#i honestly feel like my family's pet autistic adult most of the time

[entangledptsd]

been coming to some realizations about the ol' teenage years and the effects of social isolation, csa, emotional and physical abuse, and religious brainwashing all whipped up into a nauseating salad while you're going through puberty for the first time

that's where a lot of my relationship and sexual dysfunction come from. being forced to confess every single fucking thing to a parental figure who then threatened to go tell the creepy old bishop about "your little problem." as if me touching my own body was some kind of horrible addiction. she made me dissociate completely from my whole body and suppress every natural urge i had. she told me god would only forgive me a few times and then he'd stop after that because clearly i wasn't really sorry enough for enjoying my body at all

and then she just engaged the rest of the fucking family to make sure i never had any time alone, which was the most horrible overstimulating shit ever for my autistic ass. i wasn't allowed any alone time for any reason. shower? she'd always find a time to sneak up and knock on the door really hard just to make me jump and keep me on edge. actually she did that for fun all the damn time, just like she pulled the hair at the nape of my neck to see me tear up because she found it hilarious. she screamed at me when i finally did it back to her though.

never had a problem holding me down to stick needles in my face, feeling me up under my shirt, touching me everywhere no matter how much i hated it and made that clear, pulling up my shirt and bra in front of the rest of the family. people make fun of the weird kids who bark and growl, but it was the only thing that made her back off.

and there was nobody i could talk to, because "family things stay in the family." i wasn't allowed to go to public school or leave the house at all without a parent until i was 17 just so she could control my entire world. i had exactly one crush for about a week until she found out and started tearing me down for it. i couldn't have any friends she didn't personally approve, and she also had to personally approve their parents. i wasn't allowed sleepovers. one time i came back from a church activity wearing blue eyeshadow one of the youth group leaders had put on me because i liked it, and she told me i looked "like a prostitute" and freaked the fuck out. the Sunday after that, she copied her own makeup onto me to show me off as essentially a tiny version of her to all the adults at church.

she was honestly just a possessive jealous creepy gross incestuous pedophile, and i wanted to die. the only way for me to escape was burying myself in a book and getting my consciousness outside of myself completely. even that wasn't enough after a while.

she realized one day that i was getting bigger than her, and she decided to start having weird wrestling matches with me on the living room floor. i'd been carefully supervised through tae kwon do classes but i was too scared to hit her. she always ended up tickling me and sitting on me in ways that weren't right for anyone to do to a kid to win. i just wanted to let loose, crack her jaw, throw her out the window, but i knew if i did that the consequences would be severe.

if i ever see her again i'm showing her what a left hook feels like. she loved to complain about how i was born evil and just the most badly-behaved kid of all time, but sometimes i wish i'd really unleashed everything and shown her what an unholy terror really is.

nowadays touch is still a minefield for me, even just a tap on the shoulder can send me into furious shaking. i don't know how to have sex without ignoring what i feel and just trying to make someone else feel good. i can't cuddle anyone but my girlfriend, and even that kinda freaks me out sometimes.

the moral of the story is, don't fucking have kids if you're going to abuse them. don't even get a pet. collect rocks or something, find a hobby, tie a boulder around your neck and chuck it off a cliff into the ocean like that jesus guy said, but don't have kids if you're going to abuse them. oh and burn your bible/book of mormon/christian scriptures of choice, that's not a childrearing manual.

#and now i get to sort it all out #i'm glad i at least started screaming back when i hit 14 #i didn't understand that what she was doing was wrong i just felt so fucking angry #so i felt guilty and everyone else reprimanded me to stop fighting her to 'keep the peace.' fuck the peace. #if she wanted peace she could have stopped being so shitty anytime #i fought her for a few years like my life depended on it and maybe it did #my siblings hate me now and haven't talked to me in years but i don't care. me fighting back gave them more space to think for themselves #instead of getting brainwashed by her. i took so many punishments for those little shits #and the youngest still lives with her. i worry sometimes that she finally got the substitute husband she wanted #he was always a mama's boy and she would rave about finally having the wonderful son god promised her. #i may have been the scapegoat but at least i got out from under her thumb and dragged my dad and other sibling out with me

[teaboot]

Hey I just wanted to ask you something I don't know if its personal so maybe I'll start with me, my psychiatrist told me that I have asperger's syndrome and like my mom keeps asking me like what does that means because I think she sees people with autism as stupid and I'm at the top of my class so she feels like it's a mistake, I personally go mute for months sometimes except for like oral tests, and idk I forget about having a body and so I hit onto walls when I'm focused on something but *

"...*is not so exaggerated like I'm pretty functional I just forget that there are walls and doors and that I can't just transport me to the other room or so,I mean I feel like I'm just trying to find what my "weird or autistic" traits are to justify the diagnosis,I didn't asked my psychiatrist to elaborate on that and so I was wondering, what would you say that your autistic traits are?Also just in case,I know that autistic people can be hella smart and I think that you are really wise I admire you"

Thank you so much, that's very sweet of you to say!

