It Didn't Change Me, It Made Me. The Fact That I Was Weird And Queer And That My Interests Didn't Align

It didn't change me, it made me. The fact that I was weird and queer and that my interests didn't align with that of other kids is a material reality. My interests still don't align with that of several people and that makes me uninteresting and sometimes even off putting to them. That's fine, why wouldn't it be. To burst the bubble the op refers to and be "accepted" I would have to not be myself, and that is not a price I'm willing to pay. I never was.

People (and kids) should always be respectful of each other, but we are bound to be guided by our interests, and if your interests an behaviors diverge from the norm, it's to be expected you'll be less frequently liked and celebrated... If you're not being bullied or harassed, why is that a problem? Why should that fuck someone up?

I'm not saying it's easy. Living is never without suffering, even for the well-adjusted, and it gets harder for the ill-fitting. But I reject the narrative that being the odd one out changes our trajectories. It makes them!! If most people won't, than it's up to us to seek out like-minded persons and to celebrate ourselves. Being faithful to your own interests makes for a beautiful journey, every time.

People underestimate how much it fucks you up to be subtly excluded as a kid. I would try to talk to my classmates and be met with disinterest or annoyance. The one friend I had, who I clung to and nodded along to his every word, had other friends he liked just as much or more. And his other friends didn’t care for me at all.

I look back at pictures from the time and see how separated I was from them. I remember knowing I was different. I remember posing questions about the world to the girls playing next to me and realizing that they had never asked the same ones to themselves. That the ways we thought couldn’t be more different.

I kept myself amused with my own fanatical stories and musings in my head. I would wander the playground on a circular path, imagining a friend and being sorely disappointed when it didn’t feel as real as I’d hoped.

There was a bubble separating me from everyone else, thin, and nearly invisible, but with a pearly sheen you could catch under the right conditions. I knew it was there, they knew it was there, and it changed me

1) it is a robe/vest/tunic thing. I mean sleeveless. I'm not really familiar with clothing nomenclature in English but the blue-brown-red thing with gold details is definitely sleeveless. The brown and black long sleeves and shoulderguard belong to the shirt he has underneath the vest.

2) what truly baffles me is how incredibly stiff the fabric seems to be from the waist down. Katolis castle staff sure know how to starch the royal's clothes.

3) regarding magewings I agree with @numptypylon I really wanted sleeveless Callum to be a more permanent feature of TDP. How can they justify that the fabric doesn't shred?? Is it magic as well? I'm not seeing any runes on it!

Okay I need to get this straight. Is Callum's coat just the brown and grayish blue, and the red is the shirt he has on underneath? Or is the red also part of the coat?

Claudia is just never right

But there is a synonym for cinnamon!! Cassia!! Cassia is a synonym or cinnamon!!!

Sand Snakes persuading Doran to go to war (failing tho)

Of course he's a scorpio

Happy Birthday

Corvus (3rd November)

The Dragon Prince

Leola is a unicorn

Is no one going to point out that the Startouch Elf we see from behind seems to only have ONE horn?? And is therefore a... unicorn. Ever since we learned Leola was "rare among her own kind" I thought she might be a one-horned Startouch elf, and this 'screencap' looks like confirmation. Of course it might look like that because the image is cut, but the horn does look like it's centralized, does it not?