#NOT TO BE AUTISTIC BUT ALL MY ACCESSABILITY SHIT NO LONGER WORKS

[knghtlock]

so on top of being ugly, the new dash.board broke xk.it AND adb.l*ck plus, huh :)

[thatdogmagic]

This is the last post I plan on making about the current situation.

I've been trying to recall what it is that might be getting repeated, and there's a couple instances I can think of that are pretty ripe for taking snips:

There are chat logs where I made unkind generalizations about autistic cis men, in the context of the majority of my experiences with them being largely negative, and being relieved that I had a space where my own neurodiversity had room to unfold.

She has chatlogs where I commented on not fully understanding trans men who still veered ultra-femmy, even though I don't have any trouble wrapping my head around butch trans women. That contradiction made me think about it quite a bit, and ultimately decided it wasn't a great opinion to have/was mostly just some lingering All Things Being Binary shit I still find myself unpacking.

I'm sure there's other thorny conversations that can be pruned for content, but I'm having trouble thinking of what it is beyond interpersonal clashes and, yeah. I've already seen the depths of missing context there.

There is no better example, in fact, than the comparison of shadowy werewolves with glowing eyes/teeth. It was taken from a concept that was tabled after approval was actively sought because there was a recognized stylistic overlap. Since 'shadow werewolf with glowing eyes/teeth' is a very common visual element in a lot of werewolf artwork, we also went on to discuss when those visual elements would best be avoided, and when they could be put to use.

This wasn't mentioned in the original comparison posts. Nor was it mentioned that it was never intended for public posting. It was a thumbnail idea for promotional material, drawn over a month ago - and nearly a full year after Lacey's skin tone changed - and it was quietly set aside in favor of other ideas.

Bottom line, I don't have any control over what she does with what she has. I don't have any control over what people think about it. But I do have control over what I do with me, and what I plan to do is stay off social media for the forseeable future, and keep working on the projects that matter to me, like I always have.

In the meantime, if you know me off social media:

I do not want to be contacted about any additional escalation

I do not need to know about any further instances of reposted chatlogs or artwork

It's kind of you to want to know my side of the story, but for my own reasons I'd rather not go into it beyond what I've already posted.

If we discussed commission work that you no longer want, please let me know ASAP so I can remove you from the list I have prepped for when I get back to taking those. Those of you who contacted me about it already have my email address.

All that being said, I understand if even with context, some comments lose people. I'm not gonna hold that against anyone. Where I'm at in my own development is probably not going to be enough for some, and that's fine. It doesn't have to be, and it won't stop me from continuing to try.

End of the day, keep in mind that this is still a personal altercation being made public, with everything that entails.

PS - If any other art is being posted: understand that it is being done without permission, after Ependa and I both actively tried to delete those pieces off the server, stated we'd done so intentionally, and then actively requested those files be deleted off the server/her machine when we were made aware of the fact that she was using third party plugins to retain access.

[koscheicore]

Ranting abt driving, disability, ableism. Use of general "you".

I'm so sick and tired of being "encouraged" everytime the topic of getting a driver's license comes up. Because, I can't drive because of my autism and dissociation... or maybe I could, but the process of learning it is genuinely debilitating both to my mental health and in turn physical health, and to my parents' wallet, since I can't pay it myself. It'd been over 60 practical classes, every single one full of anxiety, every single one in which I dissociated, in which I couldn't pay attention to all the overwhelming stimuli. I gave up, it was too much. Maybe, if it were cheaper, and I had all the time in the world, I could indeed learn it and manage. Or maybe, just maybe, I just can't drive because I am disabled. Not that they test for dissociation or sensory processing and overstimulation issues when you're driving for more than half an hour.

"But nowadays you need a car to work!"

That means the job isn't for people who can't drive.

"What about GETTING to work?"

If you can't get to work in public transport, that means the workplace isn't accessible. If public transport takes significantly longer than a car ride, enough to inconvenience you terribly, which is the usual anyways, that means that the city isn't accessible enough.

Why must people insist on encouraging me every time I say "I can't drive"? Why do they think it's just me not trying hard enough? I tried my hardest every time. I certainly did. It had terrible repercussions on my day to day life to attend those classes. Not to mention, driving IS dangerous, and if I'm impaired to drive, then I just can't. It's not all about "managing my symptoms", even if I could do that, which I'm not sure I can manage them ENOUGH for driving specifically, is it worth it? Is it worth it to invest that much money, to go through genuinely debilitating shit, just to get to work? Yeah, public transport is also debilitating to me, but it's less taxing in the end.

What, is it because I look abled enough? Because I perform well in many other areas? Do you know how much energy it takes to perform well in many of them, that you're not seeing because you don't have my experience? This *insistence* on encouragement doesn't make me feel encouraged, but like a failure, broken, because I am disabled enough to terribly struggle with driving. You are communicating to me that I am not trying hard enough, not that it's understandable that I struggle.

And worst of all is, this isn't even just abled people insisting, it's disabled people too. Yeah I know other autistic people can drive. Yeah I know other people with dissociation can drive. That doesn't mean every single person is disabled in the same way, or same area, or has the same distress tolerance levels.

...So let me decide if I try again at my own pace. I know myself better than you. Disabled people know their disability better than an outsider. If we say we can't why is it so hard to just believe us, why do you act as if we owe you a full length explanation. If you're disabled yourself in any way you should be able to understand this, too.

I want to do an experiment. I'm going to start saying "I want to take care of the environment". See what that does. See how much the reaction changes. It is part of my reason anyways, albeit not the most pressing one, but let's see if people are more sympathetic towards this reason, than towards disabled people taking care of themselves (+ other drivers and pedestrians), or being literally unable to drive. Let's see if in their eyes this is a noble cause, if I'm "trying hard" now. If I'm correct that'll be very telling.

[honeyblve]

I've never really posted anything in regards to the Sturniolo triplets before but I've been a fan for around a year and follow several fan accounts on here and elsewhere. I'm an older fan (26) and tend to mind my business but to be quite honest the Nick situation has been weighing on me ever since the infamous stream happened. I know at this point people are probably tired of hearing everyones opinion but I feel like I need to get it off my chest as someone who has a degree in psychology, has worked with special needs children, and who also has a little brother who is autistic and deaf.

Seeing a lot of people defend what Nick has said has been truly heart breaking in so many ways. I'm also very saddened by the vile things people have been saying towards/about him to "cancel" him or add other things he's done into the mix. Body shaming, being homophobic, or just being an asshole does not help the situation at all and are equally as disgusting. I adore Nick and do not condone any of the hate he is receiving and I certainly don't believe he should be cancelled but I'd rather hold him accountable than kiss his ass in this situation.

Regarding his comments towards stimming and Helen Keller, to say I'm disappointed in an understatement. And the longer he goes without addressing it, the more disappointed I get. The comments about Helen Keller are so disheartening because she played such an important role in the advancement of study and resources for the hearing and visually impaired. To use her as a way to insult people in chat is wild. I'm very thankful to Chris and Matt, especially Chris, for leading the conversation on how that wasn't okay pretty much immediately. I really appreciate that they started holding him accountable even though Nick immediately doubled down because he thought it was "funny." Just as a FYI regarding Nicks comments, addressing someone with/as their disability isn't this "cooky, funny thing" he was trying to make it out to be. Don't do that shit. It's rude and dehumanizing as hell. My younger brother is autistic and deaf. Both are not noticeable at first glance, however, there are things that he does that help him navigate life that people close to him would notice. For his entire life, I have watched him struggle with simple things due to people's judgements and lack of accessibility. People constantly made fun of him growing up and he struggles to this day to find a place to fit in and feel normal. It's heartbreaking to watch your sibling struggle in a world that does not seek to understand or provide any resources to make their life easier. This is why Nick making comments to Chris hurt so much from me. My brother and I have viscously fought countless times and have said really hurtful things over 20+ years but NOT ONCE have I ever thrown insults about stimming or anything like that in his face. Even if he wasn't officially diagnosed, I would never think of using that to make fun of him. Not only does he beat himself up about it enough but he has received so much bullying already that I would hate myself if I ever contributed to it. This also makes me think of the many times Nick has made digs at Matt for the way he is and his anxiety. It really upsets me that Nick seems to have this skewed perspective about very serious issues simply because it's his brothers. You would think that there would be more grace and understanding rather than judgement because its his siblings but I digress...

As someone who went to school for psychology and has a degree in it, hearing him say the words "stimming out like a psychopath" made my jaw drop. I genuinely had to take a second because I was so taken back by that statement. There is already such a stigma around mental health, autism, and neurodiversity and the fact that he said that so flippantly in front of thousands of people was appalling. These types of things only perpetuate the idea that stimming is "weird" or "off-putting" and that having issues with mental health makes you less than. Don't even get me started on the use of psychotic as an insult. That diagnosis is not a joke, it's a very real thing and it makes my blood boil that it was used the way it was. People who are autistic, have mental health issues, or are ND face so many struggles everyday simply because the world is not built for them. There have been decades of work put into the destigmatization of these things and these individuals and their family are still struggling to get the resources they need and to educate the general public. They are not weird or unusual. They are not any less valuable as human beings. They deserve the same respect and love that anyone else deserves and they have a right to live in a world that doesn't shun and isolate them. The triplets have so many impressionable fans that Nick saying this could not only hurt those people who do "stim" but also reinforce the negative opinion about these issues and encourage bullying even more. This is why several people have talked about the concern that Nicks behavior is creating "mean girls" within the fandom. Yes, I'm calling out y'all that are defending him and openly admitting to being ableist, as well.

