.
    
15. Earth-sheltered homes: Houses built partially or completely below ground, offering natural insulation and energy efficiency.
    
16. A-frame houses: Houses with steeply angled roofs resembling the letter "A".
    
17. Treehouses: Small structures built in trees, often for recreational purposes or as unconventional living spaces.
    
18. Houseboats: Floating homes primarily designed for living on bodies of water, such as lakes or rivers.
    
19. Igloos: Dome-shaped dwellings made of packed snow or ice, typically found in Arctic regions.
    
20. Cave dwellings: Homes built within natural caves or underground caverns, historically used by various civilizations.
    

​

1. Park
   
2. Playground
   
3. Library
   
4. Community center
   
5. Sports complex
   
6. Swimming pool
   
7. Gymnasium
   
8. Skate park
   
9. Tennis court
   
10. Football field
    
11. Basketball court
    
12. Baseball diamond
    
13. Volleyball court
    
14. Golf course
    
15. Botanical garden
    
16. Picnic area
    
17. Animal shelter
    
18. Museum
    
19. Art gallery
    
20. Youth center
    
21. Senior center
    
22. Community garden
    
23. Farmers market
    
24. Dog park
    
25. Beach/Lakeside park
    
26. Skateboarding park
    
27. Nature reserve
    
28. Wildlife sanctuary
    
29. Historical landmark
    
30. Recycling center
    
31. Equestrian center
    
32. Marina
    
33. Boating dock
    
34. Fishing spot
    
35. Campground
    
36. Community theater
    
37. Music hall
    
38. Outdoor concert venue
    
39. Dance studio
    
40. Karate dojo
    
41. Yoga studio
    
42. Pilates studio
    
43. Bowling alley
    
44. Arcade
    
45. Ice rink
    
46. Roller skating rink
    
47. Go-kart track
    
48. Trampoline park
    
49. Indoor play area
    
50. Escape room
    
51. Laser tag center
    
52. Paintball field
    
53. Multi-purpose hall
    
54. Amateur radio station
    
55. Community kitchen
    
56. Cooking school
    
57. Craft workshop
    
58. Sewing center
    
59. Woodworking shop
    
60. Photography studio
    
61. Pottery studio
    
62. Computer lab
    
63. Science lab
    
64. Astronomy observatory
    
65. Chess club
    
66. Board game cafe
    
67. Bookstore
    
68. Coffee shop
    
69. Restaurant
    
70. Food court
    
71. Juice bar
    
72. Bakery
    
73. Farmer's co-op
    
74. Art supply store
    
75. Antique store
    
76. Thrift shop
    
77. Charity shop
    
78. Flea market
    
79. Car boot sale
    
80. Beauty salon
    
81. Nail salon
    
82. Spa
    
83. Fitness studio
    
84. Tanning salon
    
85. Wellness center
    
86. Pharmacy
    
87. Medical clinic
    
88. Dentist's office
    
89. Veterinary clinic
    
90. Pet grooming salon
    
91. Car wash
    
92. Gas station
    
93. Grocery store
    
94. Convenience store
    
95. Fish market
    
96. Hardware store
    
97. Home improvement store
    
98. Garden center
    
99. Laundromat
    
100. Post office
     
101. Bank
     
102. Credit union
     
103. Insurance agency
     
104. Real estate agency
     
105. Law firm
     
106. Accounting firm
     
107. Tax service center
     
108. Dry cleaners
     
109. Daycare center
     
110. Preschool
     
111. Elementary school
     
112. Middle school
     
113. High school
     
114. College/University
     
115. Language school
     
116. Driving school
     
117. Tutoring center
     
118. Community radio station
     
119. Community television station
     
120. Community newspaper office
     

​
This took me forever and if you gotten all the way down here then thank you!

So, quick background. I’m (F) a preschool teacher and I have two co-teachers with me in the same room. Each of our kids has their own hook to hang their backpacks on, labeled with their name.
One day, I was taking pictures of each kid doing a specific task, which happened to be next to the backpack hooks. We have to be careful not to have any “identifying” things in the background (other children’s faces, certain names, that kind of thing) because we send pictures to their families.
I took a picture of a student, let’s call him Caleb. I was looking in the background and I noticed that his name/hook was in his picture, which I thought was a pretty cute coincidence.
Now, Caleb’s hook is next to another student’s, let’s call her Steph.
The next week, I’m looking at the hooks, and I say to my co-teacher, “Hey did you switch Caleb and Steph’s names on the wall?” She said no, then looked. Their names switched places, because we know for a fact Caleb’s hook was on the end, and it now isn’t. So we thought, “It was probably (other teacher) or something.”
We asked other teacher. Nope. Then I remembered, HEY! I took pictures next to the hooks! I’ll easily look at them to see their order.
However, I looked on our iPad’s picture album, and they weren’t there. None of the photos I took of anyone were there. The ones before and after we’re still on the iPad, but not my specific ones. I checked the recently deleted, and nope.
So I went to Caleb’s profile online where we send in the photos. His picture was there, with the background cropped, but it wasn’t the picture I took of him. He had a different hairstyle and clothes that he’s never worn before. The picture looked like a mix between outdated and futuristic. I showed it co-teachers and they were just as confused and weirded out as I was.
We still have no idea what happened.

Hey guys. I've been having a lot of thoughts lately regarding my gender identity/expression and how the hijab has affected it.
I want to go back in time and tell my 10 year old self to not voluntarily wear it. Younger me thought I was doing a good thing for myself and to "Allah"... and that was one of the very things that started my hypervigilance and overfocus on how I cared so much about how I wanted other people to see me as.
I live in Malaysia. My parents were not the ultra strict type (they constantly remind my siblings to pray but a selective of us don't. they allow us to practice hobbies to an extent, allow me to get boyish hairstyles) but they are conservative and religious, and some of my life experiences are things I can consider as religious trauma... They would guilt trip you with Islam, and shame you and look down on you if you spoke Islam in a negative light. Made all of my siblings enrol in a lot of extra Islamic studies classes and made us learn how to read the Quran at a very young age.
I think they were very pushy to make my older sisters wear the hijab but they never decided to so you can imagine my parents' reaction and how they felt when my 10 year old self voluntarily chose to wear it one day because I thought it was a good deed. I thought it would be a turning point in my life and I could start being a better muslimah.
Big fucking joke! So many things would've been considerably better in my life if I didn't obsess on how scared I am of other people perceiving me over that stupid cloth. I am lucky enough to be born and raised in one of Malaysia's more open-minded places that it can still be somewhat socially acceptable to remove the hijab. So there are hijabi girls I used to know in secondary school that no longer wear it anymore.
But the location did not stop from how it was drilled to my mind that "free-hair girls are bad and hijabi girls that can't decide between going free-hair and hijabi should be shamed". It's universally agreed in Malaysia anyway that free-hair girls who can't decide to wear the hijab are bad and are even worse if they stop wearing it! So that statement will always win over the idea of how it's okay to take it off so none of it matters at the end.
The statement is so ingrained in my mind that I started getting so self conscious when I showed my hair, even when it's with my family. I sometimes wear it and don't with them and even that fucking gives me so much guilt that makes me want to die. Because it makes me give off the impression to everyone that I am the indecisive person that can't decide if they want to follow Allah or not.
I had the urges to take it off when I was in secondary school and permanently stop wearing it but it kinda became a branding that I had to stick on doing because removing it or changing it will deem me as a sinful woman. And I already told myself when I was 10 that wearing it will make me become a better muslim. So I tread on. Thinking that it can alleviate my fears and sins. But it never did.
I feel envy towards my female friends I knew who eventually stopped wearing it publicly. I know they could still suffer from the judgement of being seen as a "needy, sinful, Muslim woman who wants to both sin and show their hair and still be a Muslim"/"the indecisive hijabi who can't accept their identity" but I'm so jealous that they can let it go anyway. And I know that I have the privilege to somewhat live in an open-minded environment that people who know me could take time to accept how I really look.
But none of that matters!! I care!!! I'm 21 now and I only go free-hair with a cap when I'm alone (sometimes with family too) publicly but I still wear it around my friends.
I get VERY paranoid of being seen free-hair by someone who knows me because that judgement just stings my brain and gives me immense immense worry of how different they'll Perceive Me since I NEVER take it off around them. I don't know why I can't fucking take it off!! I'm not seriously practicing anymore and I'm abandoning this religion but I get so panicky wanting to permanently stop wearing it that it almost feels suffocating to experience. I don't want to disappoint my parents either! I feel like Allah is watching me very fucking closely!!!! I feel like I'm being watched so badly!!!!!! I'm being monitored for how sinful I am and taking it off is just gonna solidify it that I will be punished. It doesn't help I'm fucking psychotic and have paranoid beliefs!!!!!!!! I'm being fucking watched!!!!!!!!!!!
The worst part is I interned in a preschool a year ago and I had to wear formal work attire + hijab (I major in education) So I get to present myself as this happy friendly hijabi teacher lady to the public now. I hate it!
I think I still have time to change but it's... slowly cementing me that I could keep forcing myself to live this way if I don't.
And I don't even want to identify as a woman anymore. I want to freely try to work and express myself more gender-neutral and masc-leaning. The hijab is just going to be a big obstacle in that for me. How do I tell myself to stop worrying about it?

Recently, I was reading on Facebook about how white people wearing Black hairstyles was cultural appropriation because these styles are specifically designed for their type of hair and have significant cultural value to them. It made me think about some of the things neurotypical people have done with our culture. What are some aspects of autistic culture that you feel have been appropriated by NTs? For me, it’s safe spaces. For autistic individuals they are minimalist places with little to no visual or auditory stimulation for when our senses are literally overloaded. Now NTs have turned them into the equivalent of preschool classrooms , places to go when they feel a tiny bit uncomfortable or hear things they don’t like. It really makes me angry, especially because it feeds into the stereotype of autistic people as perpetual children.