Honestly, I'm sort of in a similar situation- My parents' reaction was to say, "you're too smart to be autistic" or, "Everyone of ~your intelligence~ is a little weird in the head, anyways", and then. Expect me to live up to all the positive stereotypes without ever getting bogged down by the negative realities?

This might not be very helpful at all of me to say, but as an adult who grew up in a rather unpleasant environment, there really isn't much help for a number of things except getting old and independant enough to move out, and then just accepting that their perception of reality isn't open to negotiation. You can try debating it, or meeting them on common ground with scientific basis, but in my case....

....well. There's just some things I now know not to talk about at family gatherings.

I'm sorry, I know that's probably not very helpful or heartening to hear. 

As for my personal grab bag of symptoms? I tend to hyperfocus on personal projects. When I'm really invested in an art piece, I often forget to eat or sleep or drink, and the only way I've learned to snap out of that is that if my hands are shaking or I'm falling over a lot, I probably need to eat something and lay down for a while, because otherwise- and yeah, not the healthiest motivator- otherwise I might start fucking up my hard work.

I also get overwhelmed by overlapping noises- if two people are talking at once, even if one is on a radio or TV show, I can't hear either of them and it stresses the shit out of me. White noise, like in malls or assemblies, also tends to burn my energy pretty fast.

Things like leaf blowers, people whistling indoors, and emergency sirens are physically painful. Repetitive noises like a bouncing rubber ball, sniffling, dogs licking things, and low-frequency vibrations from massage chairs, earthquakes, distant bass music, and some fluorescent lighting systems are impossible to ignore, which ranges from irritating to distressing, depending on my headspace du jour.

I hate bland food with a passion. It tends to make me nauseaus. I like lots of spice, lots of sugar, lots of sour and hot and acidic. I love strong flavours, and if I'm cooking for friends and family I often have to remind myself to tone down the seasonings for them.

Some textures make me genuinely ill, too- most types of meat, fat, and other animal bits result in.... Bad times for all. Polyester towels suck ass. Microfiber cloth. Thick cotton knit material. Any fabric covering my forearms. Thin, elastic denim. Vinyl. Polar fleece.

On the flip side, I looooove woven cotton blankets. Cotton sheets, cotton bedding- cold, heavy duvets are good, too. Acrylic, so long as it doesn't get damp. I have.... Perhaps a little bit of a problem here, as I do... Maybe, possibly, get a little impulsive with buying rugs, throws, and blankets when I come across one that feels right.

All my cups and bowls are handmade out of clay. I'm OK with smooth ceramics, but stoneware feels happy in my hands. I think of it as a treat, like packing a bit of chocolate with my lunch, or eating a whole bag of popcorn by myself. Again, I.... May go a little overboard when I come across A nice-feeling piece of dishware.

Basically, from what I understand, a lot of folks on the spectrum are under and over stimulated by various sensory inputs.

Me, I gravitate towards taste, inertia, tactile sensation, temperature, and dark lighting, while I find myself avoiding, limiting, or minimizing sound, light, color, oral texture, and smell.

As for more stereotyped behaviors, I find organizing things such as legal documents, filing cabinets, paint swatches, hardware, coins, stones, or colors to be very soothing and almost meditative. I go through special interests fairly often, and have been 'into' things like animals, insects, natural history, and art since before I could walk. I can't explain why they're such alluring subjects, they just make me happy.

I didn't realize until recently that I do stim, as well- I rock, sway, growl, swish water around, hang upside-down, rotate my thumbs, rub fabric, twirl coins, and flex my hands. I also (rarely) seem compelled to jump up and down in circles very fast when I'm particularly excited, or flap my arms against my sides like a penguin.

When I'm overstimulated, I go.... I'm not sure if you could call it 'nonverbal'. I get the feeling I COULD speak, it's just.... Overwhelmingly difficult. Usually I find a dark space or a corner away from people, put a coat or something over my head, cover my ears, close my eyes... Sometimes deliberate eye contact is hard, or I can't say more than one or two words at a time, or I find myself relying more on a hum or a grunt to communicate that I'm listening.