People have every right to hold Nick accountable for what he says and does. They also have the right to do that for Chris and Matt. Not only is that what should be done especially for influencers but it should be done for EVERYONE. Nick is a 21 year old man. He is not a child. He should be able to understand why what he said is wrong and own up to that and apologize. If he can't, that is a an incredibly immature and, quite frankly, disgusting and off putting character flaw. Part of growing up is learning to grow from mistakes and educated yourself in all types of situations. If he isn't mature enough to handle that and educate himself then he shouldn't be on the internet. Period. I'm also sick of the comments saying "no one would do any of this if Matt of Chris has said it".... Yes. Yes they would have. And dare I say, there wouldn't be as many people defending them because fans love to use Nick being "sassy" and having "dark and dry humor" to excuse anything remotely problematic he does. Matt's behavior has been equally as difficult to watch in some instances too (the whole chair thing) and him going along with Nick to pick on Chris was just as bad. However, we had so many streams while Nick was away where there were no issues and the second Nick gets back the dynamic changes. I think it's evident that Nick or, at the very least, his attitude is the common denominator is what's going on.

The argument of them being brothers is exhausted at this point and I'm sick of hearing about it. Can siblings have banter and be rough with each other? Yes. Can those words and actions cross a line? ABSOLUTELY. For example, my father grew up with a very bad situation with his siblings and things that his sisters said to him when he was 6 years old still psychologically and emotionally hurts him at 58. To think that what Nick - or any of the brothers - say or do to each other doesn't affect them is such an ignorant take. I can tell you from witnessing it in my own life and through my studies, people have completely cut off family members for things similar to how Chris has been treated in this situation. Do I think Chris was horribly hurt by it and is going to cut Nick out of his life? No, he probably saw it a just the usual fighting. However, things like that can only chip away at someone for so long before it hits the fan. In my opinion, I see these digs from Nick slowly having an affect on both Chris and Matt until they've had enough one day. The fact that they are triplets does not mean shit when it comes to constantly berating someone and there is so much research within psychology that proves this! Go argue with a wall.

I feel like I should also mention that it's been very evident lately that Nick's attitude is off. Many people have noticed it and it's been going on for a while. As an older fan, the way he's been behaving lately has made me cringe and honestly not want to watch a lot of their content. I'm not sure what's going on there. It could be ego, it could be burn out, frustration, or anxiety or he could have simply just picked up bad habits and now they're integrated into his personality. Who knows. All I know is it's off-putting. I'm not going to watch a 30 minute video or a several hour live stream to see him yelling at his brothers or the viewers. That's not entertaining. It's embarrassing and ruins the vibes and, as we're seeing now, it's biting him in the ass and people are going to stop watching them all together.

[captaindibbzy]

The thing about working from home is it's an accessibility thing. It means workers have more time to themselves, and they can better manage work life balance. It means they can better manage child care, or any care. It means disabled people have more options for how they can look after themselves. It cuts the working day by a significant amount.

By working from home I don't have to mask. On days when I am tired I can get up late with just 15 minutes to get to my computer, and I can go to sleep bang on 5 if I so desire. If I am having an Autistic Time I can stew in pajamas all day. I can surround myself with soft toys. I get more work done because I am comfortable. I save money on travel and food. I don't have to go to bed before 9pm and get up before 6.

For my direct boss it means she can do her job and manage her disabled kid, without having to pay for extra hours at nursery or begging her family to take the kid while she's in the office. If her kid has a problem she can manage that instantly rather than getting updates at a distance. If her kid is sick she's right there at home already.

For my friend it means he can start work at the buttcrack of dawn, and finish at 3pm, then he has a whole afternoon. He can look after his dogs, and do more with his day. He saves money on his car, and someone is always home. And really he just enjoys it more not having to be social, as do I.

But here's the thing. These save us money, time, and labour. People at the top would rather we be put in a position where we have to buy those rather than save them. Buy those extra hours of child care. Buy those train tickets. Buy that petrol. Train times don't line up? Well you're in the office already might as well start early. You're not getting paid for it, but might as well. Don't line up at the end? Well it's wet outside, just stay a little longer. Buy the food at the cantine cause you wanted 15 minutes extra in bed rather than making lunch ahead. Offices in well connected places become so much more valuable when they are in demand. If disabled people can't keep up with the culture they will have to do less hours, get paid less. They're practically doing the same amount of work ultimately, cause people get the same amount of work done in 5 hours as 8. But now you can pay them less cause they're not there as much as everyone else. Why should they get preferential treatment after all? Buy convenience food instead of cooking cause who has the energy to cook and clean and decompress? Buy, or better, rent closer to your work. Buy back that little bit of time.

It is ultimately more valuable to those who rely on stolen labour to maintain their wealth and position to drive people in to the ground with the burden of existing.

Working from home is not free of this. The very first thing the top has done with Work From Home is make a two tier pay system. Sure you can work from home doing litterally the exact same work, but we'll pay you more to come on to the office. Why should people at home get paid the same? They don't have to do all this extra labour of coming in.

I think it's a lawsuit waiting to happen tbh. Disability discrimination and hours exceeding the 48 hour work week. If you work 40 hours a week, commute one hour each way, that's 50 hours. If you are paying people who commute more you are saying either that the person who works at home does less work, or the commute is part of the job. If they have the same job title then they should be paid the same amount. I know equal pay for equal work is about gender, but I think it's a good phrase for this too, and also child care particularly affects women more than men. Disability is genderless but proving discrimination with that is a shit show.

But as with all things such ideas must be tested by someone in the correct position in a court of law, and there is always a chance that you can lose. Cause the law is not always correct.

And that's what's annoying me this evening.

[bearballing]

i am getting extremely autistic over the fact that our boss is fucking adamant about moving me out of this room for the new guy.

i am the only person who needs the machines and vinyl and everything in here

i do customer service for walk ins and this is the one spot where you can see the front door

the machines are connected via usb to my computer, having the cables go out of the fucking room is stupid

i will have to get up and be back and forth between both rooms ALL DAY

if I'm printing something big, i will have to watch the whole fucking thing and roll up as needed. some prints can take like 30 mins. in here i can just turn around and periodically check it.

this is the only desk where I can fit all my work stuff AND my phone.

easy access to go out back if needed, which is all the time.

there's actually light in here.

"it's only for a few months until we move" if we do actually fucking move, and doesn't change the fact that it will be extremely aggravating the whole time

I'VE BEEN HERE LONGER THAN MOST PEOPLE. THIS IS MY HOUSE

everyone ELSE thinks it's dumb to move me and not come up with a better idea for the new guy.

put the new guy in the other room? if he doesn't want to get up to talk to the other naples designer they can talk on telegram? me and my manager do it all the time?

again, I AM THE ONLY ONE WHO USES EVERYTHING IN HERE. I do the printing, i do the cutting, i deal with the fucking inventory, I organise our job orders to be done in this building, i use the 8ft table to do work on, I keep relevant reference shit organised, i have the fucking controller pc for the plotter and printer

this is my spot. this is my chair. after my old coworker left, i chose this spot for convenience and chair related reasons.

2 monitors won't fit on any other desk. my computer won't even fit on any other desk.

this is my house.

scream.

[everywordisanewregret]

Coasting on potential towards a wall at a hundred miles an hour...

I completely feel this line. I don't know when I'll hit it, but I know I will. Maybe I already have but it was close enough to the end of school that I was able to cover it up. I've given myself some breathing room this year, but...

I think I've already hit the wall, but it's flipped the car up and over and it hasn't landed yet. I've felt the first impact but the next one is coming and it's going to be so much worse. The problem is I don't know how to save myself. I will hit the ground.

I was the clever one. Top of the class. The one who was going to be something incredible. The one who wanted to be an astrophysicist. The one who watched documentaries for fun and understood everything without trying. The one who could nail a test without revising. But then suddenly... I wasn't. I started slipping. And it really seemed like nobody noticed. Or nobody cared. I'm not sure which. But how I'd always managed no longer worked. And I couldn't find a new way. I got myself stressed, I started missing deadlines more and more. I stopped caring. I really just gave up and coasted to the end of the year. I told my parents I was revising but really went up to my room and played on my phone and listened to music. I honestly tried, I promise I did. But I just couldn't do anything. I don't know why and it doesn't make sense but I could not make myself do anything apart from show up to lessons. The second the lessons stopped being proper taught lessons, the second the teachers stopped taking any notice of what you did, the second they didn't actually take the homework in, I stopped being able to do any of it. I know it just sounds like I'm a huge lazy piece of shit, and maybe I am, but it honestly felt like there was something in my mind stopping me. I did ok in the exams, but had I not taken some entrance exams to get an unconditional offer for a university place a few months previously (when I'd started feeling like this but before everything was completely impossible), I would not have a place, I don't think. I fell short of all my offers otherwise. And I know this problem is going to continue next year when I actually go to uni. But what I don't get is that nobody seems to believe it. The people around me think I'm intelligent (thanks to autocorrect for suggesting the word "insane"). I don't understand how. It's like they refuse to listen or see the truth. Either they're lying to make me feel better (it does not work, please stop), or they're truly delusional. Except my two friends. They're the only ones who just listen and believe me.

So I think I've hit my wall. But if I've hit it at 18, what am I supposed to do?

Oh yeah, we also found out that I'm probably autistic, so there's that... I mean it explains everything. And honestly I'd be more upset to be told I'm not as I've finally found an explanation for why I am the way I am and if I'm wrong I don't know what to do. If I'm wrong, I'm just broken, just bad at humanity. I've taken the AQ50 and RAADS-R and CAT-Q what feels like a billion times to reassure myself but I still worry. I'm not pursuing a diagnosis because it will take forever and I'm probably not autistic "enough" to access any NHS diagnostic services (I know that's not how it works, you're not less or more autistic, but I don't think I'm having enough problems to be worth the NHS doing anything, there are people who need it way more) and private will be stupidly expensive and I'm scared of a diagnosis having consequences (I'm probably being paranoid but I don't want something that can be used against me unless I really need it).

