#but then i went all 'yeah that's totally the only reason. nothing autistic here'

[hecatesbroom]

It's so funny to look back on characters that really resonated with you in the past when you've discovered a Big New Thing about yourself. Like,, what do you mean I didn't just like that character but had a crush on her? Because I'm a lesbian? Me?? I guess that has to be the only reason I have so many emotionally repressed blorbos, because that's hot or something? But wait, why is everyone diagnosing my favourite characters with autism? You can be like me and not be autistic, why is everyone saying thi-

Ah.

I see.

[everythingwasnormalhere]

Craig headcanons, go

GO GAYS GO 🙌✨

Autistic

He's so autistic it's insane

He has shutdowns way too often :(

Even more often as he grows up

He's associated flipping people off with being able to leave class (to go to counselor's office) so he does it when he gets too overwhelmed at school

Because he's never been taught it's wrong, too, but that's secondary

When he has shutdowns he goes non-verbal too

Which has gotten everyone to assume he's simply not too talkative and let him be

Tweek eventually learnt what Craig's shutdowns were and he helped him out with them every time since then

For example getting Craig out of class when he looked like he was getting overwhelmed

Craig's so grateful for this<3

He doesn't get an autism diagnosis until 15 for some reason

Even though he didn't talk until he was 4- it's really weird it took him so long to get it actually

He had a really hard time coping with his diagnosis at first

So much internalized ableism

He probably locked himself in his room for a couple days after that

He told Tweek before he told anyone else

And Tweek helped him come to terms with it<3

Now he's fine with it :)

He hates how noise cancelling headphones feel, and instead wears earplugs to block noise

He doesn't ask teachers for permission because they can't see the earplugs with his hat anyways

His spin is totally space

He Loves space

He's infodumps to Tweek about it really often, Tweek loves it even though he doesn't understand even a third of it

He has those glow in the dark stars on his room's ceiling and a projector

His style never changed much through his life, comfortable clothes, nothing really specific

He's never stopped wearing that hat

Even though it's kinda broken now

Transmasc (he/him), only Tweek and his family know

He's always been so Boy even as a little kid that nobody's ever thought he could be anything else at all

Not exactly insecure about this but... Yes

Awful chest dysphoria

He's gay :)

His father thought that meant he was actually a girl but nope

Sorry for crushing your hopes Mr Tucker but your son is gay 😔✨

He's actually fine with it after not too long dw

Craig's family life is pretty great :)

Still he sleeps at Tweek's quite often

When he's not, Tweek's usually sleeping at his

Because otherwise they both struggle sleeping by themselves

They have such a healthy and cute relationship istg

They've been fake dating since they were 9, real dating since 10, and Craig got them promise rings at 13

They've obviously had troubles a couple times but they fixed them<3

Btw Craig got braces at 12 and wore them till 14

His teeth went from Awful to Actually Pretty Ok

But the braces made him so insecure while he wore them

His favorite subjects at school are the ones related to science

Math? He's awesome at it

Physics? He loves it

Chemistry? Fuck yeah

Biology? Pretty cool too

He hates literature with his whole soul though

"What was the artist feeling here?" "How would I know I wasn't there" (mood)

He's taller than Tweek until he turns 13

After that Craig mostly stops growing and instead Tweek gets so tall it's crazy

It felt so weird to them at the beginning 😭

And yes, Craig is half Peruvian on his mom's side :)

He and Kenny have conversations in Spanish sometimes

It's something they bond over idk

Aaand I think that's it :D he's a pretty chill dude tbh

[mcrmadness]

This is just me talking about (my) asexuality and aromanticism and mainly about how I figured I'm aroace. I'm from Finland and recently turned 30 so my experience and "lgbt+ history" might not be what you know it as, especially if you are not from Europe, or if your native language is English.

Also this is highly personal, so I doubt anyone here will have 100% same experience. But that's fine because remember: we're all individuals here and these are NEVER universal. You're still valid even if you wouldn't relate to what being aspec is to me.

It might be IS a long post so beware, but I've just been feeling like writing down some thoughts so here we go...

What I have been able to track is that I was 17, in 2008, when I first stumbled upon the term "asexuality". I don't remember exactly how, but I just remember reading about it and immediately going "yeah that's me". But what I do remember is that no one talked it being about sexual attraction. Basically how understood it was: asexuality = sex-repulsion.

I was 17, and somehow I knew I was sex-repulsed, but at the same time also thought I'm just a minor, so it's normal to be sex-repulsed. But even after turning 18, I don't recall ever feeling sexual attraction. I didn't think of myself as a "late bloomer" but just as someone who just has no interest towards sex. At some point I became really anxious of men, however. Nothing has ever happened to me* but still I, for some reason, developed terrible fear of men. I'm afab and just did not want to be seen as an object, and it made, still makes me, terrified to think someone might look at me and have Emotions. I know that we can't control our brains, I mean, I can't look at someone and force myself to feel attraction - just like those who do feel attraction, can't force themselves to stop feeling attraction. They can only control their actions. But yeah, I also had horrible (sexual) intrusive thoughts due to my generalized anxiety disorder at some point, which did not really help. They got a bit better when I came into terms with my asexuality and aromanticism, but sometimes they still come at me and it's never fun, but at least they're not as strong as what they used to be.

*(Unless if you can count that as sexual harrasment when, CW, I was 11 and a classmate was "into" me and tried to touch my face and talk "sweet things" to me but made it into a show despite me being uncomfortable and usually crying cos as a neurodivergent I didn't know how else to react.)

But anyway, back to the topic. So for years I understood asexuality as sex-repulsion, but I guess it's because I, well, am a sex-repulsed ace. So if I'm sex-repulsed, why would I then look at someone and feel something if I'm repulsed by the thing anyway? Like, it probably can't get any simpler than this :D And I know today that it's not as simple anymore. But that was 2008, at school (in ~2005) they only talked about gays a little, on one page in a sex.ed. book that otherwise was maybe 100 pages long. Only one page. About gays. And it was basically "Some boys like boys or some girls like girls and it's totally fine." and that was it, but the overall assumption was that everyone likes someone. And also there were no romantic orientations. Liking someone = both sexually and romantically. Not liking = not a thing except when you were depressed or otherwise mentally ill, or autistic or mentally disabled (which is a SUPER ableist take btw). I don't remember teachers ever talking about this, but it could also just be my adhd, maybe they did mention, but I just don't remember. At least in my notebooks there is no mention of this, everything was very much heteronormative and amatonormative, and also there was only two genders. I don't remember ever hearing about transgender people, apart from foreign documentaries and in them they were always portrayed as some shocking freaks of the nature, and loads of wrong terms were used. And this is still the mid and late 2000s we're talking about!

So this takes us to the other part aka aromanticism. Back then asexuality was not only sex-repulsion but also merged together with aromanticism, because people didn't talk about romantic orientations yet. So asexuality was not only sex-repulsion, but also you simply just not wanting a relationship. Again, nothing about attraction, just someone who did not care about sex nor relationships. A "forever single", if you will.

This was already annoying me a lot back then because I was really annoyed by sex "running the world". I was so angry because why is asexual the only sexuality that doesn't like sex? All the other sexualities had the assumption of them always wanting to have sex. Like, even think about someone who is straight, you hear that someone is straight, and you automatically assume(d) that oh they're into sex too cos why wouldn't they be. This was really driving me nuts because I was sure there are people who want to have a partner, but never want to have sex! I was still experiencing crushes, and I knew for sure it was nothing sexual, so it annoyed me that just because I'm asexual, it means I can't have crushes. That's why I actually called myself as "asexual bi" for a while, because "bisexual" indicated I would have not been sex-repulsed and I wanted to point out that I'm NOT into sexual things, at all - and remember that this was still the late 2000s or early 2010s and I had not heard of romantic orientations yet! So I was up to something, there just were no terms for that yet! Today that would be called bi-/panromantic asexual.

I haven't been able to track the exact date or even year when did I figure out I'm aromantic, or when did I hear about romantic orientations for the first time. From the messages I've been able to find, I was already in my early 20s. Aka somewhere around maybe 2011-2013. In those, I have still been wondering what I am or if I even want to have a relationship, not being really able to tell what I wanted or didn't want. Again, no one told me romantic orientations are about ATTRACTION and not about whether you have commitment issues or not (this as a half-joke, cos I have severe commitment issues with everything :D I need to feel free!).

Anyway, I do remember my key moment with aromanticism, or the "aromantic awakening" as you could call it too, was when I was 17 or 18. Or maybe I was older? I don't know, I have time blindness. Anyway, I had this one online friend I had a "crush" on (I think it was just undiagnosed adhd's person hyperfixation) and I even told her about it. Everything just is super shady, from those years, I was not really on my best and there are so many overlapping memories that feel like different alternative universes instead of memories on a same timeline. Anyway, I just remember at some point thinking about this girl and I thought about some "romantic" stuff, like kissing, and I just remember my brain going "NOOOOOPE!" I had wanted to meet with her some day so bad, but when I started thinking about actually meeting with her, I started to nope the fuck out. All I had in my head was awkward embarrassing "first kiss" scenarios from movies and I just was not having it! I basically went "lol I guess I'm aro too, then XD" but I still don't remember when did I have this realization. Was I 17? Or was I, say, 22? I guess I need to go through my old MSN Messenger and Skype convos some day to investigate this further because I really want to know. I couldn't even find anything from my Tumblr from those times (I registered here in 2011), but I don't know if that's just me not tagging or Tumblr search functioning normally (aka it never finds anything).

But yeah, I am touch-repulsed. And kiss-repulsed, and romance-repulsed, too, (unless it's my OTP we're talking about). I'm still not exactly sure if I'm touch repulsed because I'm aromantic, or if I'm aromantic because I'm touch-repulsed. I only know that because of my sensory issues (I'm neurodivergent), I have never liked touching nor being touched. Even as a little kid I hated hugs and never liked sitting on anyone's lap. I only tolerated my parents, mainly my mom, because they were my safe place as an extremely shy baby/toddler/kid, who was especially wary about men. I can't explain the latter, but there was something about adult men that caused me (as a baby) to hide my face against my mom's shoulder if they talked to me. I did that to everyone I didn't know, but especially to men I didn't know. No idea why.

I also remember how my siblings loved to sit on people's laps and were always climbing onto their laps, and I didn't like this. And once my (late) grandma was so touched when she asked me if I want to sit on her lap (I was maybe 5-7?) and I agreed just to make her happy. I still remember how it felt, and I did not like it at all, but it still made my grandma so happy that I THINK she almost cried when she told my mom I actually agreed to sit on her lap. I'm not sure how real this last part of the memory is because I was so young. But I do remember thinking I do that for a change because I knew my grandma would be happy.

So yeah, my touch-repulsion is not exactly a new thing but just something that has been a part of my personality forever. But is that the core reason for why I only feel aesthetic attraction? I never look at people and feel like I wanna touch. More of the opposite, the idea of having to touch them or them touching me makes me go "eeewww". If you have seen that video of a gibbon shaking their whole body after seeing a rat in their exhibit? That's what I feel like when I think about touching or being touched, in just any way, also platonically.

The only time I feel "sensual attraction" is when I see photos or videos of animals. The urge to pet a tiger is insane. But the feel of another human's skin or muscle (or hair or whatever) is very repulsive to me.

I still remember how disgusting it felt to e.g. sit on a cousin's lap. We sometimes used swings like this, and somehow I was aware of it not feeling nice, but still not doing anything about it cos it also was okay? Only later I have realized I really, really loathe the texture of human skin. Or the warmth and overall feeling of a human body. For example, I was at least 7 or younger when I sat on my cousin's lap while we were sitting on a swing and STILL, after over 20 years, I have that all in my body memory. I remember how the thigh bone felt under my legs and how freaking disgusting the muscles felt inbetween. Also at school, on the 1st grade, we often had to walk in a line of twos after the teacher and hold the pair's hand so no one gets lost. My then-friend had so ridiculously dry skin that the only thing I could think of was how I felt like throwing up because the skin on her palm felt so damn disgusting. I still can feel that in my hand when I think of it. That's one of my "core memories" from 1st grade - how disgusting the human skin can feel like.

I don't think I have ever felt actual romantic attraction towards anyone. It's really difficult to differentiate because as I mentioned, I get those people hyperfixations easily. I guess it's the same hormones but I never really want to do anything with them? I guess it's the emotional intimacy that "attracts" me and what gets me excited, but I'm still not exactly sure what emotional intimacy means to me. I don't exactly fall into the QPR category either, in a way I wish I had a best friend whose best friend also I would be, and that neither would have anyone else who is "better" than the other one. But the only intimacy there would be emotional intimacy, nothing else. And I need my freedom so I wouldn't move in with any human being, either.

Sometimes I've thought my "ideal partner" would be a robot because if I get annoyed, I could just turn it off and stuff into a closet and leave there, and if I felt like not having a "relationship" anymore, I could just remove the harddrive and destroy the robot, or both. That way I would be the only one with the memories, and I wouldn't have to worry about someone out there knowing things about me, things that only the closest can know, and I'm really afraid of letting anyone close in case it won't work (also with regular friendships) because I can't stop thinking about how much I wish I had that MIB memory cancelling device so that they would again know almost nothing, or at least much much less about me. There's already one friendship that ended a few years ago and I still keep thinking about how I wish I could take everything back and how I wish they delete(d) all the files and drawings and stuff I sent them. There are so many things about me I wish I never told them, now as we are no longer friends. Back then it felt like "of course this is gonna last a lifetime!" but turns out that nope, not all friendships will.

I guess it's time to stop rambling. This post is really long already. If you read it all the way here: congrats. And thanks. You probably just wasted your time but... that's on you I guess :DDD But yeah, some thoughts from a 30-years-old aroace who has been aware of their identity for at least or almost 10 years now.

