#I didn’t think I’d hyperfixate on music; didn’t even consider it was a thing you could do

[luxmoonix]

I got back from a trip and was looking through a sketchbook I had just finished and thought that this would be worth sharing with whoever sees it.

It’s (one of) my first attempts at a doing a proper sketch spread. Looking back now it kinda feels empty but at the same time I don’t feel like there’s enough space for me to add anything.

Anyways, Will Wood is genuinely one of my favorite artists. I love the experimental and wide variety of genres he makes, and his lyric crafting (or whatever the proper term is) is so fun and interesting to listen to.

In all honesty, I think this hyperfixation on his music is a result of my mom only letting my family listen to one genre for about my entire life—Christian music.

As I’ve gotten older and been forced to play music for my church, I’ve come to realize how bland and “copy-paste” most of the genre is. Some songs have the same damn chord progressions the entire song, and that gets to be so fucking boring when you have to sit there and play the same 4 chords for 2-3 minutes.

Idk, just take the art. I don’t want to rant about something and make people scared/upset or whatever.

[landograndprix]

TS anon back again. I’d consider myself a Swiftie and I’m so so sorry that you received death threats just b/c you didn’t care for her music. Or at all for that matter, like you could tell me that you absolutely hated her and I’d just shrug and say she not for everyone. I’ll try to keep the hyperfixation contained but if it becomes to much just let me know. And I really hate to be the bearer of bad news but I don’t think your dash is going to get better for at least a couple of days. We’ve really really been looking forward to this and with the Era tour it’s just gotten us hyped up even more. So I will apologize in advance for the overflow of Taylor. I will say that if there are any crazies that give you trouble I will be more than happy to out crazy them for you💛

Oh my god no, don't let me stop you from posting about the things you love and care about! Honestly, I'm not sny better with spamming people's dashes with the stuff I'm currently obsessed with (sorry for yesterday y'all 😅) it's just sometimes I feel the need to complain and this morning when i was greeted by TS content instead of my own hyperfixations, my mind said say something about it 😈 I don't have a filter, well..let's just say it doesn't work most of the time so take most thing I blast into the universe with a grain of salt 😭 Please don't let me ruin your interests amd such, I'd hate to think someone would do the same to me!

[ourstarscollided]

jatp fanworks appreciation - day 1 (writers)

motivation - so in true me fashion and my aversion to brevity, i've made three (3) posts (see also artists, gifs/edits) to celebrate the wonderful people in this fandom who have made my jatp tumblr experience what it is; a community of people who simply shout into the void about their love of a ghost band and their fearless female leader. i've enjoyed simply being on the sidelines admiring everyone's love for the show, but i thought this would be a good time to really show my appreciation for all these wonderful people, because if i've learned anything from this pandemic, it's that there is NEVER a wrong time to tell someone that they are simply ✨the best✨.

disclaimer: i don't interact with most of these people personally and i simply absorb their content from afar and scream about how wonderful they are in the tags.

This list kind of became a fic rec, so if you're looking for some wonderful fics to read (or reread), I've also included my favs from the author here as well.

Okay this is gonna get a little long so please bear with me. But I just wanted to preamble this by saying that the fanfiction written by the jatp fandom is what resparked my love for reading fiction after about 3-4 years of not reading for leisure (be an adult they said. it'll be fun they said.). So I'm really grateful for that? I don't interact with a lot of people, just because it makes me a little anxious, but I will constantly yell about your content in the tags as if I were on a set of bleachers with a megaphone.

I also know there are so many wonderful fic writers out there (on Tumblr and not on Tumblr) that make amazing pieces of work, and this is just a tiny peek into that, and is not at all conclusive.

Without further ado here are some writers who live rent free in my head, in alphabetical order, so feel free to just skip to your name to avoid my rambling:

@bluefirewrites -> your Merry Ex-Mas fic had me on the edge of my seat every single time you updated. I am so in love with how you wrote the characters into this and at how many words you churned out for this fic. This was filled with so much adventure, and it was really welcome during a time when the world wasn't allowed to travel. And I simply love all the other drabbles and fics you write, but I especially enjoy the hilarity of Ray Molina, Crime Scene Photographer and Matchmaker.

@captainkippen -> I'm pretty sure Love Drunk was one of the first fics I ever read in this fandom. Your stories and your writing feel so goddamn real and I find myself so immersed in the worlds that you've created. I have reread most of your jatp fics and I still manage to find myself stupidly grinning at my phone each time. Your stories flow so easily and are such perfect characterizations of the characters we know from the show, but elevated to fit into your verse. I cannot say enough how wonderful your writing is and how talented you are!! (also a slight nudge that I am still very much following along with The Key and the Crown and I hope you continue it!)

@catty-words -> Your???? Exhaustive??? Music??? Lists???? The amount of work and dedication and microanalyzing that you put into pulling out every detail from each scene is so admirable. You not only manage to find the details, but you also give us EVIDENCE via your intricately selected gifs. You could've just put the video of the performance, but no, you take your time to find that specific 1 second shot to emphasize your point. And your little fics that you sometimes throw out into the world? They're so beautiful, and so fun to read and I enjoy them so much! (I am STILL screaming about this band's a snack) Thank you for validating my yelling in the tags, and for feeding my hyperfixation to this show. (I'm sad these lists are ending soon, but it's about the journey ya know?)

@lydias--stiles -> I don't even know what to say here because I've yelled so much about your fics that I feel like there's really nothing else to yell. Your Road Trip AU was also one of the first ones I read in this fandom, and really just made me go absolutely feral. Pretty sure I absorbed the rest of your fics in an ungodly amount of time and I just simply think you are incredibly skilled and talented. Every time you post a new fic I always wonder what it's like to be in your head because the ideas you come up with are so unique and so well thought out. Thank you for all the art you create for this show, I will constantly be in awe of you. (Special shoutout to the 5+1 fic that became a 31 chapter monster)

@pearlcaddy -> This list would not be complete if I didn't mention you. First of all, thank you for suggesting this wonderful week, it has been so lovely to see so much love being spread around today. Secondly, I never thought I'd find myself reading a Buffy or a Wizarding World crossover fic, considering I know nothing about those two things. And yet I found myself on various nights after work at 3 in the morning just silently screaming and/or crying into my phone. Your writing is so insane. Your world building is so insane. Your banter/dialogue is insane. The way you capture the love between Julie/Luke in different universes is so perfect. Thank you for gifting us these beautiful pieces of art, and I hope you know that you have at least made one person (me) a very happy reader. I also really admire your dedication to "this will only be a oneshot", only to write like 4 other POVs for it. (Special shoutout to 100 Bad Days)

@ruzek-halstead -> Literally every single fic you have written lives rent free in my head. The way you've managed to build this universe of different Julies and Lukes, and each one still captures the essence of them is astounding. You've extended their characters beyond what we know from the show and I am just in awe of everything you write. Please know that dead of night is both triggering to me and yet the most hilarious thing I have read. (Special shoutout to the Fake Dating Christmas AU and of course the Cinderella Story AU)

@serendipitee -> Your stories and your writing are absolutely magical. I think Write It Down was one of the first multi-chapter fics that I followed super closely and whenever you updated, I would literally drop what I was doing and read it instantly. You have such a way of building the plot and the characters for all of your fics and drabbles, and making the reader just want more. Please know that I am so obsessed with Oh, She Waltzed With the Dead and I cannot wait to see where you take the story!

@sunsetcurbed -> I have no words for your writing. I am simply in awe every time I read something from you. The way you've got down Alex and Willie's voice to a tee is so crazy good. You write their characters and their stories with such grace and care, especially with how you approach the topic of mental health. Thank you for all the research you do and for also writing in your own experiences. I literally binged the Princes Diaries AU during work and lost a good half day to it, and I regret nothing because that fic left me in SHAMBLES. I secretly adore the way you say you're going to keep a fic short, and end up writing an insane amount of words for it. (I have not yet left my obligated long-ass comment on Chapter 4 of the College AU yet because I am still processing the fate/destiny concept.)

@tangledstarlight -> Gahh. Rosie. Please. This is going to sound a little repetitive considering I just screamed at you last night, but now I guess I will just have to publicly confess my adoration for you!!! Thank you for being my first online friend in a very long time, and for putting up with me yelling at you about everything (and also nothing at the same time). I can't believe all it took was one message about your Royals AU for you to post it, but I will gladly take that credit any day. You are so so so incredibly talented with your writing, and your ability to transport me to another world while I read your fics is unparalleled. I adore the way you can come up with a new story to write every day, and then proceed to throw it into your pot of other WIPs. I am so so so so lucky to have gotten to know you and am incredibly grateful that I now have someone to cry about everything with 🧡 (If you read anything from Rosie, you need to read her Seasons/Long Distance Juke "friendship" fic and the Reggie x Photography oneshot that made me bawl my eyes out.)

@thedeathdeelers -> No thoughts. Just soulmates. Jk jk, you know I love your Reggie x Ray x Carlos fics, and I will scream in the tags about it until the day I get more of those fics from you. This is lowkey a threat, but wrapped in kindness. You are so wonderful to see on my dash (albeit scary at times because of the sheer amount of headcanons and theories running through your head), but you radiate such positive energy that it's impossible to not want to jump in and scream about soulmates with you.

Some special mentions to fics that also live rent free in my head:

@sunsetsandcurves wrote a Willex Cruise Ship AU inspired by a Simple Plan song and it’s something I never knew I needed until I read it. 

@phantom-curve wrote a Juke fic based off of Coney Island and I would just like to say, yes, it did shatter me. (Here’s the fluff sequel that makes up for it though)

@unsaidjulie wrote the Juke dog fic of my dreams and I simply cannot express how much I want the Molina’s to have a dog now. 

@pawprinterfanfic managed to get me incredibly invested in a Star Wars AU even though I know absolutely nothing about Star Wars. I just know that I would die for two (2) space boys. 

@sanssssastark  your Later universe made me realize that I do very much want there to be more mature content for this fandom (and you constantly deliver).

@theobligatedklutz wrote a Tangled Willex AU that makes me screech every time there’s an update. Just read it.

@alexthedrummerboy your talent knows no bounds when it comes to your Social Media AU. Also she’s written ORIGINAL songs for Alex and Willie?!?!?! 

@gennified has this really wonderful modern take on pride and prejudice for Willex and I’m so obsessed with how much miscommunication there is.

@bananaleaves okay, I just found your Tumblr today, and I know you don’t know me in any capacity, but allow me to scream about THIS FIC RIGHT HERE. If anyone in this fandom is to read ANYTHING, it’s this fic. This was one of the best things I’ve read in a long time and absolutely wrecked me. Please just read this.

This turned out WAY longer than it was supposed to, and I’m SO SORRY. (I also tried to make sure I got everyone’s pronouns right, so PLEASE let me know if they’re wrong!) A final sincere thank you to everyone in this fandom who writes. Your talent knows no bounds. Gonna stop talking now before this becomes an essay....

[starshine-selfships]

1, 10, 11, and 12 for the ask game ? 😺🙏💟

Hi hi hi!! You're getting long answers to these bc any excuse to talk about this man makes me go crazy stupid 🙌🙌🙌💕

1) What's a Hot Take you have about your f/o?

HE👏IS👏NEURODIVERGENT!! I'm specifically talking adhd, but he checks a lot of boxes for something more ambiguous too. I'm actually rewriting my adhd sh.aiapouf post and I'm gonna put it here too, but the cut time version IS: noticeable hyperfixations/special interests in music and the monarchy, practically no empathy + has difficulty understanding the emotions of others, fast thinking + thinks a LOT, almost weirdly analytical + book smart with little to no interpersonal skills, extreme emotions all over the board, like there's a LOT here and it explains like 80% of why he's Like That 😤

10) How did you feel when you realized "oh of course I had to like That Character"?