I'm fine. Most of the time. But then I get myself all worked up like this.

I swear if it wasn't for music I don't think I'd be even close to ok. Especially Fall Out Boy. But a lot of other artists too. When I get really stressed I like to listen to a particular set of songs:

1. "Tell That Mick He's Just Made My List of Things to Do Today" (Fall Out Boy). This one gets the anger and tension out.

2. "Everything is Alright" (Motion City Soundtrack). This one just echoes how I feel a lot of the time. It's a kind of stressful song but it's comforting too and when I'm feeling bad, exactly what I need.

3. "Glowing Eyes" (Twenty One Pilots). I need to rock myself back and forth while listening to this one. The "Make them stop" lines near the end and the bouncy feel are just incredible for relief. I don't really know why, because it also feels like a song that dials up the nerves, but it really helps.

4. "What a Catch, Donnie" (Fall Out Boy). It's such a relaxing song. And the one that is lyrically perfect to calm me down. I love it. I love it so much.

5. "Coast (It's Gonna Get Better)" (Patrick Stump). The other songs break me down to calm me. This one builds me back up again, makes me ready to continue.

I don't know what I'd do without music. I think I would have fallen apart completely last year.

I now can't sit still and I'm not sure if I can human for the rest of the night. Today is going to be one of those nights when I have to sit on the floor or pace for ages because I can't make myself get into bed. And the pillows are new so it feels weird. At least we haven't changed the bedding yet. I hate that, it always gets me really wound up and needing to pace and pace and cry and I know it's unreasonable but it doesn't stop me especially if i didn't know the bedding was going to be changed and the cuddlies are all on the floor. I've got myself worked up. I'm not sure how that happened, I was just trying to say initially that the first verse of Saturday is incredibly relatable...

[nlerb]

I feel like I'm in the process of orchestrating a highly elaborate sociological experiment on myself like i have never felt as autistic as I do right now sorry. I feel like it's a 50/50 split between days where I feel kinda confident and feel like I can get started, and days where it's like idk if I can do this like I feel like a screengrab of an anime character where they're like going insane and it's super zoomed in between their eyes. I think the cognitive dissonance that happens when I am trying to work through the issues I set out to when I started in this environment where I have no support and in fact everyones actions are in fact counter to what I'm trying to do is just like too much for me to take and actually make good work. I feel like I'm doing everything completely by myself and I just can't function that way and it feels like the walls are closing in bc at the end of all this shit I have to like present to people about it and like display my work. And leading up to this I'd been putting so much stock in it as like a release valve for all the shit I was like fucking bearing witness to but there's no release it feels like it's just like building up more and more and it's about to blow dude. And within all that idek if the thesis of what I was originally trying to say is even like sound anymore. Like I'm basically trying to fucking. confront this enormous fucking problem singularly and by myself and say something prescient about it. When I knowwww the way to actually do something about it is to connect with an org and organize about it. Like when it came to going to the admin about making the studio more accessible I knew I needed more ppl behind me than just me and I asked anyway and they were like no sorry we aren't doing that. Like individually none of us are empowered to do anything about this it's about collectivity and community, that's where we have power. I think maybe in order to make this work with any sense of integrity or like weight behind it I need to actually build something collectively first or else it's just hollow. Or at the very least it's just way too fucking difficult to take on by myself. Like I feel so on edge all the fucking time I feel surrounded. Jeeeesus Christ dude. So from there it's like should I just completely switch gears and come up with something else? I feel like it's either that or leave. Or muscle through and barely show up to the studio bc the feedback loop I've created for myself at this point is just pure dread and idk if I can keep it up much longer. And part of me feels like it would be giving up to postpone this project that I really believe in in a lot of ways. But also I know it's important to know when to quit. Like it's not that I'm not good enough to do it it's that I just don't have to tools right now so I think I gotta cut my losses. And make work about like perfumes. Or some shit. like maybe I don't have to have the whole fucking world on my shoulders and there are no easy answers. But also no matter what even if I didn't make anything I think I will have gained the lesson of realizing that no matter what I gotta start actually organizing and working with ppl who are already doing the work. Like I think even though this fucking sucks and feels bad and is embarrassing right now this is actually a really fuckin important experience

[tobias-fell]

why dont you like harry potter fans? im just curious because like if its because jk rowling is transphobic, it isn't an excuse for us not to like the book itself. i mean i had my potterhead phase, and i do appreciate the books. i mean you cant deny they had a good plot, can you?? i dont like jk rowling either but i can say im a fan of harry potter

sorry if this ended up sounding mean, i'm just curious

First, "you can't deny they had a good plot, can you??" Yes I can. Harry Potter is neither the only series to be about kids at a fantasy boarding school nor the only series about kids fighting a dark lord, and it's certainly not the best of either.

Second, JKR being transphobic is absolutely enough to not like the book, and it's very bold of you to act otherwise. That woman has spearheaded anti-trans legislation in the UK. Trans people's access to HRT has been severely restricted, and trans men can no longer get bottom surgery in the UK. This is not entirely her fault, but her anti-trans "activism" is absolutely a huge part of it.

Third, I had a HP phase too. I'm autistic, and it was my special interest for at least half a decade. That doesn't mean I didn't drop it when she outed herself as a horrible human being.

Fourth, JKR sees all support of Harry Potter as support of herself. She has openly said this. This has led to a hoard of (mostly cis) fans saying "well we can take it back!!" And... no. You can't. JKR is actively harming people. This is not "death of the author"; the author is alive and causing harm.

People who support HP are, in her eyes, supporting her calling transfems rapists, her treating transmascs like stupid little girls, her help in restricting HRT and surgery access, and her belief that transfems shouldn't be in women's spaces. If you'd literally rather keep her work relevant and alive than put down a 20yo book series... that's transphobia. Full stop.

And even if you somehow don't care about all of that, consider the contents of the Harry Potter books themselves. They're full of misogyny, racism, homophobia, and antisemitism. Her other books, under her penname, include racism, islamophobia, and transphobia (specifically transmisogyny)--and that's just one of them. Trying to separate an author's bigotry from the stories they wrote does not work when the stories are bigoted too.

I do not like Harry Potter fans because they would rather align themselves, or at least make it seem like they are, with a transphobic, homophobic, racist, antisemitic, sexist piece of shit.

I have a very basic DNI: bigots, exclusionists, 18+ blogs, and Harry Potter fans. If you can still manage to call yourself the last one after reading my explanation, leave my blog and block me.

Thanks.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Hey! Bunch of thoughts re: disabled werewolves. (I was super-interested in the Trans Werewolf discussion yesterday, because SO many of my friends are some flavor of genderqueer, but now we're getting into stuff I actually have some authority to comment on, so!) I think my biggest thoughts are about "invisible" disabilities, things that might-or-might-not count as disabilities, and accessibility aids/adaptive tech. (And tumblr's giving me a character limit so call this part 1/??)

(3/??) Which also sort of leads into the idea of congenital disabilities, things a character is born with. THESE SHOULD EXIST, even in magic werewolves. Biology, even Magic Biology, isn't/cannot be perfect. You're gonna have chromosomal nondisjunction and the occasional Downs Syndrome werewolf pup. If you can't have ADHD or autistic or bipolar or borderline or PTSD werewolves (and here's where we slide around re: "things that aren't necessarily disabilities"), then you're Doing It Wrong.

(4/??) Which doesn't mean you HAVE to put a ton of focus on such things! But they should be POSSIBLE. I don't have links to hand, but for writing, I strongly recommend looking up the social model of disability and thinking about how natural biological variation CAN become a thing that fucks with someone's ability to live a "normal" life when normal is defined a certain way. Lycanthropy itself is very commonly a social-model-of-disability metaphor, because the world isn't designed for werewolves

(5/??) Also on the subject of "things that might or might not count": are there fat werewolves? are there Deaf werewolves? (oh werewolf sign language would be COOL). These things aren't preternaturally perfect/beautiful, but bodies work a lot of different ways. (Do all your werewolves WANT to be pretty? Do they all see themselves that way? Are genderqueer/genderfluid werewolves the only ones who get to fuck around with their appearance shift to shift based on how they feel about who they are?)

(6/??) Anyway, adaptive tech! Which is really a larger issue of, "yes it still counts as disability even if the disabled character can still Do Things, and in fact that's the ideal." Ed Elric and Bucky Barnes with their super-cool metal arms still count, Geordi LaForge with his visor still counts. They can COMPENSATE, with use of tech and workarounds, the same as anyone who puts on glasses every day still intrinsically has bad eyesight.

(7/??) So how does werewolf magic help COMPENSATE for problems? Do you shift to maneuver through spaces you can't easily traverse as a human? To avoid chronic pain? To think more clearly/cope through depression? To gain a sense, or avoid overwhelming an overstimulated sense? Cure a migraine? Do you AVOID shifting because you spent eighteen years Deaf and suddenly being able to hear sucks, actually, and you don't want it? Can your wolf form be disabled and your human form not?

(8/8) Anyway I think my biggest advice re: disabled characters is that people who can't do things, adapt. They find workarounds, get tools/assistance, or realize that it's not actually necessary to do certain things that other people can. Sometimes that sucks! It's extra effort, harder, takes longer, more tiring, frustrating. Things objectively hurt. You feel like a burden for asking. Some things you just can't do. But LIFE can still be great, and there's romance novel space for that.

(oh shit sorry one more thing, 9/9): A disability doesn't have to be permanent to count! An injury that takes two years to heal is still an issue for those two years. Someone who HAD a disability during childhood, that healed itself at first shift, is going to have a different perspective on things even if they don't any more. /// Anyway, these are my ramblings! I think they're all anonymous, and I hope they helped. But feel free to ask more questions if you have them!