Okay, I've never actually posted on Reddit before and made an account just so I could put this on here, so sorry if there are any wonky formatting errors or if things are jumbled (I tried to edit this as much as possible, but things are probably still messed up somewhere)
So, I think I have a new theory that I haven’t really seen flying around the Demon Slayer fanbase yet, but I could also be wrong, so please read and let me know your thoughts!
​
***Some spoilers for anime-only people, or people who have not finished the manga***
You have been warned.
​
So I was doing some research on the Kamado family and the Tsugikuni family on the Kimetsu No Yaiba Wiki page for a Demon Slayer fanfic I was working on when I switched from Tanjuro Kamado’s page to Yoriichi’s.
Now admittedly, there are some similarities between the two on the surface, such as their temperament and demeanor (Slow to violence, soft-spoken, etc.) and they both know Sun Breathing, but we know that's because Yoriichi taught Sumiyoshi Kamado from Tanjiro’s visions. However, just looking at those aspects alone isn’t proof of any connection beyond those facts and it just makes sense seeing that the Kamado’s are a relatively peaceful family so it makes sense that there would be some similarities in temperament. (This could also just be a story-telling element to have some parallels between the two characters to emphasize the characteristics of what it means to be masters of the sun breathing technique since it is difficult to bring Yoriichi into the story since he has no descendants or family in the present time that Tanjiro's story takes place.)
It was when I was thinking over Yoriichi’s incredibly sad backstory, and the fact that it is canon that reincarnation is a thing in the Demon Slayer Universe, that I jokingly thought wouldn’t it be great if Yoriichi was reborn as Tanjiro’s father Tanjuro. I thought it would be a fun headcanon because Yoriichi would finally get to live the life he always wanted; a peaceful and humble life in the mountain wilderness with his wife and the family they would build together.
That thought was really just to humor myself and I really never put much credence into it, but it was in my head when I was looking at Yoriichi’s bio, and on that page, there is a manga photo of him smiling as a child. That is when that personal little feel-good theory I had became a little more serious because, on Tanjuro’s page, the bio snapshot of his character is of him smiling too, and if you look at the manga version of that photo, you see that Yoriichi and Tanjuro have the same exact smile.
(Here the links to the specific photo’s I’m talking about just for reference:
Yoriichi: https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/kimetsu-no-yaiba/images/1/16/Yoriichi_colored_profile_%28child%29.png/revision/latest?cb=20200207195731
Tanjuro Anime: https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/kimetsu-no-yaiba/images/c/c3/Tanjuro_anime.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20210628160831
Tanjuro Manga: https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/kimetsu-no-yaiba/images/f/f5/Tanjuro_appears_in_Tanjiro%27s_memory.png/revision/latest?cb=20200414151239 )
Then I started thinking more about the way reincarnation works in the Demon Slayer universe and more facts started arising that point to this possibly being the case.
The first fact is that you don’t have to be reincarnated into the same family that you were born into in your previous life. We see this in chapter 205 of Demon Slayer with Kanao and Tanjiro, and then Nezuko and Zenitsu being siblings instead of being married, plus there's Sanemi and Genya being brought together as patrol partners for the local police instead of being siblings. We also see that they may not live the same lives or retain their memories of their past lives (ie, Gyomei being a preschool teacher and Inosuke being a botanist), however, they do seem to share many traits they did of their previous lives (ie, Aoba Hashibira wanting to leave his life behind and live in the mountains and Sumihiko Kamado retaining his parkour reflexes from his demon slayer training).
During chapter 205, we see all the reincarnations of the current generation of demon slayers but don’t see Yoriichi anywhere in this mix. This makes sense as he isn’t really apart of the same generation, but it doesn’t make sense for him to not have been reincarnated at all.
Yoriichi lived a very humble life and was a gentle person, not even wanting to pick up a sword until Uta and their unborn child are killed by a demon and Yoriichi dedicated the rest of his life to protecting other innocent people from that fate. He doesn’t indiscriminately kill every demon he encounters, only ones he knows will be a threat to other people (ie, when he defended Tamayo against the other demon slayers, which is one of the things that got him ostracized from the corps). He is a very compassionate and peaceful man who only fights when protecting the lives of others, even if they aren’t grateful for it, simply because it is the right thing to do. For him to not be reborn when all the other Hashira of the current generation did, wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense. It also doesn't make a lot of sense for the greatest legend in the entire history of demon slayers to then simply be a part of the story in snippets of memory.
So, if Yoriichi was reborn, what kind of life would he have lived and how do we know that he was possibly reincarnated as Tanjuro?
Well we know Yoriichi wouldn’t have been reborn as a twin like Muichiro and Yuichiro did because his brother is still alive and is also a demon so he wouldn’t have been reincarnated anyway. It also makes sense that Yoriichi would retain the abilities he developed as a swordsman, which we see Tanjuro is a master of sun breathing, can see the transparent realm, and likely had the ability to enter the selfless state. And while we don’t know if Tanjuro had any siblings, it is obvious that they don’t have any family when Nezuko is turned into a demon and the rest of the Kamado family is killed.
Some arguments against this theory are that Tanjuro is pretty sick by the time Rokuta is born and that he has no demon slayer mark, which Yoriichi had been born with. Reincarnations also tend to have similar features in their character design (ie hair & eye color, clothing patterns, and other motifs), and while Tanjuro has the same hair color and personality, the eyes are different and his haori is an orange and black checkered pattern instead of red. His hair color is also canonically a Kamado family trait, so even going by hair alone isn’t a very solid argument for this theory since Tanjuro’s hair only went down to about his shoulder blades and Yoriichi’s went down to his waist. However, I actually do have theories that could support why Tanjuro’s character design is so different from Yoriichi’s that I think are worth mentioning.
Firstly, the demon slayer mark was something Yoriichi was born with, and while we don’t know how Tanjuro got his scar, we do know that Tanjiro got his scar by protecting his younger brother from getting burned by some hot water. This is important because this means it is not a hereditary trait in the Kamado line and it also leaves the question of how Tanjuro has a scar in the same place as his eldest son. It is also interesting to mention that Tanjiro’s demon slayer mark appeared in the same place that his scar was, and Tanjuro’s scar is in the same place that Yoriichi’s demon slayer mark had been.
My personal theory is that if Tanjuro is Yoriichi’s reincarnation, then he was likely born with the scar instead of the demon slayer mark as Yoriichi had been, but the scar is the remnant of his past life as a demon slayer (similar to the belief that certain birthmarks representing how you were wounded or died in a past life). This would make more sense if Tanjuro was born with the scar than if he had been injured as his son had been at a young age.
We also get an explanation for Tanjiro’s scar, but not his father’s, which gave meaning to Tanjiro's character design. This is important because the character designs for Demon Slayer aren’t done at random and every single minute detail has a reason behind it (ie Kanroji’s hair being green and pink because she eats a lot of sakura mochi and Inosuke wearing a boar mask because he was a feral child that was raised by boars), so it doesn't make sense for Tanjuro to just randomly have a scar for no apparent purpose.
Next is why was Tanjuro so sick when we see him in Tanjiro’s memories? As far as we know, the series heavily points to Tanjuro dying young because he knew sun breathing, instead of dying from something genetic or another disease that wasn’t treatable at the time. It’s been hinted to the fact that the demon slayer mark drastically reduces your lifespan, and while Tanjuro didn’t have a demon slayer mark, he was the only other person we see in canon who mastered sun breathing, which could have reduced his lifespan, but this feels like a pretty flimsy explanation. I actually think this has more in common with the Ubuyashiki curse than the demon slayer’s mark.
We know the Ubuyashiki clan was cursed after Muzan became a demon. This is because the Ubuyashiki’s are related to Muzan and are cursed with a disease that takes the life of every clan head and it continues to be that way for every generation until Muzan is slain in the sunrise countdown arc. While not much is known about the curse mark, we do know that it is because Muzan became a demon and it is a mark that slowly kills you and you are guaranteed to die before the age of 30.
Why I think Tanjuro’s illness could be something similar is because Yoriichi had the opportunity to kill Muzan but ended up disabling him to where he wouldn’t be able to be a threat and then asked him about the value of life, which gave Muzan enough time to process that he was in danger of actually dying for the first time in over 500 years and managed to escape at the last second. If he would have just killed Muzan while he was still in shock, then he would have succeeded in eliminating the demon problem back in the Sengoku Era. Instead, Muzan escaped, causing 400 years of more innocent deaths that could have been prevented. This also prompted Muzan to be warier from then on about the power that demon slayers could possess, leading him to go deep underground into hiding instead of openly walking around without disguise as he had done prior to meeting Yoriichi.
On top of that, Yoriichi’s twin brother, Michikatsu, voluntarily became a demon, betraying the demon slayer corps and its code. This also made Yoriichi the only one who would have the ability to kill his own brother, which he failed to do before his death, and Michikatsu became the top ruling force in Muzan’s demon army, directly leading to the death of many slayers and civilians.
The reason why Tanjuro could have been sick and died young could have been as punishment for failing to kill both Muzan and his brother, as he should have done and had the capability to do. However, this theory is based on circumstantial evidence and mostly lies on the mystery of how the Ubuyashiki curse came to be, and if they were cursed by a person or if it was a more natural consequence as the universe balances itself out.
Completely switching topics to the color of Tanjuro and Yoriichi’s eyes, they are actually very similar, and even more so when you compare color versions of the manga instead of the anime. In Tanjuro’s bio, it says that his eyes are a dark red, while Yoriichi’s is a maroon color, but these two shades are incredibly close to each other and not like we are talking about two separate colors altogether like red and green. The main difference in the eyes is the fact that Tanjuro has distinguished pupils while Yoriichi’s eyes are more like Shinobu’s. I personally don’t know if there is any meaning to this as that character design is relatively rare, and in chapter 205, we don’t actually see Shinobu’s eyes in her new life, so I don’t know if this is something that could be changed when a character is reborn.
I would also like to mention that his hair could have been longer and thicker like Yoriichi’s when he was younger, but it is possible that as he got sicker, his hair naturally got thinner and shorter. However, we do not know for certain as we don’t see flashbacks of Tanjuro being younger or healthy, so this is just speculation. His hair is also similarly styled to Yoriichi’s (in a ponytail with overgrown bangs however this is a pretty common hairstyle, so take that info with a grain of salt) the only difference is it being much shorter and perhaps duller in color, but this can be attributed to Tanjuro being sick in the later stages of his life.
Moving onto Tanjuro’s haori, I actually think I have a good theory for this one. It was while I was looking at the bio of Yoriichi’s wife Uta that I actually spotted it. I was trying to find out if there were any similarities with Kie Kamado being the reincarnation of Uta Tsujikuni (there is credit to this theory too as both women were designed with straight black hair, and wore white aprons with white cloths around their heads and both having gentle, caring personalities) when I found out that the color of her kimono is the same shade of orange that is used in Tanjuro’s checkered haori. I feel that this is important because Uta meant everything to Yoriichi and it would make sense for him to prefer the softer orange color that subconsciously reminded him of the peaceful life he had with Uta over the red haori from his demon slayer days which I don’t believe he would have preferred reminiscing in his next life at all.
Some other links we can see is that Sumiyoshi was one of Yoriichi’s close friends and Yoriichi actually passed on his sun breathing technique to him, making Sumiyoshi the closest thing he had to an apprentice. This relationship is important because as we see in chapter 205 of Demon Slayer, friends and family are interchangeable from one lifetime to the next.
Sumiyoshi could literally be a time-traveling version of Tanjiro because they are so identical in their demeanor and character design, so this means that Tanjiro could possibly not just be the descendant of Sumiyoshi Kamado, but the reincarnation of him as well. I bring this up because the relationship between Yoriichi and Sumiyoshi could be similar to what it would be if they were both reborn as Tanjuro and Tanjiro. Both Yoriichi and Tanjuro were wise mentor figures to Sumiyoshi and Tanjiro and it would give more of an interesting twist to the trope of the apprentice defeating the arch nemesis of their master.
Overall, I think this is a good headcanon because Yoriichi is the kind of man who wouldn't want to be remembered as the best swordsman in all of human history because he loved his brother and that was his brother's dream. His true dream was to live a peaceful life, to good father, and to have a family with the ones he loved, which is Tanjuro's legacy. It would be such masterful narration if this was the intention in the first place and a great way to end Yoriichi's life story to give him the life he always wanted and to be remembered as the man he wanted to be.
​
TLDR: I think that Yoriichi Tsugikuni is Tanjiro’s dad. Change my mind.
​
I do have some other minor thoughts that support this theory, but these are the main ones and it's already like 2,500 words long, haha
Let me know what you guys think and if you’ve seen similar theories floating out around on here before! This theory is also like three hours old, so I could be completely off and have missed something vital that punches a softball-sized hole in my theory, so I'd love to hear your thoughts!