Okay I have a lot to say on this one djnfkffk please bear with me as I write a whole novel

✌U_U ✌

Honestly,, , I wasn't happy LMAOOO, around the time I watched the anime for the first time i was actually still pretty into j.jba and unfortunately was really into dio U_U

I was fascinated by pouf as soon as I saw him in the opening, lots of neat ant designs and then this butterfly man?? I need to know everything about him 👀 His intro with the rainbows in the wings, the fairy chimes, the solo violin, all had me like 👁👁 Sir I Am Going To Study You Like The Insect You Are, and then I saw him actually play the violin and was sold lmao. He was funny as far as comic relief went and then? The giant improv ballet breakdown and antagonistic turn drew me in further and then I was invested in a no going back sorta way as soon as he went chibi for the first time, just watching the chaos of the entire scene with this ridiculous huge grin dhjdkxkf every single thing he did was in the extremes and it was like watching a train de-rail in real time, I saw him face down in the dirt at the end of the arc and didn't even feel anything, he was just so WILD

So I finish h.xh not too long after that and texted a friend and was like hmmm. I need to watch j.jba to return to my roots and also to forget that I think I might've accidentally given myself a lil crush on the butterfly man 😳 idk if that return ever happened but I DO remember being frustrated with how pretty he is,, I didn't really wanna shift hyperfixations at the time and also didn't know if it was attraction or gender envy bc. what I would give to simultaneously look so fem and so masc 👁 either way it was a 3 month struggle of "oh no oh my god I wanna kiss a bug so bad?? 😞" and then I caved at midnight in a denny's and was like okay. fine. I'm gay for a bug, I really really like him but *i* don't have to like that 😤

I did, in fact, proceed to like it, enough to make an entire separate blog for him. It was a slow progression of "I mean, I'd share a ballroom dance with him, like a waltz maybe", "hmm okay he's funny but whatever", "oh uh. he uh. I mean he's neat, a lot of people didn't like him but I just think he's an interesting character 😳" and. and then I finally caved and I never stopped talking sjdkfkf though to be fair, I was already talking about him a LOT on my main, I just decided that maybe it would be nice to have a space to just. contain 90% of my poufposting LMAOOO

Final note on this, but I think what really got me is how many characters are in this series and yet I gravitated towards the one no one could stand 😞✌ though to be fair the hatred for him has definitely gone down compared to what I can remember from a few years ago; absolutely does not change the fact that He Is The Way He Is, but I saw the war crimes, malice, potentially treason, and I won't name it but it's by far the most uncomfortable thing to sit through in the arc, I saw ALL of that and still went hmmmm yes I want that one U_U true love huh

11) Do you think it's better to have copious amounts of content for your f/o, even with the risk of finding a lot of ship art, or better to have a lot less?

The art situation with him is strange bc there's a decent enough to be notable amount of art of him captioned with some variation of "I hated him but he had a really cool character design", but it's still content. Surprisingly, I actually don't track the tag for him but take a look at it anyways almost every day and there's maybe one new thing there like once a week, minimal content bc so many people just didn't like him, which is fair!! But also, he was definitely there as a prominent character, I'd just like to see more of him U_U I would put more art here but I'm too conscious of the art ops seeing my bs over here jdkdkfkk

There actually are a handful of ship art drawings of him, which astounds me bc this man wasn't there to make friends, not even with his own siblings :/, but the errant art of him with morel or kite is honestly pretty cute, please just let this man be happy, I love to see him smile 🥺

12) Aren't you tired of being nice? This is an excuse to rant.

He wasn't the worst guard!! All three had reasons for doing what they did and arguably, pouf's motives were the most complex. Yes he did some pretty awful things, but he considered them to be the right thing to do without a doubt in his mind, all his actions were selfish in that they were based off his own feelings, but he did things ultimately for the king, so his actions also had an edge of selflessness to them as well. He was just. so much more than annoying and while his character development wasn't positive, it was still some pretty astounding growth; as an antagonist, he's also fairly plausible 👀 sometimes people just are manipulative, sometimes feelings do get the better of you, pouf just has all those factors amped up to 11 at all times so they're magnified. I have. a lot of thoughts on him, he interests me very much 😞👀🤔👀

[pluviophile-bookworm]

I feel like I need to talk about this...

I’m very open about being aroace. At least here on Tumblr I am. (Outside of Tumblr, I am technically out, but some issues with my mother and grandmother have forced me back into the closet. I felt miserable about that initially, but I’m learning to be fine with it.) But it wasn’t always this way. In fact, I didn’t even know what aroace meant until I was 18. So how was I supposed to know when I got my first ‘celebrity crush’ that those last words do not, in fact, describe very accurately what I was experiencing? I didn’t know I had ADHD, either. I feel like that might have helped me realise some things about my experience. But let me go back a bit and actually tell you what happened and how it happened. [side note: I’ll be starting from a bit earlier than the ‘crush’ thing happened because I feel like it’s important for whoever reads this to understand how my circumstances shaped the experience I had]

Backstory:

I had always been different from my peers, so it was not surprising to anyone that I was bullied in middle school. [side note: Judging from my and my little brother’s combined experience, I feel like bullying is, quite unfortunately, something of a universal experience in middle school - in my day, I was on the receiving end. This last school year, my brother was the bully. Gosh, I wish I could tell my story without many deviations and without crying as I type, but I’ve already thrown both of those intentions out the window.]

So anyway, things got so bad that I was driven to suicidal thoughts. One night I was just lying in bed, thinking about going through with it, but I was like, well, I’ve got a test in the morning. Maybe after that. 13-year-old me had very weird priorities. I kind of still value my work over my mental health, but I’m working on it. So that night, I didn’t do anything. The next day, right before school, I was on the internet and I found out a new show had premiered. And then, as I was watching the pilot episode, that was when it happened. I saw this boy, whom I will not be naming, and I listened to him sing. I felt nothing much at the moment, but I couldn’t get the song out of my mind all day. Up until that moment, I had had a weird attitude towards music where I’d only listen to female singers. My ‘boys have cooties’ phase, I guess you could say. But this one, he was the first one I didn’t mind at all. In fact, I felt like I could listen to his voice 24/7. I’ve had that feeling hundreds of times by now, but I hadn’t before then. So I figured, this must be what a crush means, right? This must be what all my peers are talking about. The next day, I confided in a girl from my class with whom I was kind of friendly (though not actual friends, I’d say). I asked her if she’d seen the show, if she knew this person. She said yes and we kind of gushed about the song together, and I felt normal for a couple of minutes. I never knew the difference between my experience and what is considered ‘normal’ until years later.

For the time being, the thought of this special person was what was keeping me alive. I started having visions of him walking with me through the school hallways or sitting next to me on the bus home from school. I knew perfectly well those visions weren’t real, but they made me feel better. Happy. Safe. Seen. Full disclosure: I still have such visions, I’ve had them with different people through the years as my hyperfixations change. My latest one is what has enabled me to deal with some of my worst phobias (and I have a long list of them). I’ve never told anybody what it is, and I won’t be telling because I feel like if I do tell, the vision will not be strong enough to work against my fears. But I’m getting sidetracked again. Sorry for that.

So, I was pretty much obsessed with this guy. He was all I could think about, he was keeping me alive through what was possibly the toughest time in my life to date. So naturally, thanks to my heteronormative, amatonormative surroundings, I was convinced I had a crush on him. In fact, after this experience had lasted about a year, I was sure I was in love. 

Then things changed. I started high school. I found a couple of friends, and the people in my class in general made me feel like I could finally be myself. Be open about what I thought and how I felt. So by the end of the first semester, all 27 people in my class knew about my feelings for this guy. What I didn’t know was that they didn’t know that it wasn’t exactly like I was describing it. Because I wasn’t aware that a straight/ allo person’s idea of being ‘in love’ was different from mine. I was just putting things in words I thought I understood. 

So it came as a total surprise when some people from my class started teasing me about it. It wasn’t malicious teasing, that much I could tell. I had been bullied mercilessly before. What my new classmates were doing was asking genuine questions in a slightly teasing manner. For example, it would be known that my special person had a girlfriend, and so they’d ask me ‘aren’t you jealous’ or ‘do you wish you were that’, or stuff like that. And those questions felt so weird. So stupid. I thought, wait, why would I be jealous? Why would I feel bad about this person who has made me so happy, being happy himself? Why would I want to date him? That had nothing to do with how I felt. I told my classmates so. They gave me weird looks in response. So I started feeling like there was something wrong with me. Like I wasn’t doing that ‘in love’ thing right. Suddenly, I felt like my feelings were being intruded upon. Tarnished, somehow. I had always been aware that my visions were anything but real. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. And all of a sudden, somebody was suggesting that I should want to date this person. Why would I want to date anyone, I thought? Even if it was him. Dating people was awkward. Making physical contact with anyone outside my immediate family made me shudder. It still does, though I can hug some of my closest friends without any negative feelings. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Back to my first time I questioned my experience. I was about 14 at the time (in Bulgaria, high school starts from grade 8, ages 13-14 or 14-15), and, well, I didn’t do much questioning at the time. I just told myself that they didn’t understand my feelings, and I stopped being so open about the topic. 

My hyperfixation on this person lasted long. Longer than any other I’ve ever had to date. Maybe it was because I clung to it like it was what tethered me to my mortal life. But by my final year of high school, I could feel it fading away. I was forcing myself to think about this person, to conjure up the old visions; the song that had started it all was drained of all meaning that it had held for me. I was moving on to other hyperfixations. I felt like I was betraying myself, like I was breaking some sort of unbreakable vow. It was time to face the music. So I let go. I allowed myself to move on. It was kind of made easier by the fact that my special person had changed, too, and had moved on to projects that I could not enjoy due to some triggering content. And I moved on.

Then I joined Tumblr. I discovered some things. Among them was Hellenic polytheism. It had been a while since I’d found my faith in the Hellenic pantheon, but Tumblr was where I found out I was not alone, that there was an existent religion. And step by step, I realised that... I had been projecting Apollo’s presence onto my special person. And my old connection to that person had started fading away when I had realised I believed in the gods.

This explained a lot of things. But there was still the fact that I had never been able to look at another person the way my peers were looking at each other. I had been asked out two or three times during high school. I had rejected those people without even thinking about it. My best friend at the time was a boy and most teachers seemed to ship us together because, well, let’s be real - we were constantly fighting like an old married couple. It took him getting a girlfriend and seeing how happy I was for the two of them for everyone to realise that things between us were, and had always been, purely platonic. And now I was going to uni and I had never had feelings I was apparently supposed to have. 

It was also thanks to Tumblr that I discovered the extent of the LGBTQ+ community. I considered myself an ally at first, and I was a passionate ally, too. I still am nothing but supportive to my fellow LGBTQ+ people of all identities, but it was not until I was 18 going on 19 that I discovered the term ‘asexual’. I knew quite suddenly that this was the term for me. I knew what I was and how I felt. I felt mature enough to know the difference between ‘I’m not experienced enough to know for sure’ and ‘I’ve just never had those feelings, I don’t even know what they’re supposed to be like’. It took a bit longer to find out there was a difference between sexual and romantic attraction, but by the time I was 19, I had proudly labelled myself ‘aroace’. I still feel at home with this label. I am completely open to the possibility that it might change with time, but this is what feels right at this time. 