This is absolutely fantastic, thank you so much! I think Tumblr must have eaten your point 2, which is a crying shame because the rest is incredible.

Funnily enough, in a private message thread with someone else we discussed prostheses, and I have made a decision there - one of my main characters, a Beta to one of the Alpha main characters and therefore a Big Strong Warrior, also has the ability to summon/manipulate ice. He now has lost a hand in human form. Still has a paw as a wolf, but on the battle field, when he's in human form, he can make an Ice Prosthesis for himself (these books are very stupid and this makes him Painfully Cool, pun FULLY intended.) But, it's too much hassle to do in everyday life, so he doesn't generally bother otherwise.

Anyway, thank you so much for this, have a fantastic day

[thekisforkeats]

Love Languages

Info: The Magnus Archives, JonMartin, rated T probably for swears. Canon-Compliant. Set post-MAG 22, with a coda post-MAG 159. Everyone is ND and everyone is trans because that’s just how my personal S1 Archives gang rolls.

CWs: Mentions of ableism and Martin’s mother. I’d say canon-typical worms but the worms don’t really come up except in passing.

I do not know anything about BSL, so I did not try to describe the signs.

Summary: A love language is not just about how you best show love and affection; it is also about the ways you best receive love and affection. And so, for someone like Martin, who shows love by going out of his way to help others, someone going out of their way to help him, well. What better way for him to realize just how loved he is?

--------------------------------------------

The first time Martin went completely non-verbal after starting work in the Archives, it was the morning after giving Jon the statement about Jane Prentiss.

It wasn’t a surprising development, really. Martin didn’t go fully non-verbal that often, but when he did it was almost always a thing that started in the morning and lasted most of the day. Sometimes it wore off by the time he went to bed, sometimes it lasted until the next morning.

After his mother’s diagnosis, he’d been unable to speak for an entire week. That hadn’t gone over well--as much as his mother wanted him to be quiet, she didn’t like the “silent treatment,” as she called it.

Martin hated that she’d called it that, as though his non-verbal episodes were anything he did on purpose. Some days talking just felt like a chore; those days he could get by only forcing words out when he had to. But some days, the worst days, he just couldn’t talk. He could understand other people just fine, he could make noises, sometimes he could even hum. And he could definitely read and write. But speaking words, aloud? No. He could not speak, on these days, however much he may have wanted to.

As Martin grew older and learned more about himself, he learned words and reasons and coping mechanisms. He realized that some of the problem came from dysphoria and the longer he was on hormones the less often it happened. He realized that he was autistic (even if he never got diagnosed), and learned how to handle the episodes that still occurred. He took sign languages classes because it was a good and useful thing to know regardless, to be able to communicate with more people.

As many Deaf people had learned before Martin, he’d found himself in plenty of situations when nobody around him knew BSL, so he’d found a phone app that let him type out things he wanted to say and repeated them in a tinny, mechanical voice. Feminine, but he found it didn’t cause dysphoria; it wasn’t his voice. It was the app speaking for him, a robot lady translating his words.

Martin was fairly certain he was going to need the robot lady to speak for him today, and he was dreading the whole idea. The app got him a range of reactions from scorn to derision to faux sympathy. The last time he’d done so at work, the Institute library staff had regarded him with such pity that he’d called in sick the two other times it had happened since.

He’d woken early, because he was always awake fairly early, to ensure he looked presentable and got to work on time. He did not want Jonathan “Crisply Professional At All Times” Sims giving him that look again. The particular look that was “I highly disapprove of your sartorial choices but I’m not going to get into it right now because I have so very much else to do. Nonetheless, if I could fire you for what you’re wearing I would.”

Jon had a lot of looks. Martin fervently wished he could stop categorizing them; he very much disliked his boss, and very much wanted to stop thinking about Jon quite as much as he did.

Jon was attractive, that much Martin had noticed the first day he’d come in, with a jawline Martin would’ve loved to trace with his fingers, eyes sharp and deep and intelligent, salt-and-pepper hair that Martin would have tangled his fingers in gladly.

Except, of course, that Jon was also a prick who didn’t like Martin one bit and made that very clear. He’d put down on record that he thought Martin would “contribute nothing but delays.” Martin was not such a sucker for punishment that he would put up with someone who hated him just for a pretty face. The tiny potential blossom of a crush had been, well, crushed five seconds after it had poked its head above ground, by Jon’s declaration that he could dismiss Martin if he didn’t resolve the “dog situation” immediately.

Martin counted his lucky stars every day that Jon had not, in fact, dismissed him, despite having had to deal with a doggy mess. The luck was really in having Tim around, Martin figured; Jon actually seemed fond of Tim, and the other man had managed to smooth the entire situation over.

Martin had fallen asleep last night thinking about the new look Jon had given him yesterday: concerned. Truly, genuinely concerned, which had rather taken Martin aback. He’d been certain Jon wouldn’t believe him, would scoff and roll his eyes at the entire statement, and instead he’d just looked… concerned. 

And then Jon had offered Martin the cot that he’d woken up in this morning.

It wasn’t the look of concern that had Martin non-verbal, though; of that he was certain. It was the stress of the last two weeks, and dumping out the statement yesterday, and all the whirl of figuring out how to live in the Archives. Jon’s insistence on going with him to pick up basics with a toothbrush at the convenience store, and then coming back to be sure he was okay. Jon finding clean sheets and discussing how he’d do his laundry. Jon had expensed clothing bought online to the Institute, including next-day shipping, because he’d “lost access to his flat and thus his wardrobe in the line of duty.” It had all been bewildering and overwhelming and it was no real surprise that Martin was in the state he found himself when he woke.

Martin had known as soon as he’d opened his eyes. It was just there, the feeling of nope can’t talk today. He’d pulled on his binder and the same clothing he’d worn the day before and then fumbled around for his phone. Which… he didn’t have. The damn worm-hive-lady had stolen it from him. Well, shit.

He managed to avoid having to figure out how to talk while he went out to get breakfast, just pointing at a scone in the display and smiling at the guy behind the counter as if he wasn’t secretly irritated by the price of everything in Chelsea. By the time Martin got back, Jon was already in his office, so thank God he’d avoided that awkward interaction. He went to make himself tea, and had his breakfast in the breakroom, and brushed his teeth, and then went to get started on…

Wait. He didn’t even know what they were working on right now.

Well, he wasn’t going to bother Jon about it; however nice he’d been last night it surely must have worn off by now, and Martin had no interest in summoning one of his boss’ looks this early in the morning. Normally he’d still be on his commute at this hour.

After a moment’s thought, he went to go see what they’d recorded in his absence, and soon had a stack of statements on his desk. They’d gotten through five statements in the two weeks he’d been gone. Maybe Jon was right. Maybe Martin did contribute “nothing but delays.”

Pushing the thought aside, Martin focused on listening to the tapes, and was just finishing up listening to the second half of Father Edwin Burroughs’ statement when Tim came into the shared office the assistants used.

“Hey, you’re in early. You get the email?”

Martin raised his eyebrows and shook his head.

Tim snorted. “Jon claims he’s got something to warn us about, something that ‘won’t parse properly through digital means.’” He rolled his eyes. “Which is Jon-speak for ‘it’s a weird thing and I don’t want to admit it’s a weird thing because I have to keep my skeptic hat on to preserve my self-image.”

Martin chuckled in solidarity, then gestured toward the door to Jon’s office, to indicate that’s where their boss was.

“Not coming?” Tim asked, his own eyebrow raised. When Martin shrugged, he said, “Well, I guess if you didn’t get the email…” Tim also shrugged, then said, “Guess I’d better get it over with. Wish me luck!”

Martin gave him a thumbs up.

When Sasha came in, Martin silently directed her to Jon’s office as well, then heaved a sigh of relief. He hadn’t had to explain being non-verbal at all yet, and it was already nine o’clock. Maybe if he was lucky, Jon would warn them off talking to him and he’d manage to make it the entire day without having to explain the whole “non-verbal” business to anyone he saw on a regular basis.

Alas, it was barely thirty minutes later that Tim and Sasha returned to talk to him, both wearing expressions of mingled concern and guilt. When they spoke it was a flood of the usual, expected platitudes:

“We’re so sorry!”

“We didn’t know!”

“Are you okay??”

And such like.

Martin shrugged and nodded and shook his head in all the right places, and evidently Jon had played them the tape of his statement so he didn’t have to explain it all again (thank God), and he thought maybe, maybe he could even figure out what statement they were working on right now if he just listened to their chatter after they were done with the niceties, but then…

Well. Then Timothy Stoker happened.

Which is to say, Tim actually looked at Martin, and said, “You’re being awfully quiet. You sure you’re okay?”

And then he and Sasha just… sat there, looking at him expectantly.

Martin sighed and reached for a piece of scrap paper and wrote, I’m autistic and sometimes I go non-verbal. Today’s one of those days, but I don’t have my phone anymore, so no communication app.

As he held up the paper so the others could read the words, Martin braced himself for the ensuing reactions. Pity, probably, like those in the Institute library, and he couldn’t even call in sick to avoid it; he’d rather have scorn and derision. At least those reactions were honest.

What he got from them was not pity, however, nor even scorn.

Sasha hummed. “Autism explains a lot, actually. Don’t worry, it’s not a problem.”

Tim grinned and clapped Martin on the shoulder. “Yeah, why didn’t you just say so? It’s fine, you’ve been through an ordeal. And so you know--you’re hardly the only neurodivergent in the Archives.”

Martin blinked at Tim, then wrote: Wait, what? Who…?