[vendeavendea]

How Entrapta Has Become My All Time Favourite Autistic Representation in Media: Long Version

Just so you know what to expect, this is more of a very long and boring personal post and less of a character analysis. By "very long", I mean "very long". Also, half of it was written at night when I was supposed to be sleeping (like, right now), so some parts might not even make sense. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Just days before I started to watch She-Ra, I answered a question in a writer group where someone asked what are the do's and don'ts of writing an autistic character. I've been told a couple of times in my life that I can’t be autistic based on the fact that I'm not really interested in or good at science, so I think special interests of autistic people are something that definitely has to be presented better in media. So I advised this person to make their character have a special interest that's NOT related to science, technology, space or computers, because it's a very common misconception that people on the autism spectrum are always into these stuff, and there are so many autistic fictional characters based on this stereotype that I feel like we absolutely don't need any more.

And then I saw Entrapta.

I didn't know she's canonically autistic until a much later episode, but it didn't surprise me when I was told she is, because my autism radar went off like a hundred times while watching System Failure and all her other season 1 appearances (so did my ADHD radar, by the way, but as far as I know, this hasn't been confirmed by the creators, so it's just my headcanon). And she looked like the purple ponytails princess version of the autism stereotype that I didn’t want to see any more of. The genius who is into space and robots, knows nothing about human relationships and keeps driving everyone nuts with her long and impossible-to-follow scientific monologues. Also cute and funny, yeah, but still, as someone on the spectrum who is super artistic and has nothing to do with science stuff, my first reaction was "dang, not this shit again." Just for once in my life, I wanted to see an autistic representation that's not just that typical weird tech-lover but a character that's at least a tiny bit more like me. Seeing her only in her first episode, little did I know that Entrapta's character has an incredible depth and her whole arc was going to be hair-raisingly personal to me (I know I'm not funny, but pun intended).

First, let’s talk about robots, because we can't talk about Entrapta without talking about robots. Entrapta builds robots just for fun, because technology is her thing, but there's actually a lot more behind this. Starting from as early as her debute episode, we see through the whole series that she creates robots with different designs, abilities, personalities, very similar to real people, as a sort of substitute for the human (or whatever species) company she'd wish to have. She even gives them names. She programs them to like being around her, to understand her, something that she hasn't really experienced from real people, which is sad enough on its own, but even sadder if we consider that she actually has human staff working at her fortress. She pretty literally makes friends, and she does it with the help of her special interest. And this totally reminds me of my primary school years when I had zero real friends and used my special interest, which was writing fictional stories and creating worlds/universes/languages in my head, to make up imaginary characters that could be my "friends" so that I wouldn't be that lonely.

Then, her interactions with other characters, especially with Hordak. Entrapta consoling Hordak in Huntara is a very powerful scene to me, not only what she says, but also how she says it. When Hordak starts venting about how he is a failure and all, Entrapta's first immediate response is to provide a practical solution, to design an armor for him, and comforting him with words is only a secondary action. She's helping in her own way, with technology, because that's what she's the best at, but she also wants to make sure he understands that fixing imperfections isn't always the solution, embracing them is. I also love how it's hinted with the "loved" crystal that Entrapta's love language may be acts of service (and probably quality time as well), which is another thing we have in common. And there's another thing in that scene I found very relatable: that part when she stops consoling him and starts to talk about herself being a failure instead. In real life, most people would read that in a negative way. I've been in many situations where I've tried doing something similar to people who were venting to me, and normally, they're like "ew, I'm the one complaining now, stop making it about you." But Hordak's reaction is different, all he does is try to tell her she's not a failure before she shushes him, then he just listens. He understands what Entrapta means by saying all those things about herself isn't "hey, look, my life is also horrible, so I get to complain, too" but rather "I feel you, we're the same". For a person who thinks and acts as differently from average people as Entrapta does, connecting with someone through similar experiences and feelings is a huge thing, and this is so relatable to me that I cried like a baby while watching that scene. Also, kudos to Christine Woods for making Entrapta's monologue sound so factual and casual. It really gives the impression of someone who is fully aware of her own strengths and weaknesses and accepts herself as a whole with all her flaws. The way she lists all the things that make her feel like a failure right after saying "imperfection is beautiful" is just... wow. But seriously, this whole "imperfection is beautiful" thing in general is such a cliché that it's not even supposed to work on me, but hell it does, because it's so well-presented that it's actually one of the most powerful moments of the whole series. Entrapta giving me self-acceptance lessons is all I've ever needed in my life (Hordak probably agrees, lol).

Speaking of self-acceptance, I also love how Beast Island shows that it's a long and difficult process with its ups and downs instead of just a door you walk through once in your life and then stay on the other side forever. Even if I accept and love myself the way I am, it's still totally normal to have low points with thoughts like "I'm not suited for friendship" or "everyone leaves me behind". And it's very nice and uplifting to have someone's love and support when I'm in a bad mood with stuff like this on my mind, but personally, I often find it easier to deal with if I have something related to any of my special interests around that I can focus my thoughts on. My "we flew here on an ancient First Ones ship, do you wanna see it?" would be something like "do you wanna create some characters and then write the shit out of them?" and before this show I've never actually realised how neurodiverse it is to use a hobby or interest for self-care like this. The "definitely the ship" part called me out so hard, and I just adore how the writers were able put so much meaning into a single joke line.

Back to interactions, there's also something painfully relatable in the way the other princesses treat Entrapta. Even in the beginning in No Princess Left Behind, but mostly in season 4 and 5. In most cases, Entrapta is only considered to be worthy enough to not be left behind in situations when her skills are useful. Other characters "liking" her isn't really about herself as a person but her tech knowledge. Just like when you go to school and the only reason your classmates want to make friends with you is because you always do your homework and let others copy it, or you're good at explaining stuff and are willing to help people getting prepared for tests/exams. When I was in grammar school, my classmates ignored me or mocked me for liking animation and comics, but every now and then they did the bare minimum of treating me like a human being and expected me to do their arts homework in return, because I was the only one in my class who was good at arts. When I studied linguistics at the uni, I was really into phonology and historical linguistics, and those were the compulsory subjects most of the other students were struggling with, so many people wanted to hang out with me just to make sure they could get my notes before the exams. The same people kept calling me nerd and making fun of me behind my back. I also had a few genuine friends, which I'm grateful for, but I still know what it feels like to be needed only for a specific skill while not being noticed and respected as a person, and Launch portraits this experience in a very clever way. It's so amazing to see how the princesses realise who Entrapta really is and start to treat her as someone who just thinks differently instead of someone who's a deliberate bad person. They finally get to see that she's not just an unwary tech nerd, but also a determined, caring and loyal friend who gives others so much love in her own geeky way and deserves love, too. But I shouldn't even be surprised, I mean, we're talking about a show that teaches us "you worth more than what you can give to other people," and it's great how this message applies to other characters as well, not only to Adora. And the best part is that this whole conflict is not presented as something black and white, it's not like Entrapta is the poor misunderstood autistic person and the princesses are the evil allistic bad guys who mistreat her. It's simply a miscommunication between neurotypical and neurodivergent individuals, and while the other princesses get to understand that they hurt Entrapta by their actions and that they should be more respectful of her, Entrapta also realises that she's made mistakes and hurt people, becomes aware of her own bad habits and makes efforts to get rid of them in order to save Glimmer. Plus I also love the faint implication that most of the princesses never really, genuinely, 100% make friends with Entrapta even after this scene, because sometimes people just don't resonate with each other enough to become close friends, but they learn to accept her differences and treat her with respect, nonetheless. This episode is so full of realistic interactions and character development it blows my mind every time I rewatch it.

I could just go on and on about all those tiny relatable details such as "I've waited years for someone to ask me about my theories!" I think this was the line that first made me fall in love with Entrapta's character. I mean, if someone from the crew wrote this line, that means they might know the feeling, too, so I'm not the only dork who feels this way every time someone asks me a question about my hyperfixations. And it's just so reassuring. Entrapta has many lines of the kind, they're not even important plotwise, but still super relatable and validating.

Now that we're here, and I know that I probably should have said this at the beginning of the post, but I'm too lazy to rewrite the first paragraph accordingly, I'd like to note that these are all my own interpretations and reflections on Entrapta's character based on my own experiences. This whole thing is totally personal, and I don't want anyone to think that this is how Entrapta is supposed to be seen by the whole fandom. So yeah, that's pretty much it for now.

[solarcitymelodies]

Wowza sorry y'all about the random massive Rockafire spam, I'm pretty sure ??most?? People on here? know me for just Knight Rider because that's the only thing I've ever REALLY posted about--

but I Do Not Care it's RAE hours right now so uhhh here's some headcannons that probably aren't Canon compliant very much because I just got into RAE like last week

So like. I feel like Mitzi is a Good Amount younger than the rest of the band like she was in highschool when she joined, the rest of em were all Adults™ and she was a little bit nervous about it because...... ADULTS™

She was just lookin for a place to get her singing voice out there, because ya girl REALLY wanted to perform, and showbiz happened to have a slot open, but she did not expect all of the members to be older than her (although looking back, she realized she probably should have expected that)

It was intimidating at first but Billy Bob and Fatz were just the absolute sweetest and they introduced her properly to the rest of the band because she was like "oh I barely talk to them because I get nervous :(" and the resident dads p much said "aight we can do all the talking for you then, how about that?" And badabing badaboom she's now attached to these two and like honestly who isn't or maybe that's just me but ANYWAYS I feel like the band would become a second home/safe space for her

Yeah fr some reason I have BIG long headcannon for her joining the band but the rest of them? Nobody knows how they got there for all I know they just Showed Up One Day

Also I came across this

https://youtu.be/UU7BeUWQBDI

Which got me thinkin about what my headcannons were as far as sexuality/gender stuff

And I find the concept of Billy Bob being Very Much Straight And Ignorant but trying his hardest to be a good ally SO funny like if someone came out to him he'd probably be like "oh!! I don't understand why you would choose that lifestyle but I respect you!!" not realizing how incredibly stupid he sounds sjkrjh like I don't think he can very easily wrap his head around how people are just. not cishet. so he's like "OH then it must be a choice, right? like you can choose to be gay but you're born straight. Right?" and everyone just shakes their heads in the background but he does earnestly try his best and my man would rather DIE than disrespect someone's pronouns I know this for sure

Fatz is pretty similar, straight ally and a lil confused but he's got the spirit, you know? He still least knows being gay (as well as,,, m o s t sexualities that aren't straight, although some he doesn't get/know about at all) isn't a choice but he hasn't quite grasped that being trans is also not a choice. He will respect your pronouns to hell and back but by god he doesn't get it,,, he's trying though and he feels very accomplished in himself that he's starting to get the hang of using they/them even though he slips up a lot

The rest of the band encourages the HELL out of these two because they're. Trying their best and making an honest effort which is more than a pretty good chunk of people would give

Rolfe, Earl, and Dook are the reasons Billy Bob and Fatz are trying so hard to understand it lmao

Rolfe took it upon himself to hang up a MASSIVE gay pride flag backstage, being the flaming homosexual that he is, and the rest of the squad quickly realized "oh he's GAY gay he wasn't kidding" because at first they literally thought he was joking as he was actually just being openly and obnoxiously a raging mlm (and like I mean no shade to him this isn't me tryna to make fun of it because my dumb sapphic ass almost crashed my car once because I saw a pretty girl walk down the street. And by "once" I mean. Yesterday.) Anyways yeah that's when the rest of em Realized and were like "OH" but after the massive pride flag was hung up that prompted Dook to come out and they were all like "???? YOU TOO????"

Dook is a non-binary ICON he's a demiboy and goes by both he/him and they/them and probably would have a bunch of pride pins I think,,, I'm not really sure of his sexuality though!! honestly he kinda gives me bisexual vibes but Who Knows . Not me. He has a HELL of a time trying to explain his gender to the rest of the band (except for Rolfe because like. He's a part of the community so he knows) and basically he was met with "so you're just a dude but ✨spicy✨?" and it was like, "no, but I have no idea how to explain it in a way that will make sense to you, so. yes?" And that explanation seemed to suffice for most of them

Mitzi went in knowing NOTHING about what being non-binary was so she asked a l o t of questions about it, which Dook just kinda dealt with answering (he's heard most of it before, and it gets tiring after a while. if you're nb or trans or honestly any part of LGBTQ+ you know what I mean) but he thought it was really sweet of her to be so determined to learn about it and eventually she did get a grasp on it ish, so she was able to understand why it wasn't just ✨spicy male✨ (the conversation pretty much went "well if i was just male, don't you think I would label myself that way instead?" "....oH TRUE!!!") and she ended up a VERY passionate ally, and she'll ask occasionally about how to be better at it, bein a queen as she is 👉👉 also definitely started questioning her sexuality after a while and just went with "maybe bicurious" and Rolfe, Dook, and Earl were all like "ONE OF US, ONE OF US"

Earl has never once spoken about his sexuality in his life, because 1. He's very aware that's an awkward conversation to have with a puppet, and 2. He's aroace anyways, which is basically what people assume even if they don't realize it just for their own peace of mind, because seriously, puppets and any identity that ISN'T aroace creates a really uncomfortable mental image for... Most people, pretty much. So it's not like he ever needed to say anything about it, which is convenient for him because he wouldn't want to say anything either way. not worth the risk of embarrassing himself and making everyone feel awkward

(side note ish though Rolfe 100% came out to Earl first and was met with "I already knew that but okay." Rolfe was mildly offended)

And spEAKING OF EARL he's VERY much sentient but he can't say he's particularly enthusiastic about it because Rolfe has to carry him around everywhere

He can move on his own but it's limited and generally annoying to maneuver around with his tiny body so he just says screw it half the time and stays on Rolfe's arm or hitch a ride on Random Object, but like... Yeah, the majority of the time Rolfe just has to deal with only having one arm available and a puppet directly next to him making fun of him at every possible chance

They high-key have chaotic and unorganized college roommate vibes (like they're actually roommates because... Where tf is Earl supposed to go?? So Rolfe took him in) and idk if this is really like a part of my headcannons or if I just think it's funny so I keep entertaining the idea of it but I think it would be Fantastic if Rolfe had no idea how to cook but Earl somehow did so this idiot is trying to take instructions from a puppet, who can't physically show him what to do, and it's like Hell's Kitchen live featuring a furry and a sentient stuffed animal

