Not much, just a couple of things. I've never been much of a collector and fan merch needs to really speak to me for me to get it. I've often wanted more because I like a certain fandom, but most official merch for my favourites has been kinda meh. I don't want anything I won't actually use.

But I do own a print T-shirt which has a 4-panel anxiety comic by one of my favourite comic artists, Hannah Hillam. I also have an American Horror Story T-shirt with the text "normal people scare me" which someone has described as the "live, laugh, love" of emo's. Don't know about that, but for me the meaning is that because everyone is basically just as normal or abnormal, it's all the same if it just read "people scare me". Because social anxiety. Both shirts are in regular use.

My spouse got me a War & Peas comic book as a gift a while ago and that came with a bookmark and an enamel pin. Haven't yet found a use for the pin though, it's kinda big. The bookmark is currently in a knitting design book.

A few years ago spouse got me two Star Wars easter chocolate eggs with a toy inside. They had those kinda decorations you can stick at the end of a pencil? Maybe called pencil toppers? I dunno. Anyway, the other was a stormtrooper head and the other R2D2's head. Every year I put one of them at the tip of our miniature christmas tree in place of a star.

That's about it. Two things I bought myself and a few I got as a gift 😄

Yes. Also I love how poorly I've managed to conceal my misanthropy to get such a question.

However, there are several individual people I like, and even love. In the words of one of my favourite video game characters, it's too much work to hate them one by one. So I don't throw murderous glances at everyone I meet and I generally try to assume people are at least somewhat kind or pleasant, and try to act accordingly.

But it's true that I've lost hope for humans as a species. And my anxiety makes being around folks weird and uncomfortable, even with familiar people, let alone strangers. I'm often convinced that everyone hates me. But their hate will always come second to the contempt I feel for myself. Every day I'm absolutely sure that I should just remove myself completely from the internet and world in general and hide in my blanket fort for all eternity. But I haven't, yet. I guess that's something.

I'm not sure how weird it is to answer my own question when I'm the one who set the parameters but who cares.

I'd probably choose flight, because walking is a bit of a painful business for me so if I could get around without using my joints and muscles, that'd be great. Also could reach more than just the two lowest shelves in the kitchen.

Telekinesis would be nice, but I'd be so annoyed for always missing, that I'd probably never use it. My aim is terrible as it is, if I try to throw a piece of paper in the trash, it's more often than not on the floor even if I was standing right next to the bin.

I don't know if invisibility would cure me of my anxiety to go outside. If it helped with that, it'd be cool, but I somehow don't think it'd be that easy. I wouldn't mind the time limit though. Four hours of visibility would be plenty, I'd use it when I'm with family.

Extra limbs! I wouldn't mind a pair of raccoon arms. Or cheetah legs! But flight would still probably be more useful.

Invulnerability would be a nice upgrade. My skin's very fragile and I seem to be getting cuts if I just look at my hands too intently, but I think the clumsiness would be just annoying as the poor aim in telekinesis. Especially since my problems with proprioception already make me quite clumsy. Don't wanna add to that. Although, if invulnerability cured all my existing illnesses and would also make me invulnerable to mental hurts, that'd be quite something and would probably make me choose it over flight.

I can't think of just one I liked most but I was always partial to, let's say, unconventional princesses 😄 The kind of protagonists and female characters who had other interests besides looking pretty and waiting for a prince.

I was a kid in the 80's and 90's, so there weren't too many characters like that to choose from and even the ones we had weren't that progressive. I grew up with Disney films, H.C. Andersen's and Grimm's fairytales and with Moomins and Astrid Lindgren's books. When I got a bit older I discovered fantasy books and I think I read just about every single one our library had.

Before school my favourite character was probably Belle from Beauty and the Beast, because she was smart, liked books and had an inventor for a dad (like my dad is). Pippi Longstocking (Lindgren) and Little My (Moomins) were others I liked.

