#with the fact that they're writing from a very difficult very sheltered perspective

[meezer]

oh and I finished my otome game. well just kai's route. I really loved it and it touched me in a way I'd find it hard to articulate. kai is a fantastic character imo, very well-written. I got his best ending and uhm, at the end there... everyone in that cafe fangirling over him must've had their jaws drop when they heard him tell the MC that, after they hang out there, they'd be going to his place, so he can say things "he can't say in public." everyone in that cafe now thinks these two popular up-and-coming actors are gay as fuck. and well are they wrong

[alollinglaughingcat]

@firealder2005 reblogged a bunch of tag games and i wanted to do all of them but i hate long reblogs in multitudes even if read more is an option so i combined them all into one post <3

@/gu1lty-as-sin's tag game

nickname: irl none really, online name is just Lolling

zodiac sign: Libra

height: i genuinely don't know but its probably somewhere around 5'6 since that's Alder's height lmao (i have height blindness and also cannot remember if i am taller or shorter or same height as you oopsies)

last thing i googled: uh technically i think it was me adding up the number of animals at the shelter i work at (the answer was 365 or somethin) though i never actually hit "enter" for it lol. otherwise it was "watcher grian ao3" (love me some ANGST)

amount of sleep: okay fun fact! i actually cannot perceive the amount of time i sleep. like if i go to bed at 11:00pm and wake up at 7:00am or if i go to bed at 9:00pm and wake up at 7:00am i think i've slept the same amount of time in my brain. i mean if i really push it to like 1:00am yeah i'll feel it in the morning but i can't do time math so it's all just the same numbers to me, so in my head i think i've always slept the healthy amount of hours. anyway probably 7-8

dream job: my current job is my dream job <3 i love working at an animal shelter. i'm currently going to school to be a vet tech, which I know I'll also enjoy doing since i've basically been a vet tech intern before, but I'll definitely miss getting to do everything i currently do as much as i do now, especially in regards to cleaning kennels, animal handling, and behavior assessments

movie/book that describes me the most: ??? fuck it i'll go random, The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg and Jon. that book is like how my brain works

favorite song: all of them and none of them they're all the same in the end

favorite instrument: minecraft noteblocks

favorite aesthetics: animalcore, cottagecore, vaporwave

favorite author: tui t sutherland!

random fun fact: i hope warrior cats never ends. i want a cat to go to space before it ends

not sure who started this tag game :)

favorite color: greens and pinks!

last song i listened to: damn i WAS gonna say "no clue" but i instinctively pulled up my yt playlist and started playing it RIGHt before i answered this tag game so now it's Flesh & Bone from ZOMBIES 2 (never watched it)

Last film I watched: 100% Wolf series and you can fight me over it its so endearingly mediocre

Currently reading: random fanfics. i guess the one I'm most dedicated to is the Echoes series for Watcher Grian content

Currently craving: nothing. wish i wanted to eat something tho but my appetite is empty

Currently watching: Guess That Build series w/ *takes breath* Impulse, Skizz, Grian, Gem, Jimmy, and Joel (currently halfway through Skizz's vid here)

Coffee or tea: i've never had either <3

Positivity Tag started by an Anon

Five Things I Like About Myself!

My writing skill, and specifically my ability to see things from a readers' perspective and predict the possible ways they will interpret my/others' writing.

My drawing skill, even though it is limited to just cartoon-ish, very stylized animals (mostly just cats tho). I enjoy drawing what I can draw.

My positivity. I've never been more grateful that I managed to somehow train myself into a more actively positive mindset. While I can get stressed, I feel like I can often manage it and remind myself that situational stress is temporary and happiness can always be found if you go looking for it.

My care and ability with animals. I enjoy handling difficult animals, be it spicy cats or reactive dogs, and I love seeing how animals' behaviors change over time with trust and patience. Even though I ironically don't really enjoy playing with animals that much, I enjoy surrounding myself with them and just co-existing with them, y'know?

My maturity. Took me a bit to really think of a something else to compliment myself on that wasn't just a reiteration of the above. But I've been told a lot that I'm always "so mature for my age" (not in a creepy way, but in a surprised, "wait you're X years old?!" way lol). I always thought it was a little silly, because isn't everyone "my age" mature? To my surprise, no. And those older than me aren't either. Which is okay because everyone's different! But it is frustrating sometimes lol

if anyone wants to do all or some of these tags, go ahead! open tag :)

[pierrotwrites-hc]

So I'm autistic and I was wondering, are Toby and Luca intended to be read as autistic? The way their brains work make me feel very seen

This is an excellent question and I'm so glad you asked!

I want to preface this by saying that I am not an "expert" and do not have an autism dx (though I'm not neurotypical).

I did write Toby with the intention that, were he in our world, he would identify as/receive a dx as autistic.

However, I definitely do not intend his various obnoxious personality traits and obliviousness to the wellbeing of those around him to be read as symptomatic of autism! He's also a spoiled, sheltered rich kid whose social and emotional development was seriously stunted by both the conditions in which he was raised and the larger conditions of the world in which he lives. The fact that he is only just now realizing that he has the capacity for genuine empathy is due, not to autism, but rather growing up in a family that has no concept of empathy and being deprived of the opportunity to develop meaningful relationships with empathetic people of his own class.

Class is significant here because even though Toby had excellent models of empathy in Doran and Connell, he hasn't (yet) moved beyond the mentality of "they're slaves, they have to take care of me, it's what they're for, and I don't need to think any more deeply about their role in my life or what they might feel for me/what I might feel for them beyond these bonds of obligation."

Toby's relationship with Dor and Con has been such an unquestioned part of his life for so long that it took seeing the abuse of Luca -- someone he didn't grow up with and who he has already identified as being in key ways similar to himself -- for him to snap out of his own social conditioning. While Toby had seen slaves physically abused before, and though he had some concept of sexual assault, actually witnessing a sex act, a forced sex act, for the first time, and with Luca as the victim, was so outside of his previous experience and received understanding of slavery that it allowed him to see Luca as a person (something Luca himself is still incapable of).

In fact, Toby's classically autistic qualities -- specifically his insistence on logic -- will provide him with the framework necessary to question the fundamental illogic of his long-held assumptions about the world in general and slavery in particular.

Basically, what makes him neuroatypical is also what will make him a better person.

So that's Toby.

Luca I did not intend to write as autistic, though readers are certainly welcome to headcanon him that way!

That said, when you're writing from the perspective a deeply traumatized character, and especially a character for whom trauma has been the structuring logic of their life since childhood, it's difficult to extricate nature from nurture, who they "really" are from what they've been forced to become. I don't know who Luca would have been without all the bad things that have happened to him because Luca doesn't know who Luca would have been without all the bad things that have happened to him.

And those bad things have definitely made him atypical in the sense that he does not experience or understand the world in the same way as most of the people around him. So much of what now makes him exceptional weren't necessarily traits he was born with but had to develop in order to survive -- his extraordinary memory, his ability to perform encryption in his head and solve complex puzzles. These are all the more or less accidental byproducts of the conditioning which was intended to destroy his personality.

Now that Luca is emerging into a sense of self that isn't dependent on Robert, he can begin to recognize this atypicality as a strength. As with Toby, what allows Luca see the world differently is also what will allow him to change it.