It... Probably all sounds weird to a neurotypical who may be reading, but I'm perfectly happy with myself as I am. I wouldn't change it if I could, except perhaps to minimize some of the more irritating things.

Mostly, my biggest peeve is being treated like a cool new pet or accessory. "Oh, this is my person with Autism- they're great at cleaning, you should get one!"- yeah, that can fuck right off. I'm right here, I can hear you, I'm a person. A little respect goes a long way.

But, whoops, here I've gone on a ramble- you want the best advice I have, though? Become comfortable with the person you are. Accept and seek out what things bring you happiness. Don't get hung up on the negatives. Love your experience, if you can, and don't worry about validating anything- you are who you are, and the words we use to explain ourselves fall so, so short when faced with the complexity of our individual existence.

The way I see it, the day before your diagnosis is the same as today, you just have one more tool to understand yourself with. The decision of how and if you choose to explain this to those around you is entirely yours to decide! 

I know this kind of went off the rail of your question. My answers are a little limited. I hope I could help anyways! Good luck!!

#Long post #teaboot

[swimfuel]

okay humanstuck thoughts under the cut

i owe a lot of this to @/rhythmic-idealist's kankri/vantasposting bc holy shit theyve got such a big brain (ill link to their individual posts when im on desktop since im using this to keep all my thoughts straight and i agree with most of what they say wholeheartedly)

general status quo stuff:

signless works in an extremely demanding career involving helping others (i'm leaning towards an attorney who works with organizations and does pro bono work), and is also extensively involved in social justice work outside of his job... he is very rarely home

he loves and cares for his children deeply and tries to express it whenever they're face to face, but the couch in his cramped and messy office has seen far too much use over the years for him to have been able to say it enough

his habits of working himself to the point of exhaustion are handily passed down to his kids btw

the kids had to grow up quickly because signless was out of the house so often and so consistently—kankri, who was already pretty high-strung, has to learn to take care of himself and karkat

they grow up near ms firuzeh maryam, who's their pseudoaunt/grandma (she took in a nine year old kavana vantas when she was about twenty), but they just call her ms rosa

they spent a lot of time in the maryam house growing up, with miss rosa's two nieces. porrim is a year older than kankri, while kanaya and karkat are the same age

kankri grows kinda sensitive to people trying to mother him since it rubs against the notion that he's the "adult of the house" and that he can take care of himself and karkat just fine

(and it also kinda underlines the fact that kankri has no idea what he's doing at the best of times)

and ironically enough, kankri becomes overbearing and naggy towards karkat in his own right, which forestalls them becoming close in any brotherly sort of way

they grow up really just... unable to communicate with one another clearly

karkat develops his ornery exterior in response to kankri's constant stream of opinions and frantic attempts at making up for the presence of a guardian in the house

i think there would actually be some really interesting parallels with rose in this au.. maybe i'm drawing from my own experiences as well but i think he'd begin to assume that every time his brother opens his mouth, he's going to criticize karkat

but instead of reacting like rose with the "making yourself more of a puzzle"/passive aggressive stuff, he gets a more defensive/hackles raised/"argue with you before you can argue with me" approach

and the thing is that they do love each other and would take a bullet for the other etc etc etc.. but they don't know how to express it because they've fallen into these shitty patterns

and it really doesn't help that kankri has grown somewhat resentful of signless over the years... that mix of resentment and fear and love gets more extreme and more polar every time signless gets injured during a political demonstration

i think kankri and signless would also be slightly closer than karkat and signless, as signless' job really only started to ramp up when karkat was less than years old and kankri was in his early double digits

kankri autistic btw its word of god (i am god)

karkat has a pet crab. its name is also karkat. he vents his frustrations to it.

i feel like the vantases exemplify both the best and worst parts of their aspects with one another as well... the strength of their bonds keeps them together and grounded, but TOO grounded. [insert Blood rant here]

the Blood rant:

i define Blood as bonds, responsibility, and the "core". if Life is the fertile soil and everything living on a planet's surface, then Blood is the gravitational core of the planet keeping everything together

i also think Blood, Heart, & Mind work in tandem to define a person just as blood serves to connect the pieces of the human body... Heart is the soul and the self, Mind is the application of one's self through active choices (agency), while Blood defines both the self and the choices one makes in greater detail [and, as an aside, Life provides the physical spark of life needed to keep the heart pumping blood]