“Would you believe me if I said all of us?” Tim said with a grin. “I have ADD, Jon’s… well… he’s Jon, and as for Sasha…”

Sasha sighed in fond exasperation and cut in, “Tim…”

“I contend that you cannot be neurotypical, Ms. James. You fit in too well around here.”

“I am not admitting to anything on Institute property,” Sasha said with aplomb. “And you shouldn't have either, but here we are.” She looked at Martin. “If HR finds out and they give you any trouble, let us know and we’ll figure out what to do.”

Tim, in the meanwhile, pulled out his phone. “Here, go ahead and use mine for now, until your replacement gets here or whatever. What’s the app so I can install it for you?”

Martin’s jaw had dropped open. Tim having ADD made sense; what did he mean about Jon, though? And Sasha? And what did Sasha mean about HR? And… and why were they being so… nice? So… understanding? It wasn’t an act, or at least he didn’t think it was. They seemed… genuinely fine with it. Accepting, even.

It was the strangest thing Martin had experienced in a while, and that was including the worm-riddled woman who’d stood outside his door for two straight weeks.

From there the day just… went on as normal. Tim installed the app on the phone, Martin’s robot phone lady spoke for him, the three of them did their work, and everything was fine.

Until, of course, the nature of their work reared its ugly head. They were discussing the statement of Leanne Denikin, case #0051701, which they had yet to attach a pithy name to; hence the discussion. It had long since become standard practice to attach a name to the “weirder” statements, to make them easier to discuss. (Jon insisted on using the case numbers on tape still, which was annoying, given that was the only place he did that.)

Martin was reading through the statement, and he typed into Tim’s phone: What do you think of this bit? “Be still, for there is strange music.”

What came out of the phone’s speakers, however, was garbled static followed by high-pitched screeching that startled Martin so much he actually dropped the phone.

Jon was walking in just as this happened; he stopped in the doorway, blinking. “What on Earth was that?”

“Martin’s robot lady gave Tim’s phone an aneurysm, I think,” Sasha said, eyeing Martin as well.

Martin scrabbled on the floor for the phone, pulled up the app (which had crashed), and typed, I don’t know what happened!! I was just typing in something from one of the statements!

Jon frowned at him sharply. “What are you doing with Tim’s phone? Are you quite well?”

“No, Martin is not ‘quite well,’” Tim said. “Non-verbal for the day.”

Then Jon did something that stunned Martin: Jon signed at him, specifically, “Do you know sign language?” He spoke aloud as he said this, too, but also raised his eyebrows and gave a quizzical tilt to his head to convey that he was asking a question.

Martin blinked rapidly, then signed back: “Yes, actually. But Tim and Sasha don’t.”

Jon nodded, then said aloud, along with signing, “Why are you non-verbal, exactly?”

“I have autism,” Martin signed. “Sometimes talking is overwhelming and sometimes, especially in stressful situations, I can’t talk at all. Woke up that way today. It should be gone by tomorrow morning.” Why was he explaining so much more to Jon than he had to the others? Maybe just because Jon knew sign, and thus could communicate in a language Martin found much easier than even the typing.

Jon frowned thoughtfully, then nodded again. Then, still speaking and signing both, “What were you typing into your phone?”

“Be still, for there is strange music. From the statement.” Martin gestured to the statement on his desk.

Jon’s frown deepened and he repeated the words. “‘Be still, for there is strange music….’” His expression went slack for a moment, and then he shook himself. “Right. Well. Just… just… I’ll be right back.” Then he abruptly turned and left the room.

Tim and Sasha exchanged bewildered looks. Then Sasha asked, “Do you know what that was all about?”

“I forgot Jon knows BSL,” Tim replied thoughtfully. “Hard of hearing on one side. Not that he’d have agreed to interpret all day or anything.”

Martin shrugged. It’s alright, he typed. This works just fine.

“Well, no, obviously not for some things.” Jon had reappeared as suddenly as he’d disappeared, holding a small brown notebook the size of Martin’s hand. “Here,” he said, thrusting the notebook at Martin. “This will work better, for communicating about the statements. You needn’t use it with me, of course, unless signing is also taxing.”

Martin stared up at Jon. There was an entirely new look on his boss’ face. Not any level of scorn or sneer, nor even concern. He was… nervous. Fidgety. Like he was offering a gift that he was afraid might be rejected.

Something went flip in Martin’s stomach and it was like the entire world turned upside down. Suddenly, in light of Jon’s actions in the last 24 hours, he saw the way his boss had acted toward him the last six months for what it was: a defense mechanism. Armor pulled up around someone fragile and soft and sweet, someone so terrified of rejection that he went about making sure it happened preemptively so he wouldn’t be hurt.

Martin had a sudden, fierce desire to hug Jon and tell him everything would be okay. It was so bewildering a sensation--he didn’t even like the man! At all!--that he just took the notebook with a nod and a signed “Thank you,” eyes still very wide.

Jon nodded in return. “You’re welcome.” He let out a breath, and seemed to relax a little. “Well. Then. I think we’ve found the name for this one, given the way Tim’s phone reacted to those words. ‘Strange Music’ it is.” He straightened himself. “Tim, you said something about the organ reminding you of articles you’ve read…?”

Tim nodded, expression suddenly serious. “Yeah. I’ll see if I can find them for you.”

“Right. Well, then, Sasha, if I could ask you to look through the Archive like we talked about? I’m certain we’ve had a statement from Jane Prentiss.” Jon then turned to Martin. “And if you wouldn’t mind helping me with ‘Schwarzwald?’ You used to work in the library, right?”

Martin was still staring at Jon in confusion, but nodded.

Jon actually smiled at him. Faintly. “Well, then, I’m certain you must know where to find the German history reference books, if you could go grab whatever they’ll let you bring down?”

The strangest thing about it was, Jon seemed sincere. Like he actually believed Martin did, indeed, know the library well enough to just… go up there and find the German history reference books. The faint, confident-in-his-assistant smile was a new look, at least directed at Martin; he’d seen Jon look at Tim and Sasha that way many times before.

Martin’s stomach was doing cartwheels. There were butterflies taking up residence in his intestines. His heart was pounding. How had he never noticed how nice Jon’s smile was? Soft and small, like he was afraid to let it actually take up residence on his face for too long.

Oh, God, oh, no. Martin could not fancy his boss. Jon hated him. Or, well, no, evidence suggested that perhaps Jon did not hate him, but Jon most certainly did not fancy him. This crush had to disappear, just as fast as it had come. This would not do.

He was going to be writing poetry again tonight, wasn’t he? Crap.

“Martin?” Jon’s tone was concerned rather than sharp, and the way Jon said his name made Martin want to sink into the floor.

Instead, he scribbled furiously in the notebook and held it up so all three of the others could see: Yeah, sorry, was just thinking about where that’d be. I’ll bring them down as soon as I find them.

Jon practically beamed at Martin’s use of the notebook and he nodded briskly. “Right! I’ll be in my office when you have the books, then.” He started to turn away.

Martin’s heart went pound pound pound because oh wow Jon was really cute when he let that smile take up more of his face. Throwing caution to the wind, he made a noise to get the other man’s attention.

Jon turned around, quirking a brow. “Yes, Martin?”

Martin signed, “Tea?” He, too, raised his eyebrows and tilted his head to indicate the question.

Jon nodded. “Tea would be lovely, yes.” He smiled at Martin for a brief moment, and then suddenly looked flustered. He glared at them all. “Anyway,” he snapped in his ‘boss’ voice, the impact of which was ruined by the flush rising in his cheeks, “there’s still work to be done. So let’s… do it.” And with that, he turned on his heel and left the office.

Had Jon blushed because Martin had offered him tea? Did Jon like his tea that much? Was Martin imagining things? He had to be imagining things. He put his head down on the desk and wrapped his arms over it so he could grab at handfuls of hair. What was happening to him?

Sasha tried to make her voice serious, but couldn't quite manage it past quite clearly holding back giggles. “Mourn for poor Martin, working alone with Jon.” She looked at Tim. “We should call HR preemptively, it’ll be a bloodbath.”

“Nah, I think Jon’s softening on our boy,” Tim said with a laugh. He reached over to ruffle Martin’s hair with one hand while he took his phone back with the other. “Don’t worry, Marto. I told you he’d come around one day.”

Martin looked up at Tim with a stricken, betrayed expression. In the notebook: Is this how you comfort me in my hour of need??

Sasha shook her head. “For once, Tim’s being serious. You weren’t in the room when Jon explained things to us. He’s worried about you, he doesn’t want you to have to leave the Institute alone, he doesn’t want you to have to look for the Prentiss statement in case it’s ‘too traumatic’ for you to run across on your own. He actually asked us if we thought we should avoid any mention of Prentiss altogether in your presence.”

“I told him no,” Tim said. “I hope that was okay. You seem like you’d rather deal with trauma by facing it and figuring it out, rather than avoiding it entirely.”

Matin gaped at them. Really? he wrote. Jon’s… worried about me? Really? As if he hadn’t seen the evidence just now that Jon was, indeed… softening.

Tim gave Martin a very serious look. “I’ve told you before… I’ve known Jon, well, not as long as I’ve known Sasha, but for a long while now. He’s prickly and thorny, even to people he cares about, but that’s a front and I’ve said so. You just didn’t believe me.”

“In Martin’s defense,” Sasha put in, “Jon’s been awfully ‘prickly and thorny’ to him specifically.”

Tim put up a hand. “Oh, I agree. I have had words with our dear boss about the way he treats Martin, largely because I’m one of the few people he might actually listen to.” He looked at Martin. “I don’t want to take the credit, because it’s really been a remarkably fast turnaround, but I’d like to think I helped, a little.”

Martin frowned thoughtfully. Thank you, he wrote. If Jon’s at ‘I can stand Martin’ instead of ‘Martin is the source of all bad that happens in the Archives’ work might be… better than tolerable, for once.