Aaaaamd going off of my Rolfe and Earl headcannons still Rolfe for SURE has some sort of executive dysfunction issue. ADD or ADHD I'm not sure (probably ADHD) but he definitely has it also this totally isn't just me projecting how dare you accuse me of that

And!!! More about Dook!!!! I don't know how or why I thought up of this but I cannot possibly imagine him any other way now-- he's autistic and space is his Big Huge special interest, and if you ever ask him about it you have to be prepared to get infodumped or possibly even shown a PowerPoint presentation, because GOD he loves space!!! He wants everyone to know all about it!! He knows not everyone thinks it's as cool as he does so he tries to keep his mouth shut but when someone asks about it he can't help himself and will infodump a LOT, also haha drumming stims go brrrr, playing the drums isn't really a stim but he likes to just take his drumsticks and whack em around in the air and get that good ol Wavy Arm Action (wavy arms is best stim change my mind you can't it's GOOD)

Also i bbbbelieve earlier I reposted somethin about someone else headcannoning that he has echolalia, which I don't really know enough about to say anything on it?? But even if he doesn't have echolalia he'd probably repeat phrases over and over until he gets tired of them (which is,,, something I do lmao, it's either memes I get stuck in my head or things I've heard from various medias I like the inflections in (like one tiktokker I saw was talking about their tourettes and their vocal tics and one of them was "uh oh! How unfortunate!" and now I CAN'T STOP SAYING IT)) but like uhhh yeah :))) repeating phrases that get stuck in your head for various reasons for the win

This is already really long so I'm just gonna vibe out thanks for coming to my Ted talk feel free to ask questions I probably won't be able to answer a lot of em though because my headcannons are a Mess hehe >:)

[datingintampafails]

Chapter 32: Timmy*

Timmy* gave off a frat-boy kind of vibe with the pictures in his profile, a trope that has become my type. His profile did seem to be half-heartedly filled out; his hometown was just the abbreviation of the state, his employment simply said "cardiac surgery," and a couple typos.

Mostly my reason for wanting to message him, in particular, was that one of his prompts about a travel story was very obviously cut off and he ran out of characters. I messaged him saying the cliffhanger was dramatic and wanted to hear the whole story. It was a very long story, involving being in Ireland and a random person coming into his and his family member’s room. I mentioned I didn’t have anything quite that interesting regarding my travels before. We chatted more and although I wouldn’t say we had a lot of similar hobbies and interests, the conversation did flow well. He was definitely more active than I, going to the gym often and eating pretty healthy and en mass. Very much a gym bro type. I also had assumed he was a surgeon, given his position being cardiac surgery, but then learned later he was more involved in some sort of programming instead for cardiac devices, so not really cardiac surgery per se.

When we moved away from Hinge and onto text messaging, we were both mutually behaving as if we had known each other a while, and better than we did. At one point, he had asked, “are you a guy version of me?” To which, I was very aware of how little we knew about each other, which led me to respond that it was too soon to tell.

I did however confirm my place as forever the more aggressive one; I text him one day "Timmy*, when they fuck are we going out?" Not that it had been too much of a long time talking, but just that he had not yet made a move, and that we were obviously getting along and it would make sense for us to take that next step. We plan for a few days from then, a Tuesday, after work, and that it would have to be more or less played by ear because of our jobs' schedules being semi-unpredictable. My easy place, Armature Works, was chosen as where we would meet up.

Our date got pushed back slightly, as I got off on time, but he was going to be held up at work later than expected. He did however give me ample heads up, so I just relaxed at home a little longer than I would have otherwise, and perfected my outfit and minimal make-up. The day of the date, and leading up to it, I made jokes about being a catfish and that I was actually a middle-aged, fat, Russian man. I continued this while I waited for him when I was describing what outfit I was wearing so he could recognize me better with my mask on, then later added that I was still a middle-aged Russian man, but that I was still wearing a skirt and crop top. I waited for him on a bench for almost 30 minutes. I arrived on time to when he had delayed the date, but still too early apparently. Luckily, I had brought my headphones, so I just listened to some music to pass the time by.

Finally, I received a text message saying that he had parked and then that he could see me. Nothing is more uncomfortable than being seen and not seeing who is looking at you. I looked around and didn't see anyone that looked like him, so I went back to staring at my phone. Eventually, a man looking more like him appeared trotting down the small set of stairs next to me. Although he definitely wasn't short, he seemed shorter than what I was expecting, and his hairline seemed to be just starting to recede.

He was not familiar with the location as much as I am, so I took it upon myself to give him a tour of the location. Despite being indoors, and still pretty amidst a pandemic in late February, Timmy* kept taking his mask off. As a healthcare worker, I was confused and appalled; he should know better. I yelled at him every time to put it back on. Once he said, "you're one of those huh?" I almost rolled my eyes back into my head. Then he also asked me, "well when can I take it off?" to which I responded, "when we are outside and/or we sit down to eat/drink." He got a beer at one of the bars, and it was a beer that had some marijuana in it, which was an interesting choice. After having toured the whole place, it was time to split off to order our respective meals. I got my food, and a drink, and wandered over to the area I had last seen him, as he had said he was going to get a pizza. He was nowhere to be found, so I text him asking where he was. He indicated that he was over by where he had gotten his beer.

I found him and then he told me that he had ordered food from two different restaurants because he couldn't decide and also eats so much due to his athleticism. We found a spot to sit nearby outside, and it is a lovely night, we were comfortable in the fresh air. We both finally did take off our masks and started to eat.

I half-heartedly apologized for being so hard on him regarding the mask-wearing, but emphasized that I am passionate about proper mask-wearing because of my experience with having the virus and wanting to make sure to reduce the spread. He then said, "Oh you had COVID! I'm in a way glad to hear it." He then pauses before saying, "I have COVID too. My doctor said I'm asymptomatic? So I'm totally good." My eyes must have gotten the size of saucers; I leaned away from him and was looking around seeing if anyone had heard him. "Wait what?" Is all I could say. "Uh, no. Please tell me you're joking?" Timmy* stares at me confused, "I'm asymptomatic! So that means like I don't have it."

I am prepared to leave immediately. "So you had a positive test? What? Why are you here right now?" I say. Finally, he drops the rouse and admits he was kidding, but that he got me. "That was not funny. I was legitimately terrified!" So far, this date is bizarre. He mentions that because I joked around so much that I would appreciate it. I did not.

We eat our food and chat. Unfortunately, he also is a person who seems to eat with their mouth open. Another strike. Timmy* has become very comfortable around me, as he also decides to tell me another long story about the time he was "sexually assaulted by a doctor." Which was that he went to a doctor for a physical and that she had grabbed his testicles and had him cough, though the way he told it was extremely drawn out and had many mini-stories leading up to the point that was supposed to be the assault. I then told him, "I'm sorry to say that your doctor was not trying to hit on you on anything, that is a normal thing that happens with mens' checkups." This was news to him. It was obvious that he is not a well-versed healthcare worker.

Once we finished our food, I suggested we walk along the river. First, though, I wanted to drop off my leftovers in my car. We walk to it and I make him guess what kind of car I drive. He is impressed by my car and we don't linger long before I say we should leave the parking lot. He tells me that he has a muscle car, which is so random and I would never put him in a car like that. Whereas a sixteen-year-old girl might be googoo-gaga over this, as a full-grown adult, it isn't quite as alluring to have a car like that.

While on the riverwalk, I become irritated at the fact that he walks very slow. Slower than I am able to walk. It makes no sense as I am significantly shorter than he is, so my strides shouldn't be longer than his. I mention to him that he walks slow and I ask that he walk a little faster. He picked up the pace, but then slowly reverted to his tortoise-like speed over time. I tire of our uneven velocities and we take a seat on some rock benches. We chat about brief things and I suggest we walk back. Again, I battle with the paces, mention it a couple more times that I am unable to walk as slow as he walks.

We get back to the main area of Armature and take a seat in some oversized chairs. He tells me about his family and some stories about his relationships in middle school and high school, which are also drawn out and bizarre. It nears 10pm, and we are told by staff that they close at 10. A couple minutes til, I remind him we need to leave and I ask where he parked. He parked in a different lot, I offered to walk him to his car. He offers to drive me to my car. We do so and his muscle car is indeed very overly-masculine. He goes on to go through a bunch of random songs on Spotify, only playing each song for less than 30 seconds, very ADHD-like. He drives me to my car, but wants to keep me there, again showing me more songs. I'm politely just listening as he flexes on all the types of music he listens to. He tries to show off that he knows "alternative music," my preferred genre, but I point out that a lot of the songs he's playing are more "pop-punk" or just old alternative jams.

He compliments my music taste and mentions that he has noticed I am adept at knowing song names, musicians, movies, and so forth. I begin to joke that likely I am a little autistic, adding "I'm working on my eye contact," as I make direct eye contact with him. What he says next, is something that I was not prepared for, and something that still baffles me, and possibly always will. "Yeah, you do look a little retarded." Immediately, I burst out into laughter; not because I think what he said was funny, but because I am so bewildered and shocked by what was just said. Eventually, through the laughter tears I am able to get out, "Dude you shouldn't say that to a woman." He insists it was a joke and makes excuses, but I keep laughing, with my hand on the door handle just waiting for a good moment to step out. I repeat that what he said isn't cool, and eventually stop laughing long enough to say, "alright, on that note, I think I should head out." Being friendly, I still ask that he tell me when he gets home since I know he has a longer commute home than I do. I wave goodbye through our car windows.

The formalities are complete; he texts me ever so briefly the next day, respectfully I respond, knowing well I never plan on going out with him again. Then it seems we have a mutual ghosting situation, as I don't try to text him, nor he to me. This day I have another date, and after that one, I have no one that I want to communicate with as that is also a dud. All is good until a few days later when I am out with my friends in Ybor, drunk. I get a text from Timmy* saying "yo." I lament and groan and my friends ask about my reaction. I explain the situation and one of my guy friends asks for my phone. I hand it to him as he starts to text him on my behalf.

My phone is with my friend, but with my Apple Watch, I can see the text conversation and when he is responding. I start yelling "oh god please don't bring him here. I don't want to see this guy." Respecting my wishes, my friend decides to still fuck with him, but prevent this poor soul from spending money on an Uber and coming down.

My friends then send a selfie of themselves, with me not in it, saying "she's with me." I yell at them more saying, let this guy be, just ignore him. However, instead, my friend takes it a step further.

I tell my friend that he was too harsh and that I of course would have told him I wasn't interested, but a lot more mature and kindly. When later I check, understandably Timmy* has unmatched me on Hinge*, likely blocked my number. No loss there though.

[streamworthytv]

“Ableism as Plot Device” in Netflix’s “Locke & Key”

So...as noted, I have a beef with Locke & Key, and the way certain characters were handled in the show (remember, this has nothing to do with the comic, which I haven’t seen...I have no idea if it’s fraught with the same problems).

I first watched the show as part of my Streamworthy TV venture (currently set up & being fleshed out on FB/IG/Twitter/Tumblr & Snapchat, with YouTube in progress...give me a follow, if you care to help someone AWESOME, that can’t work a traditional job...even part time). I myself am on the spectrum, and have mobility issues that require a chair often, due to EDS. So just putting it out there that people without these issues may not immediately have noticed the problems that I’ll be mentioning...but if you’ve seen the show, you’ll know what I’m talking about (you can also see my other, previous post on general crappiness, as well as LGBTQ issues, that are present in the show).

But this post will focus on ableism, and misrepresentation of neurodiversity and disability. (Please know that this is a PURPOSEFUL separation, as I don’t see my OWN Aspieness as a “disability,” but rather, an advantage. **I know that not all people may feel that way;** however, those of us that benefit from/appreciate the autistic aspects of ourselves ALSO have the right to not see autism as a “disability.” Autism is different for everyone, and thus it shouldn’t be forced into the box of “disability.” (Example: my hyperlexia from a young age served me VERY well with reading, writing papers, and test taking, for many, many years. But back to Locke & Key.)

The reason I brought up the above point was because, through the first season, L&K uses the “autism as disability only” angle, which many of us in the ASD community are used to seeing (and being annoyed by). And despite ZERO character development over the course of the series, I’ve seen “AUTISM AS PLOT DEVICE” employed THREE times, at LEAST. I was dragging through the show, annoyed at the portrayal and usage of the character, as well as a different character, who is wheelchair-using, and nonverbal. But suddenly the “realization of ableism” bolt hit me about the larger problems with the portrayals and usage of ASD here - and I got PISSED.

Maybe we have interests that may SEEM to others to “not be age appropriate” (...when, give me a break, how many NT adults/older teens love stories or movies from comics, or collect Funkos, or went hunting for Pokémon...? It’s NOT just us, y’all). Also, older kids CAN INDEED hang out with younger kids in a mentor-type way, without it being a situation of “welp, ASD = emotionally stunted, so character only hangs out with young child.” But those tropes aren’t enough.

We DON’T innocently extrapolate situations outside our head (in front of others!), ESPECIALLY if it breaks a safety rule we were told, i.e., “well, my mom said I’m not supposed to say if I’m home alone...but you’re a friend, so...no, she’s not here.” Before you tell me otherwise, keep this point in mind - if we have the ability to be home alone, SAFELY taking care of ourselves...then we wouldn’t slip like that. NOPE. If we DID, it wouldn’t BE safe for us to be home by ourselves.

As well, if we REALLY care about an item, we don’t let it go missing (the ASD character doesn’t, but someone else uses said character’s autism to blame for “needing to go looking for the toys he left behind, then got ‘upset’ about,” - also inferring a “meltdown” - every time she needs to go to someone’s else’s house). **If something is related to one of our SpIns (special interests), we DON’T MISPLACE THOSE ITEMS HAPHAZARDLY!!** I’ve been that way since I was a kid. Ugh!!! You also see someone destroy one of his treasured items, just to be cruel. This shows us how important the items are to the character...so he WOULDN’T be forgetting them.