TW: suicide, homophobia, transphobia
Hi.
Sorry, this one's a long one.
I often have trouble figuring out if memories I have are real or fake for reasons I'll get into in a moment.
I'm very paranoid that I'm really just a compulsive lair, that my parents are just sick of me because of it? I don't know why I think that, I just do.
My therapist has told me that she believes there's definitely a "lack of care" in my childhood and I'm just wondering what you guys might think.
I wouldn't call what I've gone through abuse. It's not nearly as bad as some of my friends families are. It just sucked.
I think things were okay at a young age, sorta...
My mom worked days, so she was always gone, and my dad worked nights, so he would nap on the couch and watch me during the day.
Things were okay then. He'd give me piggyback rides through the house, play pretend with me, etc. I was happy.
I don't really remember interactions with my mom, only a couple of somewhat negative ones.
Once I was forced to take a bath and sang "Mommy's a meanie!" And my mom heard, dragged me out of the bathroom, and up to my dad, and said:
"Do you know what they were saying? They were saying, "Mommy's a meanie!" She was very angry, though I don't think she hurt me or anything. I don't even remember what my dad said or did.
There was also the time that I was forced to wear pigtails and I didn't want to, because I thought they were ugly and too girly, so I went and cried to my dad.
Don't remember my mom's reaction to that or my dad's. But I often feel bad in the present for both of those things, even though they were fairly minor? I mean, this is preschool aged me, I was gonna be foolish and immature.
Of course, these are definitely not abuse by any means. Just things that stick out from my childhood.
Things started getting worse when I hit K-5th.
I was bullied K-8th grade.
It was almost never physical, just verbal. Name-calling, rumors, social isolation. One kid literally saw me trying to befriend a new student and then TRAINED THEM TO PICK ON ME. Literally.
Nobody really did anything. I told my teachers and sometimes the students were talked to, but nothing really came of it.
I also told my parents, mainly my dad, as he was around more often, and I was closest to him. He asked me what the kids were doing, and when I told him, he chuckled and said, "That's not bullying. They're picking on you."
See, my dad grew up with harsher parents and was a social outcast in school from what little I know of his past. His own friend stabbed him in the knee with a knife, so my dad's got this idea that if it's not as severe as what happened to him, it's just not bullying/abuse/whatever.
He asked me if I was doing something to make my bullies treat me that way.
I told him that I didn't think so, that I tried to be kind and honest to everybody I met. They just didn't like me.
I don't remember what he said after. It could've been something along the lines of, "Well, just keep that in mind." Or something as simple as, "Just ignore them, then."
And that's how it went for me from K-8th. I now suffer from GAD and depression, and I began having the first symptoms of anxiety in 5th grade. I thought everyone was staring at me, talking about me, making fun of me all the time. I stopped raising my hand in class out of fear of being laughed at, should I be wrong, or being groaned at.
I continued to tell my dad, but he always went back to that question from before. Was it something I was doing? You're not being bullied, you're being picked on. Etc. Etc.
In 6th grade, I realized I was experiencing symptoms of anxiety and possibly depression, and I wanted to tell my dad. I asked if I could get checked out by a doctor and he told me that I wasn't depressed, I just wanted to be more like my friends.
My closest friend's father had died earlier that year and I had a couple of friends with shit parents.
Well, 6th-7th grade was when the bullying got worse. My depression started in full swing coupled by something else, which I'll get to in a moment.
One of my symptoms of depression is a severe lack of motivation. I have trouble taking care of myself, brushing my teeth, showering, washing my hair, cleaning my room, washing my clothes, and that also affected my chores at the time as well.
I always had issues brushing my teeth as a kid. Apparently, you're supposed to help your child brush/be there while they brush until they're 12? Which I'm pretty sure never happened for me, they taught me once, and when I didn't want to do it, they basically were like, "Well, you'll regret it when you're older!"
My hair went unkempt, and I hated it being cut because of the hairstyle my mom would always give me. I had no idea what I wanted because I didn't like any of the hairstyles I thought I was "allowed" to have. Again, more on this later.
Eventually, I got lice. I got it, I think, four times? And my mom eventually threatened to cut off all my hair if I got it again. Out of fear that I'd be bullied even more for being bald, when I did get it again, I tried to handle it myself, which went about as well as you'd expect.
My dad always used my state to explain why I was being bullied.
"Maybe you wouldn't be picked on as much if you washed your damn hair!"
He'd come into my room and see how messy it was and tell me that it was disgusting.
A line I especially remember from him, that he's said multiple times, was: "That's disgusting, (name)!"
And this is a depression room, so yeah. It was disgusting, but it just threw me deeper into a spiral of shame. I thought everything was my fault. On top of it all, whenever he would help me clean my room, if he did, he would rant the entire time about how gross it was.
Around this time, he also would take shots at my depression, saying: "If you think you have it so bad, I'll drive you around the worst neighborhoods in town, and show you what real hardship looks like."
My dad is a cop, he knows all the bad neighborhoods, the sketchy people, and he'd sometimes use them as a threat.
He threatened to take me through the bad neighborhoods to show how kids who didn't listen to "Mommy and Daddy" turn out when they grow up.
And it wasn't like I was skipping class or stealing or doing drugs or drinking. I literally was just suffering from depression and severe anxiety and didn't have the energy to take care of myself or do my chores.
I literally wanted to die.
My mom was kinda there, but not. She agreed with him most of the time, but I don't remember anything super specific in middle school that she did.
I never really got help for the bullying or mental health issues until 8th grade.
The only reason it tapered off when it did is because of an act entirely out of my control.
My middle school split itself into two. One course was "harder" and you had to take a couple extra classes. The other was "easier" and you got to learn on your own via computers. Given how my bullies acted in class, I chose the "harder" course, expecting most of them to be drawn to the other by the idea of getting to be on computers all day.
I turned out to be correct. Most of my bullies went to other course, and for the first time in years, I was just left alone.
Of course, there were still students seeing me in hallways and acting out then, and a couple in my classes, but it wasn't the big groups like I was used to.
My anxiety and depression were still there, however, and untreated.
I had an anxiety attack in math class and was sent to the counselor, finally. I'd been waiting to be seen for a couple of months because a teacher had found the venting in my notebook.
I wrote everything I felt down on a piece of paper, I think I used both sides. I said that I felt like everyone was watching me, that they hated me, that they thought I was a liar, and that I wanted to die.
I was sent back to class eventually and then called in again. My parents were there this time, and my mom blew out a breath when I looked at her. I'm not sure how to describe her expression. I don't think she wanted to deal with all this, though.
Basically, it was recommended that I be seen by a doctor and a counselor. We talked about it once on the car ride home, then it was business as usual.
I had to constantly ask if I could see a therapist. I think it took a few months for them to actually book an appointment with my doctor.
My dad liked to say that I was only experiencing "normal teenage anxiety" and that I wasn't depressed or anxious. Even when my therapist told him IN PERSON that I had Generalized Anxiety Disorder, he continued to say I had "normal teenage anxiety.""
At this point, I'm in high school. I start branching out, exploring. Originally, I only listened to my dad. I believed what he believed, I didn't have my own opinions. Now, I was exploring myself, other people, and really thinking about my identity deeply.
I'm a trans guy.
A lot of my issues with hairstyles and clothing and self care also stem from dysphoria, which likely contributed to the depression I was feeling in middle school.
I started leaning more left in high school, and my dad, right winger all the way, did not like this. He likes to belittle left-wingers and talk about how evil and stupid they are. He's literally told me that democrats are evil and, of course, he feels similarly about the queer community.
He thinks they're disgusting but agrees that gay people should be allowed to marry IF the state decides that's what they want. He thinks trans people are mentally ill. That they're just trying to use their identity to assault women in bathroom stalls.
I'm not explicitly out to him, however, I don't exactly hide what I believe either. I actively try to pass, I wear exclusively men's clothes, I bind, I have my mom cut my my hair short.
It's kind of an open secret?
Anyway, I started exploring that in HS and questioning all the beliefs I currently had. I questioned him, too. Of course, that made him angry and my grandparents angry. They didn't like that I didn't believe in a specific God anymore, they didn't like that I didn't agree with them on every little thing.
And, of course, there was more of my father's "You're not depressed" kind of talk thrown in there, too.
Sophomore year, I experienced burnout. It's the first time I was truly suicidal. I wanted to hurt myself, I held a knife to my neck to feel some semblance of control, I closed my hands around my neck and squeezed really hard.
My parents don't know any of this.
I didn't tell them because I was afraid of being yelled at. My dad thinks that those who commit suicide are selfish. He's told me that many times, and I didn't want to know what would happen if I told him I wanted to kms.
I had trouble with school because of my emotional state. I usually had As and Bs, but now I was getting Cs, Ds, and Fs.
I remember my mom forcing me to cut my hair and bending over my shoulder as I cried, saying, "It's not feel bad for (name) day."
I don't remember why I was crying, I just know that I'd had a difficult morning and my parents were pissed at me.
There were days that I didn't want to get up out of bed. One of these days was a school day, and my dad burst into my room and threatened to drag me out and file me as truent. For months after that, I would have little moments where I'd stare at the door and imagine that scene again.
One day, I went out on the porch and caught the tail end of my dad's conversation in which he was joking about how I was struggling in school.
I asked him if he thought it was funny, and he said something along the lines of, "Of course," and went on about how I was bringing it all on myself.
I looked him square in the eye and told him to go to Hell.
The first time I'd ever said something like that to him completely seriously. I turned around after that and went inside. It was never brought up again. I didn't even get in trouble.
I go back to therapy (one of the reasons for my shit mental state was that for reasons unrelated to this post I couldn't see a therapist at this time) and my mental state gets better. I start showering again, cleaning clothes, clean my room, wash dishes when I should.
Every time I went to my parents with updates, they looked at me and went:
"You should've been doing that already."
"Okay, what about x amount of other things you need to do?"
In fact, a lot of the accomplishments I made weren't even really recognized much? It was just, "Oh. Cool."
Artwork, awards, etc.
They just weren't that interested?
The person most excited for me when I got my first job was my TEACHER. She loved my art, she was happy for me when I did well. She wasn't constantly negative, constantly ranting about politics. She was kind and understanding and allowed me to have a space where I could be myself without being shut down.
I'm out of school now, and I'm doing a bit better. I'm on my way to starting testosterone, and I haven't told either of my parents about it, and I don't plan to. It's none of their business.
I'm seeing another therapist to assist with gender related issues, and we're also going to address the issues with my parents.
Sorry this was so long, but I wanted to see what others think. There's more issues than listed here, but this is just about my parents, not my other family members.