Fast-forward another couple of years to about 8 months ago. I had always known that I got really invested into stuff - shows, books, hobbies, people - only for that investment to wear off after a time. The timespans varied, but I realised I had experienced this ever since I was in pre-school at least. I didn’t have a term for it, though. And then, all of a sudden, Tumblr started offering me posts tagged ADHD. I could relate to maybe 95% of them. At one point, it felt like whatever algorithm this hellsite operates on was shoving the ADHD posts in my face, as if screaming ‘DOES THIS REMIND YOU OF, WELL, YOU?!!!’ in my ears. So I did some tests. I did a lot of self-reflection. I went to a psychiatrist. I was diagnosed in March. I started educating myself on the terminology and found out that what I was experiencing is called hyperfixating. So here I am now.

Here I am now, reflecting back on my experience from 8 years ago, connecting the dots. Realising what it was that I went through, allowing myself to go through it again, with different things and people. I don’t feel the need to cling to hyperfixations anymore because I know that is what they are and I know I can’t keep them forever. Of course, I do feel bad about stopping caring about something that used to be my light and life for a time. I dread the time I’ll get over my current hyperfixation, but I also know it’s inevitable. My ADHD brain needs the change and it happens naturally. And somehow I’m ok with that.

Well, this is it. This is the story of how Tumblr prompted me to discover aspects of myself that have been there for as long as I can remember. What better place to talk about it than Tumblr itself? What better group of people to understand and accept me than my lovely mutuals and followers? If you’re reading this, thank you. For being here, for listening to me, for allowing me to be who I am. You’ve got no idea how happy this makes me, even though I can barely see what I’m typing through the tears. Thank you. 

[tuff-and-fluff-archives]

Okay I am hyperfixating HARD on Tom and Jerry and all my emotions from childhood have FLOODED forth, so now that I’ve finished watching (almost) all 161 original theatrical Tom and Jerry shorts from 1940 to 1967, I would like to force you all to endure my insane ramblings about this franchise. Although before I begin, I’d like to share where I’ve been watching all these! Here’s a Dailymotion playlist of all 161 shorts, put into the correct order by yours truly :3 OKAY NOW THE INSANITY BEGINS 💖💖💖

1) The Messy Formative Years: Shorts 001-017 (1940-1944)

So obviously, when a series is first created, especially an animated series, the first few episodes will always be a bit odd as the directors and writers find their footing and establish the rules of their own universe, and Tom and Jerry is no exception! In fact, these episodes can be a bit weird and even jarring to watch because the designs of the titular characters are so drastically different from how they look even ten years afterwards. In fact, in the very first episode, they don’t even have their official names yet and are instead named “Jasper and Jinx.” Also, there’s a LOT of talking in these beginning shorts before they decided to make Tom and Jerry almost entirely mute. Shorts 010 and 013 stand out the most, as they feature characters regularly speaking full sentences and it’s just... ohhh it’s SO weird to watch and it feels almost wrong 😅 Of course that’s not to say these shorts are bad, far from it actually! They’re still super fun and fascinating to watch and I think it’s quite interesting to see how such an iconic franchise got its start!

2) The Golden Years: Shorts 018-097 (1945-1955)

Oh. My. GOD. THESE ARE THE ABSOLUTE BEST. I guarantee that when you just think about Tom and Jerry, THESE are the shorts that come to mind. By now William Hanna & Joseph Barbara fully had their formula down and were just pumping out hit after hit afTER HIT HHHHH I LOVE THESE SO MUCH. I’m not kidding when I say that these shorts still make me laugh really hard and I absolutely adore nearly every aspect of them: the fluid and extremely expressive animation, the excellently timed music paired with each short, and the humor that’s constant and lands almost every time. My absolute favorite ones are around 040-080 but really all of these are just sooooo good. I know that this is stating the obvious but one thing that I especially love is just how VIOLENT these cartoons are, even more than the Looney Tunes shorts that were coming out at the same time. Characters are constantly picking up knives or axes or straight up GUNS and ngl I feel like half of the humor comes from that shock factor of the insane absurdity of that violence. Okay I’m starting to sound rly dumb, I know explaining the joke is never fun, but the directing and animation just NAILS every joke; I think the secret behind it is that there’s always a buildup and anticipation before the impact, and that buildup just makes the impact all the more intense! I was going to list my top 5 favorites but it’s impossible to choose so lemme just recommend a random five out of all of them: 026 - Solid Serenade, 048 - Saturday Evening Puss, 067 - Triplet Trouble, 069 - Fit to Be Tied, and 076 - That’s My Pup!

Also, I don’t know where else to mention this so I’ll just say it here: there’s a gradual change that Tom’s design goes through where he’s slowly drawn to be less and less fuzzy. At first his outline was drawn with a lot of points to emphasize his fur, but over time they abandoned doing that, my guess is because it was harder to animate. I’d say that they fully transitioned to Smooth Tom around short 030. That’s just a little detail I noticed and wanted to share! ^-^

3) The Slow Decay: Shorts 098-114 (1956-1958)

*heavy sigh* Well... a good thing can’t last forever. What’s kinda strange is that I can’t really nail down a specific reason caused a decline in quality after 1955; short 096 was the last to be produced by Fred Quimby, with Hanna & Barbara being given the producer credit as well as director credit for the remaining 18 shorts, and MGM animation studios had major budget cuts in the late 50′s and was shut down in 1957, and perhaps the studio shutting down had also taken the joy out of the crew, which would certainly have an effect on the cartoons. Now that doesn’t mean that these last 16 shorts are bad- they’re still quite entertaining, but they just don’t have the same energy as the shorts made in the Golden Years. They’re also nowhere near as cartoonishly violent as the past shorts had been; weapons are almost never used anymore and there are barely any efforts from Tom and Jerry to straight up kill each other, and more often than not they’re working together and even acting like close friends. I think that’s pretty fair evidence that even if these later shorts were much tamer and friendlier, that meant that they were lacking the same chaotic energy that made the other shorts so hilarious. 

Also I just need to vent this here cuz this era also contains the two most absolutely infuriating shorts in the Hanna-Barbera era, that being 100 - Busy Buddies and 114 - Tot Watchers. These two shorts consist of Tom and Jerry attempting to stop a baby from accidentally dying cuz it’s just a dumb baby that doesn’t know anything, while the babysitter is just totally ignorant to everything happening. Now I can’t quite explain why and I’m probably just making myself look like an asshole but these shorts are just... so frustrating to me??? Like its bad enough that this stupid baby whose face NEVER changes from that stupid little smile just keeps wandering into dangerous situations (in Tot Watchers it straight up crawls into a CONSTRUCTION ZONE) but every time Tom rescues the little bastard and puts it back in its crib, the babysitter thinks he’s “bothering” the baby (probably because of that one myth about cats laying on babies and stealing their breath) and so poor Tom is just punished for doing literally nothing wrong!! It’s just... very frustrating to me for some reason I’m sorry... (Although I have to admit that it is interesting and kinda cute that Tom knows how to change a diaper, like wif the safety pins and everything. Why does he know that...?)

4) The Gene Deitch Shit Shorts: 115-127 (1961-1962)

OOOH BOY. I don’t think... that I can really describe how purely and utterly I dislike the Deitch shorts. Okay so, to explain, in 1961 MGM decided they wanted to revive the Tom and Jerry franchise, so they contracted an animation studio based in Czechoslovakia to create 13 new original shorts. All of these shorts were directed by Gene Deitch, who before being commissioned for these cartoons, was open about his disdain for the original Hanna-Barbera shorts that he described as “needlessly violent.” After he was assigned to the series, he did come around to somewhat realize that the violence was intended to be overly cartoonish and humorous, but his initial opinion still had an influence on his directing decisions. In addition to these facts, the foreign team behind this series had only collectively seen a handful of the original cartoons, and each short was given a budget of only $10,000, compared to the $50,000 that the Hanna-Barbera shorts had all been given.

SO. To recap, these 13 new shorts were being made by a foreign team who had barely seen any of the source material, directed by a man who had disliked the original cartoons, and being made on 1/5 of the budget that the Hanna-Barbera shorts were given. Needless to say, the end results were a DISASTER. I’m not kidding when I say that watching these shorts feels almost like a fever dream with how completely baffling and surreal they are. I honestly don’t think they could be any more different from the original series; the music and sound effects are extremely minimalist and usually completely absent, the animation is so jerky and totally lacking the fluidity of the originals, and the character design is also drastically different and, in my opinion, kinda ugly too. These are universally considered to be the worst of the theatrical shorts, and Deitch himself has even stated that he and his team “hardly had a chance to succeed” and he fully understands the negativity directed towards the shorts he directed. I have to confess that when I rewatched all the theatrical shorts, I only got through two of these before outright skipping the rest of them. These 13 shorts are a complete disgrace to the majesty of the Hanna-Barbera series, and while I don’t hold anything against the people behind them, I can’t lie when I say that I hate these shorts. 

5) The Chuck Jones Era: 128-161 (1963-1967)

I have an odd love-hate relationship with these shorts. I don’t think I need to explain to you the legacy of the great Chuck Jones, the creator of Marvin the Martian, Pepe Le Pew, and the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote whose name is nearly synonymous with the Looney Tunes cartoons of the 30′s, 40′s, and 50′s. He’s an absolute legend in the animation industry, and yet... the Tom and Jerry shorts that he directed are still significantly weaker than the original series. Let me start with the things I like though! The slight changes in the character design to match Chuck Jones’ signature style are super appealing (I especially like how at times, Tom will almost resemble Jones’ design for the Grinch) and the animation is of course very well done and a joy to watch, but despite these positives, the humor is sadly lacking. There are still quite a few jokes that land, but they’re more restrained and just don’t have the same high-energy oomph! of the impactful gunshot sound effects and violent screams of the original cartoon. I’ll always have an appreciation for this era of shorts and the man behind them, but they sadly didn’t even come halfway close to the Hanna-Barbera series.

WELL. ANYWAY, THAT’S MY RANT!!! Thanks for reading this far, all two people that did. It just felt good to get this outta my system! 💖💖

[stingchronicity]

💎💫 for the ask thing :)

💎 When and how did you discover your special interest?

not to sound autistic but i remember the exact day, it was august 23rd, 2019. i had gone to yes’ royal affair tour on july 10th, where john lodge played. i had friends and an ex who were very into the moodies, but somehow i had never even once heard one of their songs. i knew some by name, but i had never heard them! well, after john’s performance i thought i should check them out. i put a greatest hits comp on my phone but didn’t touch it for a while bc i’m admittedly quite slow with getting into new music. i remember the date of august 23rd because i was driving around trying to kill time waiting for a doctor’s appointment. “gemini dream�� came on from my shuffled music and i was like. yo this slaps thicque fucking ass. so ofc i then proceeded to listen to that song like a million times in a row. then i started to listen to the other songs on the album. i had my first semester of college that autumn and so whenever i hear songs from that album i just think about my new college experience, bc i listened to it constantly. it was all i would hear. like, i felt like i couldn’t listen to anything else because it wasn’t Right. your wildest dreams in particular became really important to me. WELL, thats how i discovered the moodies, and they immediately became a hyperfixation. i don’t know exactly when it shifted from the whole band over to justin primarily, but i’d reckon sometime from summer to autumn in 2020. at the time i considered my special interests to be alan white, roger dean, and the moodies. it was the first time i ever had more than one at a time! around october or november 2020 i recognized that my energy for roger dean & alan had waned; roger more so than alan. i felt like it was fair to put them on the shelf as “dormant,” sorta yknow, and refer to justin solely as my SI. i know it’s all very silly to worry about titles and labels, but it’s important to me. i dunno, i guess that’s the autism. anyway, hannibal nbc has become my SI as well since like november-ish, but if you saw my last response, you’ll see i prefer to think of justin as the leader.