So, we see a mother using tropes of her son’s autism, to manipulate herself into certain important areas/situations, more than once. That, and the fact that the character with ASD is able to let someone know they were home alone when a crime occurred (thus making the person that lives with them a suspect), because of their completely unrealistic, verbalized musing of “the ASD thought process”...mix it all in with the total lack of character development, and you come to the final conclusion:

“This character is only here as a plot device. They’ve been given zero character development, and have been shown JUST enough to ESTABLISH THAT THEY ARE NEURODIVERSE, and then are thereafter ONLY in ways that FURTHER THE PLOT...in ways that would only occur BECAUSE the character is neurodiverse.”

So yeah. This is lazy writing of the worst degree, and I’m more than a little annoyed. I’m sick and tired of “DISABILITY AS PROP OR PLOT DEVICE” (whether that disability is a assumed or not), as well as disabled or neurodiverse characters ONLY being shown as tropes. This does a disservice to not only the ASD community, but to society as a whole; people will expect us to act a certain way, and not be understanding of those that are “higher functioning” - for lack of a better term - than those that are portrayed on television. As well, it’s part of the reason why females with autism are still VASTLY under-diagnosed (as they can have VASTLY different presentation). Not only do people get used to seeing a particular suite of “symptoms,” which they equate to ALL people on the spectrum...but those shown in media are almost NEVER female.

I’m not sure if the comic is set up this way as well, and it’s just poorly executed on TV...but I’m peeved AF😡 There is also the poor acting/treatment of the wheelchair-using, institutionalized character, & how her being non-verbal is ALSO used to further the plot (yikes, my hands are shot...but I’ll get out what I can, here).

I’ve worked with MANY non-verbal children (it was actually my specialty, before physical & mental health issues of my own)...and I’ve also had my OWN bouts of being non-verbal, due to trauma/illness. On BOTH sides, I have always found a way to communicate. Even when my Dad was on a ventilator and life support (mostly for breathing/kidney function, due to sepsis...we sadly lost him a few weeks later), I was able to communicate with him...because, with my background, I saw that he was able to respond with the wiggling of a toe, or squeezing of a hand.

So the use of a non-verbal character that “can’t tell her important secrets,” as another necessary part of the plot, is just MORE lazy, insulting, ableist scriptwriting. The character is NOT catatonic, and is aware of what’s going on all around them; so, by what you see in all interactions with her, it makes you wonder what’s happening to her when she doesn’t have visitors. Is she just rolled into a back room, or off to the side, where no one gives her ANY adaptive equipment?

Any research would show that one with speech issues can build sentences with an eye-gaze machine, or even eye-gaze itself, with symbols. I’d like to think that in real life, a CENTER for those that are disabled, of all places(!!!), would have at least ONE of those machines, or some other means of communication, available.

This is another point that is sad for society at large to view, as it makes people think that they “shouldn’t bother with” people that are non-verbal, as there’s “no way” to let them be part of communication, besides the method used in the show (which I have used as well, but you would think this poor character would be getting SOME type help/services/etc!) It was just CRINGEWORTHY AF...I’m SO sick of shows/movies where someone needs to address someone thrown in the back of an institution alone, to rot (off the top of my head, I remember this from “Dark” on Netflix, as well as on “Orphan Black,” amongst others).

So...yea. I just wanted to post this, for if anyone asks for a link, or anyone stumbles across this, and themselves saw these issues, and got upset. Trust me - it wasn’t just you. This is a comic that was supposedly quite successful...the television adaptation of this could’ve been MUCH better. If there were tropes of other marginalized groups in the comic, you can be SURE that those would be righted for TV. But the ableist train keeping chugging right along, as more people than EVER claim to be “woke”🙄 YIKES.

[comicteaparty]

January 29th-February 4th, 2020 Reader Favorites Archive

The archive for the Reader Favorites chat that occurred from January 29th, 2020 to February 4th, 2020.  The chat focused on the following question:

Which genre is your favorite for webcomics and which is your least favorite? Why is that?

carcarchu

Romance is without a doubt my favourite genre although i do have a particular soft spot for historical series too (and if it combines the 2 that's a dream come true ). as for my least favourite i guess sci-fi, i'm really not a fan of having to remember a ton of world building details and the backstories of some sci-fi series feel like reading a textbook sometimes. also comedy can be really hit or miss for me if the sense of humour used in the comic doesn't do it for me

Capitania do Azar

Honestly I'll read petty much anything if I'm having fun, not necessarily a genre-related issue. I think nice, interesting stories can be crafted in any genres. That being said, fantasy is usually not my jam and I really like Sci-fi

Kabocha

When it comes to webcomics, I'll read a lot of stuff! But I think Fantasy and Drama have a soft spot in my heart for some reason! I really enjoy it when a creator seems to be having fun (or is aware) of how hammy their drama can be -- and fantasy can be chock full of it! (And as an aside, I love the heck outta romance when done well! A lot of webcomics that classify themselves as romances tend to be more Drama than Romance, mostly bc they don't follow the genre conventions of romance, and instead stick to a more dramatic-oriented plot structure... it's intriguing.) Anyway! I think my least favorite these days is slice of life and gaming comics. A lot of it gets really weird and overwrought and I just... I dunno, there's gotta be a draw. Gaming comics just aren't very fun to read, esp as I've gotten older. A lot of it feels like "hey here's this pop culture reference this small-ish in group gets! how funny! hahaha" or punching down, and... I dunno, I don't have a lot of time to keep on top of memes for games I don't/can't play.

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

I love fantasy and sci-fi, mostly because I'm a world-building nut. I want to get lost in a new place when I read. This also extends towards historical comics, but those are pretty rare. I won't lie though, I definitely fact-check historical comics when I read them, because I want to know how much I can trust the accuracy of the setting. I also tend to enjoy romance if done well, and especially when blended with other genres. IMO, romances can be kinda samey by themselves, so there needs to be some other plot outside of the characters' relationship for me to stay invested. As for least favorite genres... Definitely comedy and slice-of-life. As someone who regularly watches stand-up, I don't typically find comedy comics very funny most of the time, especially relatable gag-a-day types. As for slice-of-life, it often seems... boring to me. I mean, I might just be mentally unable to process the nuances or something, but what actually happens in slice-of-lifes? That being said, there are always exceptions to these preferences, because I have been completely turned off from certain fantasy comics, for example, and there are definitely comedies that I have enjoyed thoroughly. In the end, all that really matters is if a specific comic suits my tastes/quality expectations, genre tossed aside

Ash🦀

When it comes to webcomics, animal stories and fantasy are definitely my favorites. I like getting lost in a world, I don’t want to stay in my own if I’m trying to escape. Oh, also, and actually being able to read emotions. On animals, because the style and emotion often have to be pushed so much, it’s way easier on me to be able to parse expressions on an animal than a human. Might just be my autistic brain tho /shrug Also, sci fi, heavy dose of “sci” in there. If I feel like I’m learning something it makes it so much more fun. My least favorite genres are romance and historical. To be honest, I find historical pieces rely so much on the politics and the talking and the human nuance I don’t much understand in the first place that I end up getting bored or confused or both. And romance is... well, my mom constantly had hallmark movies on, so I’ve kind of grown to hate the romance genre as a whole tbh. If it’s a side piece in a fantasy, fine, okay. Too often they’re unbelievable and the couple just doesn’t have any chemistry, and I just end up not buying it, so I’d like to yeet it to the side as much as possible in most cases. Now, there are some that are exceptions, here, but they are few and far between. Somehow, LGBTA+ romance just blows past this hangup, however. I dunno, it’s easier for me to care then, it feels newer, and... well, frankly, a good deal of the time they’re written better, I dunno. So, they’re the exception to the rule.

Kabocha

Hard agree on the LGBTA+ romance -- but also other marginalized groups tend to be more thoughtful in romance and tropes they use! While there's a general sort of... uh, set of expectations as far as plot and the happily-ever-after/happy-for-now ending, it's honestly really just sort of nice to see creators be mindful about what they're making, and write stuff that isn't just the same sort of nonsense that gets marketed in the mainstream. ...Now this is making me think about how much I would love to see Courtney Milan or Alyssa Cole's works translated into comics... If they could do Pride and Prejudice, someone pls give me A Princess in Theory (Sorry, I'm... a little bit of an aficionado for the genre, particularly in romance novels)

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I was never able to get into ANY romance until I started reading some LGBTQ+ ones. I never liked the genre before then, but I think it was just because I couldn’t identify with / care about all the cishet couple represented. Once I was reading a romance I actually could connect with, it was completely different. It’s still not a genre I like to read very often because it’s so trope-heavy, though.

keii4ii

I feel like romance gets pigeonholed into a specific (and admittedly prevalent/highly visible) type, kinda like how "fantasy" was pigeonholed as Tolkienish fantasy for years and years until recently.

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

As for what genres I do like, definitely fantasy. I especially like dark stories with lots of nuance, twisty plots, and some surreality. I like both high and urban fantasy, though as I get older, I lean more towards the latter. There’s someone really fascinating to me about mixing modern tech with magic and the supernatural. My least favourite (apart from most romance) is probably newspaper-style webcomics. I’m just not into that into punchline-a-strip or art art that has a Saturday-morning-cartoon feel. Not that it’s bad in any way, and I actually do have a few exceptions of comics in that style that I DO like, but it’s just not really my thing. I also can’t really get into political comics or war stories.

@keii4ii Yeah, it definitely does! And it becomes frustrating to try and find Something Different within the genre when the vast majority of it is using the same tropes and set up. I think that’s also why I’ve started leaning more towards urban fantasy as I’ve aged because a lot of high fantasy was becoming ‘more of the same’.

(says someone who creates a Tolkein-esque high fantasy comic )

keii4ii

You can still tell great stories within those prevalent types. Just gotta be mindful about choosing tropes/archetypes because they work for the story, as opposed to just going with them mindlessly. But that's not really extra work; that mindfulness is important no matter what kind of a story you're writing, IMO!

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I also say I don’t get into punchline-a-strip comedy and yet have TWO comics in that genre, so I’m kind of a hypocrite.

Oh yes, definitely! I do try to avoid or even subvert some of those very common tropes, though I’m sure I don’t always succeed! Some tropes can be very effective, just not when every story feels like you’ve read this a hundred times before with minor variation.

Kabocha

Honestly, that's one of the great things about self pub and webcomics -- you can get SO many more unique voices without the gatekeepers that traditionally held genres and markets back. Like, y'all might not have heard, but back years and years ago, Borders had someone working there at the corporate level that helped stock genre fiction -- but basically segregated POC authors from the genres that they were actually writing in. Which was a load of crap. (And that's not even getting into issues with queer media and fiction being stocked in stores or even published.) So basically in stores you'd see for a while, kind of the samey sort of stuff that you find in genre fiction -- and I think webcomics helps kind of... break out of those same sorts of expectations for various genres? It's kind of nice on the whole.

FeatheryJustice

Favourite genre of comics: Comedy and Action. If I could find Jackie Chan action and humour combo in a comic I would love the hell out of it. Least favourite: Slice of Life of the drama variety and romance variety. I dont mind if it is slice of life with action or slice of life informative because I am reading for more. If it is a romance between just two high schoolers doing nothing then I get bored. If it is two high schoolers in a slice of life but it focuses on them working on an animation together giving us animation information I would be okay with that.

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Lol, as someone who makes a fantasy series that plays with the amnesia trope like it went out of style (spoilers, it did), I totally agree that fantasy and romance can be very tropey.

kzuich

I like comedy and slice-of-life. Occasionally I like drama, but only if it's mixed with comedy. Or black comedy. (Seeing a recurring theme here? xD)

Or drama. With comedy sprinkled in.

I don't know why but I've always felt webcomics were really great for comedy. Some of the funniest stuff I've read was a webcomic. Dunno why. Least favorite genre? I don't really have one. I'll read anything but those are the genres I actually -like-.

DanitheCarutor

I'll read just about anything. I love stuff with some kind of surrealistic or abstract quality to it, like Weaker Sides (https://www.weakersides.com/), Seluda (https://tapas.io/series/seluda) and Hookteeth (https://hookteethcomic.com/). I also really enjoy stuff that is sad, or deals with heavy themes due to the feeling of catharsis they give me. Sun Rising (https://tapas.io/series/Sun-Rising), Rescue Me (https://tapas.io/series/Rescue-Me) and The Dogs on the Railroad (https://tapas.io/series/The-Dogs-on-the-Railroad) come to mind. It's nice to experience difficult emotions in a controlled environment. If I had to be genre specific I would have to say my favorite is the very elusive horror genre. Love me some spoopy shit and pretty much everything else that comes with it, no matter how cheesy it gets! It sucks that horror is so hard to find in webcomics, at least for me.

Least favorite genres? Gag-a-day, slice of life and romance. I have a lot of trouble getting into comedy comics that aren't story driven, so I don't usually read gag-a-days or autobios. I will read the latter two since most of the time they're good things to read when you don't want to turn your brain off for a bit, but all three genres are honestly really boring for me. When it comes to character centric stuff I really want something like a deep character study, although I haven't had luck finding stuff like that. Romance specifically, I have a hate/I don't mind relationship with. Romantic intimacy has always been super gross to me, I hate seeing people kissing on each other in movies due to an issue with how nasty the human mouth is, and the sound makes me sick to my stomach. With comics it's easier to digest, the characters are just drawings so I don't mind seeing them get all buckwild, but it's still not my most favorite. There are occasions where I can't even read a comic due to genre vs. setting. For example (and I'm am not saying this comic is bad, I mean it has over 100k subs) A Matter of Life and Death (https://tapas.io/series/A-Matter-of-Life-and-Death). I really love the art in this comic, the setting, some of the characters and the little bits of lore I saw. But it's a slice of life-esque romantic type of comic, so the world building for this extremely creative looking setting is kinda put on the back burner for intimate scenes between the MCs. Again, this doesn't make it bad. I personally turned out not to be the target demographic because I wanted 'A' and the creator wanted 'B'. Maybe I'll give this one another glance someday to see where the story has gone, I admittedly haven't read it in a couple years so the story might have developed.