OKAY wow that got tangential anyways

SO BASICALLY! too much Blood makes you stagnate, so for example:

kankri is split between staying home with karkat or going to college across the country and being truly unbound for the first time in years

another crisis of Blood: signless is caught between his empathy and responsibility to the whole world and his responsibility to his own children

okay so here's more status quo stuff:

the maryam and vantas kids grow up together and its hilarious because you'll see them all together and its just like (girlboss) (girlboss) (physical manlet) (emotional manlet)

the maryam girls are actually miss rosa's nieces but she took them in when they were both pretty young

the pyropes know the vantases well enough considering pyrope senior and sign have known one another from their respective legal practices for years, but they live on the other side of town

the leijons lived in town when kankri and meulin were very young, but they moved and travelled for a long time before coming back and reestablishing their roots

the captors (psii being one of sign's oldest and closest friends) move into town with the peixes family pretty early on though

the condesce is.. a horrible spouse and guardian, to put it plainly. she's very emotionally manipulative and isn't averse to smacking people around, including her own family. she moves herself and her perfect little family into town so she can properly oversee a new business venture close by

feferi is one of the best young swimmers in the country and has a pretty good shot of getting onto the olympic team.. a lot of this drive to be perfect and to be better results from the condesce's unrelenting pressure and thinly veiled resentment throughout her whole life

so yeah psii, )(ic, feferi, and sollux all live together and it's really not great for anyone involved. (meenah ran away years ago, and crashed on aranea's couch for a pretty long while—mituna moved out with latula for college before psii and the condesce got married)

it gets bad to the point of sollux staying with the maryams for two months while the adults try to sort out that absolute clusterfuck and get the divorce proceedings going (meenah finally convinces feferi to get out and come stay with her and aranea for the duration as well)

in terms of relationships i think latula and porrim were really really close in high school, and probably had some kind of unacknowledged thing going on for a while that never actually turned into anything because latula and mituna were going steady

kankri has had a crush on latula for years but never acted on it for similar reasons

meenah still carries a lot of that give no fucks attitude (it's developed moreso as a defense mechanism here) and can't understand why feferi refuses to leave the condesce with her

okay back to VANTAS MANPAIN i also think that karkat feels the weight of a lot of expectations on his shoulders as well

he feels responsible to live up to the example his dad and his brother set, even if it's to his own detriment—and kankri's oblivious rambling about his grades and his teachers and all his clubs certainly aren't helping the matter

kankri is one of those overinvolved kids taking a million AP's while simultaneously shitting on the collegeboard at every single step

hes this super overachiever anal retentive perfectionist type dude and (just as karkat preemptively criticizes others to forestall their criticisms of him only to harshly criticize himself) kankri subconsciously holds the people around him to the same expectations he holds for himself

so karkat also develops this sense of lacking which, in combination with everything else, culminates in self loathing and thinking he has to solve everyone else's problems and getting horribly mad at himself for every little mistake

GOD i have a lot more but lemme post this before i accidentally close out of the app and lose it all

more little details:

vriska's mom and terezi's mom HATE each other like HATE HATE HATE one another it's so bad

karkat wrote a ten page review of my immortal in middle school

jade is one of nepeta's best online friends

sollux can't raise one eyebrow at a time.. karkat gives him so much grief about it

the vantases eat a lot of shitty renditions of persian dishes until karkat learns to cook because literally the only person in the world with a CHANCE of getting KANKRI VANTAS to make an EDIBLE DISH is miss rosa

kanaya is really good at persian dance too but is VERY VERY embarassed to perform in front of people.. however porrim definitely is not

karkat has insomnia while kankri just stays up stupidly late for assignments that really shouldnt be taken that seriously.. but they both have the same rumination/sleep anxiety thing where your brain goes insane with horrible and depressing scenarios as you try to sleep

and more ideas that i thought were interesting but idk how to fit in the context of this au:

signless and disciple getting married pretty late in life after having been in love for years, the vantases move in with the leijons and karkat suddenly has two sisters

nepeta and karkat are both juniors at this point, meulin is probably in her third year at a local college nearby while kankri is about to start his second year at a university pretty far away

the kids in general honestly but ill figure it out

more random hcs this time with kids:

kanaya and rose get into a flame war online that gradually settles into elaborate courtship rituals

also nepeta + jade online besties

also bec can inexplicably still teleport

the first sbahj movie comes out and the next six months of dave strider junior's high school career are absolute hell

actually hc that dave senior goes by d strider professionally. the d stands for a lot of things

aradia and dave frequent a lot of the same forums but never end up really interacting

meanwhile karkat and john frequent a lot of the same forums and DEFINITELY end up interacting. this turns into grudging (at least on karkat's part) friendship after they find themselves fighting for their lives defending an objectively shitty movie together on the same thread

#humanstuck #vantas family #.