💫 Favorite fact about your special interest?

hmmmmm! thats a good question!! well, the moodies themselves have a lot of really funny anecdotes, like being accosted by lsd-deranged hippies who thought the moodies were gonna take them to space. i cannot believe that’s a factual sentence. or when the pre-moodies would beat each other up on tour for fun and they only stopped when they thought they killed graeme. hashtag testosterone. but my favourite JUSTIN fact, hmm.... i remember getting really excited when i learned that he went to art school! or, the fact that he and marie have been married since 1970 and they have their one daughter who justin’s really close with. aww here that reminds me of one: when justin was on tour, he’d write letters everyday to marie--and she says she still has all of them 🥺😭--and would talk on the phone as often as possible. he says it hurt enough to miss marie, but as soon as doremi (their daughter) would get on the phone and ask “when are you coming home, daddy?” he would immediately start crying. he’s said that becoming a father really changed his life, and i mean the song “new horizons” speaks for itself: i think it was particularly impactful--and i hope it helped him to cope--considering the death of his own father in 1968. i’ve always wanted to be loved by my father so this fact about justin is particularly special to me 💙

[jessetheadventurer]

SO THE SONGS I LINKED IN THE LAST ASK

i’m going through each one individually and explaining why i like them because if i’m gonna hyperfixate on any one aspect of a video game, it’s gonna be the sound design

Jitter

alright this one is a favorite of mine for admittedly personal reasons, namely that it reminds me a LOT of the game Spore. which is a game i have been playing for twelve years now, and love to absolute bits. (one of the music beats from spore, for reference)

Spore’s soundtrack was actually partly composed by brian eno. if you don’t know who brian eno is, he’s more or less considered the father of all modern ambient music. he’s a BIG deal. and jitter honestly sounded like something he would have composed.

Soren’s Theme

soren is honestly my favorite of the old order of the stone. he’s eccentric, inspired, talented as HELL with building, and is an excellently multilayered character with a lot of depth. even though he’s an oddball, and even though he made mistakes, he cares a LOT for his friends and felt very guilty for what he did (or perhaps what he encouraged them to all do). 

his theme reflects all this perfectly imo. it’s strange, the chords don’t seem to quite play as they should, and there’s a hint of wisdom and experience behind the bass and almost static-y sound of the out of tune instruments. it sounds like someone who’s been around for a long time, who maybe doesn’t have themselves all together, but are still full of life and energy.

How Bright Your Life Could Be / How Dark Your Life Could Be

my theory for how this came about was basically telltale approaching antimo and welles like “alright you guys, we need a character theme for a slightly antagonistic character who is in charge of an excessively organized city but is pretty manipulative” and all antimo and welles heard was “antagonistic,” “organized,” and “manipulative” and proceeded to create the most UNHINGED pseudo-villain theme in the entire goddamn game.

how bright your life could be is excellent for champion city: the whistling sounds like birds straight out of a disney princess movie, WAY too cheerful and fantastical to be realistic. everything is pristine and beautiful on the surface.

and then how dark your life could be begins and the melody devolves into an absolute HORROR SOUNDTRACK. the background strings start a crescendo and go absolutely nuts, making for extreme tension and outright FEAR. stella is fucked up and antimo and welles will make sure you know this.

not to mention in how dark your life could be, the soundtrack gets so distorted it literally sounds like something out of marble hornets (flashing visuals & general creepiness warning on that link).

Ivor’s Theme

man this one should be self-explanatory dfksljfds

the main theme of season 1!! the menu music!! ivor’s leitmotif!! it drew inspiration from C418′s Aria Math, an absolutely gorgeous and classic minecraft song. it helped mcsm feel even closer to traditional minecraft.

i’ll be honest, i was charmed by episode 1 of season 1 when i first started playing it, but it wasn’t until this theme started and we saw ivor for the first time that i actually got really invested. the scene in endercon did an EXCELLENT job establishing real tension and plot. and the fact that the song continued into the freewalk through endercon, one of the best freewalks in season 1?

Mush Room

season 2 episode 3′s entire soundtrack is phenomenal (the synth instruments that reminisce of stranger things, whose telltale game antimo and welles ALSO worked on, are one of my greatest weaknesses), but this one is by far my favorite.

this is the song that says, “you’re trapped here. and you’re not getting out.”

i believe this is the one song in this episode’s soundtrack that has the beacontown leitmotif (you can hear it at 0:32 and again at 2:32), which. i am nothing if not a sucker for recurring leitmotifs. 

not only that, but the beacontown leitmotif in particular is extremely effective for this freewalk since radar and nurm are there with you. a small piece of beacontown, a reminder what you’re fighting for. you may be trapped, but there’s still hope.

Ellegaard’s Theme

i didn’t think i’d ever hear a harpsichord going into minecraft story mode, but BOY AM I GLAD I DID

the clock ticking like a redstone circuit? the gorgeous string instruments over a subtle background hum? 

it’s refined. it’s calculated. it’s hard at work, as brilliant and beautiful as the glowing redstone circuitry creating complex machines and new solutions to every problem.

and yet, there’s a hint of sadness behind that piano. regret? loneliness? we didn’t get to know ellegaard very well during the time we had with her, and i wish we did.

Harper’s Theme

i’ll be honest, if soren’s theme didn’t press all of my buttons, harper’s theme would be my #1 favorite.

i talked about how much i adore episode 7 of season 1 before, and this song exemplifies ALL of my points.

harper, who had been alone for years, maybe even a decade or longer, finally finding hope in strangers who appeared out of nowhere from the portal network she helped build. 

harper, who battled guilt every day for creating pama and letting it get out of control, to the point where she had to build statues that would give her pep talks and advice, which she named after her friends in crown mesa.

harper, who slept underground, reading to pass the time and trying to come up with a plan that would only have a slim to zero chance of working.

harper, who was proud of her work but horrified at what it had become.

harper, who was a genius and an inventor, intrigued by complex redstone creations and determined to do good in the world.

harper, who never gave up, not on herself, and not on the people of crown mesa.

harper.

[thiefnessman]

Crow’s List of Some IF I’ve played

I’m just listing off stuff here I’ll probably go more in depth in another post I suppose. this got real long so here we go, in no real logical order:

Birdland: technically the first IF work I played I guess, it’s funny and weird and I’ve played it many times. Stuff in Twine is often good to start out with imo because it’s more like CYOA which is more comfortable.

The Dreamhold: i have no memory of how i even got here in the first place but this was often listed as a good one for beginners bc it guides you through it. It’s got such beautiful descriptions and is very cool, though personally I’d recommend Bronze more for beginners to the text-inputting kind of games. I liked it a lot though, I named my ACNH island after it lol. One thing ppl say a lot about it is that it has all this stuff in it but leaves it unexplained, and while I’d like an explanation I also enjoy that it leaves it open-ended. I’ve only gotten one ending myself bc it took me so long to finish that i didn’t feel like going back and trying to get a new ending but it was a cool ending.

Bronze: someone whose url I forget atm told me this was a good game for beginners and I agree. There are also nice maps available and stuff which is helpful bc I’m bad w spatial awareness (i tried to map dreamhold on my own and it was a disaster). It’s got a good premise and I like Beauty & the beast (idk when i was a kid i loved belle bc she also liked to read!!! and i was in a production of the musical and that was fun) and it’s a cool twist on that and i like the different ending it gives. AFTER you play it you really should read Emily Short’s writeup about the inspiration behind the game and how she plotted it. It’s a good beginner game bc it has a tutorial mode, the puzzles aren’t too difficult (they mainly center around one thing) and it teaches you about things like reexamining rooms, examining things, using the different sense commands, solving puzzles by climbing on things and other stuff.

Shade: This is by the same guy who made The Dreamhold and is highly regarded and considered this really great work for its unnerving and surreal horror. I’m gonna be honest: it didn’t do it for me. Admittedly this was like the second (well, third) IF i played and i didn’t quite know the Tropes and stuff so essentially i felt like i was spamming commands until everything turned into sand, instead of trying to do things only to have the world crumble into sand around me. I don’t feel like replaying it now that I have more experience, but my advice is don’t play it until you’ve played more games, it’s not enjoyable as a newbie.

9:05: another short game that would not be enjoyable as a newbie. the joke is a twist on certain IF tropes and it’s probably not as funny if you’re inexperienced. I recently played this so I enjoyed it, it was funny, but the joke might’ve gotten lost on me if i played it a month ago. Sidenote: I’ve only been playing IF for about a month, so technically I am a newbie, but when I say newbie here i mean really new. Also ive hyperfixated and have nothing better to do so i have played a lot of IF in this short amount of time. 

De Baron: OOOH ok so this game i downloaded a little bit ago, completely forgot all the stuff i read about it (like that there was a twist and stuff) except that it was horror, and then played it. Because of this, and the fact that I’m still no veteran player, I didn’t see the twist coming and it really hit me hard. This is a cool game, upsetting but very intriguing but really not for everyone because it deals with some very disturbing material. I’ve seen people say the twist was obvious which kind of makes me feel stupid :( and like in hindsight when i replayed it i totally saw the hints so basically i think the obviousness of the twist depends on the person! 

Spider and Web: This is not the game for you if you really like the five zillion endings options, theres two (or three?) ‘real endings’ and they are both at the very end of the same path. It does have difficult and interesting puzzles, including this one that it’s famous for. It’s a good puzzle, but don’t let your opinion and enjoyment of the game hinge on this puzzle, bc it’s got other great puzzles and other great stuff going on. Save frequently and DO NOT attempt this without some experience, it’s fucking hard.

Blue Chairs: I didn’t like this game. It was one of the earlier games i played but I just didn’t really like it. it was cool in a mindscrew-y way and it’s got a bunch of endings and a lot to explore but i just didn’t find it fun to play. It took me forever to get several endings and this was probably partially due to inexperience but it just made it unenjoyable for me. Don’t let my experience ruin it for you but personally i just did not like it. It’s a very surreal game bc the PC is literally on drugs. There seems to be a bunch of symbolism and allusion stuff that I didn’t really get but could be cool. basically it is probably a very cool game for some ppl but i didn’t like it.

Galatea: lives up to the hype imo. there’s 70 different endings. It’s not a long game and it is centered around talking to a statue but it is a very interesting game and also one that isn’t that hard. I really like this one.

Glass: by the same person who wrote Bronze, it’s another twist on a fairy tale. It’s very short and you can’t do anything but talk. Another good beginner one because it’s not too complex, and it does a good job with using the reader’s familiarity with the tale. Read her writeup about creating it after you get a few endings it’s interesting. 

Little Blue Men: I just played this one and it’s weird and sinister and has a great built-in hint system. it’s really fucking weird though and like the author says, it doesn’t have a nice neat satisfying ending. 

ok im running out of steam i’ll come back to this later

[twotwinks]

a thing i was tagged in a long time ago by @rochc93. i am, believe it or not, attempting to catch up on these things. i always intend to do them but it’s either not a good time when i think about them or i’m not thinking about them. sorry i’m a mess

Who were you named after?

First name, nobody bitch. That’s all me. Middle name, like twenty different characters who are important to me but all on accident because I didn’t realize we shared the name until after I’d picked it. Notable instances include Rita Rose Vrataski from Edge of Tomorrow and also Amy Rose (a recent discovery). Last name, Gary King and also because I like confusing people about my gender by deliberately using a “male” title while presenting female (though hopefully not for much longer) and also being nonbinary. (Also s/o to ladies who call themselves king instead of queen. Yes I’m thinking of Kagamine Rin in the WanOpo songs Death Should Not Have Taken Thee and Our Adventure Log Has Vanished.)