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

My fave is anything that deals in heavy lore-- most that fit the bill are usually fictional like fantasy and sci-fi, but there are always exceptions that play with some good world building outside those genres! I love to read comics that i can get lost in and want to almost research the world created-- as long as that element is balanced in a story, im usually up for anything! That being said however, my least favourite is the gag strips and strictly comedy. I haven't yet found any that have really made me read page after page since my first looksee with comedy comics (sassy creed and that super smash bros one come to mind so quite a while ago) but I'm sure if i was more diligent in searching through the genre I could find something for myself!

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I love history and sci-fi. I have a hard time getting into fiction and I like stories with a firm connection to something real in the world

kayotics

I’m a fan of fantasy stories, and I like romance sometimes as well. I don’t mind gag-a-day strips but I don’t really follow any, mostly since I’m looking for a little more meat in my story. Despite how much crossover sci-fi and fantasy have, I’m not big into sci-fi. If a story engages me in that genre, I’ll still read it, but it’s not a genre I search through. I also don’t read war comics. I have a hard no on superheroes as well, I’m just tired of them.

renieplayerone

I love anything thats a mix of SciFi and history or some other genre (its why i love blade runner, scifi film noir). Weaving history into scifi is a challenge but man does it make for really cool aesthetics and moral questions

RebelVampire

My favorite genre for webcomics is probably a tie between fantasy and sci-fi. Not only do I just personally love world-building heavy material, but I also just think webcomics is a medium well-suited to them. I kind of don't feel things like live action do those genres justice. However, webcomics have a lot of artistic freedom so art style, differing art effects, etc. can all come into play to create awe, whimsy, and a bunch of other emotions that just capture a feeling of wonder that I expect from those generes. As for least favorite genre, definitely serialized comedy - which by this I mean comics that have a story along with the comedy. For me I just...don't find a lot of them funny. A lot of the humor is a bit too trope-y for my liking or imitating comedy without really understanding why the comedy worked in the original source. So for me the jokes just rarely land even if I can appreciate the effort that went into the comics. That being said, there's always exceptions. Like http://sgkdr.webcomic.ws/ is a comic I would've initially passed just based on genre, but when i read it the humor was/is actually really smart and really creative. Just the same, there's plenty of fantasy and sci-fi comics I don't like, though this usually comes down to story execution even if I think the art is pretty to look at.

BadSprite

My favorite genres for comics are action, comedy, drama and slice of life. I'm particularly a fan of slice of life stories that take place in some fantastical world, because the nuances of the setting makes the mundane so much more interesting. Also action comedies are my jam. One of my faves being: http://paranatural.net/. I personally love how comedy is integrated into action scenes to capture the frantic nature of the situations. My least favorite genre are probably romance, it's not that I have anything against it. I just feel like there's an oversaturation of them and there's very few that brings something new to the table. Most of them feel too same-y for me.

eli [a winged tale]

It really depends on my mood~ my bookmarks are all over the place. If I really enjoy the art and the characters, I usually stay for the story. My usual go-to is fantasy, sci-fi or slice of life! I recently got into romance but I’m a bit choosey about it. I definitely echo @Kabocha ‘s statement about exploring different voices and subversion of tropes. Always eager to read tighter storylines and those that take risks in diversity. Least favourite same as @FeatherNotes(Krispy) really! Sometimes it’s funny (love strange planet) but I won’t be binging it

MJ Massey

My favorite genres of comics are fantasy, action/adventure, and romance. Especially if all three are together in one delicious package. I'll read pretty much anything but it's gotta be well paced and well written to keep me coming back

Javi

My favorite genres are action, comedy, fantasy, sci-fi, slice of life and adventure. Also anything with animal characters in it I'm already invested in it but that's just my furry brain talking (edited)

AntiBunny

I would say a broad term of adventure. Be it scifi, fantasy, road trip, or superntural I love a good adventure comic full of interesting characters and locations.

[lothiriel84]

Tracing of sparrow on snow-crested brown

In which I went all the way to Scotland and North Yorkshire, and still found the time to get really excited about The Monster Hunters Halloween special. 

It’s been four days, and all the places I’ve seen have already started mingling with one another in my head - but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, I shouldn’t think. At least, when my brain defaults to power-saving mode now, it has its pick of beautiful locations to use as its own internal screensaver picture - doesn’t matter if I don’t always remember which is which. 

(It also makes for an interesting game - is this Scotland or Devon, Yorkshire or Colchester? And the answer is, nobody knows, nobody knows.)

Edinburgh

I was in Edinburgh last year for Flying Visit (go figure), but as I didn’t quite get the chance to explore it as much as I wanted, it was nice to be able to go back and wander the place some more. Climbed Arthur’s Seat once again - nearly got blown away by the wind, too - and took the chance to visit Portobello Beach, Dean Village, and Edinburgh Castle. 

Inverness, Loch Ness, and the Highlands

I had picked Inverness as my subsequent destination because I wanted to see some of the Highlands, and it definitely didn’t disappoint. Inverness Castle and the Cathedral Church of Saint Andrew are built in beautiful pink stone, and there are a few lovely walks across the Ness Islands - complete with eerie space/alien-themed decorations, as we were getting close to Halloween - the Merkinch Local Natural Reserve, and along the Caledonian Canal. And Inverness Botanic Gardens May be tiny, but they still have a gorgeous tropical house. 

As getting about using public transport only seemed a bit of a nightmare, I booked a couple of minibus tours in the area - Eilean Donan Castle and the Isle of Skye for my birthday, and Loch Ness, Urquhart Castle, and the Highlands two days later. And my goodness, I absolutely need to go back to the Scottish Highlands at some point - in that time of the year when it doesn’t get dark at half past four in the afternoon, if at all possible. 

York

As you can imagine, I mainly just wanted to retrace the various filming locations from The Atticus McLaren Mysteries: Murder at the Museum, which was shot there last February. (You can watch it here and here, in case you’re interested. Simon Kane is in it, and it stars plenty of talented local actors. Thomas Jennings is absolutely brilliant as the titular character, an autistic museum technician - turned amateur detective - from York.)

I actually managed to complete the York City Walls trail this time around, and without any further damage to my lousy ankles, too. I got to visit York Cold War Bunker, and stumbled upon the slightly incongruous sight that is Holgate Windmill.

As luck would have it, I was also able to see this intriguing staging of Antony and Cleopatra, starring among others Harry Summers (Elizabeth Lockwood) who played as DI Bruce Barnes in The Atticus McLaren Mysteries. And just as I was about to go to bed after the show, I found that The Funeral of Roy Steel had been uploaded to acast - and who am I to delay listening to a new episode of The Monster Hunters?

I distinctly remember very nearly screaming in the dark and scrambling for the light switch, as soon as I heard [SPOILER!] Susy’s voice, which I absolutely wasn’t expecting. Oh. My. Goodness - what an episode.

Scarborough, Staithes, Malton and Goathland

First one who guesses why I went to Scarborough wins nothing at all, in the well-honoured tradition of Yellow Car-adjacent games - and no, it wasn’t parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. By the way, did you know there’s a series of murals on Bland’s Cliff, including one bearing an uncanny resemblance to a certain Bridget of time-spanning reminiscence?

Scarborough Castle is an interesting place to visit, and it’s lovely to walk along the marina, as well as both the South Bay Beach, and the North Bay Beach. Following the advice of one Matthew Woodcock, I also took a trip to the picturesque seaside village of Staithes, and to the village of Goathland in the North York Moors national park - both absolutely gorgeous, though I daresay nothing could have prepared me for the joys of having to wait for my return bus for nearly two hours in the dark, alone, in a village in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by sheep staring at me from the shadows. (All while listening to The Tomb of Arensnuphis of Infinitely Bad memory, which was even more of An Experience™.)

And yes, obviously the entire reason I was in Scarborough in the first place was John Finnemore’s Flying Visit, again - which I thoroughly enjoyed, never mind that it was my second time this year, fourth if you count last year’s tour as well. (This is totally normal. And healthy. What are you looking at me like that for?)

The cast are an absolute joy to watch on stage, and I absolutely recommend you go to the very last show of the tour on December 1st, at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London, if you ever get the chance. Lawry’s facial expressions are a thing of beauty, and Carrie as Patsy Straightwoman surely deserves to get her own show; and I’m still impressed with how Simon managed not to break character while the audience dissolved into laughter for a full minute - and possibly even longer - as soon as he stepped to the microphone for one of the Missed Connections sketches. 

(I am still trying really hard to ignore the notion that John not only appeared to remember that I’d also been to the Colchester show, he also actually called me out on me going to shows on people’s birthdays. Which is - yeah. No. Huh.)

I’ll leave you with two blurry pictures of Scarborough at night, taken after the show, I think. Between the salt water and the sea strands, as Simon and Garfunkel would sing. 

[unproduciblesmackdown]

some random numbers: 1, 3, 6, 15, 23, 31, 35, 40. give me ur ungodly long answers.

lmaooo YES brevity whom......i cannot be concise

1) favorite videos?

i sure spent 2010 - 2014 enjoying youtube horror interpersonal-drama series marble hornets, those are a good time. and here in the future you and i both know there is just a wellspring of wrol-related Video Content out there, god damn, i really love so many of them.....in between that there’s sure been a lot of fun and funney videos and like, some Artistique ones i like to revisit [or have disappeared :( ] but i always like to promote this Wuthering Heights one. i love it. oh lol!!!! and the uh, Skate 3 Glitch compilations!!! so so funny

3) favorite memes?

i think Deep Fried Memes are fun all the time lol. the Youtube Meme of “___ but ____” is a lot of fun OH YEAH steamed hams was awesome too. the 24601 Releases A Sammich On Parole ytp is priceless......this is just turning into favorite videos again lmao. vine as a meme and a whole

6)favorite mixes?

you know i never really made or used playlists lol!!!! i will just be like, in the mood for certain songs or else like “i want to listen to music but....which ones”.....i say i can never be concise and all of these answers turning out short lol. it’s not b/c i’m Concise but b/c like, i don’t know what Favorites i have and i don’t have a memory that works without Direct Reminders of Specific Things so i’m just failing to like, come up with the info in the first place smh

15) favorite fictional characters?

here we go lol i can answer this one cuz when i have a fave rave it’s rare and like, easier to remember cuz i do not Go Hard about it that often.....weirdly for the first few years of The Decade i did’t really have such certain faves.....i was def enjoying some characters, as i always do, but nothing like super standout. then in ‘11 or ‘12 or whatever i was like oh hey, ed from cowboybeboy.......and then just had like, the solo experience of me humoring myself w/ that. bit of an usual one b/c a lot of the characters i Really latch on to will tend to be kinda roughly similar in ways that maybe seem pretty at-first-glance levels of obvious, buuut idk she’s not That far off from my usual selections i guess lol. anyways then in 2014 i was like, time to go ham for lars. what a valuable time it was....what Fun we had.....truly tho! and then another interval later it’s 2016 and for similarly (relatable characters of roughly the same cut) i was like, well here i am having a great time re: kip, all while getting to generously use of my fave shade of blue and fangs central and all that fun stuff. and then another interval later the Eventual Unfolding of what started innn 2017 i guess occurs, and it’s late 2018, and i’m like, time to look into Jared Kleinman b/c just from reading the wikipedia summary that didn’t mention him all that much i could tell this was probably a character i’d go ham for for predictable reasons, and the vague interest in that has stuck with me for the past little-over-a-year......and then i was Completely right lol. deh? well that’s just Bonus Jared Lore, to me (though of course alana in her own right is a great and similarly underappreciated character. rights)....and then of course i’ve had a lot of fun with pretty much each and every Wrol Role lmao.......Very fond of jeremy, and also christine, and bmc just has really enjoyable and interesting characters all over the place. and of course, here i am, Extremely #about winston quantbillions as another certified fave rave, really. call it classic!!!

[[answered both 23 and 31 prior, actually.....words were typed....]]

35)a random memory you remember with strange clarity?

tough one because lol a fair amount of “you recorded this memory in a fair amount of detail” is due to increased levels of unpleasantness / stress / discomfort, and if it’s also “i remember this b/c it was Nice” then i wouldn’t call that Strange clarity lol, and Random Memory like “just pull one up from the ol memory bank” is like, god, i wish it were that simple........but give me a min.

oh yeah i had a High Time of it when pokemon go came out (only pokemonn game i have ever played lol) coz there was like, this stretch of Landmarks stops that started at this garden and went along this waterfront / connected park forrr maybe like a half mile stretch? ideal territory and people would actually like, come from out of town to partake in it lol. and i’d Download podcast eps on my phone from my work’s wifi and just like, in the evening listen to that or music and just like, walk and do this shit. i had like five or six gyaradoses at one point cuz i guess the riverside nature of it meant they wanted to throw all these magikarp at you (there Were carp, also! one of the parks had a koi pond.) and like, there were just all these people around doing it along with you, even that late at night and in the early AM hours, so it was fairly social even if u weren’t there with a group or talking with anyone (though there was Camaraderie like, oh hey just so you guys know, there is a ____ over by the boat.) and it was just an interesting Walk with several things to look at and routes to take. and one time in a weird Dead Of Night time like 1am there was this like, smallish cruise ship docked that actually Set Off. and like, a bunch of us randos were just standing there and watching this unfold. this isn’t a very good Clear Random Memory but if i tried to think of a good one, god only knows how long it’d take me lol

40)an important personal revelation?

oh jeez this has really been a decade with lots of the unfortunate combo of “stuff that is a bummer but also boring” lol.......a benefit of getting to spend more time than not Away From The Parents’ House was like, oh sweet, having this perspective for long enough finally leads me to the conclusion of why i hate this......B/c It Is Bad. oh yeah and then there was also conclusively figuring out early in the decade like oh right, i’m trans, that makes sense.......other layers of Gayassedness like oh, more specifically i’m nonbinary, oh yeah and like, i’m not straight, call that queer and/or bi and/or also Gay......bein grey ace like a champ, and aromantic like, oh yeah i’m not like, fucking up at being a person somehow and Letting People Down by not wanting to date them (i mean besides rando cishet men. they can be let down regardless).....and just like, this ongoing process of getting the space to b figuring out myself and what i like For myself in alll kinds of ways....even up till now with the “oh yeah ive been a theatre gay all my life lmaooo” bit that’s like, totally obvious but just like, i didn’t much have the reason to even look at the would-be obvious stuff from the right perspex till now. and it’s pretty fun to realize a Lifelong Area Of Big Interest like that, cuz those sorts of things can feel elusive. and then also unfortunately a lot of the decade has involved like, “oh my self-esteem is so fucked that it’s circling back around and i’m appreciating and valuing myself and that i deserve decent treatment and Not bad shit,” which was a crappy process obviously lol but it was nice when i did start to get there, and making further progress on that front. im not dead certain when i was like “hmm...am autistic” b/c that was definitely a really ongoing process of figuring that out lol, but when / as i did it’s definitely a series of “oh hahaha this is why i’m like This or why i do This or feel like This about This!!” and it’s really easy to learn a totally Brand New Thing all the time abt bein autistic where it’s like Oh #Me!! coz yknow. the info By and For autistic ppl is not always widely available and known of. love that for us

[alien8muse]

On Glimmer and “you are the one who keeps being weird and leaving” (c) Bow, s01e08 [Ball]

I’ve seen the thing that Glimmer has to deal with their “jealousy” on their own (w/o “taking it out” on people) getting cheers. And I want to say smth about that.