[quietest-rebellion]

Do the chaos household for that character meme you coward

Me upon realizing I have to explain what that is

Basically it's the idea of my fav murder boys having to live together. This being Stefano, Eddie, and Higgs. @christmasace and I came up with this one night and it has been our main source of serotonin since.

I'm going to do the character break downs for them in the context of their original games though. So anyway, buckle in, lads, this'll be a long one. (Eddie and Higgs will be below the cut)

Stefano Valentini

How I feel about this character

Fav. Favest of favs. I would willingly die for this man in a heartbeat. His voice? Beautiful. His personality? Snarky. His art? Breath taking. The way that he has to fix his hair after getting shot with a smoke bolt? Hilarious. Me? I'm in love. Also the fact he put jokes outside of the theater is iconic. Anyway, Stefano was an appealing character from the moment I first saw him in Markiplier's playthrough. I didn't realize I'd fallen until I started crying at his death and Mark was like "I don't even feel a little bad!" Because then I was like "oh shit why am I crying" Also I believe Stefano is an undiagnosed autistic man with horrible PTSD and brain damage(obviously) and I will die on this hill. I could talk about how I feel about Stefano for pages but I won't right now.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Me. Honestly I feel like Stefano is either an asexual aromantic, who only cares about his art, or he is a raging bisexual who is extremely picky with men since he himself is such a perfect man. As for actual ships though, I feel like Stefano is attracted to Sebastian and flirts with him throughout the game. I just don't really see the idea of Sebastian flirting back. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Emily Lewis. I love the idea of them being in a relationship, official or unofficial, and then things went south and he killed her. Stefano killed a lot of people before being put into STEM, why was this one so special he had to make a series of displays representing her? I don't know, just my thoughts.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

This is gonna sound weird, but I guess Theodore? Look, I just love the idea of Stefano driving Theodore insane and making him regret ever hiring him. And like, all the memes everyone makes about it? Amazing. (A personal favorite, also the one that I made) Plus, "You are special. You've always been special." Yeah, anyway I really need to know what the other half of that conversation was. Does Obscura count? I think she does. I see Stefano and Obscura's relationship being like that of a father and daughter or of a pet and an owner. He just loves her so much and he's so snippy when Sebastian gets to the theater the first time. "You did not appreciate my beautiful Obscura's performance." I imagine if you actually chose to fight and kill her in Ch. 7 he was really upset about it. Guardian is along the same lines as Obscura but I think Obscura has a higher place in his mind. 1. Because she is a camera and takes more photos for him. 2. There is confirmed to be more than one Guardian so he probably doesn't grow overly attached to any particular one, where there is only one Obscura. 3. Stefano seems to love whatever he did most recently the most, which is fair. As an artist, it really just Be Like That.

My unpopular opinion of this character

Unpopular only in the world of the game, but his art is good.  Actual unpopular opinion? Not sure I have one, tbh.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon

I say it literally all the time but I really want a prequel comic or SOMETHING to tell us more about him as character. What happened to his family? Why did he come to America? What war was he injured in?  Also the idea of him getting some dlc for the second game is still always on my mind, like, it could take place before and during the main game and it’s just us fucking around and making art and then catching Lily and fighting Sebastian. I am not gonna say that he didn’t deserve to die in canon, so really I wouldn’t change that.

Eddie Gluskin

How I feel about this character

Look... uh... I honestly am not sure how to describe my feelings for him. Because on one hand, is a misogynistic asshole who deserves literally everything that happened to him as an adult. But on the other hand, he was an abused child that grew into a hurt and sick adult. Also, when he’s not trying to kill you he is quite the gentleman.  Basically, I love this character, but I have no idea why and am slightly ashamed about it.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Literally no one. This man should not be in a relationship with any of the canon characters. I’d like to imagine an AU where he is sane and settled down with a wife and had 2.5 kids and lived together in their house with a white picket fence but that isn’t going to happen obviously.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Look, I know they never interact with each other, but Eddie and Trager. And like, not as friends really but more as weird acquaintances. They talk about surgeries and such, share a drink every now and then, complain about women, etc. 

My unpopular opinion of this character

He’s straight. 