MIAMI

• Real Housewives of Miami’ star Guerdy Abraira on Season 5, upcoming reunion: ‘It was chaotic, emotional and loud’ (The Grio exclusive)
• 'RHOM' Star Guerdy Abraira Recalls Her Favorite Wedding Memory — and Why She Rented Her Dress (People exclusive)

POTOMAC

• 9 minute video: Ashley Darby dishes on 'Real Housewives of Potomac' reunion drama (Fox 5 DC/Yahoo!)
• You’ve Got to See Wendy Osefo’s Daughter Kamrynn All Dressed Up for “Preschool Prom” (Wendy Osefo Instagram/Bravo)

NEW JERSEY

• The Giudice-Ruelas Family Showed Off Their Sporty Style at a Hockey Game (Louie Ruelas Instagram/Bravo)
• Gia Giudice Shows Off Her New Hair: “Feeling Refreshed” (Gia Giudice Instagram/Bravo)
• ‘RHONJ’s Jennifer Fessler Reveals Why She Regrets Leaving Teresa Giudice’s Wedding Early With Margaret (HollywoodLife exclusive)
• Jacqueline Laurita Says Teresa Giudice Told Castmates to Not Film With Melissa Gorga During The First Two Seasons Of RHONJ (Two Ts in a Pod podcast/Heavy)
• RHONJ’s Jacqueline Laurita on Last Time She Spoke to Dina Manzo, Show Regrets, and Moving to O.C., Plus Getting in Trouble With Producers, Ashlee, and Danielle Staub (Reality with the King podcast/Reality Blurb)
• Jacqueline Laurita Reveals Why Dina Manzo Skipped Teresa Giudice’s Wedding (Two Ts in a Pod podcast/HollywoodLife)

NEW YORK

• Luann de Lesseps throws it back to a Mexican vacation (Page Six Star Snaps)

BEVERLY HILLS

• New mum Paris Hilton, 42, slips into a modern (and more modest) version of her iconic 21st birthday dress after sharing baby son's face and moniker - with Kathy Hilton and Faye Resnick in attendance (Daily Mail)
• Teddi Mellencamp Reveals How Father Reacted to News She Will Be Naked on a Billboard (Two Ts in a Pod podcast/Heavy)
• Kim Richards' Daughter Whitney Davis Joins Uncle Mauricio Umansky's Real Estate Firm, The Agency (People)

BRAVO

• You Won’t Believe How Grown Up These Real Housewives’ Kids Look in Their Prom Dresses (Bravo)

Links to this week's episode discussion posts:

• RHOM S5E15 🍹
• RHONJ S13E3 🍝
• RHOP S7E18 🌸
• VPR S10E3 🍸

While we have to say goodbye to the Netflix BSC series prematurely, the nominations for the first-ever Children's and Family Emmys were just announced today, and BSC received 8 nominations, including:
- Outstanding Children's or Family Viewing Series
- Outstanding Lead Performance in a Preschool, Children's, or Young Teen Program: Alicia Silverstone as Liz and Mark Feuerstein as Watson
- Outstanding Young Performer in a Preschool, Children's, or Young Teen Program: Malia Baker as MA and Momona Tamada as Claudia
- Outstanding Writing for a Live Action Preschool or Children's Program
- Outstanding Directing for a Single Camera Program
- Outstanding Makeup and Hairstyling
The ceremony will take be on December 11, if BSC wins ANY awards, it'll be one of the greatest early Christmas presents this year!! :D
You can read the entire list of nominations here!
EDIT: Didn’t realize the thread’s cover photo is from Heartstopper, that’s the photo featured in the link. But to be fair, that is also a Netflix show, and Shay (who plays Stacey in the BSC series) was obsessed with that show when it first came out (evident through her tweets on twitter), so I guess that’s somewhat relevant to the group

I had a journal that contained a lot of personal information, including my sexuality (Omnisexual) and my gender identity (at that time I thought it was alexigender, but I just go by genderqueer now). I accidentally leave it at my aftercare one time, and someone decided to read it, call my parents, MAKE COPIES OF MY JOURNAL, and send it to my parents. It really pisses me off because I was close with most of the counselors there, and they knew it was my journal and that I’ve said not to read it. It absolutely ruined the last bit of trust I had for people.
Anyways, my parents read the copies. In the journal, I also mentioned that I was an agonist. My parents are transphobic, homophobic Christians, so you can imagine they were less than happy when they read those copies. I already knew that they weren’t accepting, because they were upset then they found out that I simply knew the LGBTQ+ community existed and would watch things related to the community. They were mad because I knew it existed. My mom even accused me of having a secret girlfriend that I would sneak out to see and fuck during school hours instead of going to school. Keep in mind that I was only 10 or 11 at the time.
Once they found out I wasn’t cis, my mom has been extremely critical of everything I do. For example, when I was younger, my mom told me I didn’t need to wear skirts to be a girl (it’s not that I didn’t like wearing skirts back then- I did, but she told me that for whatever reason). Now, i don’t have any skirts (I’ve outgrown them) and a few times, she has said that she was going to buy me some new skirts. I told her that I don’t want to wear skirts because they make me uncomfortable, and that I’d rather wear a dress because they don’t bother me. She keeps getting mad and asking what’s the difference between the two and says “oh, so you’re not a girl anymore?” And the worst part is that it’s always in front of someone who is unaware of what happened and therefore I can’t even respond really.
She’s also made an effort to subtly tell me that same-sex/gender attraction is wrong. For example, about a year before it all happened, my younger sister who was in preschool or something kept going on about how she had a boyfriend and stuff like that. My mom wasn’t happy and said that she was supposed to be in school to learn and not to find partners. However, after the situation, my sister said she had a new boyfriend. However, when my mom found out, she didn’t even care that much. She just said that it’s “normal” for her to like boys and “at least she’s not saying she has a girlfriend.”
I came out to my school recently. Most people accept me, and my teachers use my correct name and pronouns, except one of them. I’m really anxious about them talking to my parents though, because if they use my correct name, my parents might get upset because they think that my identity should be something i should hide and be ashamed of. Who knows what they’ll do if they found out I was out? I don’t even have anywhere to go if they kick me out. All of my family and family-friends are homophobic. My parents are also really strict and won’t allow me to see friends, exchange numbers, or have social media. In fact, the only reason I got this Reddit account is because I can access it on google and I know they don’t have Reddit, so it’s unlikely that they’ll find it unless they look. So, if they find out, it’s either that they’ll kick me out and I’ll die on the streets, or they’ll make my life a living hell until I finally get to move out for college.
Even so, I’m already feeling shitty enough dealing with the constant misgendering, deadnaming, and them refusing to acknowledge that this is who I am. What I really want to do is see a gender therapist, but they definitely wouldn’t allow me to.
I’ve also been thinking of cutting my hair, but I have a feeling they won’t like that. I mean, growing up I’ve always loved long hair. I think it’s because I didn’t like my hair. Basically, I am black, and therefore I can’t just let my hair down and let it grow down that way like most people, which is actually something that still bothers me. So in order to feel “normal”, I would always want long, braided hair so that I could feel “white” or whatever. However, I recently had my hair braided that way, and everyone’s been saying how great it looks on me. However, the moment I got this hairstyle, a giant wave of dysphoria just hit me. It bothered me so much. But I didn’t want to be rude or suspicious so I just kept my hair like this. It doesn’t bother me as much when I put it in a bun or ponytail, because I can’t feel it on my back. I know my parents are okay with girls having short hair in general, since recently my mom cut her own hair, and my dad helped her. However, since it’s me, they might not let me because they probably don’t want to support me.
I’ve also been feeling really dysphoric lately. I honestly want to go through top/bottom surgery, or at least get a binder for now. And I definitely want a hysterectomy. I knew that the moment I got my period. It’s not even a dysphoric thing really, it’s just that periods are shit. But these things won’t happen anytime soon, especially the surgeries, which I’ve heard take years for most people to even be allowed to consider it. Honestly, I have no idea what to do anymore. I’m open to any advice if you have any.

When it comes to Kingdom Hearts, Sora, Riku & Kairi are three original characters that mean a lot to me outside of the Disney cast (more on that later). There’s a lot that can be said about the actual dynamic of the group as a trio & how it has changed during the duration of the franchise, which will be touched upon at the end. But nonetheless, the trio has lots of great moments in the franchises’ most recent entries, both with one another & individually, and I would like to share many of these moments that they all have that don’t often receive a ton of discussion. The topic of focus on this post will primarily be the Destiny Trio but a later post will dive more in-depth on other topics such as Graphics/Art Style, Other Aspects of the Game & Common Criticisms. (Click on the hyperlinks to see images/videos that illustrate or elaborates on each point).

The Destiny Trio

For what it’s worth (while also considering that not that much time has passed between the events of KH1 & KH3 in-universe) the physical growth of the Destiny Trio has been quite apparent since their debut back in 2002 if you look at their change in appearance side-by-side. In any case, it’s heartwarming to see how strong the little preschoolers of BBS have become, each getting a chance to clash their Keyblades with the most ancient Keyblade in the series thus far. And seeing them reunite with the Keyblade Wielders that left a significant impact on their lives was also a very sentimental experience.
On the topic of impact, during Sora’s journey in KH3, I like how we get to see the effect Riku & Kairi has on his understanding of the worlds & emotions as we often see Sora be reminded of Riku during his adventure, or subconsciously connecting the feelings of others he experienced with how he feels about Kairi. In the previous numbered titles, Kairi & Riku were more than willing to put their own lives on the line to protect Sora & it was wonderful for Sora to return the favor & do the same for them. Each of these instances notably happened against a corrupted version of the Wayfinder trio. While the Destiny Trio themselves haven’t received a collective darkness signifier like the other Trios of Darkness, it was really interesting how the Seeker of Darkness, in terms of visuals as opposed to literal connections, had their own version of a Dark Destiny Trio among their ranks under the watch of a high-ranking version of Xehanort (both in KH3 & throughout the series).
Sora, Riku & Kairi are all three powerful in their own right, but it was quite evident that they were all challenged quite a bit during their battles in the Keyblade Graveyard. The three of them often failed to defeat their respective Xehanorts on their own despite their best efforts. But whenever they team up & fight together, a theme that’s very important to the franchise as a whole, we’ve seen some incredible & magical abilities unleashed from their combined strengths. I love how Sora’s team up with Kairi in KH3 parallels with his team up with Riku in KH2. And the imagery of the treasured memories Riku & Kairi share alongside Sora during their respective playable segments in DDD & KH3, is also a very artistic use of blending together gameplay and characterization.
Sora getting the chance to spend some time alone with Riku & Kairi within a world that matches their emotional aesthetic is a very charming little breather that these two games have after their respective final battles. I like how End of Sea & the Final World, are worlds where Riku & Kairi are not only in awe of their surroundings, but also take part in an encounter where, after their hearts call out to him, Sora arrives to protect his friends from the darkness.
After the final battle, it’s also incredibly great how Sora, Riku & Kairi all play a significant part in the revival of Namine, who had always longed for a connection to others like the one shared between the Destiny Trio. Given the deep connection they all share with her, & the desire they all have to save her, I love how each of them contribute to bringing her back, such as Kairi protecting & holding on to Naminie’s heart, Sora releasing that heart with the Power of Waking (his last act with the Keyblade before disappearing into Unreality) & Riku being there to pick her up & take her home (while also having the Replica used for Namine’s heart be the same vessel that was once housed by Riku Replica’s heart).And ending KH3 with Sora & Kairi sitting together on the Paopu Fruit tree, just as he did with Riku at the end of KH2, is another perfect way to both callback to the previous mainline games & end the journey they shared together in KH3.
For Riku & Kairi, I’m looking forward to future opportunities for them to interact, but I will say that I really enjoyed the banter they had with each other in 0.2 & Melody of Memory, as it showed that both of them still have a positive connection with each other, despite the experiences that they did endure together in the past. These scenes were adequate enough for me personally, especially when 0.2 & MoM act as the prologue and epilogue of KH3 respectively. While Sora has always been the primary focus of the numbered-titles, I like how whenever we do get a main story interval, it is often an opportunity to check in on Riku & Kairi, which carries on even after the events of KH3. And even after Sora’s disappearance from the world for about a year, Riku & Kairi eventually get another chance to temporarily connect with Sora again once more, through analyzing data with a digital Sora or finding answers to the past with a memory of Sora.
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Sora