Glimmer was expecting Bow to go with him.

They are mentioning the routine, ”well, there is nothing wrong with the new thing” (c) Bow. Er. Well.

A routine can be kinda very important? Just imagine that, mentally.

Going to social events where there are so many people. You always went with this one person, he is your best friend, you feel safe with him and you know you are going to be okay as long as he is with you. Glimmer mentions they are not good at making friends or at keeping them. They feel that he is going to support them and be at their side... but he takes the first offer he gets to be away from her when they need him?.. It’s gotta hurt.

And it’s probably not doing them any favours in their “trust issues” because their friends left them behind, it’s so obvious.

I think they are right to be afraid, to be honest. Maybe I and Glimmer just share the same issues.

I can easily imagine myself in their place. I don’t even have to imagine much. Maybe I and this person always go to this type of social events together. And then they go with another person - okay. They say they don’t want to leave me behind, why can’t we hang out together. And then I find out myself completely lost and alone. Yes, there are other people but I don’t know them that well.

I’m not comfortable. It’s a new place. There are new people. The only person that brought me any sense of calm and centre before isn’t here. Even though I told him about this being a routine.

This is shit.

Of course, I’m gonna be alright. I won’t have a meltdown. There’s not gonna be an overload. That’s what I’m telling myself sitting in the other corner of the room because there was no place near him and they, of course, didn’t go to search for places that we could all sit together.

I’m probably projecting on Glimmer now. But I was on the verge of tears the last time it happened to me. Well, Glimmer had Adora. And I was texting with my partner the whole time just to survive it.

But... I don’t know.

It’s a shitty thing to do to an autistic person. I have no idea if Glimmer is autistic. But they could be?

And there was no proper warning. At least, it seems like it has been only a few days before the ball.

And there was no proper reason? Okay, okay, he wanted a change, wanted to talk to Perfume and he doesn’t have to suit Glimmer’s needs all the time.

But would you do that to a person that depends on you during social events? Hm. Like, yes, you could. But is it really worth it?

The show won’t probably address it later the way it is now going through my mind, it’s going to go with “jealousy”.

I’m so totally projecting my issues.

Is it really worth it to abandon a person with abandonment issues like that? With no proper warning. Just wave at them saying it’s their routine and that they are not okay with that.

Yeah, absolutely, you can do that and they should take care of themselves. But it’s not what best friends do.

I’d predict a huge hit from abandonment issues? You were going to be in a situation where you don’t feel safe and it’s not seen as serious and whatever, I want a new thing, deal with your own problem yourself. Like, sure, Glimmer could do that. But it also means their closing up? Building more walls around themselves? Your relationships can be damaged.

Bow _knows_ them. And whether they are autistic or not (the routine’s thing importance depends on that; because if they are... this is just shit), Glimmer obviously discussed them keeping-friends issues with him.

Also, him saying that he just wanted them all to hang out together but “you are the one who keeps being weird and leaving” (c). Just a note, that people can have a limit to how many people they can closely interact at the same time or how much energy it takes from them. If Glimmer has similar to mine experience in that department, they would have to waste more energy interacting with more than one (in their case it might be two) person at a time. Especially people they don’t know well.

So, like I said, if Glimmer is autistic and they discussed their experience... *shrugs*

Like I said, from a certain viewpoint, this is shit.

[j-exclamationmark-l]

Personal rant

So I found out the hard way about two or three months ago that some phrases trigger some form of PTSD in me from the way I was raised. At least, I think that's what it is. I get filled with this aimless dread, I start seeing memories as clear as day. I start seeing exactly what happened years ago, I can feel myself screaming even though logically I know I'm not actually screaming, it’s just a memory but it's so real, like time doesn't exist and everything is overlapping on itself and I feel like I'm going crazy but I know I'm going crazy, I know none of these things are actually here, and it's like I'm being split in two by the reasonable side of my brain and this pure emotion that's insisting the threat is still right here in front of me.

I started crying at work and asked my coworkers to stop saying it. That was maybe two months ago. It's not even a common phrase - I think people used to say it in the 90s, but until recently, I hadn’t heard anyone say it.

But since I asked, my oldest coworker has kept saying it. I ask her to stop every time and she keeps defending herself. She’s incredibly self-centered, always talks about herself and how awesome she is, brags that she has the most exciting life outside of work (not really? she’s exactly what you’d imagine a white, middle-aged party-girl divorcee to be like), always cuts me off, never remembers things I say, always tries to get me in trouble. She also likes to insinuate that I’m gay by saying frequently that girls with short nails are lesbian (have you ever seen a violinist with long nails?). Her way of asking me to do things is to say “Why am I always the one who has to do this?” I’ve tried being nice to her. I try to listen to her a lot. Once I accidentally said her son was autistic and she began yelling at me that he’s not autistic, he has Asperger’s, so I apologized and asked her what the difference was, since I’d always thought before that Asperger’s was a form of autism. I didn’t fight her on any point she made, I just asked her out of curiosity because I genuinely wanted to know. The next day at work she bragged to the other woman in the office about how she totally schooled me, even though I’d asked.

Friday, everyone in the office was talking about cheesecake, and how Japan’s just doesn’t compare to cheesecake in other countries.

“When my best friend first came to Japan about eight years ago, cheesecake wasn’t really a thing that had caught on,” I said. “So he went to a restaurant and saw ‘hot cheesecake’ on the menu and decided to try it.”

“Gross, cheesecake isn’t supposed to be hot,” this woman cut in. “In Australia--”

“That’s not the story,” I frowned. I’ve been getting more aggressive about her cutting me off. She fought me to begin with, but slowly, other coworkers have started pointing out when she cuts them off, too. “He ordered it, then what was served wasn’t cheesecake at all, but a pancake--”

“That’s not cheesecake,” she interjected. “We were talking about cheesecake--”

“...A pancake. With a slice of processed cheese, like American cheese, on the top.”

“Some cheese could taste really good on sweets, like cream cheese, or--”

“It wasn’t cream cheese, it was a slice of processed cheese, like you buy at the supermarket, the plastic-y ‘torokeru cheese.’“

She began listing off other cheeses that could taste good on a pancake, and I tried to reiterate that that’s not what my friend was served.

Realizing she had nothing else to say to derail the story I thought was kind of funny, she looked me in the eye and said the phrase that she knew triggered me.

At first, I was just really confused. I wasn’t even upset, it was just so weird - not even that she’d say it, but that she’d tried so hard to derail my story. The room went silent, as I’m sure everyone remembers the time I started crying. I made a mental note to tell my friend how hard she’d fought his story. I wondered how weird he’d think that was. I wondered if there were any other details about it he’d share that I’d forgotten; it had been a long time since he’d told me, after all.

I could kind of feel it gnawing at the back of my mind. I knew what she’d said, but I was busy, and if I put on my headphones and went back to work, the flood waters barely sloshed over the top of the dam. If I didn’t process what was behind that wall, if I ignored it...

The minute I was out of work, the minute I was alone, the dam broke and I realized what she’d said, and saw my father looming every time I closed my eyes. I could almost swear he was hiding behind the crowds of people on the train, ready to scream at me. But I knew that was ridiculous, he hates me so much he’d never dare follow me to Japan.

But part of me was certain he was there.

The commute home takes an hour, and for that hour I felt torn, telling myself he wasn’t there and yet somehow convinced he was, and that I was 14 and he was threatening to leave me somewhere and my mother was telling me I was crazy and he was changing the pictures in the frames to not include me or how he dumped all my food down the sink or...

It sounds so stupid now that I write it out. Like a paper tiger. It looks scary, but there’s nothing actually to it.

I got home and drank. I drank more than I thought I could at once, I drank until I passed out.

In the morning, I woke up for long enough to send my coworker a message saying I noticed that she said that phrase and asking her to stop. I passed out again.

I was woken up by her reply. It was long and wordy and filled with phrases like “it’s been ubiquitously ingrained into our lexicon” and how I can’t expect everyone to change their speech patterns just for me. I was so angry that I woke up fully to tell her she’s literally the only person I know who uses that phrase. She then claimed, after her lengthy rebuttal, to have forgotten what the phrase is that upsets me. She also insinuated that nothing I’ve experienced could possibly be anything worse than the shit she’s seen and told me she has more compassion and empathy than anyone else alive, I’m just being an unreasonable little shithead.

So I tried to describe for her what it’s like, being reminded of my dad like that. I know I can’t stop from being reminded of him all the time, but somehow knowing I asked her to stop and seeing her continue to do it makes it worse. I’m not about to tell her that even the word “family” is dangerous territory for me because even I know that’s unreasonable to tell everyone to stop saying that word. But there are things I can do - thinking of my friends as my “family,” thinking of Kiryu’s music as “home.” But that phrase, the one that upsets me, has no actual meaning, and no one even really says it anymore, except for her.

And in the office, I told her, I do what I can. I try to listen to music to block out their conversations most of the time. Yeah, it’s antisocial, but I don’t want another episode and I don’t want to have to force them to change their habits.

But the way she interrupted my story to look me in the eye and say it during one of the few moments I didn’t try to block it out...

She didn’t reply to my message.

I stayed inside for fear of running into her on Sunday (she lives uncomfortably close to me) and I felt sick to my stomach at the idea of seeing her on Monday, but luckily she ignored me yesterday, and today, too.

I wish I could explain it to them, I wish there was a way to let them see instead of seeing it myself all the time. I know they don’t have the attention span to listen, though, and I don’t actually want them knowing that much about me. I just wish they’d understand, I’m not trying to be unreasonable.

I’m in pain and they’d poke me with sticks telling me to “get over it.”

I remember how her friend yelled at me after the first time I broke. She apologized later, but I still don’t trust them. I don’t trust any of them. They lack the imagination to empathize with anything they haven’t experienced firsthand, I think.

I remember friends in high school making jokes about how awful my dad was. I didn’t get it, not really. I mean, I wasn’t happy, but it was normal to me. I didn’t get it until I reached college. And how unfair it was that these people had families that loved and cared for them.

I’ve been having the same nightmare I used to have all the time.

It feels like it will never end.

[la-knight]

BOOKS I (RE)READ IN 2018: FURTHERMORE BY TAHEREH MAFI

"Alice Alexis Queensmeadow, 12, rates three things most important: Mother, who wouldn’t miss her; magic and color, which seem to elude her; and Father, who always loved her. Father disappeared from Ferenwood with only a ruler, almost three years ago. But she will have to travel through the mythical, dangerous land of Furthermore, where down can be up, paper is alive, and left can be both right and very, very wrong. Her only companion is Oliver whose own magic is based in lies and deceit. Alice must first find herself—and hold fast to the magic of love in the face of loss." "Red was ruby, green was fluorescent, yellow was simply incandescent. Color was life. Color was everything. Color, you see, was the universal sign of magic." "Love, it turned out, could both hurt and heal." "Narrow-mindedness will only get you as far as Nowhere, and once you're there, you're lost forever.” "Alice was an odd girl, even for Ferenwood, where the sun occasionally rained and the colors were brighter than usual and magic was as common as a frowning parent." "Making magic is far more interesting than making sense." So I actually read this book a few months ago and then recently reread it via audio so I could remember all the details for this review. I was first introduced to Tahereh Mafi’s work through her book Shatter Me, her debut novel. Ironically, it wasn’t through any of the ways I normally hear about books - Booktube, Goodreads, my best friend, Booklr - but from my husband’s aunt. She runs - or used to run, not sure if she’s still doing it - a book review blog. And she posted a review of Shatter Me and I was like, “What a weird, interesting writing style, lemme check this out.” At this point the entire Shatter Me Trilogy plus novellas had been published and I devoured all of them (still need to review those, too). So when I heard Tahereh Mafi was writing a middle grade book, I got super excited! Especially because this was during a time when I was too stressed out to read any YA, since most of the YA I like involves having to save the world and all the stress that entails. I need to lay out some trigger warnings real quick: the main character, Alice? Her mom is incredibly abusive, both emotionally and physically. It’s treated as not such a big deal in the book, which is honestly the story’s only real flaw, but it’s bad. It took me seven tries and resorting to an audiobook (and even with a fantastic narrator, that short audiobook took me almost a month to get through) because the abuse was so bad. So:

TRIGGER WARNING: THIS BOOK CONTAINS EMOTIONAL AND PHYSICAL ABUSE OF A CHILD BY THEIR PARENT

Let’s get started, yo! First of all, the setting. OMG. See, I love tthis thing called Victorian fairy tales, which is something you can find in books like Mary Poppins - these super fantastical bits of whimsy that just warm your heart and make you grin because they’re so creative and fun. In the Mary Poppins books, you can jump into chalk drawings and go to a circus amidst the stars and make friends with a woman who sells living candy-cane horses. In Catherynne Valente’s Fairyland series, there are shadow balls and talking phonographs. And in Furthermore, there’s light raining down from the sky in literal drops, sticks of magic you use like money, and forests full of invisible berries. The way the world is put together and described, so full of color and imagination, is awesome and beautiful and I could picture it perfectly. It reminded me in all the best ways of books like The Phantom Tollbooth (one of my favorites). But I wouldn’t want to live there, because Ferenwood is full of colorism and ick. Alice, the female lead, is an albino in a world where color is important and the darker you are, the more magical you’re considered to be. So Alice gets treated like garbage. 