“That’s the spirit!” Tim said with a grin. “Now, then, Jon did say to get back to work…”

Jon gave Martin another of those soft smiles when Martin brought in the tea, a smile which widened on seeing the stack of books he carried in right after. That afternoon, spent sitting and going through books and discussing the Schwarzwald statement, was the first of many they’d spend together, reading and talking and comparing notes.

Martin was feeling verbal again the next morning, but he kept the notebook. If nothing else, it was a good place to jot down poetry. And it came in handy when he found himself unable to speak the morning after Jane Prentiss’ attack on the Archives.

And the morning after Jon confronted him about his CV.

And the morning after Jon disappeared, leaving Jurgen Leitner’s body at his desk. (Martin blamed that on the corridors more than the body, really.)

Funnily enough, he didn’t need it the morning after the Unknowing. But he kept it with him that day all the same, the first gift Jon had ever given him, and one of the few things he had left of him with Jon in a coma.

--------------------------------------------

When they reached Daisy’s safehouse in Scotland, Martin had hoped he’d somehow manage to dodge the threat of going non-verbal. He’d been the one to drive the car, over Jon’s protests; it was something to focus on, to keep him remembering he was alive and real. He’d clutched the wheel and driven north north north with Jon giving directions in the passenger seat.

Martin had finally figured out that it was the chance to stop and think about trauma that led to his being non-verbal, which was why it was almost always a thing that hit in the morning. Adrenaline would keep him running after a stressful event, and then he’d carry himself through the rest of the day trying to clean up whatever mess had been caused. But sleep was enough for his body and brain to both tell him to stop, to process, to deal with whatever he’d run into.

It was possible, in hindsight, that he’d gone non-verbal more than once since the Unknowing and just hadn’t noticed because he’d been barely interacting with anyone. He’d certainly had a bad bout the morning after his mother’s funeral, dealing with so much misgendering and fake smiles. And there had been more than enough trauma to try to process in the past year, so it must have happened before.

He’d just really, really hoped it wouldn’t now, because he didn’t want to put Jon through that. (Why he thought he was putting Jon through anything he didn’t really want to examine. It made him feel Lonely, and that was bad.)

At any rate, the realization of why he went non-verbal had led to him keeping busy in order to hold it off, in order to hold himself together. So he drove, and he puttered about the cabin poking into cupboards, and he talked to Jon, and he talked to the shop lady in the village, and he brought back food and made dinner with Jon, and everything was good and fine.

And then he woke up the next morning, in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room, and he could not speak.

There was the smell of bacon and eggs and pancakes cooking, and Martin made his bleary way out into the main room of the cabin and peered at Jon, already up and dressed and cooking.

His boyfriend turned to look at him and smiled, one of those soft smiles Martin had come to love so much. “Sleep well?”

"Not really,” Martin signed. “I mean…” He gestured at his throat.

Jon nodded. “I figured you might feel that way this morning. I, uhh… hold on a moment, I need to….” He grabbed the pan of bacon and moved it off the heat, pulled a pancake off the griddle and deposited it on a plate, then turned off the stove and went to poke around in one of the bags.

Martin chuckled fondly. “What’re you looking for?”

Jon was still digging through his bag. “When I was grabbing essentials at the store, back in London, I was thinking, you’ve been through a lot, and the notebook I gave you before must be full if you even have it anymore. I know you were writing poetry in it, and… oh, here we go.”

Jon came up with another small notebook. This one was not plain and brown, the way the first one he’d gifted Martin all those years ago had been. This one was black, and had silvery stars on its cover that, as Jon held out the book and thus tilted it through the light, shimmered into rainbows.

“Just in case, you know, the shop lady doesn’t know BSL.”

Martin blinked at the notebook.

“It, uhh… I know it’s not your usual style,” Jon said, his voice suddenly nervous. He was looking down at the notebook as he spoke, instead of at Martin. “Not… retro. But… I saw it and I thought of you.” He paused. “That tape, where you were talking to Simon Fairchild. He talked about the ‘cosmic scale,’ and how we’ve never even been alive on that time frame, and you said… what was it? You said, ‘I think our experience of the universe has value. Even if it disappears forever.’ And I just… that was… maybe the most… it was very… you. And there were other options, flowers or cursive writing, o-or… I don’t know, they all seemed so obvious, but this…”

Jon swallowed, and finally looked up at Martin. “I thought, after the Lonely, you might like a reminder that, you have value. That… that to me, you shine as bright as any star.” And then he flushed, and Martin knew it was for him, just as he now knew the flushes about tea all those years ago had also been for him.

Martin was gaping. Oh. Oh. Jon… loved him. Which he’d known, intellectually, but the emotional knowledge of it hit him suddenly, took his breath away. He knew it, all at once, in that “oh we could spend the rest of our lives together” way he’d never really thought he’d ever feel.

Jon had clearly misinterpreted the expression; he started stammering, “I-if… it it’s bad, I can… well, no, I can’t take it back, stupid, I should’ve just grabbed the one that had--”

Martin cut him off by reaching out to take the notebook from Jon and reached out with his other hand to cup the shorter man’s cheek. He smiled, and because he’d realized long ago how well Jon responded to physical touch, he leaned in to plant a soft kiss on his boyfriend’s forehead.

Then he pulled back to put the notebook aside on the counter and signed, “It’s perfect. Thank you.” A pause, and then, “I love you.”

Jon smiled, both speaking and signing, “I love you, too.”

And for once in his life, Martin knew that to be true, and trusted that knowledge. He was loved. He had been loved, and he would be loved for the rest of his life, whatever state his voice was in.

[whilomm]

okay listen stuff like weighted blankets and stim toys and whatnot becoming mainstream is good and all both bc it makes shit easier for nd ppl to access and bc nt ppl can be helped out by this shit too and all. but i just wish there was more RECOGNITION ya kno!! yea no im glad weighted blankets no longer cost $200 or require u to jump thru hoops to make one yourself like i had to (and still choose to bc my new weighted blanket is CUSTOM and PRETTY and COVERED IN BEES). but!!! they could at least say oh yea we got this idea from autistic ppl they had a good idea and turns out it works for a lotta other ppl too, everyone say thank you autistic ppl (thank you!!!). then maybe give money. i just think itd be cool ya kno.

[my-darling-boy]

Right sorry I have to vent about something. I didn’t really want to post this but Oh Well it’s bothering me and I hope I’m not the only one who feels like this.

What I thought was me obsessing over a little mistake I made at work was actually the tip of the iceberg to this terror I feel internally realising as I get older, I’m required by society to mask my autism more and more because they see you as an inconvenience. But now that I’ve created this Highly Socially Convenient version of myself to fit into other people’s social standards, especially in the workplace, I can no longer make mistakes without people attributing them to laziness or carelessness or “stupidity”. It’s one of the many examples of people assuming “if I can’t see something, it doesn’t exist.” I’m constantly assessed with the “but you don’t LOOK autistic!” You shouldn’t have to know I’m autistic to start treating me with more care and respect.

If a customer is having trouble with the keypad, I don’t rip the thing around and jam their card in, annoyed. If a customer can’t hear me very well, I don’t roll my eyes when I have to repeat myself. If a coworker doesn’t understand how to use a register function, I don’t sigh heavily and shove them aside to fix it. Everyone is always apologising for making mistakes with their payment options or having to run back cos they forgot something or for “taking so long” or for doing this or that. People are sweating hurriedly counting out coins and notes and apologising but you don’t need to hurry! Take your time!! My line might be long but I know when I rush counting money, I get it wrong cos I can’t focus sometimes in chaotic, loud environments.

I’m so used to apologising for things I do as an autistic person and when I see others doing the same, I say they don’t have to be sorry. The checkstands are not easily accessible to understand or operate. People are rude and rushing. We’re wearing masks so it’s harder to hear/see facial expressions. Literally none of this is person’s fault, and yet they’re apologising like the checkstand or their communication style or even the angry customers behind them are their fault. And I do the same thing. The one thing I say ALL DAY LONG is “I’m sorry.” I say it so often that half the time I’m not even sure why I’m apologising, all I know is things that are out of my control are usually pinned as “my fault” somehow so I just say I’m sorry all the time. I’m apologising, the customer is apologising, my coworker is apologising, we’re all just so sorry for having to be in a building that isn’t meant to accommodate anyone.

Most of my interactions at work involve me making sure I’m being as accommodating as I can to who I’m speaking with because rarely are people accommodating towards me and I don’t want to make others feel like they’re an inconvenience the way I’ve been made to feel like one. I know by default that something that is easy for one person may not be easy for another person. And if an allistic person cares to think about this at all, it’s so bizarre to me that they assume it means a person is careless, lazy, or irresponsible.

I work retail and talking to people is literally my job, but it’s usually not an issue so long as they fit a social script in my head. Tasks are repetitive which means I learn them fast and perform them fast. When left alone, I resort to tasks I was shown how to do: clean, collect, etc. I follow instructions, ask questions. I’m always told I’m such a “competent, responsible employee” for this, even though 80% of my motivation for doing these things are out of constant fear of hidden consequences if I don’t do exactly as I’m told. And if someone starts saying I’m their favourite closer or the fastest cashier or the most helpful employee, I only get nervous about how disappointed this person would be in me if I showed any ounce of something different if one day I had a shutdown at work.