KH3 is Sora at his absolute best. Myself & others have talked a lot about what makes Sora so great in this game in other threads, so I don’t have too many new points to share here. From a gameplay perspective, I love how Sora has become an amalgamation of over 20 different Disney properties wrapped up in one character, making him the greatest Disney RPG Warrior that has ever been playable in a Disney game. In terms of his characterization, Sora’s personality is the most well rounded it has ever been in KH3. Sora has always been a silly goofball that hasn’t been known for being incredibly serious or mature. This has been the case for quite a long time, especially in KH2, a game where many people forget how odd & immature Sora tended to act in that game. This is not at all a point against Sora as these personality traits is what makes him an excellent choice for a character who explores a variety of Disney Worlds with the same childlike wonder many of us would have in his shoes. Not to mention the fact that he has been practically raised by Donald & Goofy throughout his journey, making the development of his personality completely logical.
But Sora’s characterization is much more well-rounded than what appears on the surface. And his multidimensional personality is exemplified the best in KH3, where we get to see a wide variety of examples demonstrating how mature, snarky, perceptive, serious & intelligent (emotionally & logically) Sora has become. You know that Sora has come a long way from where he started after you see what it’s like for him to take a punch versus giving one.
I for one, also believe that Aqua’s adventures in the Dark World served as a perfect prologue to Sora’s most recent adventure as the two of them share a lot of parallels & similarities with one another that reflect their respective journeys in 0.2 for Aqua and KH3 for Sora (as well as DDD when it comes to following what their heart wants regardless of what their mind is telling them). I love how Sora’s source of motivation throughout his adventure in KH3 is fueled by the emotions he experienced near the very end of DDD during the dreams he had of everyone in his heart, both literally & figuratively. And those individual within his heart, specifically Ventus, Roxas & Xion, continue to be a constant presence throughout the narrative as Sora often calls back to & keeps them in his thoughts both on a conscious and subconscious level.
There are other great moments in the game that callback to Sora’s earlier experiences that showcases how far he has come. In terms of foreshadowing, I like how Sora’s nonchalant attitude of bending the rules comes back to bite him in the ass when he goes as far to break a taboo of nature. In terms of callbacks, I enjoyed seeing Sora reach out to catch Ventus, only being able to grab onto his heart like he did with Kairi during the fall of Destiny Islands. I liked seeing Sora’s final triple boss encounter in comparison to his first one. I loved seeing this boy chosen by the Kingdom Key, be given the most legendary weapon in all of Kingdom Hearts by its most powerful master. And it was so heartwarming to see that after once telling her to stay behind so that she doesn’t get in the way, Sora, with full confidence in her, asks Kairi if she’s ready to take on a Keyblade Master alongside him without the slightest bit of hesitation.
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Kairi

I’m well aware of her vocal reception among this fanbase & I understand the flaws with her as a character. I too would like to see her grow more substantially in the future. With that acknowledged, not only do I still really like Kairi, but I also think her appearance in KH3 is my personal favorite of hers. I think a lot of people have already gone in lengths about her shortcomings and I’m sure that most people are aware of them too so with that in mind, I’m choosing to mostly focus on what I enjoy about Kairi in terms of her personal development.
First off, to get points regarding game development out of the way, there seems to be a lot of discourse about her appearance in KH3 & to be absolutely honest, I find the whole debate about her hair to be completely silly, ridiculous & immature. I suspect that a lot of people still haven’t adjusted to the art style of Unreal Engine 4 but luckily, we know what KH3 Kairi looks like in the order engine. And when you take a look at her appearance side by side, on top of understanding that she’s the exact same age in KH2 as she is in KH3, Kairi’s appearance has remained consistent throughout the growth of her as a character.
While I also like the longer look to her hair too, Kairi’s hairstyle has often been changed to reflect Utada Hikaru’s hairstyle for the given time of each game’s release. Personally, I think it's a really neat detail that also thematically ties Kairi to the main Utada theme song of the respective game that Kairi plays a role in. Kairi was also introduced to us with shorter hair back in 2002 so this shorter style still suits her to some extent. At least for me personally. The cutting of hair is also symbolic of an end of an era of someone’s life, and the beginning of another. Riku goes through this between KH2 & DDD (and also 3 but not really voluntary) & Rapunzel, a fellow Princess of Heart alongside Kairi, also gets her hair cut off too which symbolically enters her into the next stage of her life which I think is a really nice parallel between Kairi & her fellow Princess of Heart.
And for those who continue to vehemently dislike her short hair then if I can just be blunt about this…. haven’t any of you ever had a significant other or someone you care about suddenly change their hairstyle to something different as well? Maybe even drastic enough to the point where they suddenly look older or younger? Because if so, at the end of the day it’s not the hairstyle that matters, it’s the person themselves. Not trying to make any assumptions about anyone when I say this but if you would rather complain about Kairi’s short hair & judge her based on that than her as a character (especially if you’re older than the age of 16) maybe you might wanna reconsider what’s more important. Then again, all of these characters are just fictional I suppose.
Bit of a tangent but I also don’t really agree with a lot of the disrespect Alyson Stoner receives as Kairi’s voice actress. I love Hayden Panettiere’s performance in previous games, but Stoner does just as good of a job as Panettiere has done in my opinion. Vocal direction is an entirely different topic but for what it's worth, Stoner did a really great job giving the performance she was directed to give as Hayden would have been given the same direction had she been cast (the more princess-y direction for Kairi’s voice was something Hayden talked about during interviews for KH2). Alyson has been part of this cast since 2008 when she first voiced Kairi in Re:Chain of Memories, a year before she became more wildly known by fans as the voice of Xion so seeing her referred to as a new voice actor comes off as a little disrespectful. Stoner is an experienced performer with a history at Disney & has voiced Kairi in 5 different KH entries (and counting) as opposed to Hayden’s 4 times voicing the character.
Hayden has also voiced Xion twice during Blank Points in BBS & in the ending of DDD even though Alyson was available at the time. The idea is supposed to be that Kairi & Xion share the same voice given that they have the same voice actress in Japan. It was never going to be Hayden as Kairi and Alyson as Xion in the same game. It was always going to be just one or the other. Hayden was supposedly supposed to be the voice of Xion but given her schedule, cost & issues in her personal life, she isn’t as reliable to call upon as Alyson is. In any case, Alyson did a phenomenal job with Kairi’s narration in Melody of Memory, so I hope she returns to voice Kairi in KH4. That’s all I wanted to share about Kairi from a game development standpoint.
Kairi’s characterization after her tomboy phase in KH1 makes sense to me for a couple of reasons. In the KH2 Ultimania, Nomura states that: “Kairi, who was a tomboy in KHI, became a little bit more mature in KHII. She changed a lot outwardly since at that age girls grow a lot faster than boys, but her lively personality didn’t fundamentally change. Enough that ‘with Riku and Sora gone, right now Kairi is the strongest person on Destiny Islands’ is an actual premise. I like the scene in KHI, when she watches the sunset with Sora, and tells him not to change. I thought it showed very well her anxiety and loneliness over how as we get older, we find a distance growing between us and our close friends”. It makes sense to me that Kairi is not the same girl she was when we first met her, after the potentially traumatizing experiences she had of watching her home get destroyed, losing her heart, seeing her friends fall to darkness over her & being separated from her loved ones for a year as she slowly forgets about them.
I also can see that, as a fan who enjoys Disney’s characters just as much as the development team of Kingdom Hearts, Nomura is faithful & accurate to a fault as Kairi is simply just playing the same role that the rest of the Disney Princesses she takes inspiration from have played in their source film. She even has a Fairy Godmother there for her to further drive the point that like a Disney Princess, she truly believes that dreams can come true. Just as Sora is an amalgamation of all the Disney properties he has experienced, Kairi is a product of what the current line-up of Disney Princesses has to offer in each of the games they play a role in. And Kairi often shares a lot of the same character development as her fellow Princesses of Heart in each of their respective game.
On the topic of the other princesses Kairi takes inspiration from, I personally prefer getting to know each of the New Seven Hearts naturally & organically as opposed to having all of them dumped together without getting to actually know & interact with them like in the first game. In an alternative universe, this wouldn’t be a problem if BBS came out before KH1 & we get to actually see the Princesses as actual characters. But as it currently stands, KH1 could have benefitted from the right call made by KH3 of letting us meet the Princesses first before we see them all again later on to serve an even bigger role to the main story. Which has a likely chance of happening if Kairi is given a larger role in future games, as teased by Melody of Memory.
There are other new developments of Kairi’s character in KH3 that makes her appearance in this game my favorite of hers. From big characterization moments such as her incredible yet underrated speech about why what she did to Namine was wrong given that she deserves a chance to live her own life, to even smaller things I appreciate about her such as how opposite of Namine’s ability to draw, Kairi seems to be very proficient in writing. The biggest addition to Kairi’s development in KH3 is her relationship to Axel as she acts as a stand-in for Xion in terms of the dynamic they share. It was really great to see how far these two have come from their first hostile encounter with each other in KH2, to the connection that they form with each other in KH3. It was so sweet to see moments of not only Axel putting his life on the line to protect Kairi, but to also see Kairi return the favor & protect Axel from harm as well, regardless of what will happen to her.
KH3 also gave us some more insight into the mental states of a lot of the characters, most notable Kairi, who seems to have a similar amount of trauma inside of her as Aqua when she froze in despair after encountering the man who kidnapped & launched her away from her own world when she was only four years old. And her contribution to the Keyblade Graveyard battle is also nothing to write off either. Sora was only able to revive the Guardians due to Kairi using her powers to keep him from fading away. And Sora could only return to the point in time prior to the Guardian’s fall to darkness by following the light within the darkness which again, was thanks to Kairi. Kairi’s ability to accomplish this is some excellent payoff to the story that her Grandma told her when she was a preschooler about how even if she’s within the deepest darkness, as long as she believes in the light with all of her heart, her inner power will shine as she pushes the darkness away. Kairi coming through for Sora in this moment is really important for their connection to each other. Not only in terms of Sora relating this act of Kairi to the act of true love he witnessed in Kingdom of Corona & Arendelle, but also in terms of Sora finally having someone who, instead of casting doubt on his capabilities, had always completely & unconditionally believed in him. The two of them promised to keep each other safe & despite neither of them being able to do anything to prevent Sora’s disappearance, I still believe that they gave it all their very best effort.
I also don’t think that Kairi completely lost the edge that she had way back in KH1. She still teased Riku a lot in 0.2 & it appears that she transferred a lot of the sass she use to give to Sora over to Axel. I even liked how willing she still was to wanna punch Saix in the face like she was in KH2. But the best showcase of how tough she still is can all be found in her fighting capabilities. Her combat moveset was a lot of fun to experience, both as a party member & as a playable character. It’s always fun to see a heart of pure light or a character who is often docile go completely savage or feral with their Keyblade. We even get to see her mimic many of the techniques she has witnessed during her time as a wielder such as Sora’s Sonic Blade, Aqua’s barrier shield or even Terranort letting go of his Keyblade after being tossed around by the opponent.
I still believe that Kairi is an unsung hero when it comes to a lot of her contributions to the games as there are many moments when the day would not have been saved had Kairi not been around to help. It’s been really great to see the progression of Kairi standing by Sora’s side through the years & seeing how far they’ve come from where they’ve been. I continue to look forward to seeing how they expand her role & her capabilities in future games as her outing in KH3, despite any shortcomings, greatly strengthened my optimism towards this character’s potential.
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Riku