Last time you cried?

two weeks ago to the day, when my dad let our dog Koko get hit by a car, things have been Extra Bad around here since then

Do you like your handwriting?

No. When I was little everyone always used to tell me how pretty it was but then I started trying to be a Serious Writer and my penmanship degraded as a result of how fast I had to get the words out of my head. Now my mom whines all the time about how messy and illegible my writing is.

What is your favorite lunch meat?

TURKEY

Longest relationship?

Umm....about two years ago for about three months-ish? I think? Maybe two months? I don’t know, we were dating for Christmas and then I broke up with him right before Valentine’s Day because my mental health couldn’t take it. I realized I was aro shortly after. Who would’ve guessed, huh?

Do you still have your tonsils?

Yep!

Do you bungee jump?

no and i never will

What is your favorite kind of cereal?

Dude this changes like monthly. Sometimes Honey Bunches of Oats. Sometimes Frosted Flakes. Sometimes I get a ridiculously strong craving for Strawberry Awake or Lucky Charms or Honey Nut Cheerios. I just get to eat cereal so infrequently that I can’t really have a favorite, I just have to indulge whatever craving I currently have because I only get the chance to eat one box every three months or so.

Do you untie your shoes when you take them off?

Yes because when I was little my mom ingrained into me that not untying my shoes first would ruin the backs of them way faster than they should. In all fairness we were poor and couldn’t afford to buy me new shoes that often because my feet are so sensitive that an actual comfortable pair costs $100.

Do you think you’re strong willed?

oh fuck no i mean have you ever spoken to me??? i’m the biggest baby pushover to ever live

Favorite ice cream?

Either that Death by Chocolate stuff they serve at Purdue’s dining courts sometimes or mint chocolate chip. It has to be green though or it loses something sdkhsdhk

What is the first thing you notice about a person?

Usually like their shirt, I guess? I don’t know, this isn’t something I’ve ever really thought about. Maybe it’s also if they have one of those annoying faces or voices. Or if they have a queer vibe. Look I’m not good with people ok.

Football or baseball?

Football but only because marching band and/or soccer

Favorite doughnut?

Okay this is going to sound weirdly specific but. Chocolate cake donut with chocolate frosting and rainbow sprinkles. Also on a related note I once let a girl in high school copy my homework (that I myself had found the answers to on the internet, it was a really unfair English assignment). She was so happy that she said she’d buy me a donut for breakfast the next day (she made a donut run for herself once a week as a special treat). I gave her my oddly specific request, but since I knew it was kind of a rare donut to find I told her anything chocolate would work. The next day, lo and behold, she showed up with the perfect donut. She had them make it special for me (insert Discord’s pleading face emoji). That was the day I learned my lesson about judging “dumb blondes”.

What music are you listening to?

I’ve been back into Touhou doujin arrangements again lately, especially eurobeat. However I’m also hyperfixating on Sonic the Hedgehog again so the game soundtracks and the Crush 40 albums are starting to show up in my frequent rotation on Spotify.

If you were a crayon, what color would you be?

The obvious choice is mint green but I could also very easily be a lime green or a glittery ruby slippers red.

Who was the last person you talked to on the phone?

I believe I talked to my grandma a little bit on my mom’s phone not that long ago? Other than that according to my phone it looks like I took a call from my dad back in April?

Hair color?

that real deep almost black brown. i nearly got into a fistfight with some boys in second grade who insisted my hair was black. it’s not black it’s just very thick. it actually looks much lighter if you just separate a smaller chunk and look at it.

Eye color?

Hazel. Brown with some green flecks. Or possibly green with some brown flecks. Also both of my irises look different up close but you can’t tell unless you’re really up in my face.

Favorite food to eat?

pasta but it can’t have red sauce

Scary movies or happy endings?

happy endings all the way

Last film you watched in the cinema?

do you really expect me to remember this. i honestly do not fucking know. i have no brain when it comes to movie theaters. i was gonna do a double feature of birds of prey and the sonic movie the tuesday before spring break (cheap prices for students!!!) but i ended up having a headache that day so i couldn’t go and then shit hit the fan and there was no theatergoing. i have tried and failed to get my parents to rent the sonic movie since. i’m very unhappy about it now that i’m hyperfixating again.

What color shirt are you wearing?

well i think it used to be white but it’s really old so now it’s like off-white. also it has a big snake on the back. i don’t even like snakes i just enjoy this shirt.

Favorite holiday?

Christmas!!! I don’t necessarily actually enjoy celebrating the holiday (thanks fam) but I love the idea behind it and the aesthetics. Also it’s peppermint season!

Beer or wine?

Listen I am super picky about alcohol. I haven’t liked any of the wine I’ve tried, but the first two wines I had other people told me it was bad (and then they took me out and bought me alcohol I would actually like because I’d never drank before and apparently getting me tipsy in Ireland over spring break was an Honor for them I literally didn’t pay for a single drink that night) and the third wine I had was paired with the wrong type of food (we couldn’t get the Right wine bottle open). I didn’t really mind the beer I tried in Ireland though, so I guess beer? I really like cider best though, and apparently I can also handle vodka.

Night owl or morning person?

night owl i wish i could be nocturnal

Favorite day of the week?

Friday. It has all the joy and anticipation of the coming weekend without the curse of my dad being home or the responsibility of homework looming over everything.

Favorite animal?

HEDGEHOG yeah i never really got past that from when i was little. but i also just love pretty much all animals. except like. snakes and spiders but sometimes snakes have their moments.

Do you have a pet?

Yeah. We have a lot of “family” pets but I consider Patches (cat) and Gabby (dog) to be Mine Specifically. If my mom hadn’t forced me out of therapy I’d probably be bringing Patches with me to college next year as an emotional support animal.

Where would you like to travel?

Europe babey. I just wanna hang out in France and England and Scotland and also go back to Ireland. I miss Ireland so much y’all.

ok that’s it. that’s all for this one. i’m not tagging anyone because i’m sure it’s already made the rounds among everyone. but if it missed you and you still wanna do it go for it. consider yourself tagged. poof.

[rubberduckyrye]

You don’t really seem to talk about Angie even though she probably lies just as much as Kokichi, albeit with a different approach. Why is that?

No offense anon, but this sounds like a loaded question xD Id why, maybe it’s cause I’m still tired? Anyway--

There are several reasons why I don’t talk about Angie.

One: This blog is a Kokichi blog. Celest insisted I write this, and it’s kind of true. I started this blog as a place where I can ramble about Kokichi, it even says as such in my description. MY URL is a reference to Kokichi, my Icon is Kokichi, it’s all Kokichi, I am just Kokichi. Nee-heehee!

(I’m joking, but people have joked that I’m literally Kokichi before dnsajkdna)

(I even have this snickering/laugh that sounds like Kokichi’s “nee-heehee” I’m not joking, I’ve had this laugh for years)

Anyway, this leads me into point two: Kokichi is my current hyperfixation. People with ADHD have this mental phenomenon called “Hyperfixate” which means people with ADHD get... Hmm, very very very into that One Thing. They often end up thinking about That One Thing a lot and it’s a symptom of ADHD that can be tiresome to manage and tiresome to listen to, even for other ADHDers... unless they’re both fixated on the same One Thing then they will talk about that One Thing for hours. Literal hours. Nonstop.

If you’ve ever talked to someone with ADHD, you’ll see what I mean. You bring up their hyperfixation, and you’ll see the switch turn “on” in their faces as the infodump literally everything there is to know about their fixation. We ADHDers get very excited over our fixations. It’s like, showing a puppy their favorite treat. 

And before you ask, no, I don’t think we can control out fixations. So I can’t shift my fixation to something else at will. If I have a shift in fixations (you’ve seen it before probably, when I get fixated for a day or so on my interpretation of Chara from Undertale, I know that it’s happened before) it’s pretty unwilling. I can try to trigger certain fixations with music (I.E. listening to a song that I associate with Chara will make me think about her and possibly trigger a spell of fixation) but I can’t control what my brain latches on to, and it currently has not latched on to Angie.

Point three: I don’t get people asking about her. Most people come to me for Kokichi because of the aforementioned reasons. Because of my fixation, I’ve done a ton of character studying on Kokichi, and because of that, people are drawn in to my interpretations and opinions on the character and want to know more about my thoughts on him. Angie never comes up in asks I get, and that’s because people aren’t as interested in her as they are in asking about my interpretation of Kokichi.

Point four: This one is touchy, because of the subject, but I’m a little afraid of getting into her backstory and characterization because of the racist undertones in her writing. I’d have to do a lot of research on her culture before I could even get into her characterization, unless I’m going to scrap her entire backstory in one fell swoop by implying that she was lying about everything to mess with Shuichi. Which just feels kind of cheaty. So to do proper analysis on Angie, I’d have to make sure I’m not stepping on any toes on the subject of racism and the racism in her character’s writing.

A lot of people think that the racist writing comes from the English translation using “Atua” but honestly? If the English translation didn’t just 100% change Angie’s FTEs or something like that, her writing is still racist towards pacific islanders and indigenous people even without the word “Atua” being used to refer to god. There’s a lot wrong with the writing and the racism in Angie’s writing, and it all stems from Kodaka not doing his god damn research, so I’ll have to do that in his place and pretty much rewrite Angie’s entire character.

At that point, Angie would be less of the canon interpretation and more of a pacific islander OC, so there’s also that to consider.

Anyway, I hope that answers your question well enough!

[t0m0kii]

1-99

you think this is a game anon? you send in 1-99 i’m gonna do 1-99 so HERE WE H*CKING GO

“1) Sexuality?”

bi! even tho i’m not attracted to many boys (and i actually only seriously like one) i still consider myself to be a groovy bisexual

“2) If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?”

any of the monkees! but also paul mccartney!

“3) Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.”

here’s an excerpt from the nearest book, ‘‘the everything reading music book’‘: “The terms measure and bar can be used in place of one another - they mean the same thing.” very educational!

“4) What do you think about most?”

it’s probably pathetic but i probably think about story concepts the most! either that or monkees stuff but sometimes they can be the same thing

“5) What does your latest text message from someone else say?”

my latest text is from my dude sean a.k.a joj-n-ringo who said that he sent me loads of asks about nwa but somehow i didn’t get any of them 

“6) Do you sleep with or without clothes on?”

always with! sleeping naked is weird and plus i hate my body and don’t wanna look at it SKJALKJAKLHDKSJLKN

“7) What’s your strangest talent?”

i dunno! i don’t really have any weird talents!

“8) Girls…. (finish the sentence); Boys…. (finish the sentence)”

girls…are neat! boys…are also neat!

“9) Ever had a poem or song written about you?”

no one’s ever written me a song but i’ve had friends write me poems before! it’s nice and i love it

“10) When is the last time you played the air guitar?”

hm……when’s the last time i listened to joe walsh’s life’s been good……………probably then!

