twenty-sth she/her 🏳️🌈🇦🇺 abandoned graveyard of fandom i fear tags: my posts | atla&tlok | the owl house | she-ra | header : @bandarai icon : @smoustart on insta
succession (2018–) cr. jesse armstrong / arcane (2021–) cr. christian linke & alex yee / euphoria (2019–) cr. sam levinson / the fall of the house of usher, steven berkoff / antigone, jean anouilh (trans. lewis galantiere) / a brother named gethsemane, natalie diaz / a flicker in the dark, stacy willingham / gone girl (2014) dir. david fincher / avatar: the last airbender (2005–2008) cr. michael dante dimartino & bryan konietzko / filmnoirsbian / to all the boys i’ve loved before, jenny han / clara ortega / the umbrella academy (2019–) cr. steve blackman / where things come back, john corey whaley / the pull of you, the national / little women (2019) dir. greta gerwig / jazmine hughes / antigonick, trans. anne carson / statue of vincet and theo van gogh, ossip zadkine / ‘blues for vincent’ otherwise known as the human condition, geoff dyer
“You have to cheat. Ask for as many extensions on papers as you possibly can. Pretend your computer is broken. Use your charm if you have any. If you’re going to cry, don’t wait until you’re out of the room–do it where the people in power can see you. Eat the same food every day if you can’t think of anything else to make. Put other things ahead of taking a shower, even if your mom said you have to take a shower every two days. Sometimes people won’t notice you’re cheating but even if they do and are annoyed you might still get by. My mom goes to workshops for people with ASD and then gives me the really long printouts that go along with them. The printouts tell me to sit down and make a list of everything I have to do. When I am anxious, as I have been this year, it’s hard to think about these things so I hold on to the printouts out of guilt but don’t actually read them. Then my mom finds them and gets upset that I haven’t read them and says that I’m not ready to live on my own. But I am ready to live on my own. Badly. Just like I can hold down a full-time job. Badly. Just like I am getting my homework done. Badly. And I forget to balance my checkbook, which none of my non-disabled friends do because you can get it online, and my mom says, “Well it’s different for you because they would be able to do it if they needed to, but you wouldn’t, so you have to do it.” Theoretically I understand this is true, but my checkbook remains unbalanced. Which is bad. And I feel bad. I do! At this rate I’ll never be able to go to college. But I do go to college. At this rate I’ll never be able to have any friends. But I do have friends. I just don’t do everything right with them all the time. For people whose lives are controlled by executive dysfunction, I firmly believe the difference between getting stuff done and not getting stuff done is not caring about doing things right. You cannot always make a list all the time and be early for everything. You just can’t. Hopefully you’re good-looking or funny or you remind someone of their niece. Exploit all opportunities. Do not do what people who are not disabled tell you to do (unless you want to, of course). All too often I find myself waiting for the day when I can do shit properly, which more or less amounts to waiting until I’m not disabled anymore. Then I can feel good enough to deserve everything I want. Well my cure is slow in arriving, so I’m just going to do everything I want now, if that’s okay with you.”
—
from I’m Somewhere Else, “Max is a Miracle”
The best advice I’ve heard on how to get through college with a developmental disability when there are zero accommodations for executive dysfunction. You can’t let anyone else try to live your life for you, and you cannot worry about “doing things right”. Also: none of the things described here as “cheating” are ACTUALLY cheating.
before we get started, i just want to make a lil disclaimer that this is purely a Dani x Gigi character study so i will not be touching on Sophie. this is not to say i think she is blameless. not even close. i just don't feel like talking about her :)
now..
where to begin?
when Dani and Gigi first meet, it’s at a very interesting time in both their romantic (or lack thereof) lives.
while Dani has just gotten out of a long term relationship with a broken heart and trust issues, Gigi has just been kicked out of a throuple and, in trying to ditch her, gets setup on a blind date with Bette, an emotionally frazzled woman who is more interested in chasing down a potential client than Gigi.
neither Dani or Gigi are romantically available, Dani internally and Gigi externally, so when they come together as friends, there is no pressure on either side to be anything more than who they are. there is no judgment. there are no expectations. there is just mutual understanding and a longing to connect. this creates a healthy basis for their friendship, and then eventual relationship, to blossom.
but ultimately, it creates a way for Dani to confront her self-doubt/inability to express herself, and a way for Gigi to find balance in her often tumultuous romantic relationships.
