how dithonias started

So you wanna know how dithonias started? well let's set the date back to 2014, when i went to Invest Collegiate imagine.

it was like any normal school year... well, that's how it begun. and by the way, it was a new school overall and for me. so not exactly normal. uniforms, a strange building, different teaching styles, and different people. but there were people from Avery's Creek that came with me. i had a few friends already, most of them i had known before. i liked to draw animals, and weird creatures because i have never liked drawing people, its not that they look bad when i draw them, (actually they did lol but it's fine now) it's that humans look boring compared to other animals or creatures and what not. well anyways, this was around the time that the a.ls. ice bucket challenge was trendy. of course, it was one of the slightly dangerous challenges, like a bunch of them were at the time. so i didn't want to do it. Ian was always trying to get me to. no matter what he told me he'd give me if i did it, i just wasn't up for the challenge. if you think this story will be about an accident with the ice bucket challenge, it takes a really, really bad turn that is still ending to this day, or however you say that. so now that you know -whoever is reading this- let's get back to the story. it's long. one night while we were talking to my cousin on face-time or in person, Ian had once again brought up the ice bucket challenge. (this was in early September, most likely Sept 8) he offered me money, money, and a lot of money ( which he probably didn't even have ) and yes, even higher amounts. i still said no, because obviously i suck at saving money and would spend it all on something stupid, like an inflatable orbeez chair.. actually i just didn't want to pour ice water on myself because i was a little weakling.. so finally, he tried to get me to do it another way. by telling me what would happen if i didn't participate. he told me that, if i didn't do it in 24 hours, i would be attacked by a demon and the only cure would be to drink water from the french broad river without purifying it. this scared me, so he softened it a bit. he said that they only do it because they are so lonely, that they have nothing else to do. i still thought it was scary, until he drew me a picture of one. it wasn't your average looking demon. it looked... it looked.....

adorable. it looked adorable. it looked like my chihuahua Lola, but with longer ears, a line across the eyes, a spiky, naked tail, and little fangs. no matter how eerily i can describe it, i can assure you that somehow, it looked nice. and something happened. i caught myself drawing one my own way. and it was adorable. i also ended up doing the challenge, for some reason.

the next day, i showed my friend the demon. and we sat in the hallway, drawing the same thing over, and over, and all over again, on a pad of notes with the letter I on them. we both didn't think much about how it could possibly hurt someone's feelings, or offend them. we just had a new mindset, that demons could be...adorable. we also said we were them, you know, like kids (who don't know much about Demons do... everyone was getting suspicious. and some of them were calling us evil, told us that demons were evil and were ONLY ever evil. i did not understand why in the world that would be evil. but i just ignored them most of the time. my teacher was the most suspicious out of all of them. she began to not like me as much, and she just.. just was always watching me. i got a bit more scared of her every day. i began making more variations of demon, and i thought it was a fun animal thing we did so i literally didn't care what people were thinking about it. but then, one day, i came home from school, and my mom explained everything. she told me why i should change the name of demons, and that they were obviously too cute to be evil. i had trouble thinking of a name for them. i hesitated, but went to school and informed everyone involved what she had told me. one of my friends, my most trusted, came up with a new name in LITERALLY 0.2 SECONDS. we were in the corner of the room, and she looked at me all sad to hear the news, but then her face changed and she hopped a little "HOW ABOUT DITHONIA? " she blurted. i looked at her surprised. "is that an existing name for something" and "where did that come from" were some questions i asked. she told me she doesn't know to all of them. i went home and whipped out my iPad to look it up. sure enough, the closest thing to the word in existence was either someones name, or the tithonia flower. so i kept the name, and went back to school the next day to tell people what we had changed up. a lot of them never understood we were being serious, and told me that dithonias were evil no matter what i did to change that. and they would repeat the word demon really fast and it got annoying. it gave the dithonias an awful reputation, which only got worse later in the story. people new to the school only heard about that, and never the good side, which was 99% of what it is supposed to be. but we just kept not letting it get to us, because we were only trying to make a positive change. but once again, it only got worse. and my teacher was still super suspicious. my friend, the one who came up with the name, was being really... weird. even with things that had nothing to do with dithonias. i remember, she was crying about how her great grandpa died, so i gave her a cool little soda candy, just trying to be nice and make her feel better. but she asked the teacher if it was okay, and i got in trouble for giving her one piece of candy... also, we were getting into trouble for drawing dithonias on projects, and just trying to have fun. we weren't even being bad, like at all so obviously they only got us in trouble because of the whole demon junk that had already ended.... well it was supposed to. because one day, i was just writing in my notebook ,like the entire class was. my teacher pulled me, my dithonia friends, and some completely unrelated people out of class all of the sudden. and she sat us in the hallway... and i.. didn't know what was going on.. she asked us what was up with the whole demon thing. and with the weird writing about five nights at Freddie's. that had NOTHING to do with it, but i told her anyways. as if she cared that i wasn't doing anything wrong. she said she'd call our parents. the people who had nothing to do with it were excused, luckily. but they hated me after this. i remember one of my friends didn't even care. she kept shrugging and didn't even freak out or worry about what would happen. i think that is because her parents already knew something would happen, because she told her parents i was crazy and didn't tell me she said that until two years later. so she left too. my main friend didn't even have to go outside, and most of the trouble was her fault. it was just me. and i was crying. i asked my teacher "could i at least call my mom myself?" i said hopefully, because i knew," deep down ", i had no true reason to be pulled out into the hallway full of people walking by and looking at me. i knew my mom wouldn't get mad at me for something so ridiculous. but at school , i had to live through the rest of the day, and be with my terrifying teacher. i was left out in the hallway for a couple minutes while she went out to check on the class. i have a feeling she told them what happened. a teacher would never do that... but a teacher wouldn't get me in trouble for not understanding something like this because of like, religious reasons or something. i'm not exactly religious, so i had a reason to be confused. but my teacher was very religious. i really, really wanted to go home. but then, my teacher came back out. and she took me to the office, and called my my mom.... herself... she told her that we were "summoning demons" and "trying to tell the class demons were okay" and just some really, really embarrassing things... that never even happened. i just went back to the hallway, and i tried to stay there as long as possible, even with people staring at me having a meltdown.