Riku is another character whose development has been greatly analyzed by tons of other fans so again, not much new to say here. DDD was where his character growth was at the forefront of the game & was so awesome to experience. So I didn’t mind him taking a bit of a backseat in KH3 even though he ranks in fourth place in terms of screentime (behind the Trinity Trio obviously), But despite that, I loved that the game gave him new goals to achieve that built upon his growth from DDD, such as moving on from his past relationship with the darkness, demonstrating what it looks like to have the strength to protects what matters & fulfilling the final wish of a character that represented his past regrets. It was such a beautiful visual for his personal arc with Riku Replica as we see that iconic image of him extending his hand but instead of the wave being behind him, it is now in front of him represented by Namine (FYI: "nami (波)" means "ocean wave" in Japanese).
Riku has been through many experiences in his life that he shouldn’t have survived. But it doesn’t surprise me that he doesn’t let a bleak looking situation damage his resolve like it would for most people. He seems to always have confidence that everything will be okay as long as his friends are close to his heart. And the concern Riku has for his friends makes his requests of them staying away from the danger for the sake of their safety match with his main goal of wanting to protect those that matter to him.
While not the focus of the game, that doesn’t stop Riku from having an incredible moment of characterization after he gives encouraging words to Sora, exactly as he once did during the final battle in KH1. We then see a critical moment for his character arc in KH3 where, instead of letting the Heartless overpower him while his back is turned like he did before, he confronts his fear of the darkness head on to showcase how powerful his resolve in protecting the people that matter has become. This moment truly showcases just how much of a hero of the light Riku has become. And although he is not successful in saving Sora, a hero isn’t just someone who will do anything to succeed. It’s also someone who’s willing to sacrifice their life to defend what they believe in & at least try for the good of others (this also applies for Kairi who tried to protect Axel from the Demon Tide).
The growth of Riku in this game from where he first started in KH1 has also been a joy to experience. Of course, it’s always great to see how much he & Sora have grown & developed in terms of their skills & abilities, especially when they work together. His maturity of seeing Sora become close with other people in comparison to how he reacted in the first game is a delight to see. I’m very glad that KH3 gave Riku the chance to not only finally get to see Sora’s awesome rocket ship but to also reunite with the man that kickstarted his journey to see & travel to worlds beyond his tiny island. But for me personally, my favorite aspect of Riku is the relationship he has with Mickey & how the two of them will always be there to reach out & rescue one another from despair. Speaking of which…...
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King Mickey

My personal bias is that after seeing him & Chicken Little (yes, seriously) in a trailer for KH2 when I was a kid, convincing me to put KH2 on my Christmas Wishlist for 2006, Mickey has been & always will be my #1 favorite character in the franchise. For a lot of fans, Mickey is a joke character that they can’t take seriously. To others, he’s Michael the Rat, a war criminal who had the audacity to take off his shirt in 0.2 BBS despite the fact that he’s been shirtless long before the majority of every KH fan’s grandparent were even born. Mickey’s appeal is a little difficult to explain concisely but I’ll do my best to articulate it.
Essentially his reputation precedes him. Given that he has been around for over 90 years, it’s very likely that whether you are indifferent to him or not, the majority KH players & developers of the games have experienced some Mickey related media during the early stages of their life. Film, television, merchandise you name it. There’s a certain amount of prestige to be relevant for that long. Borderline legendary given he's essentially the nexus of the many iconic Disney animated films that have shaped Kingdom Hearts.
And the idea of Mickey being some sort of a legend is something that Disney plays into primarily in places like the theme park. In productions like the gravitas of his appearances in parades. The Sora-esque “beacon of hope” he is presented as in live shows like Fantasmic. The entrances he makes when he appears in ensemble Disney characters productions much like he does in KH1.
And the reason why this works for a lot of people is because of the role Mickey played in the presence of many people’s childhood. For whole generations of families even. He’s a source of joy for children and a nostalgic memory for adults. So for those with that kind of connection with Mickey, he really doesn’t feel out of place at all with his role in Kingdom Hearts. It helps that his simple character traits make it easier to adapt his Everyman personality to any given scenario or situation. With that sort of impact on one's life, it's easy to look past how ridiculous he honestly might be. And the fact that his creation is the very nexus of all of Kingdom Hearts, down to how the franchises' most important characters, Sora & Xehanort take direct inspiration from Mickey & the Mad Doctor (who appears in KH3's Classic Kingdom games), means that a lot of fans who love this franchise owe that gratitude to not just Nomura, but also to Mickey & Disney as well.
Everyone has that versatile mascot character that they grew up with that just brings them nostalgic comfort regardless of what emotional context they may be in. Maybe some people had different childhoods where their iconic character was someone like Mario, Sonic, Bugs Bunny, SpongeBob, Bart Simpson, Kermit the Frog etc. And if they were to see those characters in a seemingly more serious context like with King Mickey, it wouldn’t look out of place because there was a time where growing up, you kinda just remembered taking those characters seriously.So, with how he’s portrayed in the game with the same importance he’s given in a nighttime Disney Parks production, I really do think that Nomura, who also grew up with Mickey, looks at him just as earnestly as he does as the KH franchise in general.
As a side thing, his voice, specifically from 2002-2009 was done by the legendary Wayne Allwine who voiced Mickey from 1977 up until his passing in 2009. So even though his voice is often mocked, there's much more of a sentimental feel to hearing his voice in the context of the voice actor who helped to shape him, at least during the games Allwine was alive for. So it's hard to see his voice as something humorous for me at least.
Much of Mickey’s criticisms stemmed from a lot of misconceptions regarding his inability to save Aqua from the Realm of Darkness. I like to believe that outside of just being a meme, most of the fanbase has finally let go of that notion & actually understand the nuances of that situation as Mickey had a lot of logistics he had to work through in order to save Aqua in opposition of what the fanbase unreasonably wanted him to do. The important thing to remember is that Mickey has busted his ass for many of the characters in the franchise & contributed to kickstarting the events that would lead to all of them reuniting. It’s the reason why his playable segment in Re:Mind is my favorite moment in all of Kingdom Hearts as it’s an amazing cumulation of Mickey overcoming his survivor’s guilt & putting his own life on the line to give these young Guardians another chance at life.
This thread goes into great detail about how Re:Coded was a game that showcased the survivor guilt that Mickey harbored (making the game less pointless to the overall plot seeing as just like DDD is for Riku, Re:Coded is the unofficial Mickey game of the franchise). And here is another great thread about how the scene in Re:Mind was a beautiful way to bring closure to Mickey’s inner struggle from throughout the franchise. It made it all the more wonderful to see other characters return the favor as they put their own bodies on the line to protect Mickey or to also be there to save Mickey for all the times that he was there to save them.
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Conclusion

For Sora, Riku & Kairi, I understand that we haven’t seen them together as a trio all too much since the very beginning of KH1. But like the simple bonds shared between many of the Disney friends or couples that the gang draws inspiration from, it’s not all too compliment to understand why the Destiny Trio are so connected to one another given that all they grew up together a decade prior to the events of the first game. In previous interviews about the characters, Nomura has spoken about how characters like Kairi are often worried about how distant friends become as they grow older. It’s very relatable for the relationship you share with other to become recontextualized by your own life experiences or your perception of those individuals as you mature. Based on what myself & others have experienced in life, understanding this makes the dynamics of the Destiny Island trio the most realistic one out of all the other trios in my opinion.
Please share any thoughts you may have on the Destiny Trio & if any of the points I shared in this post had any impact on what your own personal experience with the game was. Next post will focus on the Graphics & Art Style of KH3 and why I'm glad that the series will continue to use the capabilities Unreal Engine as opposed to going back to the old style.
Previous Post:The Disney Worlds of Kingdom Hearts 3 are Fantastic.The Final Battle of Kingdom Hearts 3 is one the best in the franchise.

1. SPORTS CAREER - After you're 40 and no longer eligible to play, you should be able to do commentary. 1.2 Shoe deals and other endorsements 1.3 Olympics 1.4 add more sports ie professional poker, professional gamer, nascar driver etc
   
2. WRITER CAREER 2.1 being a blogger and choosing what you write about 2.2 choosing what kind of book you write ie. Genre, title, # of chapters etc. 2.3 option to be a screen writer ( also optional in acting)
   
3. APPEARANCE UPGRADES - Expansion from just a head to perhapes a bust or full body 3.2 more accessories such as jewelry, tattoos, clothes etc. 3.3 more hairstyles especially dreadlocks
   
4. Vehicle customization
   
5. EDUCATION - Abilty to choose what college you go to ie. Harvard, yale etc. 5.2 option to homeschool 5.3 make grades more challenging with the risk of being held back 5.4 kindergarten/preschool
   
6. ACTING - the ability to become a child actor 6.2 commercial mascot/face 6.3 option to become a directoproducescreen writer (can also be used for writing career) 6.4 game show host
   
7. SOCIAL MEDIA - add Twitch 7.2 add different categories of content
   
8. Extended family
   

There's more but I'm too lazy to type more

Nap time destroys any hairstyle I give my three year old... when I pick her up her hair is a crazy mess. I'm her dad, and girls' hair is not my forte. I've used those little one use rubber bands, barrettes, clips, hair bands. At a minimum I want to keep her hair out of her face all day, but I'd love it to be a little cute too. Any suggestions?