Dani and Gigi are on opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to emotions and how they express/internalize them. emotional expression vs emotional suppression. while Dani is better at controlling/suppressing her emotions, Gigi is not. and while Gigi is more emotionally expressive, Dani is not.
Gigi leads with her heart.
Dani leads with her head.
logic comes first for Dani.
feelings come first for Gigi.
after Dani’s father is arrested, Gigi helps Dani realize that she filters herself to avoid hurting others. as we’ve seen, when Dani is upset, she doesn’t mince her words and can be very “cutthroat” in the way she expresses herself. and so she’s gotten used to putting a “PR spin” on the way she communicates.
Dani does this because she doesn’t want to be like her father. as Dani’s father constantly created conflict in her relationship with Sophie, it only makes sense that when it came to Dani expressing herself—a trait she shares with him—to Sophie, Dani would shut down instead of being honest. after all, the last thing Dani wanted to do was emulate her father, someone her partner didn’t get along with.
Dani shares that this was mentally taxing for her (as it would be for anyone to cut off a part of themselves and how they naturally express/communicate their emotions.)
in the next scene, Dani admits that a part of her always knew that she and Sophie weren’t right for one another. she wonders how she was able to ignore that part of herself. Gigi agrees and attributes this to self-preservation, but instead of saying “ignore that part of myself,” Gigi says “we lie to ourselves.”
this distinction is important.
not only did Dani filter her form of expression to avoid hurting Sophie, but she also deceived herself in order to avoid the pain of that truth. with that much protection and suppression, Dani eventually built up walls around her which made it hard to let Sophie in and even harder to let her emotions out.
now that this relationship is over, Dani finds herself struggling when it comes to healthy self-expression and knowing when to trust herself after self-deluding for so long.
but in comes Gigi, someone who is very intuitive, in touch with her emotions as well as others’, an open book when it comes to expressing her feelings, a great listener, and a natural communicator.
*swoons*
however, Gigi is so emotionally available that sometimes it could be...a lot.
in past relationships, Gigi tells Dani that she used to “love like that,” meaning she was all in emotionally, probably to the point of no return.
but not anymore.
now she’s more interested in learning from whomever she’s with, giving her partner enough space to work their shit out, and taking enough space to work on her own shit. Gigi tells Dani that she lets things run their course and is just along for the ride. while this might sound nice (as Dani puts it), there is a certain level of disconnect to the way Gigi describes those relationships. there is no fire. there is no passion.
this is further supported when Gigi admits it’s nice for awhile until she gets bored and ends up alone again. from what we’ve seen of Gigi’s relationships, she can be very all-in or all-out. they seem to be fast and passionate or, as Gigi describes, drawn out and boring.
what Gigi’s lacking is balance.
Dani, i believe, helps Gigi find this balance.
Dani puts Gigi in check, holds her accountable for her “shitty” actions, and knows when to slow things down when Gigi wants to go full speed ahead. and where others have misunderstood or criticized Gigi for her affinity to be open and emotionally available, Dani says “fuck em.” by the look on Gigi’s face, this isn’t a part of her that’s often embraced.
but Dani embraces it.