Also I think Alice may be autistic, but I don’t know if she’s deliberately coded autistic or if Tahereh Mafi did it by accident while trying to make Alice eccentric, but she comes across as autistic. I’ve actually begun to pay more attention to that sort of the thing in recent years, being autistic myself, and I see it a lot - authors giving their characters autistic characteristics, often without meaning to. I just touch on it here because Alice is already treated badly for being albino, but she’s also considered a freak because of the way she behaves - like an autistic preteen. And I wonder if Tahereh Mafi did that on purpose as a sort of commentary or not, because while Alice is treated badly by the people of Ferenwood for her behavior, the Narrator (who is an actual character in the story; love when that happens) always sides with Alice in this regard. The storyline is sweet and I love it. Alice tries to compete in the magical testing all the preteens do on their twelfth birthday, and so she dances. And her dancing is magical but it’s not Magical, you know? So she fails the test. Well, turns out a boy who passed the test the year before, Oliver (the brat), needs Alice’s help fulfilling a quest - rescuing Alice’s missing dad. So they go on a quest together, although Alice hates Oliver (and rightly so, he’s rude). They go to a dozen different and cool places, all of which are dangerous and all of which are different. I wish we could’ve spent more time in those places but I understand why we didn’t. The only annoying thing is there’s an origami fox on the cover but it only pops up in one of the worlds for like two pages and then it’s gone and I thought we could spend more time both in that world and with that creature since it ended up on the cover. But alas, not. I understand why - middle grade is often cursed to be short, especially if it’s the author’s first MG novel ever. Once you get big and bad like Rick Riordan you can start tossing out gihugic tomes like Son of Neptune or Blood of Olympus on the regular. Oliver’s reason for needing Alice was one I didn’t see coming, nor was her magical talent - a talent they hint at throughout the book but never explain until near the end, at the perfect moment. I thought it was an interesting commentary on how young girls perceive themselves, that Alice hates this marvelous, amazing talent she has of bringing color into the world from nothing...because she can’t use it to change how she looks. Society has trained her already, by the age of twelve, to discount something incredible about herself because she can’t use it to make herself into what society wants her to be. That’s pretty impressive for a book this short. I loved some of the more deliberate messages in the work - the thing I mentioned about society’s pressures on young girls, and also that it’s okay to tell boys to screw off if they’re mean to you, and to have hope and to look for second chances (Alice thinks she only has one chance to pass the test and believes her life is over when she fails, only to find out she can try again the next year). I love all of that, and the lyrical and whimsical quality of the prose, and the world building is so creative and also makes me a bit hungry (people eat magic in this book, among other things; I wonder what it tastes like). Now...let’s talk about the abuse. That’s my biggest issue with the book. Alice’s mother is a total bitch. And not in a cool, kickass way like the lady in the show Empire. She’s vicious, she’s cruel, and she’s abusive. Alice knows - and the Narrator confirms - that she turned bad when her husband went missing, and apparently the worry for him and the strain of raising four kids on her own is making her hard and sad, but I don’t give a shit. I was hoping Tahereh Mafi would’ve gone all Hansel and Gretel on this lady and when Alice comes home with her dad, the wife’s dead or something. She beats Alice (at one point she beat Alice for chasing a boy out of the place where she was sleeping, even though he kept staring at her in her sleeping clothes, because apparently the boy - Oliver - had the right to break into their barn at 3AM and ogle Alice???), she verbally abuses Alice, she sends her to bed regularly without dinner, is constantly criticizing, won’t hug her or kiss her, and - this one really got me, for some reason - forces her to do illegal things. Those invisible berries I mentioned? Alice can find them and bring back whole baskets because of her magical gift, and so her mom sends her out to pick them all the time. If she brings home enough, her mom smiles. If she doesn’t, her mom yells and calls her names and sometimes beats her. Guess what? Picking those berries is illegal. We don’t find this out until much later in the book, but it is. The thing I didn’t like about the berries is that Oliver, who’s thirteen, is less concerned about Alice’s mother beating her for not picking enough contraband berries and instead focuses on how her ability to find the berries in the first place means Alice has really impressive magic. NOBODY seems to care how much Alice is being abused, not even the Narrator. The Narrator sympathizes with Alice’s hurt feelings and despair over her missing Father, but it’s never objectively stated that her mom is abusing her AND SHE IS. Yeah, her mom is sooo glad to have her back after Alice almost dies on her trip with Oliver, but so what? My roommate’s mom is so abusive that my roommate’s clergy leaders, doctors, and psychological therapist all said my roommate needed to cut ties with said mom, even though my roommate’s mom has also exhibited the same kind of “oh baby I’m so sorry, I love you so much” bullshit. That’s what abusers do. So I hate Alice’s mom. She literally makes her daughter feel like if she doesn’t risk her life numerous times AND bring her father back, there is no chance her mother will ever love her. And if she pulls that stuff off (which she does), then MAYBE her mother will love her. Nuh-uh. Nope. Hate that bitch. Other than that, I really loved this book. The characters felt real (Alice is me, but without my anger), Even the ones I didn’t like were still REAL, and well-drawn. The world building and word choice is fantastic. Basically, if you can get past the evil mom, read this book. World Building: 1 star Realism: 1 star Word Choice: 1 star Plot: 1 star Characterization: 1 star - ¼ star because Oliver Newbanks is an obnoxious little creep - 1 star because the mom is AN ABUSIVE EVIL BITCH - ¼ star because NOBODY DOES ANYTHING ABOUT THAT +½ star because Alice is amazing and has a genius brain and I love her Total score: 4/5 stars Would I Buy It: Yes! I own it and loved it enough I got the sequel for Christmas (in...2017...I've been sitting on this review for months...)! Would I Recommend: yes, but with trigger warnings. Again, highly abusive evil bitch mom who somehow doesn’t die.

[kwibu]

C A L I C O

when Wonwoo returns home late at night, he comes across an adorable kitty he just has to pet. then he meets this guy Mingyu.

pairing: jww/kmg genre: fluff words:  1.7k

It was a humid Summer evening and Wonwoo was lost in thought as he pedaled forwards on his bike. The sun had set for the most part, leaving the bottom half of the sky a gentle pink and the top half baby blue.

He wished he was outside the city so he could see the sunset in its full glory - without having ugly gray buildings block his view. Still, it felt like home to him, even though he’d only lived here for two years. But in these two years he’d taken this route pretty much daily as he lived a little outside the city center and university as well as his best friend’s home were located in the heart of the city.

Tonight he was on his way back from said best friend. He’d had a richly flavored spaghetti dish for dinner with Seungcheol, and afterwards two of Seungcheol’s other friends had come over to play the new board game one of them had acquired.

“It’s like D&D only it has more game play elements and less storyline, so it’s a good game to ease you into D&D,” Soonyoung had said, and Seokmin nodded enthusiastically at his words. They’d been trying to get him as the fourth member of their D&D group for weeks but Wonwoo wasn’t convinced he’d like it. This board game called Andor’s Legends or something sounded fun though, and Wonwoo had been willing to give it a try.

The evening had been filled with discussing tactics -which lead to Seungcheol and Soonyoung arguing -, just barely making it through the compaign alive, talking about nothing and everything, and of course a few beers here and there. It’d been fun but Wonwoo was glad to go home by the end of it. When he got home he was going straight to bed! Even just thinking about it nearly made him fall asleep on his bike.

Something moved in the corner of his eye.

He craned his neck and looked over his shoulder. Was that - yes, it was. It was a cat!

Suddenly he was wide awake.

Wonwoo squeezed his brakes and maneuvered his bike in between two parked cars to park it on the sidewalk. Just in case, he locked it as well. He observed the feline before slowly starting towards it.

It was a calico, so most likely a she. She lay on the sidewalk next to a parked car, licking her paws, and had just noticed Wonwoo, eyeing him calmly as he took small steps towards her.

When he neared her, he squatted and slowly held out his hand. She looked at it for a second, looked up and met his eyes as if searching for something, and slowly stretched out her neck to sniff his hand. She started purring even before Wonwoo scratched her on the top of her head and behind her ears. Eventually she even let him scratch her chin.

The thick air had finally started to cool down but people holed up inside hadn’t discovered that yet, so the streets were quiet and deserted. A slight breeze ruffled Wonwoo’s locks and he huffed to get his hair out of his eyes. The calico stared at him with half closed eyes and Wonwoo chuckled.

“Sorry,” he said, “but otherwise I won’t see where I’m petting you. I might even have accidentally touched your tummy!”

She looked at him as if to say, don’t you dare! and Wonwoo laughed again.

“Don’t worry, I won’t. I promise.”

He scratched her neck and she let him, closing her eyes. Suddenly they flew open, and she sat upright.

“What is it, hm? What did you see - oh.” Wonwoo had turned his head to follow her gaze and was surprised by two knees and a pair of muscular thighs in skinnies. He looked up, and blinked, “Uhm, hello.”

A young man his age was looking at him with a glimmer in his eyes. “How did you do that?” he asked, gaping at Wonwoo. He was tall - and not just because Wonwoo was sitting on the ground - and muscular, and how he got here without Wonwoo noticing was a mystery unsolved.

Wonwoo frowned, “Do what?”

“That,” he said, nodding in the calico’s direction.

“Petting her?”

“She always flees when I approach…” He took a step forward and immediately the feline tensed up, scanning the street for the fastest way out.

“Sit down,” Wonwoo said, keeping his voice down and motioning with his hand. “You’re intimidating when you stand up. You’re like, seven times her height.”

“Oh,” the guy mumbled, but he bent his knees anyway. The cat was still eyeing him warily. “Like this?”

“Better. Now slowly extend your hand and let her approach you.”

He did as Wonwoo said, and the calico gave him a proper look over before deciding it was safe enough. She sniffed his hand for a bit and went straight on to giving his fingers a headbutt, her tail curling upwards.

The guy’s face was frozen in its shocked state and Wonwoo chuckled inwardly. “It’s okay to breathe,” he said, one corner of his mouth pulling upwards.

“Oh,” the young man breathed, pouting his lips

“Does this-” he pointed at the cat with his free hand, “-mean he likes me? Is it a good sign?”

Wonwoo nodded.

“He’s not going to lick me? Huaa!” he exclaimed when her teeth grazed his hand as she rubbed the side of her face against it. The sound startled the calico and she ran to hide behind Wonwoo.

Wonwoo bellowed out a laugh and turned sideways the rub his thumb over the cat’s head reassuringly. “It’s okay, buddy. You startled him, is all.”

She let herself be pet by Wonwoo and purred softly while eyeing the other individual warily.

“He’s very sweet for a cat, isn’t he?”

Wonwoo smiled. “I think it’s a she.”

“How do you know?”

“Calico cats are mostly female. Male calicos are rare and therefore expensive so their owners wouldn’t let them outside.”

“Oh,” the guy said, his frown disappearing. “How do you know this stuff?”

Wonwoo shrugged, “Because I love cats.”

“Is that why they like you?”

Wonwoo shook his head, “No. They like me because I give them space to make their own decisions. They get to decide whether they want to be pet or not. If they turn me down, I leave them alone.”

“You’re a real gentleman!” The corners of his eyes crinkling up as he laughed. His teeth were a little crooked but his smile was so warm and, honestly, quite attractive, and Wonwoo couldn’t help but return it.

“I guess.”

“Do you have a cat a home?”

Wonwoo shook his head and smiled when the calico directed his hand towards the other side of her head. “I live with a few students, it’d be irresponsible to keep a cat in an apartment as small as ours. Not to mention I wouldn’t be able to afford it if they ever had to go to the vet.”

“You’ve really thought this through, haven’t you?”

“I have,” Wonwoo admitted, feeling his cheeks heat up, “I really want a cat so I think about it often, but I’ve got to be realistic. As soon as I finish my study, get a job and a nice apartment, I’m getting one, though.”

“Sounds like a plan.” The guy extended his hand again and held his breath when the cat hesitantly came his way. “So what do you study?”

The question caught Wonwoo a little off-guard. “Game Design, I’m planning to major in storytelling. You?” He only ever talked to people at uni or at his student union, so the question just slipped out. He hoped he didn’t come across as an asshole by presuming the other person studied.

Fortunately he was too busy gently petting the tabby’s head to notice Wonwoo’s slip of the tongue. “I study Psychology but it’s really hard since I’m not so good at statistics.”

“I have a friend who studied Psychology but he quit because he couldn’t face himself.”

“Yeah, it’s a common reason people quit,” he sighed. “But if I keep my eyes on the goal I’m sure I can get through.”

“Which is?”

The guy blinked. “What?”

“The goal.”

“Oh. You know,” he made a vague gesture with his free hand, “understanding and helping people.”

“How noble.” Wonwoo hadn’t meant to sound so sarcastic and he felt even more like an asshole now. “But I mean, understanding cats might just be a good start. They say cats have a lot of traits in common with Autistic people.”

The other gave him a small smile that might’ve meant forgiveness. “I didn’t know that.”

“Well, you know,” Wonwoo shrugged, “I’m kind of a cat specialist, I need to know these things.”