“11) Do you have any strange phobias?”

i don’t know if it counts as a phobia but i get really bothered when i see shirtless pics of people and their ribs are visible like idk what it is but eeeee i don’t like it

“12) Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose?”

not that i can remember, lmao

“13) What’s your religion?”

i’m not like a diehard religion fanatic but i was raised christian and still sorta stand by it yknow

“14) If you are outside, what are you most likely doing?”

looking at the area around me, even if i’ve seen the place a thousand times, i’m always just lookin around lmao

“15) Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?”

it depends! mostly i like being in front tho jdhbkjfhdjfls

“16) Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?”

the monkees! those four idiots have my whole heart

“17) What was the last lie you told?”

my mom asked me if i did my homework yesterday and i lied and said i did it at school BUT I DID DO MOST OF IT THERE SO WHEN I BROUGHT IT HOME I DIDN’T HAVE A LOT TO DO

“18) Do you believe in karma?”

i guess so! what goes around comes around i’d suppose

“19) What does your URL mean?”

it’s named somewhat after my favorite anime character tomoko kuroki bc i love her and she’s a big mood

“20) What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?”

i think my greatest weakness would be that i jump to conclusions without any reason yknow but i think my biggest strength would be either my writing abilities or my ability to sorta see through people and see exactly what type of person they are

“21) Who is your celebrity crush?”

davy jones !!!!!! i love him so much !!!!!!!!!!

“22) Have you ever gone skinny dipping?”

hELL NO i would never i’m way too modest for that sjsklaskjdkbfnj

“23) How do you vent your anger?”

usually i talk to someone about it who’d understand but sometimes when i don’t want to bug anyone i just scribble it all down

“24) Do you have a collection of anything?”i have a record collection! and a cd and tape collection, i mostly just collect music stuff kshsjlbsjk

“25) Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?”

i don’t really like either but i prefer talking on the phone!

“26) Are you happy with the person you’ve become?”

not entirely

“27) What’s a sound you hate; sound you love?”

i hate the sound of babies screaming like i don’t hate children but uGH it kills my ears and a sound i love is the sound of tambourines! i love those lil things they do a good noise

“28) What’s your biggest “what if”?”

what if it’s all for nothing (this could apply to several things)

“29) Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens?”

i dunno about aliens but i think there are ghosts! i’d love to be friends with a ghost like. imagine

“30) Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm.”

with my right i touch my phone first! and with my left i touch my 3ds 

“31) Smell the air. What do you smell?”

it smells like……………………………..air

“32) What’s the worst place you have ever been to?”

i dunno i’ve never really been anywhere super terrible 

“33) Choose East Coast or West Coast?”

uhhh east?

“34) Most attractive singer of your opposite gender?”

DAVY JONES OF COURSEEEEE

“35) To you, what is the meaning of life?”

to give it meaning

“36) Define Art.”

art is whatever you make it tbh, something that inspires

“37) Do you believe in luck?”

i guess! even tho i have the worst luck ever

“38) What’s the weather like right now?”

cold and windy it SUCKS

“39) What time is it?”

at the time of writing this answer it’s 8:37 pm!

“40) Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed?”

i’m too young to drive so i’ve never done it bsjhklskjdvbfjdsk

“41) What was the last book you read?”

i admit i write more than i read but i believe the last time i read a book was yesterday when i was reading one of my how-to-read-sheet-music books from the library

“42) Do you like the smell of gasoline?”

i can tolerate it but i wouldn’t want to sit and smell it for hours

“43) Do you have any nicknames?”

not really! if you gave me one that’d be neat

“44) What was the last movie you saw?”

last time i watched a movie was when i rewatched the beatles movie ‘‘help!’‘ it’s a rlly good movie i love it

“45) What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had?”

uh once i broke my arm in kindergarten but i think that’d be it

“46) Have you ever caught a butterfly?”

like in a net? no but i’d really like tooooo i think it’d be neat

“47) Do you have any obsessions right now?”

MONKEESSSSSS I’VE BEEN HYPERFIXING ON THE MONKEES FOR NEARLY A YEAR NOW I JUST LOVE THOSE FOUR DUMBASSES ESPECIALLY THE SHORT ONE THAT TALKS FUNNY

“48) What’s your sexual orientation?”

i’m a girl! born a girl and i have stayed a girl since. wild

“49) Ever had a rumor spread about you?”

not that i know of sjhskdksl is that a good thing??

“50) Do you believe in magic?”

perhaps it’s out there and someone’s just keeping it to themselves WHICH WOULD SUCK BC GIVE ME SOME MAGIC YOU FUCK

“51) Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong?”

i forgive but never forget

“52) What is your astrological sign?”

since i was born on november 8th i’d be a scorpio!

“53) Do you save money or spend it?”

i’m terrible at saving money but i’m a wiz at spending it

“54) What’s the last thing you purchased?”

my monkees shirt! i love that thing even tho it was 90 dollars on etsy but lemme tell ya it’s 90 dollars well spent

“55) Love or lust?”

love !!!!!!!!!!

“56) In a relationship?”

in my daydream universe i’m the lovely intelligent wife of davy jones but in reality i’m a lonely bitch skjfhdsjflsj;fdkk

“57) How many relationships have you had?”

i had a boyfriend for a week in kindergarten but only because he recognized me from sunday school and i’ve never had a relationship since

“58) Can you touch your nose with your tongue?”

no and i can’t believe people can do that but some people can’t like HUH

“59) Where were you yesterday?”

i wasn’t anywhere near the crime scene officer i swear

“60) Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you?”

on my desk next to my coaster is my pink rubber bracelet with a peter tork quote on it! and that’s not very far away so it counts!

“61) Are you wearing socks right now?”

the only time i’m not wearing socks is when i’m in the shower so yes

“62) What’s your favorite animal?”

the red panda !!!! i love those funky little dudes !!!!!!!

“63) What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you?”

i really would not know my dude i mean just being myself i guess?? bold of you to assume people like me

“64) Where is your best friend?”

probably at their house being the greatest best friend ever

“65) Spit or swallow?(;”

i think when you’re brushing your teeth you literally have to spit you can’t just swallow that shit what the fuck if i find someone who does that i’ll ascend

“66) What is your heritage?”

i don’t really know! i mean i’m about as white as a piece of paper so

“67) What were you doing last night at 12 AM?”

i told you before officer i wasn’t out doing illegal actions ((nah but seriously i was watching youtube i think))

“68) What do you think is Satan’s last name?”

bofa

“69) Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off?”

honestly i never remember where my bus stop is i always just look out the window and see my house and i’m like oh shit time to skidaddle so i mostly rely on the bus driver for that. thanks bus driver

((yeah))

“70) Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend?”

i think being friends with me would be alright maybe!

“71) You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do?”

man fuck that guy i’m saving that fuckin dog then i’ll just show up with the dog and everyone will think it’s so cute that i won’t get fired. problem solved!

“72) You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid?”

i guess everyone would already know but i’d finish everything i’d need to like writing projects and stuff, i’d make sure i’d do everything i need to before i had to die 

“73) You can only have one of these things; trust or love.”

where there’s trust there’s love so trust!

“74) What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it?”

looking for the good times by the monkees never fails to make me smile! i just love davy a lot

“75) What are the last four digits in your cell phone number?”

7644! 

“76) In your opinion, what makes a great relationship?”

a good relationship starts with a good friendship yknow. you have to be able to love and appreciate the person you’re with and accept them the way they are and not try to change them too much. and it also sorta all relies on trust. if you can trust who you’re with, you’re good to go. and if you feel like you’re unable to call them out when they do wrong or if they do/say something really bad and you just let it slide then that’s not good in a relationship i’d say

“77) How can I win your heart?”

be nice

“78) Can insanity bring on more creativity?”

maybe just a small, small amount but not a lot

“79) What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far?”

deciding to listen to the monkees tbh bc !!! i love em !!!! have i mentioned this !!!!

“80) What size shoes do you wear?”

like size 11 or somethin like that

“81) What would you want to be written on your tombstone?”

“bury me shallow because i’ll be back”

“82) What is your favorite word?”

my favorite word would probably be “lovely” bc it’s so fuckin !! good !!!!!!!

“83) Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart.”

i always hear the word in davy’s voice and the way he says it LKDSLSKS he goes “h a h t” it’s cute

“84) What is a saying you say a lot?”

“it be like that sometimes”

“85) What’s the last song you listened to?”

everybody wants to rule the world by tears for fears! listening to it as i answer this actually

“86) Basic question; what’s your favorite color/colors?”

blue! really any shade of blue but especially light blue!

“87) What is your current desktop picture?”

i’ve said monkees too many times in this post but. them

“88) If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be?”

the president bc he sucks

“89) What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on?”

if someone outside of the internet asked if i were gay i think i’d be a little scared to answer bc yknow my whole family is homophobic and all that and sometimes you never can tell who is and who isn’t

“90) One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do?”

introduce myself bc even if i’m scared i’m not about to be impolite

“91) You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power?”

time travel !!!! they call me TIME TRAVELING PRODUCE AISLE 

“92) You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?”

maybe a half hour of my first concert! it was a blast

“93) You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?”

developing depression

“94) You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be?”

DAVY FUCKIN JONES but would we still see eachother afterwards is the question

“95) You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?”

manchester, england !!!!!!! i really want to go and i actually kinda wanna move there someday

“96) Do you have any relatives in jail?”

not that i know of i sure hope not lmao

“97) Have you ever thrown up in the car?”

once a long time ago

“98) Ever been on a plane?”

never bc my mom is super scared of heights and scared of planes and tbh i kinda don’t really like planes i prefer boats

“99) If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say?”

i’d say listen to papa gene’s blues by the monkees and listen to mike nesmith go “yeeeeeehawwwww !!!!!!”

this took me an hour thanks anon

[cloudjumpervalka]

sometimes and by that i mean a lot of the time, i remember how much elsa means to me as a character. in general she’s very mediocre in comparison to others, but she was there for me when i was hella depressed and she’s like a form of comfort for me now.

i was following the production of frozen for the longest time, let’s say about 5ish years before release? i was excited for it, i was disappointed in the changes made, i refused to believe the original elsa and anna leaked design images were real because they looked so bad, i read the script when it leaked and was mad at the conveluded plot.

but the movie came out during the semester of art school i got severe depression through. i had always dreamed of going to art school and working in the animation industry and i had a single thought that went in my brain a week before the semester started. it said i would never be good /enough/. it kept playing back over and over when i would turn in assignments. i did well in school, but the workload was a lot when you decide to take 3 studio classes at once. i started getting overly picky with what i considered to be good enough in my work and eventually stopped turning in assignments. sometimes i would have them “done” but it wasn’t good enough so i didn’t bother

i was living with my grandparents at the time and locked myself in my room to be alone a bunch. i didn’t socialize in classes and who i considered friends were out of reach. i had just started dating my bf a few months prior and the time zone/distance/etc was a new experience altogether. i was constantly scared i would lose my friends not just to distance but other personal reasons not meant to be shared on tumblr. my grandparents gave me my distance and i just spent a lot of time alone. i remember skyping with dean and staying up all night with him bc i didn’t want to be alone.

i got more depressed over time, i was just sad. i would try to fill the void with buying things i had left at home with my parents. i remember i would drive out to the mall. i would get a pretzel to eat. eat it outside the disney store, maybe buy something after. if not disney merch, i would go buy clothes. i had not been eating much aside from the almost daily pretzel and lost about 40/50 pounds within a span of 3 months. i just thought i was losing weight for walking around the city to go to classes and spent a majority of the money i had saved up over my childhood on clothes that i have never been able to fit in aside from those few months at the end of 2013.