Dani, on the other hand, is relearning how to do something that Gigi is a pro at, and that’s emotional security. Gigi is very good at knowing what she wants, when she wants it, and expressing those feelings without a second thought (it comes so easily to her that she sometimes doesn’t even realize she’s doing it, especially at the wrong times).
but when Dani realizes it, she calls Gigi out on it. and never one to shy away from her feelings, Gigi is honest.
upon first watch, i’m not gonna lie: this interaction confused me. besides highlighting Gigi’s flirt game, i didn’t really get the point of this scene. but upon a few (hundred) more views, i’m starting to get it.
this pattern of asking and affirming continues throughout their friendship.
when Dani says, “okay but you don’t know for sure,” it almost feels like she’s talking to herself. after having lied to herself when something felt wrong, Dani doesn’t know if she can trust herself to know when something feels right. when Gigi responds that she likes Dani’s energy, Dani admits that she doesn’t know what that means, as she's out of practice when it comes to gauging this. but Gigi reaffirms that what Dani’s feeling between them is the energy and that she does feel it. if she didn’t, she wouldn’t have asked.
throughout their friendship, there’s been moments where Dani picks up on their energy. they’re very subtle moments but you can see Dani catch herself (so quick you almost miss it) as she allows herself to feel the emotions she used to suppress, gradually lowering her walls and letting Gigi in.
Dani’s problem is emotional control and letting go of that control. Dani filtered herself to keep from hurting Sophie but she doesn’t do this with Gigi because Gigi has created an atmosphere where honesty and sharing is not only welcomed, it’s encouraged. so where Dani used to bottle up her emotions, she now expresses them. and where she used to lie to herself about her feelings…what does she do now?
now when she's feeling doubtful, instead of ignoring it, Dani faces it. instead of running (literally) away, she goes to Gigi, and they have almost the same interaction from the kitchen scene. Dani feels something between Gigi and herself but doesn’t yet trust herself to know for sure. in asking Gigi about Bette and Alice and Nat, Dani is repeating what she did before. she's collecting information, gauging the situation, and trying to figure out what is real.
"why have you been with everybody i know?"
"i mean, who are you?"
"can i trust you?"
at first, Gigi answers these questions, but then she cuts to the chase (as she’s known to do) and asks Dani what she wants.
Gigi told Dani how she feels so now...it's Dani's turn.
and finally, Dani breaks down her walls, confronts her self-doubt, and lets Gigi in by asking her, straight up, if their connection is real.
this is a question that Dani would have never asked Sophie or even herself in the past. as Dani said, she ignored it. she lied to herself. this time, however, things are different, and Dani is facing her doubts head on because Gigi has earned her trust.
furthermore, when Gigi asks Dani to come in, Gigi learns to slow down as Dani says, “not yet.”
for Dani, this open communication with Gigi of asking and affirming created a safe space for her to reconnect with her emotions. for Gigi, this soft friendship with Dani of baby steps and accountability helped Gigi find balance in a romantic relationship.
this is a relationship with a solid foundation of trust, understanding, friendship, and support. so when Dani asks Gigi if this is real, Dani believes Gigi when she affirms that it's very real:
Everyone wants to act like Americans don’t have cheese but no one wants to talk about the cheese caves, the caves where we put all our cheese because we make too much and our cringe government keeps bailing out our fail dairy farmers to keep the price of milk stable because The Great Depression so now we have so much cheese in this country we could literally stop producing cheese right now and still have enough cheese to give everyone in America a pound of it every day for four years. And I’m not even talking about kraft singles pictured above, I’m talking about an actual not cursed product-- real cheese. Cheddar, brie, gouda, munster, swiss, you name it we have a billion pounds of it, literally. We have so much cheese that we’re literally running out of places to put it and in an effort to get rid of it we reprocess a lot of it into kraft singles (hence it’s a cheese product and not actual cheese-- cheese is but an ingredient in kraft singles, much like how bread is itself an ingredient in German graubrot, although graubrot is a food item that is actually meant to exist on this earth and isn’t the end product a cautionary tale on how not to stabilize a vital industry when your economy is collapsing) and for a very long time we gave it away as part of certain food assistance programs. And that’s not even counting the fancy imported shit from Europe, because yes even though we still have way too much cheese we also still import it from Europe in addition to the too much cheese we already have.
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