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon

I just wish he would’ve been sent to a place that could actually help him instead of Mt. Massive. But then he wouldn’t be in the game, lmao. ALSO, there is a lot of unused Eddie dialogue in the files for the game. I really wish that all of them would have actually been included in the game. Some gems include: “Did I...? Oh lord. I forgot to give you an anesthetic, didn’t I? Eddie, you doofus! Would forget my own head if it was screwed on!” (Timestamp 16:32) “There you go. No, no, don’t cry. You’re not dying. I’m going to make you better.” (Timestamp 10:13) 

Higgs Monaghan

How I feel about this character

Garbage boy stink man. Just a rowdy, dirty boy. Pizza rat. Like, I sometimes have a difficult time imagining that he ran a company before he was a terrorist, because he doesn’t seem like a very organized person. Higgs is so multifaceted it’s impressive. In the game we only really get to see him a this asshole who wants to end the world. In his journals we see his hunt for power and want to be important. In his bunker we see the organized chaos of how his brain worked and how he operated his life. Not to mention the Peter Englert emails that are so well written. Anyway, I love him.  Plus I’m gonna mention something my sister(Thrushheart) pointed out when I was having her watch me play. He is the exact opposite of Sam. Examples: Sam hates being touched or touching people. Higgs is touching people as often as he can, including but not limited to even licking them. Sam is reconnecting the world, at first for Amelie, then for everyone he’s met along the way. Higgs is ending the world, at first for Amelie, then for himself(or possibly still for Amelie). Higgs is loud and bombastic while Sam is more quiet and reserved. Sam is smol and Higgs is tol.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Look, I’m not gonna say that I do or do not ship Goldenbridges. I’m not sure how I feel about it because, as I said, Higgs and Sam are such contrasting personalities I don’t think it would work. Fragile. Okay, okay, I know what you’re thinking, but I imagine they were together before he met Amelie. His betrayal would mean even more if this was true. And in his journals he only ever refers to Fragile as “his partner.” Now I know this was done to hide that they were his journals and because they were work partners, but it could also mean more. And of course we can’t forget the somber and clear writing, directly over his bed in his bunker. “Fragile forget you ever met me.” And how surprised he was to see her on the beach after the fight. The sad look he gave her as she caressed his face. Aaahhhh.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

I wasn’t sure whether to include Higgs relationship with Amelie here or in the last section. But he quite literally worshiped her and the ground she walked on so  🤷🏻‍♀️  I don’t feel like she ever really gave a fuck about him though. Amelie is extremely manipulative and proves that every time she opens her mouth so I have no doubt she told him whatever he wanted to hear so that he would help her.

The Veteran Porter. If you worked hard enough to get more than one star with this guy, you learn that he used to work for Higgs and that’s why he is reluctant to trust the UCA. I like to think that he and Higgs were good buddies before Amelie.

My unpopular opinion of this character

With likable villains it’s hard to figure what is a popular opinion and what is not. So I’m really not sure. Maybe just that he didn’t get enough screen time?

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon

Redemption ark! Redemption ark! Higgs is the one guy on this list where I’m like, “Okay, he saw the error in his ways. Maybe he gets a second chance.”

______________________________________________________________

Anyway, that’s all of them! If you actually read this whole thing, first of all... wow. Second of all, thanks! Here is a screenshot of these chaos boys from The Sims 4 as your reward. 

#christmasace #asks #anon #stefano valentini #martina talks about tew #martina talks #eddie gluskin #higgs monaghan #this reminds me that I need to make the post about the sims ones that I made #yes we actually have a house where they're all living together on the sims #long post

[kaypeace21]

Byler hints in the background of s1-3

Honestly, this should just be called- ‘my autistic brain casually (and without even trying) notices shit in the background, but never mentioned it- because I thought it sounded too crazy to talk about’ XD. But the symbolism and Easter eggs give my byler-shipping heart so much life. So I thought, since you guys prob. didn’t notice it- I’ll mention it anyways.  So here goes.

Drawings/rainbows

There has been a theme in s3 about how Mike equates ‘falling for girls’ as a part of growing up, and his feelings for Will as something childish that he has to has to grow out of. 

- confessing to El : “A feeling … yeah, like, something… like OLD PEOPLE say it sometimes”.