I was born in a 92% white suburban town. My parents, when they moved, were the first black people in our development. I was always one of 2-4 black children in any class that I was in.
It was always a mind screw to be privy to the kind of Americana white picket fence life that I nonetheless could never fully be a part of. When I was very little, I was proud of being different- in my preschool "yearbook", when asked about what made me special I wrote (well, dictated) "I can read already and I have a unique hairstyle!" In kindergarten, I wanted to be a "princess" for Halloween, but this was pre-Tiana so my mom made me an "African princess dress" out of kente cloth, complete with a crown and a scepter. In class, my teacher pointed out that there were two (white) girls dressed as princesses and I immediately piped up "I'm a princess too!" Later that day the two other princesses (who were very snooty with me and in hindsight probably had racist parents) said something like "we're not giving any of our magic to you, sorry" and I grabbed my scepter and said "I don't need your magic; I have my own in my scepter!" My parents were so proud when I told them what I said and told the entire family.
Yet as I grew older, I lost that proud spirit. I started trying to be the best mock-up of a suburban white girl that I could possibly be. I remember that I would braid my box braids together as though they were strands of hair so that I (to some extent) could imitate what the other girls were doing with their hair. I thought that my hair in its natural state was unacceptable because it was "unfinished" and needed to be put into braids. I eagerly looked forward to being allowed to relax my hair when I was older, and when I was 12 (after I had moved into my dad's childhood home in the city kicking and screaming) I finally did... but it did not instantly give me long silky white girl hair like I thought. In fact, my natural hair had been shoulder-length to begin with (never any longer) but the hairdresser I went to damaged it (she didn't even use a base before putting the relaxer on!) and cut it up to ear length. I walked around with ugly, lifeless, fried hair for 4 years, and the saddest part was that I genuinely believed that this was an upgrade from my natural hair. I didn't know about all the cute styles that could be done with natural hair, nor the existence of blowdryers as anything other than preparation for a flat iron.
I hated the negative stereotypes that were associated with being black, ever since my mom enrolled me in dance lessons in the next town over and while there were far more other black girls than I had ever been around before, the older girls were what I perceived as "bad girls" (it was a much rougher neighborhood than I came from) and I felt like I had to be as compliant as possible to distance myself from them (because not only was I black, I was the same size as some of the older girls so I got mistaken for older). It became even worse after I moved to the city. I believed that by being a smart, generally well-behaved child, I would be exempt from this kind of stereotyping... until I was accused of shoplifting from a drugstore when I was 14. I had guys on the street trying to impress me by offering drugs, and bus drivers assuming that I was one of the residents of the "welfare hotel" a few blocks away. Even as I resented being stereotyped like this, I still felt profoundly out of place being what I was- too "white" acting for most black people, yet too black for most white people.
I went away to an Ivy League college, which thankfully is more diverse than most schools of its kind. But even there, I felt out of place with the "black community" there- I still had the mannerisms of a person raised in the suburbs, which made it difficult to interact with black people that weren't (even other Ivy Leaguers) in any kind of group setting. My general social awkwardness absolutely did not help, and made it difficult for me to "assimilate" within the general community as well. It was easier to talk to the white middle-class students (and the black ones that were like me), as they reminded me of my childhood, but I still had this pervasive sense of being the "other" even when no one said or acted like it. I even felt like my room, because of how it was decorated, didn't actually belong to me and looked like it belonged to a wealthy white sorority girl. This played into the many other issues that I had that led me to experience academic and interpersonal problems, and I ended up going on a two-year medical leave of absence that I will return from in August.
As I've been thinking and recovering over these past two years, self-identity has been a major issue. My entire existence since age 5 or so has been just putting on costume after costume. But I recently remembered that story about the African princess costume in kindergarten, and the Kwanzaa celebrations my family used to have. I remembered that there was a time where my race and culture was one of the things that made me unique, and I saw this as a positive thing. I didn't associate being black with negative stereotypes, nor did I associate it with having to live a repressed life in order to avoid them (which is what I did).
Although I do not have the skill that my mom had to actually make clothes, I looked online and found this website that sells African clothes in modern/trendy cuts. One of the best things is that the model they use looks like me- she's not skinny or plus sized as though those are the only two options! They also use cuts (sweetheart neck, peplum hem, etc.) that are very flattering on my body type- it's great to see that they made this with not just the cultures but the bodies of African women in mind. I intend to buy some of these tops as part of my "returning to school" wardrobe, and, while this has nothing to do with African or black culture, chose all the decor for my room in my favorite color. There's also a lot of monogrammed stuff (throw pillows for example), an homage to my African heritage (my name is Swahili) as well as to me as a person.
It's time to stop living life as a defective imitation of a suburban white girl, and start living it as myself.

Hello all,
This will probably be very long so I apologize in advance, but I needed somewhere to share my thoughts and feelings. Although it runs counter to everything I have ever been socialized to do, I am trying to be vulnerable and say things I have never discussed with anyone. I never post on social media but I am still so nervous that I made a new account for this. I have a lot of social anxiety but ironically this place full of internet strangers feels like the safest place to do so. From what I have observed this is a very supportive environment.
That being said, I feel like I am disconnected from what is considered socially acceptable terminology with regards to many things. I have tried to pay attention to the words people use and will do the best I can, but I would ask that if something I say crosses a line or is hurtful, please correct me. I want to preserve the safe environment for everyone here.
Sigh Here goes...
I was born male and grew up in a very conservative religious household. I internalized a lot of very toxic beliefs regarding gender and sexuality which led to a considerable amount of self-hatred when I experienced anything that contradicted those beliefs. I pursued traditionally male interests but always felt like I was faking my way through everything.
I grew up believing that gender and sexuality were the same thing. Given my mental framework, it was an easy conclusion that: I have always been attracted to women, therefore I must be male. However there was an undertone that although I was attracted to women, that feeling was also laced with strong envy of all the things about them that I believed I could never have.
I wanted to feel desired by others in the same way that I felt when I looked at a beautiful girl. Most of the time I was content with my clothes being plain and utilitarian because constant bullying had led me to believe that being invisible was safe. There were moments though that I would see a girls outfit and wish that I could wear something like that.
I wanted to experience things like having a period. I watched with envy in elementary as girls were going through puberty and began to grow breasts. I wanted to be penetrated. I wanted to be able to become pregnant and experience life growing inside me. I would sometimes become aroused by these thoughts and believed myself to be a perverted degenerate. Having erections felt like my body was betraying me and reminding me of the reality of the body I was living in.
As an preschoolekindergartener, I remember visiting my female cousins and they dressed me up in one their dance leotards. I remember thinking it was funny but absolutely loving the feel of the spandex against my skin. I remember watching them do gymnastics and thinking it looked like so much fun. I remember asking my mom if I could do that too and feeling so hurt when she said it wasn't for boys. I wanted to know why I couldn't.
When I went through puberty and my leg and arm hair began growing, I tried shaving with my mom's razor and cut myself several times. When my mom saw the cuts I lied and said I was just curious. She was amused but it was made very clear that this was something boys didn't do.
In elementary, I was invited to a friend's house. His older sister had just come back from swimming and had left her bikini to dry in the shower. Trying it on as a "joke" to make my friend laugh was euphoric but caused a lot of guilt and shame.
In middle school while visiting my female cousin, I would steal her swimsuit and sneak off to try it on. My aunt was a lactation consultant so I would use the pumps on my chest to try to make things bigger. I was so scared of being caught or found out.
When my parents were gone I would sneak into their bedroom and try on my mom's underwear and bras. We had a vibranting back massager and I would use it while imagining that I was a girl. My mom had spermicidal vaginal suppositories and I would insert them. At my cousins I would steal tampons and insert them.
I had no exposure to anything remotely close to the internet or something like this community. My parents installed software that restricted access to any category of the internet that was deemed "sinful". (This led to me learning how to bypass things on a computer) I had no idea that being Trans was even a thing. With my mental framework I was scared that this meant I was gay. This didn't make sense to me because I wasn't attracted to men. I came to believe that this must be how everyone felt but that just because I had these thoughts didn't mean that I truly felt this way.
For much of my life I have strongly believed that I had something wrong with me. I was brought up to believe that anything mental health related (except for maybe schizophrenia) needed to be treated with behavioral means and that we needed to fix these "disorders". I became strongly opposed to the "gay agenda". Gay marriage wasn't marriage because marriage was between a man and a woman.
This aspect of my life felt like this shameful thing that I always tried to ignore. I tried to make myself feel better by pursuing traditionally male activities.
We lived in a rural community so I hunted and fished. I was athletic but uncoordinated. I tried playing sports and did ok, but always felt out of place. I lifted weights and loved the feeling of being strong. I loved building things and worked construction. In school I took engineering classes and dreamed of making things that would help people live better lives.
I developed a strong feelings about people bullying others but was also cruel to those who did not fit my notion of normal. LGBTQ individuals made me very uncomfortable and I frequently ranted about how it was a choice that they were making. In my head I was angry that if I had to bury my feelings so should everyone else.
I met my wife in high school and for the first time in my life felt like I had found someone who accepted me for who I was. We have been together almost 14 years now and have helped each other through so much. Things have been rocky at points because of some misogynistic beliefs that I have held. She has helped me grow and to counter many of the messages I grew up hearing.
My desired to protect others and to serve others led me to join the United States Marine. I have served for 11 years now in a combination or reserve and active time. I have excelled and have been promoted ahead of my peers. I have gone through special operations training and was selected before experiencing a mental breakdown due to extreme imposter syndrome. I currently am the platoon sergeant for a group of 45 Marines and am responsible for their training and well being. Over the years I have garnered respect from my subordinates, peers, and superiors and my dad always tells me how proud he is about how I turned out. I wish could see myself the way everyone else sees me but I always feel fake and I am never good enough for myself.
I learned early on that to survive you could not be yourself. You had to compartmentalize yourself and say the right things. You could never openly disagree with someone or voice opinions counter the majority. As I rose through the ranks and became a leader, I began to see that my voice and opinions mattered and a new generation of young Marines were now looking to me and I had to evaluate the example I set for them. I started to realize that I could easily reinforce the cycle of pain and rejection that I witnessed. I had my first gay Marine and had to put a stop to comments and hazing that was occurring. I have no idea if I succeeded but I tried to instill respect for others even if they are different from us.
This is and will probably always be a part of my identity, but it has become less so over the years. When I first joined My ideals have changed and the more I have seen, the more I have become conflicted about how the American military is employed. The military is also not a safe place for transpeople but especially for transwomen. Although I have seen some shifts, conversations people try to have with me are often still very hateful.
I assumed that many of the feelings I experienced growing up would fade over time and although they are not always present they have not gone away.
Recently I began expiramenting with my wife's toys and really came to enjoy that act. I am always scared of being found out and shamed. Since we have been married I have tried on her panties and dresses but would always feel disgusted looking at my body. She has a very different body than me and most things do not fit.
I have always been required to keep my hair short but really wish I could let it grow. I wish I could could have laser hair removal in some areas. I look at different hairstyles and wish I could try them. I show my wife clothes that I think are cute.
Several years back I downloaded FaceApp and tried out the genderswap filters. It is really hard to describe the feeling when I looked into my eyes. Some of the pictures didn't turn out well and made me feel disgusted because there was this uncanny valley and I still saw ugliness in my eyes. Other pictures made me feel something very different. It was like I was looking at me in a way I wished I could exist. It was exhilarating but was always very painful because the belief that it was impossible is so strong.
I recently bought 3 pairs of panties and have been wearing them occasionally in public. l love how they feel but hate how my genitals don't fit well. At first it was exhilarating because I felt so nervous, but it has begun to feel almost like a secret confidence in myself.
Today I am in school for engineering. My wife completes her doctorate in psychology in a few months and I couldn't be more proud of her. She recently revealed to me that she thinks she might be on the asexual spectrum but thinks more of herself as a demisexual. That was a shock and felt like it upended everything I knew about our relationship. However we have been working through things and are both still very committed to each other.
So here I am.
I don't know what to think or believe. I want to be have the ablity to be feminine but that desire isn't constant. Part of me wants blend in and be invisible but part of me wants to stop feeling like I am acting. I look at some of my female Marines and feel so in awe of them. They live in an environment that is so hostile to them. They are strong and determined. Our uniform is not really gendered but that femininity and strength still shows through.
I struggle to say that I am a woman or even think about asking someone to use other pronouns. I don't feel female but I am not sure if that is the result of all the messages I received growing up. Regardless these thoughts keep coming back. They may fade when I am under extreme stress but when I am alone with no one watching they seem to come back the strongest. In some ways I feel like I have accepted my body and birth gender but almost in the way that a prisoner accepts that the rest of their life will be define by their cell. If I avoid anything that shows me what life could be like outside of the walls of my birth gender I can become almost satisfied. But I am drawn back to communities like this and the possibility of escape.
But it is scary.
I am so scared and not sure how much that is affecting how I feel. I feel like I would lose all the respect that I have gained in my career. I feel like my voice would stop being listened to and that my ability to protect my Marines who are different would vanish.
I am scared my wife wouldn't be attracted to a transwoman. She has kissed women before as a joke, but I am afraid of losing my best friend. I am scared that her asexuality would only amplify this.
I am scared of losing my family. I have good relationships with my parents and brothers and they all think the world of me. My older brother confided that he was scared of how the world was going and asked if his kids started asking about anything LGBTQ related how I would respond. I chickened out and said that it would be none of my business. I can't imagine their reactions.
I can look at myself as male and almost defeatedly settle for what I look like. I am conventionally attractive as a male and I like that women are attracted to me. But I can't look into my eyes without seeing the image of who I could be. I am scared that transitioning would lead to me hating myself for being ugly. I have a rather deep voice and masculine features and I don't know that surgery or voice training would ever make me feel comfortable.
I don't even feel like I can talk to my therapist about this. I feel like that step would open up the door to the possibility that this could be real. More than anything I am scared that I could be wrong and could lose everything just to hate myself more.
So again here I am.
Apologizing to all those I have hurt over the years and for the terrible person I was. For the first time in my life I want to not automatically reject the premise that things could be different. I am scared but I want to explore this and answer the question of who I am...