I wouldn’t know how to tell anyone why sometimes I’m a minute late to work for a few days, or why I lost track of time doing X, why X took me so long, why suddenly I don’t make a lot of conversation, why I suddenly lose ability to multitask, or why I keep making silly little mistakes when I “seem like such a good employee who can stay on top of things.” Sometimes I genuinely don’t know if I’ve done something wrong! There are grey areas of employment and social interaction that will always confuse me no matter what. Instead of taking just a moment to explain something I did incorrectly, or just take 10 seconds to show me how to do something, people right away are predisposed to snapping at you and being rude without so much as a little explaination to help you. And if they’re going to snap at me for a small question, how could I ever bring up something more? When? How? When a customer I’m not understanding is giving me a hard time, do I give into them and give them the discount they wanted and possibly get in trouble or do I call over a manager who is going to scold me for not understanding them?

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of space to discuss being autistic to anyone or time to dismantle stereotypes. I feel like I have to keep putting on a presentation and suppressing parts of myself or force myself to conform to allistic standards that make me uncomfortable while allistic people would never think about accommodating mine. I’ve heard so much offensive language towards autsitic people from basic team members, management, and customers at every job I’ve ever been at. And when something like that is THAT widespread and ingrained to how these people think, where and how do you even begin to address it? Who do you talk to? Who’s to say the person meant to handle these things at work isn’t making R word jokes minutes later?

Every job I get hired at assures me that I will be treated fairly, to the same standard as other employees. But to me, there seems to be something Off about fairness when it comes to performance. The problem is, the model of that standard is often a person who is not autsitic. I see it in the way supervisors walk up to me when I can’t get something to scan. I see it in the way they squint accusingly at me behind their mask if I need something explained more. I see it in the way coworkers have attributed their “stupid mistakes” to being “the r word”. They critisise lack of verbal communication or eye contact, they sigh when things need to be phrased differently, they stand impatiently while you’re trying to figure something out. In the break room, I hear people left and right laughing about or getting irritated over customers who are described as doing some of the things I do. I’ll always remember this one really nice customer who always came into the store and would put her items up on the counter slowly and would talk to you about her day, and I never had a problem with the speed at which she did anything because why would I? I don’t need to rush her, there’s no reason to. But a manager, after she had left one time, mimicked the way she spoke and said she was “the r word”. And I felt crushed.

No matter what a company says, in their eyes, we’re made to feel like the undesired. The inconvenience. The ones holding up lines or turning on the assistance blinkers at checkstands. There shouldn’t be people steaming behind us or snapping to go faster or shouting “Why don’t you understand?? Are you stupid??” I’ve found the discrimation against autsitic people in the workplace is a lot of times in subtlety, and to me it feels like what is being done to me isn’t noticable at first until I realise it’s eating away at me: the glares, the exaggerated sighs, the comments, the derogatory language. I always feel like someone standing outside a window while everyone else is on the inside. That’s what makes this type of treatment so insidious, because convenient for companies, they don’t have anything in their handbooks that protects me from their deeply imbedded practice of equating many traits of my autism with being an unsatisfactory employee. And usually by the time I’ve picked up on it, it’s too widespread for me to even sort out all that’s happened and I’m left feeling like I should just bear it. “Well then the job isn’t meant for you” someone might say. No, capitalist society doesn’t make room for people like me. In fact, I’ve never encountered a job that was meant for me. And I’m tired of having to say I’m sorry for myself and bend over backwards for capitalist “”””we’re a family”””” corporations and the society they’ve infected whom they’ve taught to not give two shits about people like me.

[hyperfixationtimego]

autistic leon 🥺🥺 he wears earplugs during baseball games and he has an abundance of stim toys that he has to have all accounted for before he can do anything

god I have more asks to answer but my Leon brainrot is too strong so-

YEAH!!!! LITERALLY THE REASON I GRABBED ONTO HIM AS A COMFORT CHARACTER AND REFUSED TO LET GO WAS BECAUSE OF ALL THE FUCKIN!!!! SYMPTOMS AND STUFF HE HAD!!!! LIKE I LEGIT POINTED AT HIM AS SOON AS I MET HIM AND LEARNED MORE ABOUT HIM LIKE “holy SHIT that’s ME”

he’s fuckin autistic there’s no way around it. The way he fucks up social cues, the way he tries to reinvent himself to get people to stop associating him with a special interest he believes he no longer enjoys, the way he repeats a single word when he gets stressed out and angry, the way he takes naps in order to avoid feeling overwhelmed because he literally has no other way of coping with it,,,,,AUGH I love him so much

also just,,,,more of me projecting but i think the concept of him also having BPD fucks super hard. He’s impulsive, and things set him off really easily, but he feels things VERY intensely!!! When he’s happy, he’s super happy, when he’s pissed, he’s PISSED, when he’s bored, he needs to leave and go do something!! Like, god, sir, SAME?? And his sense of self is another thing AGHR I’m gonna shut up now because if I don’t stop I’ll Just Keep Talking so anyway back to autistic headcanons-

FUCK YEAH ABSOLUTELY he’s a very very loud individual, but whenever there’s an abundance of noise that’s not being made/controlled by him, it can be super overwhelming!!! His earplugs are literally a lifesaver they make him feel so safe

also unrelated but he’s absolutely someone who listens to music on headphones with the highest volume possible and everybody else is just “bro how are your ears not BLEEDING”

STIM TOYS STIM TOYS STIM TOYS AGRHBFNMEM!!!!!!!

He’s got bracelets and rings that aren’t even intended as fidget things but they twist and spin and are fun to run his fingers over so they absolutely count and he Needs them if he’s going anywhere

He carries around a baseball because sometimes just holding the weight of it in his hand is really comforting!!! But throwing it/tossing it in the air is also a surefire way for him to calm down, especially if he’s super excited or angry!! It really helps to ground him when he needs it!

Not technically fidget toys, but he plays with his piercings a lot!!! Lightly pulling on his earrings, pushing his tongue piercing against the roof of his mouth, twists his labret sometimes when he’s bored, etc. etc. like he tries to force himself to sit still and Not Do That because he doesn’t think it looks Cool™️ but neurodivergent brain doesn’t care about shit like that so ❤️

He’s definitely got some squishy stress balls, too!! Like just being able to squeeze something in his palm can really help when he can feel himself getting frustrated (this one works really well for him while he’s in class or doing homework and getting upset about not understanding the material/feeling burned out/etc.)

I bet he used to chew on his nails and probably still does if he doesn’t have immediate access to stim stuff (YEAH I’M PROJECTING AGAIN DIE MAD ABOUT IT /lh /pos)

And uhhhh failing that, he steals stuff from Kaz’s huge bag of fidget toys HSNANEBD the man is a LEECH but obv Kaz doesn’t mind cause that’s what the bag is there for lol

[againstshame]

A small interview with autistic author Sarah Kurchak

She’s celebrating the release of her memoir, I Overcame My Autism and All I Got Was This Lousy Anxiety Disorder, this week (actually a while ago but has anything this year happened on schedule? Better late than never, right?) I offered to interview her for this blog, and she agreed!

I wanted to talk about her book on this blog because one of the big topics this book deals with is the self-annihilating impulse that we talked about in this post, the shame-related desire to remake yourself into a fundamentally different (non-disabled) person. Kurchak describes her book as a cautionary tale about how harmful putting on an act like that can be.

[ID: cover of the book, a photo of Sarah Kurchak, with pink-dyed hair and a black shirt.]

Please give a brief summary of the book.

I Overcame My Autism And All I Got Was This Lousy Anxiety Disorder is a collection of moderately connected essays that use moments from my life as a minimally successful late diagnosed autistic person to highlight bigger issues that face many autistic people. Basically, I didn’t want to write my own story and leave it at that. Nor did I think my life was interesting enough to merit an entire book. But I seem to have a facility for writing about autism in a way that intrigues non-autistic people, so I wanted to see if I could use that talent for the greater good in book form.

My basic and slightly muddied thesis is that my life is decent enough, but it hasn’t been without hardships, and that some of those hardships could have been remedied with better services for autistic people, and greater acceptance and understanding. And if someone like me, who has had a number of advantages in life, is struggling as much as I am, how much harder is it for so many other autistic people? And how much more are we currently failing them?

What's this book's origin story? How did you end up writing this memoir rather than some other book, and how did you find your publisher?

“It’s in the book!” feels like such a dick answer to me. But if anyone is interested in a longer (or, arguably, too long) explanation for how I wound up getting an agent, writing this book, and finding a publisher for it, you can find it in the introduction. Along with references to Cronenberg’s The Brood and Balloon Okada.

The short version is that an agent liked a story that I’d published in a literary outlet, and asked if I wanted to write a book. I tried to talk her into repping a novella about slash fiction and pro wrestling that I wrote in my early twenties. Somehow that did not put her off and she gently guided me toward non-fiction ideas. I’d had the title in mind for years at that point, so I threw that out. Then I started to flesh out what kind of book I’d put under it. I still don’t think it’s a proper memoir, but that word’s on the cover, so I guess it is?

(I realize how lucky I am to have found myself in this unlikely situation. But I always feel the need to point out that it took me 18 years of professional writing to find this “overnight” “success.”)

What's one thing you wish you had known about or had access to when you were younger and undiagnosed?

I wish that I could have grown up with a more wholistic idea of myself. When I excelled in school but struggled on the playground, a lot of well-meaning adults who were just trying to help a suffering child get through the day started to tell me that the other kids were jealous of me because I was smart, and that’s why I was being bullied and couldn’t make friends. And that’s a very easy narrative to cling to when you’re a scared and lonely child who is desperate for any sense of self-worth.

It helped me survive school, but I don’t think it benefitted me at all in the long run. It took me a long time to come to terms with how ableist and racist the very concept of intelligence is. I’d grown up thinking it was the only thing I had going for me! I didn’t want to give it up! I wish I could have figured out how harmful the concept was much earlier in life and established a sense of self that was more aware of — and cool with — my strengths and weakness. And more rooted in the idea that my worth came from the fact that I was a human being, and not because I was ostensibly “special” in some way.