- “And Will too. I was thinking we could all have new presents to play with and *scoffs* Sorry, that made me sound like a 7 year old... (apologizing to El)

- Mike getting in a fight with Will (after d&d), and saying they can’t be close anymore: 

Mike says, “It’s not my fault you don’t like girls!”, and then he tries to ½ apologize only to say, “I’m not trying to be a jerk. Ok? But We’re not kids anymore.” Explaining, this is just the way things are-boys fall in love with girls, get girlfriends, and this is just a part of growing up (heteronormativity).  He tells Will “I mean, what did you think, really? That we were never gonna get girlfriends? We were just gonna sit in my basement all day and play games for the rest of our lives?” And poor Will who is probably more aware of his feelings just responds. “Yeah, I guess I did. I really did.” And of course Mike immediately apologizes for being an “ asshole”, after this.

But here’s the thing! Mike actually does wish he didn’t have to grow up and that he could play games with Will (without girlfriends) for the rest of their lives. His room, in s3, SCREAMS that he’s trying to grow up/act straight... but he can’t let go of his feelings for Will. 

He literally takes down his old childhood poster from s1-2 for a more mature/adult poster. But on the same wall (where the old poster used to be) he hasn’t removed a single d&d drawing Will has given him. He’s pretending that he’s grown out of d&d when Lucas is around- because he’s emulating how (the straight) Lucas acted, all season. But Mike has it BAD (and is seriously pinning) for Will! Like, I love Will but his art at 11 years old isn’t so great to justify it still be on Mike’s wall at age 14.  He’s just that whipped (and literally can’t part with a single drawing Will has ever given him) XD

Like... it’s cannon that Mike caresses Will’s drawings 

He’s that ‘ dumbass blinded by love’ who thinks anything Will’s draws is a perfect- masterpiece. Mike could literally see Will draw scribbles and think it’s amazing! Like in s2 he just guides his hands through the scribbles he drew on the wall- no joke! XD

However, what’s interesting though is the one other things he took down from his wall. In S1 Mike (before he even met El)  has a heart sign, with a red heart being propelled by a rainbow. Yet in s3 , the season where he’s ‘obsessing’ about El- it mysteriously disappears. However, in the first ep of s3 when Mike is making-out with El we see a emergence of the heart being propelled by a rainbow (in El’s room) as a drawing. Probably signifying Mike participating in compulsory-heterosexuality and that no matter how hard he tries- he’s not straight!

So given the fact he can’t part with any of the pictures on the wall...you better believe Mike still has that giant binder filled with every drawing Will has given him . And he’s probably hidden it away , with the rainbow heart sign (because he knows it would look suspicious to have laying around). 

-Also, Mike literally has more rainbow symbolism than Will (and has had it through every season) XD

-the s2 ref being the most on the nose) Forbidden fruit + rainbow = queer forbidden romance. And during the 80s, that rainbow-apple poster in the AV Club was suspected to be in reference to Alan Turning (the gay ‘father of computers’).

Animal easter eggs that relate to byler and the upside down/supernatural-plot .

tigers- Mike keeps a tiger poster (which was right next to that rainbow-heart sign) in his basement through s1-3. In s1 we see Will also has a tiger drawing, which is later put on the wall (like a poster) in s2.  Sara Hopper (like Will ) had her death faked by the government (and had a tiger plushie in s1)- and Kali probably had something to do with it since in the prequel novel ‘suspicious minds’ had Kali talk non stop about her fav animal , tigers.  Theory  here. But again, Jancy is also connected to tigers as a romantic symbol (just like byler).

sharks- The Duffer brothers themselves said they based the s1 demorgorgan off of sharks, which Nancy even references in s1. Mike and Will have shark iconography in their room/basement. Will has a jaws poster shown in s1-2, and Mike has shark toys visible in s2. The shark (and bear) symbolism hint at the fact that Will created the upside down/demorgorgans/mind-flayer using his powers- theory here.

bears- Will since s1 has had bear symbolism around him. Bears symbolically represent  “wisdom” like ‘Will the wise’ and were associated with the demorgorgan/upside down in s1 and 2 as well . Max and Nancy compared demogorgans to bears- and Nancy and Jonathan used a bear-trap to capture a demorgorgan in s1 . 

But s3 made bears a romantic symbol- Mike was going to buy a golden teddy bear for El as a romantic gesture. The golden bear had a bowtie (it’s male). And the gray bear that Mike gives to her, was originally Will’s (as shown in s1 &2). This gray bear is coming right in between Mike and El (at the end of s3). They even kiss , while El presses the bear right in between them.  In conclusion these romantic bears represent Will. * I mean that whole awkward kiss (where Mike’s eyes are open and he doesn’t kiss back- happens in Will’s room, in front of Will’s open closet,  with Will’s bear smushed between them (pretty blatant foreshadowing).

dinosaurs- This one is probably a stretch but we see this boy has tons of dinosaurs (at least 6). He starts to info-dump on El about how much he loves them. But, she has no interest. And if the wtf look didn’t make this obvious.