i went home that day, and i felt much better. i remember, my mom and dad were not even mad at me. they told me they were very sad for me when they got the call because they knew my teacher was telling lies. i did not do anything against school rules. i also remember being extremely horrified at the thought of going back to school. my first year at a new school. already hated it with all my life. i came back the next day, feeling really uneasy and not talking to anyone. not even my friends. but i should have, because i would have never expected not to be able to for the rest of the week. wanna know why? another stupid made up rule/ punishment. we had these assistant teachers/ teachers in training, one for each of my classes. (i had two teachers and four classes) anyways, apparently my teacher had told them what happened, and that they had to do something about us so we couldn't cause anymore "trouble". so one of them, the one for our class, told us something that really bothered me right before recess. i was BANNED from doing the following:

• drawing dithonias
• talking about dithonias
• saying dithonia/dithonias
• hanging out with my friends who knew about dithonias

and basically doing anything that made me happy. dithonias made me happy. does that answer your question on why i am so obsessed with them? no? well there's even more. my dad had a conference with my teacher, the principal, and the counselor. they got it fixed, almost. i still couldn't put dithonias on MY projects, which i ended up doing anyways because literally who cares, it's my personal project. but i thought it was finally worked out. but when i came to school the next day, the teacher assistant or whatever wasn't told that we could be free now. (i find it shady that my teacher told her to punish us but "forgot" to tell her we were not banned from doing anything anymore) so she made us do the same thing again. it was boring. dithonias is all i ever work with other than school work, obviously. we told her what happened. she was all "fine" and everything, but i feel like she expected us to be lying and that we would get in trouble. of course we didn't. i thought all the drama was to an end. until i heard a sentence, probably the ugliest sentence in the world to me.

my friend, one of them, told me that dithonias were too much trouble for her and that she didn't want anything to do with it. she said, "i quit dithonias"

okay, it's mini rant time. FIRST of all, that isn't even grammatically correct. dithonias isn't a job. dithonias ARE an animal, basically. could've at least said "i quit having any thing to do with dithonias" or "dithonias aren't the thing for me, i quit" but NOPE! all they said after that was "i quit dithonias" or "i'm doing dithonias" once they "join" back. but like, just saying, it isn't a club or a job or an object. it's something more than that. and after my friends began quitting, they either rejoined, left me completely (because all we did as friends was that, what are we supposed to do now or something stupid), some people started to like them but had to drag themselves away because apparently dithonias are a contagious disease? and the last, most annoying thing, was that they would make a rip off of them that looked the same but had a different name, and STILL get more people that liked them than i ever did. the examples are "dragon dogs" "fairy animals" or just something stupid like "bird hybrid pets" and stuff. i hated it, i absolutely hated it. people still judge me and dithonias all for some stupid misunderstanding. and my old friend, the one i "trusted", well... she isn't very....i don't know. she just always lets me down. like when i thought she was going to rejoin or whatever, she only believes her own stuff. dithonia related things have rules, like real life, but if i tell her that, she just keeps listening to herself. but i guess it's fine. she can do her own thing as long as she doesn't take over dithonias and try to introduce them to people in a wrong way, which i will never know. after moving schools, i only have maybe four loyal dithonia friends out there. the rest are either backstabbers or the ones who secretly spread bad rumors about it. but some people will still join, leave, you know. there are some at this school, we treat dithonias a lot differently than at ici, and that is okay. it was too much pressure back then.

and that's why i ended the dithonia club, and why i never really get to tell you guys about them. they're still getting better, cooler, and more lovable. but people still believe they are evil. like for example, without even knowing what it was, someone told me they looked mischievous. what does a dithonia look like? well, look at what is everywhere on this. those are dithonias. and i still put everything into making them better :)

Instagram: galactia_stardust YouTube: dithonias OFFICIAL website: dithonia.wordpress.com

bye guys!

images used: me and my dog lola (dithonia inspo) / an "ancient" dithonia image from 2015