A while ago I did an event on this blog where people sent in examples of fiction that helped them feel better about being neurodivergent or disabled, stories that showed them what their future could look like or made them feel less alone. Was there a story that did that for you?

Community premiered a few months after I was diagnosed and I can’t even begin to put into words how much Abed helped me during those early years. And how meaningful Abed and Troy’s friendship was.

Strangely, even though there is nothing at all autistic coded about her, and not a lot I’d consider neurodivergent about her, George in Dead Like Me really spoke to me, too. I think I was just really into the idea of someone getting a late start in life where they could make up for what they hadn’t done before, even if they could never really go back to what their original life was. (This is the only way in which I’d ever view my diagnosis as analogous to death, by the way. It was really quite a positive and helpful experience!)

And a bonus special interest question: Was there a specific match, storyline, or wrestler that made you into a wrestling fan instead of a casual viewer? What was it that caught your attention?

It was Chris Jericho.

In late 2000, I decided to try watching wrestling. I had always hated it, but my new boyfriend (now my husband) was really into it. And he seemed to have good taste otherwise, so I figured I should at least try to understand what the hell had gone wrong with him on this one thing. So I tuned into Raw, and there was this little lippy Canadian causing all sorts of shit. And that was it! All I wanted to do was watch this bratty asshole with a sharp tongue and a hair trigger crying reflex antagonize his opponents and then get flustered if and when things didn’t work out properly. And that’s exactly what I did for about 18 years. Even when I lost interest in wrestling in general, I still loved Jericho.

But it ended as suddenly as it began. Jericho attacked Tetsuya Naito in New Japan in 2018. Other members of LIJ jumped in to protect him. There was a split second where I thought Jericho was going to hit Hiromu Takahashi. And I involuntarily squealed “DON’T YOU TOUCH HIM” at my laptop screen. Friendship ended with Jericho. Hiromu Takahashi is my best wrestler now. (Well, one of the best, at least. Tetsuya Endo forever.)

[fmdminhee]

task. #famedrstask1.

notes: word counts are included with each individual answer! completed for +5 tracker points.

assuming your muse has changed in some way, be it internally or as a result of a change of the external factors around them, how is your muse different? these can be as small as an opinion on a song they hadn’t released previously or as big as a major change in their background. word count: 261.

minhee’s childhood prior to becoming a trainee is pretty much the exact same as before the restructuring. dance prodigy says fuck u crazy dance mom, i’m not gonna be maddie ziegler, and ends up becoming an idol. she started training a year earlier than before though, so she had a slightly longer training process! i think the most obvious change to everyone else is her faceclaim, which is now lee hyeri. buuuut if you take a look at her pages or app or anything else, you’ll see that she’s now a main dancer, lead vocal & rapper, rather than being a main dancer, lead rapper & vocal! this was sort of a selfish change on my part, because i wanted to open her up to some opportunities for solo work that wouldn’t have suited her before because of her position, but that would’ve fitted more along the lines of what i initially imagined for her image than the options actually available to her. she’s also been a lot happier for a lot longer, because instead of debuting with a concept she hated, minhee got to debut in ... an age appropriate group! if you look here, you can see some examples of what i thought of when thinking of minhee’s ideal group and ... yeah, lily lines up with that pretty well. not perfectly, but pretty well. she’s still dealing with her issues surrounding her family, her sexuality and her fear of aging, but for the most part, minhee’s a lot more settled, or even satisfied, in terms of her career.

what does your muse think of their company and their group? word count: 255.

let’s start with lily, minhee’s beloved. she loves her members, she loves the overwhelming majority of their songs, and she’s proud as hell of the legacy they’ve built up for themselves so far. to be honest, sometimes she it just hits her that oh shit, she’s minnie from lily! and oh shit, they’re basically the biggest girl group ever. no one tell her that candy inherited nation’s girl group or that ultraviolet are taking over the world, let her be dumb. no, but genuinely, she can’t believe the scale of what they’ve achieved sometimes. she doesn’t totally feel like she deserves all the love she gets. then there’s the company behind it all; bc entertainment. she wonders all the time if her mother would’ve went along with everything if it was any other company that minhee came home with a callback from. probably not. for that alone, she’s thankful. she sort of dislikes being portrayed as perfect and untouchable -- more silly and down to earth than a lot of her peers under the company, but still. it’s just part and parcel of bc’s status. the reason it gets to her is that she’s very much not that perfect girl next door that the company wants her to be, and she puts a lot of pressure on herself to live up to it. as such, minhee probably doesn’t take advantage of all of the resources being under bc allows her access to as much as she should, choosing instead to just grin and bear it. 

is your muse on their first contract or their second? if they’ve renewed, what were their feelings around that at the time and what were their hopes for their second contract? if they haven’t renewed, what are their current thoughts on the end of their eventual first contract? word count: 260.

minhee is on her second contract. she renewed with bc in 2019 for a further seven years, which doesn’t feel like that long of a time. seven years seemed like a liftetime when she signed her debut contract in 2012, but it went by pretty fast for her. finding out what the rest of her members were doing was the most important thing for minhee when choosing whether or not to renew. with lily’s status in the industry, the money she made over the previous years, and the wealth belonging to her family, she felt confident that she’d be okay no matter what happened. a safety net. but her preference was always going to be to continue with the rest of lily if possible. she wouldn’t have forced the issue if the others didn’t want to though ... at least not on purpose. knowing minhee, she probably would’ve been crying all over the place and ended up messing with everyone’s plans like that. maybe she would’ve put out an ad like, “nation’s girl group in search of new agency. must be willing to take in four fully grown women and meet all of their demands.” as for the terms in her second contract, minhee was looking for some more royalties and some reassurance that lily would continue to receive the levels of resources and investment that they were already receiving from the company, as well as more opportunities for her to grow as a soloist. she didn’t want them falling by the wayside. she’s too young to be washed up! 

what are your muse’s goals and motivations? word count: 259.

in terms of her career, minhee actually has some pretty lofty ambitions. her top two focuses are solo music and modeling, and they’re basically split an even 50/50. she wants to continue releasing upbeat solo songs, but as for the music itself, aside from some dabbling in lyrics, she’s happy to leave it to the professionals. her primary interest, aside from the obvious performance and promotion aspects, lies in developing her own choreography. for her own songs firstly, but also for lily’s songs, and maybe even others within the company. outside of bc remains to be seen. she’s been really inspired over the years by a lot of the dancers and choreographers that she’s worked with, even from before entering bc, and she’d like to inspire someone else some day too! and modeling ... i can’t lie, minhee just likes looking pretty and getting free stuff, so she’d like to do some more of that. 

as for her personal life ... messy as hell! she still really wants to find love but still only goes looking for it with fuckboys. she wants to get closer with her dad and her extended family, but is finding it difficult to pull off while also keeping her mother at arm’s length. she also can’t help antagonising her mother because she’s a dumb brat. i don’t think minhee realises it yet, but she’s slowly coming to a place of self acceptance too. when she does realise it, i think that’s something that will really motivate her to be the best she can be.

what is one conflict, internal or external, that your muse is currently dealing with, has recently dealt with, or will need to deal with in the future? word count: 262.

i’ve talked in depth about minhee’s conflict over her sexuality here, which all still holds true, but i want to take this opportunity to talk about something else very close to my heart concerning minhee that i’ve mentioned once or twice in passing but never explicitly. minhee is autistic. she just doesn’t know it yet. some fun mun trivia is that i’m autistic! but, as is typical for a lot of afab people, i was basically an adult by the time it was diagnosed. you might say, hey sucy, stop projecting on your muses, but i say no! write what you know and all that. it’s kind of ironic though, because not even i realised minhee could very well be autistic until i’d written her for two years, and deciding took me another. and now she has to go through the diagnostic process again in character, smh me. anyways, yeah, minhee is probably going to have it suggested to her pretty soon while seeking some help for her anxiety about aging, and after that she’s gonna have to recontextualise her whole life because it’s truly like a lightbulb moment for a lot of people, myself included. suddenly everything that was weird to you growing up makes sense. it’s kind of a lot to wrap your head around, and would be for anyone, so writing about that for minhee is going to be interesting. i mentioned above that she’s been kind of moving towards self acceptance anyways, and i think this will be a very big turning point for her on that journey.

if your muse has established career claims, what are their thoughts on their career so far? if they do not, how do they feel about not having individual activities yet? what would they like to do in the future, if anything? if they don’t have ambitions for individual activities, explain why. word count: 277.

she does! her individual activities consist of modeling jobs and a couple of variety show cast positions, because i felt that these were the avenues she would’ve been pushed down up until more recently in her career, when her interest in choreographing for herself would’ve really taken off. minhee has really enjoyed her career so far. she feels settled within the entertainment industry, and that type of security is so sexy to her. the less chance that her mother can say i told you so the better.it’s kind of a big difference for her in terms of character actually, but this incarnation of minhee likes being on variety shows! she’s actually confident appearing on them! this is because of the difference in concept between lily and lipstick. lipstick’s minnie’s confidence took a long time to build up. lily’s minnie’s didn’t. she’d like to be on more variety shows in the future, especially something competition based, like dancing with the stars ... or masterchef, for a laugh, because she’d be the first person eliminated. and then, there’s the modeling. as mentioned a couple of questions ago, it’s something she wants to focus pretty tightly on going forward. her favourite brand that she’s been the ambassador for so far is crocs. she loves her crocs. she has, like, five different colours. crocs, please sign minhee again. working with etude house and kloud was pretty cool too though. sometimes she’s still able to swing free beers when she goes out. so, going forward, she wants to continue with those types of gigs, as well as pursuing more solo music and developing her skills as a choreographer, like i mentioned earlier!