The guy laughed again, showing off his pointy canines. They were kind of cute. “Right.”

Wonwoo felt his cheeks heat up and he focused on scratching behind the cat’s ears - she’d had enough of the other’s clumsy petting and had come back to rub herself against Wonwoo’s legs. “Ow, don’t stand on my naked feet, you dweeb. Can’t you see I’m wearing flip-flops, hm?” he said quietly, giving the cat a quick back rub. He heard the guy next to him chuckle.

“I’m Mingyu, by the way,” he said out of nowhere.

Wonwoo looked up. “Ah, Wonwoo,” he said, using his free hand to shake the one offered to him. It earned him a beautiful broad smile. Mingyu’s eyes sparkled when he smiled.

“Nice to meet you, Wonwoo. Would you like to grab a drink with me sometime?”

Mid motion, Wonwoo’s hand stopped to rest on the cat’s head. “Like, uhm, like a date?” he said after an uncomfortable pause.

The look in Mingyu’s eyes was gentle. “If you want.”

“Oh, uhm, I - sure. Sounds fun.”

Mingyu’s face lit up and he straightened his back. “Awesome! Shall I give you my number?”

“Yeah, all right,” Wonwoo said, fumbling for his phone in his pocket. He typed in Mingyu’s number and had just finished typing his name when the cat rubbed herself against his phone and hands, meowing loudly. “Someone’s not happy with the lack of attention,” Wonwoo chuckled.

“Tell me about it, it’s like looking into a mirror.”

Wonwoo snorted, “What, you rub yourself up against people’s legs when you’re not the center of attention for half a minute?”

“Oh, no,” Mingyu grinned, “I’m way worse.”

~

part two is coming soon! it’s most likely going to be three parts in total.

thank you for reading!

[hyperfixatin-blog]

HOW TO WRITE A SELECTIVELY MUTE CHARACTER.

I’m seeing a lot of writers making the decision to make their character what is called ‘selectively mute’, and while I’m so happy that the S.M. community are finally getting some representation, I would much prefer that it could be portrayed as accurately as possible. I’ve found a lot of ‘how to write mute characters’ guides, but I’ve yet to find many that specifies completely on this disorder. This guide is written by someone who has personally suffered from selective mutism as a child and somewhat as a teenager. If you wish for your character to have this condition, I’d encourage you to read on and perhaps learn a few things about it.

Please bear in mind that most of what I’ve written below are from my own personal experiences and that everybody deals with the condition differently! I am also not a doctor or a health professional, but I hope that this guide will at least be of some help to you!

WHAT IS SELECTIVE MUTISM?

Selective mutism is defined by wiki as: “an anxiety disorder in which a person who is normally capable of speech cannot speak in specific situations or to specific people. Selective mutism usually co-exists with shyness or social anxiety.”

So yes, for me it was the acute and intense phobia of socialising, or more accurately (and perhaps the most important aspect to distinguish) the crippling fear of being mocked and ridiculed. It is not a fear of speaking. I, for example, could talk quite comfortably to very close friends and nuclear family, but was suddenly rendered speechless when surrounded by my school friends, teachers, and most of my extended family members – however it must be noted that for my extended family, I would eventually warm up to them after a day or two.

DESTROYING THE COMMON MYTHS:

“So you basically couldn’t speak?” – Now that is a different kind of mutism, one that is usually caused by a health condition or likewise. If you wish for your character to be rendered speechless because they are physically unable to (for example, if your character is hard of hearing etc.), then this isn’t the guide for you and that isn’t selective mutism – although it is completely possible for your character to have both! Just as long as you recognise that they’re two completely different conditions. There was nothing physical preventing me from speaking but my own crippling social anxiety, a little ‘voice’ in my head that told me that whatever I said would be stupid and therefore not worth voicing.

“It sounds quite cute/adorable” – That whole stereotype of the shy girl who’s adorable because she’s quiet and blushes needs to die, right now. Selective mutism almost completely ruined my childhood. As a kid, bullies would seek me out at school because they knew I couldn’t ask for help. It got so severe that I had to move schools.

“You obviously went through some trauma in your life” – In some cases this is true, other times (like mine) I was just very socially anxious and belonged to a family with a history of diagnosed (and undiagnosed) mental disorders, which just so happened to include anxiety. There have been cases where certain individuals have been through a traumatic event and perhaps they feel they are unable to speak to the person involved in that event – whether that be due to the fact that they were part of the trauma, or the cause of the trauma, and speaking to them would stir up a fear of the event repeating itself.  

“You were just being defiant/stubborn” – FUCK NO. I don’t think a lot of people understand that we didn’t choose to become selectively mute; it’s a chemical imbalance in the brain like all mental disorders. It’s literally like saying to someone with a broken leg to ‘get out of their wheelchair because they’re just being lazy’. I can’t stress this enough. I honestly can’t tell you what it was like being a kid and wanting to fit in and talk to people, yet believing that whatever I said would cause havoc for myself. It’s possibly one of the lowest forms of self-esteem you can have.

“So you chose who not to speak to?” – Yes and no. Like what I said above, I didn’t choose to be selectively mute, but there was definitely a pattern of which individuals I found myself not talking to. These were either strangers/people I didn’t know well, because I had no way of predicting how they’d react to my comments and that terrified me; most of my friends from school because I cared about their opinion too much to supposedly ‘ruin’ it; and then a collection of extended family members which is a combination of both my reaction to friends and strangers, which really depended on who it was. If you watch The Big Bang Theory, Raj’s inability to talk to women is a perfect example of what I’m talking about (although please note that he is not the paramour of selectively mute characters).

SOME COMMON SYMPTOMS:

Avoiding eye contact – For me it was always this weird superstition where I thought that looking into someone’s eyes meant that they could judge me harder? It’s also just a natural sign of submission AKA I really didn’t want to fight anyone. I still can’t look people in the eye and I haven’t suffered from the condition in years.

Fidgeting – Ignoring the fact that I also have ADHD, I’ve heard cases where fidgeting (mainly with the fingers, hair, clothing, or by wiggling the leg while sitting) can be an effective way of expelling that nervous energy when finding ourselves in social situations, or just in an attempt to distract ourselves from our own shitty thoughts. My fidgeting were mainly oral fixations (which also helped my ADHD – so hitting two birds with one stone) like chewing on literally everything: my sleeves, my nails (and the skin around them), my lips, the skin inside my mouth (which has caused some weird internal Joker-like scars), and stationary like the ends of pens and pencils. All of these habits have stayed with me into ‘adulthood’. Your character can have all, some, or none of these! It’s entirely up to you.

Blushing: Good evening, my most hated side effect. This occurred pretty much every time a person of authority (that weren’t my parents) talked to me. The worst part was that I could feel myself flushing, and since I knew what it looked like combined with my social phobia, only made it worse. Let the vicious transformation into a tomato begin.

SEEMINGLY UNRELATED SIDE EFFECTS:

Difficulty expressing emotions

Fear of change (feeling most comfortable with a routine their familiar with).

Difficulty with facial expression

COMMUNICATION:

Gosh, there are so many ways you can communicate with someone who is non-verbal and it really depends on the person and their personal preferences. But here are a few suggestions and what your character could use:

Flashcards: this is what I used. I had little pieces of laminated cards which I’d use at school. They didn’t have masses on them as you can imagine, but simple sentence starters and words like the basics greetings (hello, goodbye, good morning, good afternoon etc.), a card that requested ‘help’, yes and no, and whether I had brought a lunch or required food from the cafeteria. So it wasn’t exactly a full blown conversation, but it was enough to communicate the basics.

Sign language: I’m not saying your character should be able to know sign language off by heart (I certainly didn’t), but even just a few words that would communicate what was on my flashcards helped a lot. To be honest, for me the only reason why I picked up bits of sign language was because my younger brother, Sam, was autistic and didn’t start speaking full sentences to anyone until the age of four. So it also helped me and my parents to communicate with him as well as me.

Written communication: pretty self-explanatory. Whenever there was something I wanted to say but couldn’t communicate through my flashcards, I’d get a piece of paper and write it down.

Once again this is totally flexible. Your character can use all of these, some of these or none of these! It all depends on personal preference and the environment they grow up in. I’ve also not included every single way to communicate non-verbally because that would be a hella long list.

SCHOOL:

Okay, so my school experience was pretty shitty because of my selective mutism and here are a list of reasons why:

TEACHERS: I couldn’t ask for help. Yeah sure, I had a flash card with the word ‘HELP’ scribbled across it but, uh, I had severe social anxiety y’all I wasn’t always comfortable with drawing attention to myself. Especially since it was usually followed by the most painful few minutes of trying to communicate what I didn’t understand without words. It got so bad that I didn’t know how to add, subtract, multiply or divide at ten years old, and had to do Kumon (an intense Japanese tuition styled programme to help me get back on track). Having said that, I did have undiagnosed ADHD so that would have made everything 10x worse in the education department as I wasn’t always, y’know, listening.

BULLIES: ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, so this was a biggy. I’m not going to go into my sob story but it got so bad that it was one of the main factors in why I moved schools when I was seven.

MISUNDERSTANDING: okay, so I was thinking about this last night and remembered something really fucked up. I was told by a qualified teacher at the end of year 2 (I was seven years old) that if I didn’t speak by the start of year 3, I would fail school. Yeah, fucked up right? I genuinely remember the crippling anxiety I felt when she told me that and how mad my parents were when I told them. ANOTHER THING: my teachers did not tell all the staff about my mutism. I was queuing up for lunch and I pointed to the thing I wanted and when I didn’t say please, they almost refused to give me lunch and called me rude in front of my entire year. It’s this misunderstanding that caused me anxiety that could have easily been prevented if everyone had been better educated about the condition.

WHAT I’VE GAINED FROM THE CONDITION (positive):

Strong empathy

Above average perception/inquisitiveness

A strong sense of right and wrong

So there you have it, selective mutism. I really hoped this helped give a better understanding of what the condition is. Please don’t take this disorder lightly because it’s an ugly, ugly thing to have and it should never be a cute ‘quirk’ for your character. Also I must stress that you shouldn’t take this guide as your only research. Google it, look on the selective mutism/actually mute tag, research research research; it’s the best way to portray anything accurately. This guide is very basic and does not involve everything because that would take me forever. 

If you have any questions regarding selective mutism or this guide, send me a message and I’ll be happy to direct you the best I can! <3

[sorin-sunchild]

Some people have disorder hcs because they're projecting onto a character as a coping mechanism who cares if it doesn't make sense in canon you can't tell mentally ill people what to do??? Like I'm literally shaking right now because I'm like one of only two people I know that hc Eddie with an eating disorder so the fact you added that feels like a personal attack right now. I'm sorry but all of the losers are mentally ill now not your ignorant nt bs you fucking ableist tard

Woah ok. I’d ask you to come off anon and chat if I got you so bad, but I have a feeling you wouldn’t. I did mention in my tags that I don’t think it’s impossible for any of the Losers to have a disorder of some kind. My issue was the fact that only Eddie and Stan, who are already treated as strangely fragile by some members of the fandom, are the ones targeted for, specifically - people to headcanon badly researched disorders onto as if it’s supposed to be something cute or quirky or something to make you go “aww poor baby :(” but not really take seriously/understand as a serious condition. I’m aware every fandom does it, but that doesn’t mean I can’t CARE about it, especially characters from a Special Interest.

I’m not neurotypical by the way and don’t appreciate the slur you used for me, even if it didn’t have the ‘re’ part, especially since you ironically called me ableist before using it. I don’t know which person you are, as in terms of eating disorders specifically I haven’t seen much, no, I just thought I’d include it because it’s a kind of disorder that often gets left off lists like that and I had seen it. So, are you the ‘clearly the only reason Eddie would be the kind of kid who cuts up his food into little chunks before eating is because he has an eating disorder’ person or are you the ‘Eddie and Stan have an eating disorder because some people who go through trauma use control over their food as a way to gain control over their life’, person? Either way, yeah, these kind of are the hcs I’m talking about where it felt like a bit of research had been done about ED, or some personal experience was put in, but overall it didn’t really fit the characters. 

You’re absolutely free to keep your headcanons, especially if you’re actually very serious about them and you know it’s not really canon and you’re just projecting. You can cope how you want, including having fun with your disorder, but that doesn’t mean people have to like it. It’s not like I actually went into YOUR inbox to call you a slur and tear you apart. I just made a post expressing my frustration at lack of substantial, well thought out and actually relatable headcanons for people except Eddie and Stan that make sense to me, personally. 

I actually do have headcanons of my own about the Losers not being NT/mentally well (I’m adding both because I think NT just means not autistic/ADHD/ADD? someone feel free to inform me on that) so you’re not doing a ‘haha gotcha!’ here. This includes Eddie having an actual anxiety disorder and lowkey pain med addiction and Stan having depression and self harming. I even hc that Bev could have an ED. In fact it makes the most sense for her, not just because she’s a girl, but because ‘If I stay thin, I don’t develop curves and don’t look like an adult’ is a very common thing people with ED do and Bev would totally do that so her growing curves wouldn’t attract more of her fathers lusty attention, maybe she then got a bit better, and then relapsed because of Tom Rogan’s constant picking at her either triggering her back to old habits or making her want to control her food because it’s the one aspect she did have control over.  Smoking is also an appetite suppressant.

Heck, all of the Losers especially Mike probably has symptoms or straight up PTSD even if they couldn’t remember Derry and don’t even get me started on Richie’s repression of his emotions and using humour to cope. So no, none of these people are mentally well and well-adjusted, but that doesn’t mean we HAVE to give them a specific condition. It’s not a competition to see who can be most inclusive, or project most onto a character.

tl;dr You can headcanon what you want but people are allowed to disagree with it specifically or the type of headcanon. I wasn’t targeting anyone specific but I apologise if it seems like I was. I do have my own headcanons in relation to not being mentally well because there is nothing wrong with those kind of headcanons when they’re well thought out. Don’t call me a slur please.