Hi, everyone! This is Allēna. I don’t know if “synesthetic” is actually a word, but for the purposes of this post, it is now because I’m tired and I need a word for “pertaining to synesthesia” or else I’ll never get around to writing about a lot of the shit my system makes. I want to write about it sooner rather than later because we’ve been tapping into our synesthesia hard. We’ve also not really been able to write on here much these past few days and I missed it, so even though it’s the ass crack of dawn right now – 3:25 AM as I’m typing this – I’m making a point to write. Our sleep cycle is fucked and so I’m leaping on an idea while I have one.

I joined a Discord server on a whim the other day that seems to cater pretty heavily towards fellow neurodivergent synesthetes. One of the things users could opt into were reminders to unmask their neurodivergence. I always need those, so I opted into all of them for the hell of it. It’s been working wonders for our creativity over time. Hell, it’s probably why we’ve been writing as much as we have, the server is full of reminders to intentionally tap into queer joy and synesthetic imagery. It feels like home.

Consequently, these reminders have started getting us to make more visual art. Castor painted this abstract portrait of Sheik yesterday:

And then today, I painted one of our friend Delta’s songs, “Return”:

I’ve really missed painting. It’s one of those things that Fang never really understood during our marriage and made me feel like shit about. He couldn’t see the meaning in the colors and placements. It sucked, but I’m glad to be getting back into it now that we’re supported.

In the coming weeks, we’re going to be playing around with ways to make DIY pen/paintbrush/pencil grips so that we can hopefully get back to writing longhand and creating traditional art without it fucking killing our joints. We’ve been stuck in executive dysfunction hell. I hope my doctors can get my ADHD meds refilled so that I can actually do things in a timely manner again instead of feeling like I blink and fourteen hours pass. At least I get to make cool art out of it..

Anyway, stay tuned for more magic, y’all!

-Allēna