the day the game grumps released that one wind waker episode about dans ocd story was released during this time. i watched that episode and immediately started crying bc i knew i wasn’t okay. i had completely changed in a span of about 2 months at that point. i was sad and didn’t know what to do. i constantly wanted to not exist and spent a lot of the time crying and sleeping and starving myself. i called my mom and asked for help. parents tried helping but they didn’t understand at the time what depression meant on that level. i told them maybe i could handle school better if i dropped one of the 4 classes i had. and of course i dropped the history class and not any of the studios. i made schedules and plans to complete the semester but i still. felt overwhelmed and not good enough and lonely and sad and frustrated at these emotions because i couldn’t just focus like a normal person. i lies to my parents to my grandparents to a lot of people that i was continuing my work but i stopped doing 2 of the remaining 3 classes altogether. ended up with withdraw failures in them.

the last class was my life drawing class. i enjoyed it a lot. i took a train into the city to go to it. i found peace in the hour listening to music to get there. i would talk to dean before he went to bed on my way there and greet him in his mornings when i went home. i thought i could handle it and it was going well. besides for the assignments that were meant to be done at home. we had a final that was meant to be an illustration showing our learned skills in the class in a 24x36in size. not bad at all. i got the paper, had the sketch. i just had to do it. but i didn’t. when i was in that room at my grandparents place i felt nothing but emptiness. so i filled it whatever i could think of

my hyperfixation of things soon moved to the release of frozen. i had followed it previously and was excited to go see it. i had bought the classic dolls for the main characters the day they were released and left them in box in case i didn’t like the movie and wanted to sell them. my immediate family came to visit my grandparents for thanksgiving that year and i asked my mom if we could go see frozen at it’s earliest showing on release day. she agreed because i lied to her saying my figure drawing class had been cancelled for the holidays (it wasn’t bc we were meant to show progress on our finals)

i cried so hard so fast bc whatever i was feeling i felt through elsa. i projected so much onto her and i fell in love. it gave me a second wind. i bought the frozen soundtrack and would sing along to let it go on the way to the train station. i felt like i could overcome my depression as simple as that. but circumstances don’t work like that

i never turned in that final despite it being the assignment where “if u don’t turn it in u fail”.

i dropped out of art school, telling my parents maybe i wasn’t meant for art. i’m not good enough to make it in the industry if i’m like this. i was gonna go home and go to the local state college instead. get a degree in something ... useful.

i left art school with a total gpa of 0.9

elsa is a character that’s just. i never understood the popularity frozen had. it has problems. it’s ... not that great honestly. but elsa stood out for me. she was some sort of proof to me i could be happy.

a lot has happened in the past 4 years, but i can say i’m honestly happy. i have a lot of good things going on. though i think the most important to this story i guess is ?

i’m graduating with my bachelors in art in may. my gpa is back at a 3.6. i took 3 studios classes this semester on top of 2 art history lectures and made it through. i thought so little of myself and my abilities over the years. i never thought i’d graduate college at that point i was at 4 years ago. when i applied to my local uni, i had to appeal to get in because of my low gpa from those 4 semesters of art school. i spent 2 years there not knowing if i even wanted to do art again. but i realized this is something that’s always been a part of me. it’s who i am? and i want to use this talent i had to. make it in the industry. my dream for as long as i can remember is to make media for kids who feel lost and alone. it’s always been my dream and i won’t let anyone or anything keep me from trying my hardest to make it happen, which includes not letting myself stop me.

i don’t know what the future holds but i’m excited to see where it takes me

and it just happens to involve me and my fleeting hyperfixation on elsa asking for the olaf’s frozen adventure limited edition elsa doll for chrismas because i want to say i look at her and think everything i just said

but in reality i just go shheeeees my wiiiiiiiife i looooooove herrrrrrrrr

[coldtomyflash]

Could Barry have aspergers?

First, and I genuinely don’t mean this as any sort of attack, I just want to note that Aspergers = autism spectrum. Aspergers used to refer to a related spectrum but was often considered “milder” than autism, and modern research and clinicians have realized that they’re ultimately the same (broad) spectrum and the issue was their diagnostic tools classifying people on “severity”. There are issues with separating people into “high functioning” and “low functioning” groups the way the Aspergers/autism distinction does and there’s just… a lot of stuff that goes into this.

That being said, I think what you’re really asking for is more a question of “could Barry be neurodivergent, and specifically could he be somewhere on the the autism spectrum?”

And the answer is: of course! Why not?

For the purposes of headcanons, I always say: go for it, if it works for you.

For the purposes of canon-analysis, it’s a bit harder. Writers will sometimes write neurodivergent characters without even consciously realizing they’re doing it, because as human beings we recognize behavioral patterns and think “well this person is like that” without always knowing how to name or identify where that characterization comes from. This is part of the reason some characters get coded as neurodivergent without it ever being made explicit in the text (there are other, sometimes more insidious reasons as well but we don’t need to chat about them here).

I’m not sure if I’m the world’s best person to write an analysis of Barry as being on the autism spectrum specifically, because although my husband and some good friends of my are on the spectrum, I myself am not. I can take a stab at it for you though since I’ve been learning and reading a lot in the past few years about it (and may one day come back to that question I got like 2 years ago about Len being on the autism spectrum because… yeah, he really is I think). 

Anyway, hopefully what I say will ring true for people, fully realizing that of course all people on the spectrum are going to have slightly different experiences.

Before I do that, however, I also want to say that my personal headcanons for Barry are really that he’s ADHD, which is a related form of neurodivergence, and one that I’m more closely tied to (I’m not diagnosed but I show a ton of the signs and symptoms for it and it seems to run in my family, so I have more personal experience with it). So a lot of this discussion might end up looking more like general indicators of neurodivergence that can fall into autism spectrum and/or ADHD or both, as they do overlap a good deal.

Anyway!

Some canon discussion/evidence?

Well, first, Barry’s single-minded focus. Neurodivergent people can have difficulties with switching attention and can get totally absorbed by things, and Barry’s no different. Once he has a goal or a thought in mind, the rest of the world sort of gets put on mute, it seems. From searching for the Man in Yellow to Saving Iris to whatever the goal of the day is, that becomes ‘it’ for him for a little while.

That helps lead me to ‘special interests’ and hyperfixation. From what I can tell, Barry ran a blog on ‘the impossible’ and raced across the country looking for cryptids and other impossible events whenever he had the opportunity. I would say that this could be classified as a special interest for him. He likely has others or has had more in the past: musicals (maybe even specific ones), specific aspects of the sciences that he’s pursued, the Speed Force, etc.

Also, and I’m sorry if this ends up stereotyping slightly, people on the autism spectrum generally have advanced abilities in mechanical understanding (and score noticeably different as early as the age of 4 on tests of engineering/mechanical types of knowledge) and Barry demonstrates this type of understanding time and again in the show.

He uses those abilities all the time at crime scenes, and as the Flash as well, like when fighting Zoom and using gravity to his advantage. He pursued a career in the sciences and uses chemistry, physics, and mathematics in his everyday life (and when working on things such as the speed equation). 

A little less “stereotype” and we see Barry’s physical behavior. 

In S1, he was often physical awkward in that he was clumsy and backing into doors, always running, and seemed to have… too much energy? It’s been said elsewhere that speedsters, or at least Bart (from the future), were introduced in part as a metaphor for ADHD (and that at least Bart’s arc was supposed to help educate people about ADHD because comics can be awesome like that). So that spectrum of “too much energy, almost clumsy because of it, always moving and kinetic and touching or doing something or running out the door” has made me think of Barry as having ADHD and thinking of his behavior more from than perspective. But from an autism spectrum perspective, you sometimes see a lot of the same behaviors. Clumsiness is common, from what I’ve read (though of course, not for everyone. My husband is the least clumsy person I know). And being late! Barry is often late, and that can be a sign of ADHD for sure (I’m always late, my husband always wants to be exactly on time… it’s an issue).

In terms of sensory processing, I can’t think of anything too specific. Certain fabrics, textures, foods, or physical sensations can all be important to people on the autism spectrum due to how they process sensory information, but I don’t think canon provides us with much information for how Barry deals with sensation. I also can’t think of any evidence of physical stimming off the top of my head but sometimes that won’t be obvious anyway. Barry keeps chemistry toys in his lab (we’ve seen them in background shots a few times) but nothing else really comes to mind there. He paces a lot? Is standing whenever it’s an option, really? Rubs his hand over his hair/ head whenever he’s tense or anxious? None of that is specific to neurodivergence (over, say, anxiety) but it is still technically self-stimulation behavior.

In terms of speech patterns, I can’t think of any really canon examples of atypical speech patterns that might imply autism spectrum neurodivergence (in contrast to say, Julian, who is sometimes overly formal or literal to the point of awkward, which can be a sign of autism spectrum for some people). Barry does info dump a little sometimes about things related to speed (a new special interest? It would make sense) or other information, but the show doesn’t often give us conversations that aren’t related to the plot so it’s hard to say. 

(That being said, one of the things that used to be used to “distinguish” autism spectrum from Aspergers was the children with Aspergers didn’t show the same language-related issues in childhood, and now that we understand autism as more of a constellation of behaviors, not all of which will be present in the same person, it’s not overly surprising not to find it here. Also, Barry really doesn’t use almost any adjectives or flowery language, even few adverbs, and he sticks to either simple or exact words for things [in contrast to Wally who’s word-choice is a lot more diverse!] so maybe we do see a bit of evidence through that? His speech is relatively straightforward?)

(precise, specific, informative)

Sociality… well we know that Barry didn’t have many friends as a kid, especially after his mother died. He talks about having been bullied and we know he was a big anime nerd and part of a lot of clubs in high school. That’s not evidence in and of itself of neurodivergence because neurotypical kids get bullied all the time as well, but some of it could be a sign, especially because it’s clear through the clubs etc. that he was trying to put himself out there and maybe it wasn’t working. 

He clearly gets along just fine with other people who are on the side of scientifically-oriented (i.e., all of the Star Labs team, Felicity, eventually Julian) and other people who are smart and kind (Iris, Oliver) so it’s definitely not that Barry can’t make friends. But kids can be cruel and neurodivergence can be easier to notice in childhood for one reason or another (including because people haven’t ‘learned’ to hide or suppress their own signs as well, and it sucks that people would ever ‘have’ to but that’s what childhood teaches some folks).

In either case, there’s evidence he had issue socializing and pretty much only had Iris as a close friend until he hit adulthood? And it’s also clear that although he’s “liked” at the precinct, he doesn’t really have friends there and he sticks out, at least not until Patty came along.

Last points: again, not to stereotype, but anecdotally at least, there does seem to be some potential overlap between people on the autism spectrum and the asexual spectrum, and a lot of people headcanon or interpret Barry as being demisexual? Which makes a lot of sense to me, and could be part of an interpretation of Barry as being neurodivergent. (Though it really should be clearly noted that people can be on the autism spectrum without being on the asexual spectrum and vice versa, and I don’t want to imply otherwise!)

And… I think that’s most of what I have to say? I’d have gifs for more of this but honestly they aren’t easy to find for this topic ^^;

And I invite people to make additions to this post if they have any more headcanons or canon examples, or clarifying information? 

[andiironda]

2020: The year of consistency

Wednesday, January 1, 2020 4:18pm - Atlanta

Hello and welcome to 2020! This is the second special edition of Reflections this week, and is meant to complement yesterday’s recap of 2019. You don’t necessarily need to read that email/post before this one, but it could help to provide some context on my goals for the year ahead.

I’m just going to structure this by talking through each of my five goals so let’s just jump right into it.

Launch print line, Patreon for wallpaper downloads

This is more of a relaunch than a fresh launch but I want to make my Patreon more meaningful as well as launch products that people (hopefully) want to purchase. In the past, I’ve tried offering early access to content but that didn’t set the world on fire (and frankly I never figured out the workflow to consistently make content with time to post it on Patreon for early access. 

