#dont starve has been one of my main special interests for Eight Years im GONNA have a lot of thoughts on it and that is a promise

[zombiedcattle]

hiiiiii guys this is the beginning of a series of posts im writing on why dst means so much to me as an autistic/trans/etc etc person . a very ramble-y simple thing thats been gnawing at my brain

ok so first up is wendy bc ofc it is , shes been my fav for 8 years lol. i feel like she tends to get characterized as a “tumblr sadgirl” or a dramatic kid bc of her nihilistic and flowery (pun intended) way of speaking, but the description for her victorian skin - “Wendy is the queen of strict, socially mandated mourning practices.” - got me thinking about this a whole lot :

wendy barely ever mentions her family (besides abigail obviously). her father only once, and her mother a handful of times, though with uncertainty sometimes (“What color were mother’s eyes?”). she never mentions having any friends before meeting webber. so we can infer that not only was abigail her best friend and twin sister, she was the only person wendy had ever really been close to at all. in her short we see that even before abigails death she was very introverted and withdrawn when shes not around abigail. so losing abigail wasnt just losing her sister, but losing the only friend she had, the only person she was genuinely close to and loved by. this would destroy anyone but wendy was also just a lonely little kid, only 10 years old in canon (possibly younger when abigail died)! shes a kid wrought with unfamiliar and overwhelming grief

so of course she turns to structure. acting and dressing like how youre expected during a funeral, with a set schedule to follow; reading popular poems and narratives crafted with objective literary devices; even taking and wearing abigails old clothing and parting her hair the way her sister used to. wendy is very set on boxing her emotions in by what she believes to be the standard set by people who have come before her. to her, grief should be artsy, clean, something mature that puts you above finding joy in the little things. a Tragedy with a capital t, nothing more and nothing less.

she remains loyal to this ideology because its the only way she knows how to cope. shes young and grief is such a messy emotion, so she just … doesnt deal with it. that, + the “Wendy clings fiercely to the grief over her sister's death, for fear that moving on would cause Abigail's memory to fade.” vignette, leads to this tragic, sophisticated persona shes cultivated bc she cant get over seeing herself as nothing more than only half of a pair

as an autistic person, boxing feelings neatly instead of actually feeling them bc its too overwhelming is something ive done more times than i can count . i also struggle with seeing myself as an actual person instead of just defining myself by my relationships to other people or by how i think people want me to be. i cant think of any other characters like wendy — her writing is handled so amazingly well, she is so nuanced and ive never seen any piece of media tackle portraying a thought process like hers. it means a lot to me and i feel very seen by it, so i wanted to put in my two cents

thanks for reading guys ^_^ i hope this resonates with you guys as well and maybe makes you consider wendys writing in a way you hadnt before. having a great day <3