After I started school I moved from princesses to witches, wizards, sorcerers and all others who could wield magic. That stayed with me a long time and I guess you could say they're still my favourite.

Well. I'd love to say that all of the above and then some. But the sad reality is that I can barely stand on most days and even walking down to the mailbox is often a chore.

I couldn't do graffiti because the paint fumes would break my lungs and brain in an instant. I can't throw anything without my joints dislocating. Same goes for breaking stuff, I only do that by dropping things on accident. If I somehow did manage to get into a rich person's house and started accidentally dropping expensive coffee cups, I'd still probably get caught in an instant since I can't run.

And I really can't think of anything I could do from my blanket fort with my current skills. I could send strongly worded opinions to the Gotham Gazette that would never be published? Or I could act as a safehouse to other anarchists, provided that they don't expect any sort of communication or care from me? I might also knit the occasional pair of mittens to someone, Gotham nights can be chilly.

In other words, I'd be the worst anarchist in the world. Sorry to disappoint.

Oh dear. I don't think there's been a hairstyle I haven't had at some point, some more successful than others. I've never had a really serious relationship with my hair, if something doesn't work, I just change it the next day.

There's really only one time I can remember that I was close to tears over my hair. I went to a new hairdresser so they'd dye my hair blonde from this really deep brown I had at the time. If at the time I'd known anything about hair, I would've known you couldn't do it in one go. The hairdresser though was very confident they could do it and I believed them. Of course it ended up being this completely uneven, piss yellow pile of dry hay. Worst thing was that the hairdresser was beside themself with joy at how well it turned out. I was just stunned into silence and left with a hat pulled firmly on my head as far as it could go.

I went straight to another hairdresser and asked for a brown box dye. They asked to see under my hat and when I took it off they looked something like 😵😳🫣🫢😂😬 and said that they can't promise it won't turn out grey if I dye it now. I said I don't care, anything's better than this.

I don't remember what the box dye did, but I suppose since I can't remember, it turned out fine. Luckily I had a bob cut at the time and it grew out quickly.

So yeah, eventually, like most things, this too made me laugh. Also I don't know if this counts as coming to terms with it because I changed it right away.

Nowadays I cut my own hair and really, the only thing I can do is laugh because it usually ends up looking like a crow's nest no matter what I do. But I don't really have any options at the moment, so yeah. I've come to terms with the fact that my hair will henceforth always make me laugh. Better than crying, I suppose.

It depends totally on the person I'm revealing things to. I'm generally an open person and don't mind talking about just about anything with a person who's kind, curious and open-minded. But I close up and walk away if I sense the opposite.

Also for several years now I haven't had any new people enter my life, unless you count online. The only new people I talk to are doctors, nurses and therapists. In those scenarios I always first talk about my anxiety disorder and how it might affect our communication and the things I say.

That was also the first thing I said in my fedi introduction nearly a year ago. So yeah, while it might not be in itself an easy thing to reveal, I do find it makes everything that comes after easier when the person understands that side of me and how it affects my behaviour. And also that I don't have to try and pretend to be anything other than a quivering, sweaty mess who can't find words 😄

Great, you're welcome! It took a few tries for me too to figure out how to do it without just smashing eggs all over the table.

I originally came across it from videos where they actually dropped the egg on the table, from increasingly greater heights, and it always seemed to just work. Unfortunately I can't for the life of me find the video. There are plenty of videos though where they just drop the egg straight into the pan and then pick up the shell halves. But I feel like that only works if you plan on frying just one or two eggs.

Anyway, I've noticed that my aim and hands are not quite that adept at getting it to fall right if I just drop it, so I googled a bit more and came across videos (like one from Real Simple channel) where they tapped the egg against a flat surface and got essentially the same effect. And yeah, it's still messy, but not as messy as all the times when I've cracked the egg against the edge of the bowl and then managed to fumble it into an explosion of egg where most of it is on the table, floor and myself and maybe a teaspoon of it made it into the bowl.