Hello, I'm a 15 year old girl with ADHD, and I really need help with this. Recently, I've been taking Ritalin and it worked for a few days, and got me all calm and focused. Now I'm just as aggressive and sad and I don't know---super angry all the time, just like before. Anyways, I seem to just drive people away, so in case someone sees this, I'll just list the stuff down.
People At School
People at School seem to hate me because, first off, I've never helped with any group projects ever since preschool, so that's a plus. Secondly, recently I haven't been doing my homework, my old irl friends left me and now they're one of the people who hate me, and I also tend to involuntarily cause scenes in Class Group Chats (Because my country is still in Quarantine for the Pandemic). I tend to just decide to make my own projects because of this, and I just hate my classmates because they always just seem to do things normally or whatever. People keep saying I'm useless and leave me out to give me the worst tasks, when I sacrifice hours of my life, my blood sweat and tears on to Minecraft Worlds and Art Commissions and Pixel Sprite making or whatever, yet no matter how much I try to convince everyone how talented I am, no one believes me. It just pisses me off, like honestly, no offense, the stuff they do is pretty mediocre (I'm sorry, just being honest here), and they finish things so slowly, and I'm here to help but no one wants my help because I'm the useless girl who used to trauma dump on her friends and doesn't do homework and has anger issues and always causes scenes in public. I just feel so mad whenever I see everyone. To be clear, I've been bullied since Kindergarten because I've always been the weird girl who liked aliens and dinosaurs and weird stuff like that, and I always came home crying and breaking furniture. I really hate everything, because no one seems to be looking at what I went through. I might extend these explanations on the comments if I come up with new ideas about this, but for now I'll just leave this as it is. (not the end tho)
My Online Friends
People online are probably the only people who actually talk to me like a normal person. Even though I tend to drive my online friends away because of my unnaturally destructive nature, I really feel like I belong. Yet, I just tend to rage and release all my outbursts onto them involuntarily, especially my closest friend. I don't wanna keep on doing this, but bad things always happen. I really love my friends, especially my bestfriend who I've been super close with for over 3 years already, 4 years this October. I don't want to drive them away, yet I just keep on crying and screaming all my guts out onto them as it spills on the floor, which no one wants to see of course, yet I kind of feel the urge to let them know what's happening to me and drag them in even though it's none of their businesses. I've always been that toxic friend no one latches onto. Aside from this, I just keep on talking about my ideas, my story ideas and send paragraphs to group chats, servers or whatever. I've always wanted to be a film maker and telling all my ideas to everyone makes me happy. But then I realize that no one ever replies to these or just ignores all I said and changes the topic once someone finally goes on after 6 hours. I just want people to listen to my ideas, yet the people who are actually interested live on the other side of the world, and me and my online friends are from Asia, and not much people in Asia are interested about Indie Films and Contemporary art, or whatever. Even if they do care and they just don't understand, I feel like I belong but don't belong at the same time. There's so many people who I can relate to, also online friends, but the ones who are from America or whatever. Never from my area, which means I only get to talk to them when I manage to sneak my devices late at night, because my parents are strict with sleeping curfews and stuff.
My family
I've always had trouble with my family, and even though most of the stuff I do is wrong, like screaming at them all the time and getting mad at them and breaking things and not cleaning my room not doing chores or whatever, it still pisses me off so much. It's like they don't know what I'm struggling with they just don't understand. It makes me really sad, because I really need people to be there for me, yet barely anyone is. My family always gets mad at me, and since I'm from an Asian family, getting hit is normal for me, yet I never seem to stop nor get scared. I know what I'm doing is wrong, but I also can't control it and I try to tell them yet they won't believe me even if they already know about my condition. Ever since I started taking Ritalin, my parents have been expecting me to not be kookoo or crazy or whatever. Yet I'm still the same. And not just that, my fashion sense is also kind of not normal for Asia, since people strive to be basic here. I wear y2k grunge clothes, and lots of other teenagers wear that stuff in the malls too. But my parents, even though they themselves aren't that old, given they're older Millennials, they still don't get it. Even if they don't restrict me from wearing my stuff, they always make me feel like what I'm wearing is not normal. I'm not doing it to be trendy or quirky or whatever, I'm doing it because I like wearing these things, and I think they look pretty. I do everything for myself, and mostly myself only, but that honestly depends too. I just don't have anyone to tell my problems to, since my parents also have low wages. My parents keep on talking about how they are super broke and on so much debt. They keep showing me their bank accounts and how they're always empty. After that they tell me that therapy, my dentist, my private school, their bills, they keep talking about them like it's MY fault, when it's not. Like I never wished to have ADHD and Ugly at the same time, with super crooked teeth. I never wished to go to school. It's not my fault you have to pay for all of this. When I tell them that stuff, they get mad at me and tackle me or hit me. It pisses me off, you know. To the point that I'm already used to it. Not just that, the sound of knocking on doors and keys turning the doors piss me off, since they get mad at me whenever I scream at them to not enter. And well, they also compare me to others my age, NORMAL kids, not kids with ADHD, not WEIRD kids, always the plain basic normal kids who have good grades and have boring hairstyles. They always tell me how immature I am for my age despite knowing I HAVE ADHD, and I'VE BEEN THIS WEIRD SINCE I WAS A KID WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO GET USED TO ALL OF THAT?! Plus, I never wished to be your daughter you dumb kooks. If only I could've chosen my own life, I would've chosen the one with people who don't hate me for who I am. But given the Akashic Records have a chance to be real, I must've granted this life onto myself, without knowing the consequences.
Epilogue
Wow, that was a long ride. And honestly, I'm so tired of almost everything. I wish I could just make films and have fun, play videogames, walk around the sidewalks, and meet nicer people. I wish I could travel, but I'm poor, and I've never been outside my country. I really wish I could just live a fun life, wear clothes I want, hangout with friends who actually care about me, and not be like this. I wish I wasn't ugly, I wish I could just do what I've always wanted in life. I wish I could tell everyone my ideas, have some sort of TED talk everytime I wanted to. I wish I could just have fun, and I wish everyone knew how talented and useful I am. But, that isn't the case. Even though that isn't the case, though, I won't give up, because I just know that someday, I'm gonna have my shot. I hope I didn't sound super toxic, since people have told me how much of a trauma dumper I am. And even though I might seem aggressive, I'm also a happy person. I really like having fun and talking to people I love. Yet, that rarely happens, because it all happens online, virtually. Not everyone has free time, and they always have chores, or other friends. I'm never anyone's bestfriend, because my own bestfriend probably has another closest bestfriend of her own that isn't me, which is fine, but I just feel sad. Maybe because I've never really been close to anyone in real life. Well, I'm saying too much. If anyone ever sees this, you can ask whatever questions you want, I'll reply to them. If anyone wants to hear about my film ideas, you can also go ahead, I really want them. If you've read this far, thanks for reading!!!

Hi everyone,
I’ll preface this by saying I am having a rough day. I’ve cried a lot and I can’t really differentiate if I may truly need more help…or if this is just a rough patch.
I have a history of anxiety. I was on medication for years and eventually went off it after seeing a therapist for a year. I also stopped seeing her once I felt like I could, though I know she’s there if I ever need her.
I’m 14+2 and things are starting to change a lot. I have a small bump (only really visible to my husband and I) and though I have more energy now than before, I’m still more tired than before pregnancy.
I also just started a new job this school year. I now work at a semi-private posh school for rich kids and my schedule is very intense. This last week a lot of teachers were out sick with COVID. Despite my boss knowing I am pregnant, she still gave me a bunch of substitutions for the upcoming week. This means I’ll be working 9-5 with only a 30 minute lunch, standing up all day, with 3-5 year old unmasked and unvaccinated children.
My job is physically taxing as well as emotionally tiring. It will always be like this.
I do not want to go on leave yet. But if I am pushed to my limits too much I will have to. This frustrates and angers me, but I don’t feel like it’s my job to save my school even in hard times.
My boss is also highly sexist. She refuses to put male colleagues on preschool substitutions because “women are better with kids”, so my coworkers are off having coffee breaks while I’m breaking my back all day.
On top of all this, I feel pressure in other areas of my life. I want to maintain my social life (when possible), my marriage, my mental and physical health, etc. I know something has to give, but it’s really hard when you’re expected “to do it all.” I’m all for equality, but right now if we could afford for me to be a stay at home mom I would do it. It’s not an option.
I daydream of my American friends back home who quit their jobs while pregnant. They do crafts and pamper themselves and have cute homes and I feel like I just can’t do any of that. I feel like instead of succeeding at one or two things I’m half failing at 5 or 6. And then I feel like an idiot for thinking that because I’m trying my best. Of course I’m not crafting or trying new hairstyles. I work 40+ hour weeks trying to build a better future in the country that I moved to. I made all these choices, so why do I feel bad sometimes? Because I chose a harder path that was my dream? I knew it wouldn’t be easy.
Does anyone else have these thoughts? Are you seeing therapists? I want to enjoy my pregnancy but sometimes I get so overwhelmed and upset I feel like I’m just this jealous and resentful blob and I hate it.