I also find myself posting hundreds of photos to Instagram (I posted 675 times last year) and they just sit on my hard drive after being dumped onto Facebook’s servers. I’d like to think that they can have a second life beyond the Instagram feed to move onto your devices and your homes eventually. 

This is probably going to launch closer to the summer as there’s a lot of prep work to do in terms of preparing photos for Patreon and figuring out how I want to manage the print line both with my archive and with new images that I will inevitably shoot in 2020 and beyond.

Content

I’m going to combine these next two because they go hand in hand with each other and frankly one is so self-explanatory that there really isn’t much of an explanation to provide beyond just stating it: continuing to grow my audience. I don’t believe in hyperfixating on the numbers to put a hard numerical figure on it, but continuing to grow is obviously important to continuing to build a career around creating awesome content.

The second goal is similarly simple but there are a few more moving parts to it. I want to have something new released every weekday between YouTube, Andijack Music, andrewokwuosah.com, or just an edition of Reflections on a particularly busy day. Roberto Blake, one of the main influences on the strategy and business aspects of crafting this career, preaches the benefits of showing up for your community every day. As I mentioned in yesterday’s newsletter, I tend to take long hiatuses from releasing content on YouTube and on Andijack Music when life gets in the way or I lose momentum. I do tend to show up on Twitter and Instagram on a daily basis though despite everything. 

My goal here is to build the habit of working on content in advance during school breaks so I can get ahead and have some content prepped so I can focus on making incremental progress while I am in school, removing the pressure of having to finish something every day to meet a deadline.

Speaking of content, I have a lot of plans for the year. YouTube content will focus on capturing experiences, starting with my Disney trip last September as a mini series with weekly episodes starting January 6 and moving into my Lagos trip last August along with so many videos that I filmed last semester and am bound to film over the course of the year. Expect new videos on Mondays and Wednesdays at 9am ET.

Probe will continue to spotlight new albums with a new album mix every Thursday starting January 9 at 9am ET everywhere you find Andijack Music.

Discography Season 1 featuring UK artist bLiNd will continue on Tuesdays starting January 14 at 9am ET running for eight weeks before taking a short siesta before Season 2. Who will be spotlighted on Season 2? Nobody knows… (Seriously, I’m open to suggestions.) 

Heavy Rotation will continue to air new episodes on Fridays recapping all of the new music you need to know about from the week along with previews from both Probe and Discography. Episodes will honestly release whenever I finish them on Fridays. It could be 9am ET or 11:59pm ET. Who knows? Subscribe to Andijack Music on your favorite place to listen to podcasts and it’ll be on your device the moment it’s released. New this year are seasonal special episodes that I’ll be releasing on select Saturdays throughout the year. These include the traditional Spring Break and Labor Day Weekend mixes along with some new experimental content that I’ll announce closer to their release.

And then there’s Reflections. This is a very new thing so I won’t rehash too much. Basically, this newsletter will come into your inbox every weekday evening…. Hopefully, you subscribe to get it into your inbox. Please subscribe. Please.

Personal habits

The last two habits are more personal so I’m grouping them into this bucket.

I want to read for pleasure every day this year. Last year, I read a measly three books last year according to Goodreads. This is extremely depressing to me considering that I love books. Ask anyone that’s ever had to ring up my order at Barnes & Noble (or my parents telling me not to take dozens of books back to their shelves). Overall, I hope to complete 15 books this year but rebuilding the habit is a lot more important to me.

Lastly, I want to get to and maintain inbox zero for my personal sanity. I’m currently sitting at 1,382 emails in my inbox as of this writing and I hope to get it to a point where I can go through my emails once a day and be done with it to maintain inbox zero. It would be nice to go to bed knowing that I have a clean mind and a clean inbox.

Wow, what a long read. If you’re still here, thank you for making it this far. Reflections will be back in its normal format tomorrow.

[soupwillsaveyou]

That get to know me ask thing- just fuckin do all of them that'll keep you busy for a while. Gotta keep u kids off the streets

u have no chill and u probs dont even care lmao bye

1) What images do you have set for your desktop/cell phone wallpapers?here’s a beautifully cropped out compilation of my desktop, phone and laptop wallpapers

2) Have you ever had a crush on a teacher? i convinced myself i did in primary school but?

3) What was your last text message? I sent my mom a text asking to pick me up

4) What do you see yourself doing in 10 years? Hopefully just drawing a lot and having my life slightly more together than rn

5) If you could be anywhere else right now, where would you be? with my gf and you damn well know it

6) What was your coolest Halloween costume? we dont rly do halloween over here,,,,

7) What was your favorite 90s show? either rugrats or (if that one counts) rocket power

8) Who was your last kiss? my gf bro

9) Have you ever been stood up? ??

10) Favorite ice cream flavor? cinnamon! Definitely, it’s so good!!!

11) Have you been to Las Vegas? my dude i have been no where near america

12) Your favorite pair of shoes? are u rly making me choose fuck. 

13) Honestly, have you ever cheated on your significant other? ,,,dude

14) What is your favorite fruit? idk i like a lot

15) Have you talked to anyone on tumblr that you could see yourself dating/having sex with? If possible? I am dating someone currently that I’m talking to on tumblr

16) Are you into hookups? Short or long term relationships? long definitely

17) Do you smoke? If so, what? no

18) What do you do to get over your anger? rant lmao also like let it out on someone who doesnt deserve it hahaHA FUCK

19) Do you believe in God? idk

20) Does the person you’re in love with know it? uhm…

21) Favorite position? go away

22) What’s your horoscope sign? cancer

23) Your fears? spiders, rejection from loved ones, failing doing what i love

24) How many pets do you have? What kind? currently one bunny! 

25) What never fails to turn you on? justice

26) Your idea of a perfect first date? bro tbh i dont rly care we can just chill at home watching cartoons that’d be amazing. also going out for a movie or food or whatever its all cool

27) What is something most people don’t know about you? everything regarding gender and sexuality really

28) What makes you feel the happiest? chilling with friends, also hugs, god damn, hugs.

29) What store do you shop at most often? if we’re talking about where I legit buy something the most and not like, clothes stuff or whatever. Well. Uhh. Either AH or Hema because I have no self control whatsoever and I will damn well buy food all the time

30) How do you feel about oral? Giving and/or receiving? no

31) Do you believe in karma? kinda? Depends on the situation I guess

32) Are you single? no 

33) Do you think flowers or candy are a better way to apologize? consider an actual apology

34) Are you a good swimmer? I mean? Yes? Maybe? I’ve got my first three diplomas and its not like im super good but im a decent swimmer?

35) Coffee or Tea? I only sometimes like coffee (and mostly like, cappuccino and stuff like that) so tea. Tea is Good.

36) Online shopping or shopping in person? that rly depends but i spent a fortune either way

37) Would you rather be older or younger than your current age? I’m. Chill with my current age actually. Maybe older but only like a year so YOU can shut the fuck up for once about how im so young

38) Cats or Dogs? both are gr8

39) Are you a competitive person? kinda yeah :’)

40) Do you believe in aliens? yes

41) Do you like dancing? my dude i cant dance for shit but i like goofing around sometimes if that counts

42) What kind of music to you listen to? everything and nothing. im a mess

43) What is your favorite cartoon character? dont make me choose you know i cant do shit like this

44) Where are you from? the netherlands

45) Eat at home or eat out? depends

46) How much more social are you when you’re drunk? ive never been drunk

47) What was the last thing you bought for yourself? like the very last thing was a tube of pringles lmao

48) Why do you think your followers follow you? dude i have no idea im a mess

49) How many hours do you sleep at night? that really depends but usually not enough hah

50) What worries you most about the future? having to take care of myself wtf i cant do that

51)  If you had a friend that spoke to you the same way you speak to yourself, how long would you be friends? I have a hard time cutting people off so longer than would be healthy

 52) Are you happy with yourself? not really no

53) What do you wish you didn’t know? idk man

54) What big lesson could people learn from your life? do your damn homework kids

55) If you could live in any home on a television series, what would it be? do you know how many awesome tv series houses there are wtf dude

56) What’s your favorite Website? this hellhole sadly

57) What’s the habit you’re proudest of breaking? i dont recall breaking any tbh lmao bye

58) What was your most recent trip of more than 50 miles? visiting my brother for his graduation presentation that was a little over 50 miles

59) What’s the best bargain you’ve ever found at a garage sale or thrift store? dont think ive ever had a particularly good buy there

60) What do you order when you eat Chinese food? lots of different stuff but i always ask to include egg foo young cuz im a sucker for that shit

61) If you had to be named after one of the 50 states, which would it be? wyoming simply cuz ive never heard of it before and it sounds ridiculous

62) If you had to teach a subject to a class, what would it be? art or history or english probably. Those have always been the subjects i’d choose when i was thinking of maybe becoming a teacher

63) Favorite kind of chips? either regular or paprika probably so basically the basic ones.

64) Favorite kind of sandwich? talking special stuff i love salmon yo

65) Which do you use more often, the dictionary or the thesaurus? i didnt even know the thesaurus was a thing

66) Have you ever been stung by a bee? i mean i stepped on one once 

67) What’s your favorite form of exercise? none

68) Are you afraid of heights? kinda? someitmes i am sometimes not idk man

69) What’s the most memorable class you’ve ever taken? boy ive had quite some memorable classes,,,

70) What’s your favorite breakfast? light crackers with cheese or smthng

71) Do you like guacamole? not rly

72) Have you ever been in a physical fight? im not sure

73) What/who are you thinking about right now? im still trying to remember if ive ever been in an actual fight

74) Do you like cuddling? yes its so good

75) Are you holding onto something you need to let go of? Other than my cluttered ass room and secrets?

76) Have you ever experienced one of your biggest fears? where do u think that fear of spiders came from my dude. also im half experiencing the rejection rn? idk

77) Favorite city you’ve been to? I love Prague!

78) Would you break the law to save a family member? that depends what kind of rule breaking and everyhting we’re talking about,, but probably

79) Talk about an embarrassing moment? my life

80) Are there any causes you strongly believe in? does feminism coount as a cause?

81) What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had? okay so i mightve broken my nose once but im not sure. Also i almost cut of a toe once. 

82) Favorite day of the week? currently wednesday cuz no school

83) Do you consider yourself sexually open minded? i do but yeah

84) How do you feel about porn? theyre sure having a lot of The Sex

85) Which living celebrity would you like to know? Do Not Make Me Choose

86) Who was your hottest ex? i only have one kind-of ex so uhhh

87) Do you want/have kids? i most definitely do not have any and im not sure if i woudl want any. I dont think so but??

88) Has anyone ever told you that they wanted to marry you? yes

89) Do you get easily distracted? FUNNY THAT YOU ASK THAT

90) Ass or titties? im just letting you know that the first time i read this i read it as ash or titties and im still not over it

91) What is your favorite word? snoekduik and i blame @bleubudgie 

92) How do you feel about tattoos? they can be rly cool

93) Do you have any pets? this is p much the same as question 24

94) How tall are you? 173 cm

95) How old are you? 19

96) 3 physical features you get complimented on a lot? nothing lol

97) Is there anything you’re really passionate about? hah yeah Squadbase and atla/lok and voltron and if we’re gonna go a little serious feminism *whispers* fckng hyperfixations

98) Do you have trust issues? not rly i think

99) Do you believe in love at first sight? im not sure but id like to

100) What are some words that you live by? Why? I don’t thikn there’s something i actively thin kabout and live up to all the time but ‘’do no harm but take no shit’’ is one of my favs (and i have a lot of favs lmao oops)

THERE YOU GO ARE YOU HAPPY NOW