She even gets up and walks away, ignoring his tangent about dinosaurs. 

She literally couldn’t care less about his interest in them. 

But in spite of this, we see Mike gave her Rory in s3 (since it’s in her bedroom). And in s2 we see him sadly look at Rory, with 2 other dinosaurs in frame. This, along with s1 implies he has a huge collection of various dinosaurs .But his collection is missing one of the most popular dinosaur species... the brachiosaurus (the long necked dinosaur).

And right after this scene in s2 scene, we go to Will’s room. And he has a huge brachiosaurus! This boy couldn’t even afford a halloween costume and had to have his hand-made by his mom... but he could afford this huge -fancy dinosaur replica? I bet Mike bragged about his dinosaur collection to Will (like he did with El). But Will being a nerd, was actually impressed. So Mike actually gave him his best/fav toy in his collection- kind of like what he did with Rory.

frogs- This is the most hilarious thing to me. I laughed for like 20 minutes on my rewatch. In s1 Will has a GIANT stuffed plushie of a frog next to his jaws poster and teddy bear. I’m dead! Will doesn’t even disagree with the “frog face“ insult. 

He’s just like ‘well, he’s my frog face’ . Time to snuggle with this frog that looks just like Mike . Will is so in love but also low key savage dragging Mike like that. I can only imagine Dustin and Lucas saying “nah, you don’t look like a frog”. And poor baby-Mike asking Will what he thinks, and Will not being able to lie, just saying “ Well... some people like frogs.”  XD

We also see that in s2 the frog is missing but the Jaws-poster, coin jar, and the bear (we later see El holding in s3) remain .Probably to indicate this is when Will started to subconsciously suppress his feelings for Mike. Although @theclericwill pointed out -that , instead, Mike may have used the frog-plushie as a pillow... for his frog-face XD

Throwing shade at Mileven/mileven shippers in s2 

In the Montauk pitch (later named Stranger things) they describe the Mike and El dynamic by saying “ If Mike is the Eliot of our show,Eleven is our Et.” (AKA they’re from different planets)

-In s2 , Erica  is forcing He-man and barbie to make out. Lucas angrily separates the two. And then this discussion happens.

Erica: “Hey , They’re in love!”

Lucas (livid- and standing right next to a rainbow): “No, actually,  they’re not. They don’t even exist on the same planet.”

Not to mention I doubt it was a coincident they had a (bratty) pre-pubescent girl be the proxy for most mileven shippers.Like not all mileven shippers are bad, but almost all the toxic ones (that the Duffers have to deal with) are tween girls. And to the Duffers, only a child could think 2 people are ‘in love’ after a week of knowing each other. Or that El could understand such things like romance- given the fact that her and Mike are from different planets (given how El has no experience with the outside world).Mike even says in s2,  he can’t hate Max because he ‘doesn’t know’ her (despite knowing her as long as he knew El). Meaning he doesn’t love El since he doesn’t know her. 

Plus, El told Mike, he treats her like ‘garbage’ and ‘a pet’ . And Finn after s1, said that the Duffers told him Mike thought of El as a puppy, and she is even compared to Dart (a demo-dog in s2). Mike asking Dustin, angrily “What, You have a bond? Just cause he likes nougat (eggos)?” Being a  blatant dig at people obsessing over this shallow aspect of their relationship.

Mileven was also compared to that  of family members. In s1, right before they kissed, she asks “will you be like my brother?” (while wearing Nancy’s dress). And Mike also referred to her as his ‘cousin’ . Not to mention, El loved ted’s laz-eboy chair (and Nancy said Karen and Ted “never loved each other” ). And right before Karen is about to cheat on Ted - she looks at him sleeping in the chair (and the lyrics are ‘I should have walked away’). 

It’s pretty hilarious, since so many people try to ‘no-homo’ byler by saying Mike thinks of Will as a brother/or family- yet, their relationship has never been directly compared to a sibling (unlike mileven).

People also seem to not realize Mike lied in s2 (just like he did in s3). He thought El was dead in s2. He told Max it “got her like it did bob” and then he made a spectacle in front of everyone saying “I never gave up on you”. Which was a blatant lie (since he just told Max a few minutes earlier, she was dead -_-). Mike simply blamed himself for her death (he said they needed her to save Will and even referred to her as a “weapon”). So when she died he felt the most responsible- and was hoping she was alive (and would answer his call) to alleviate his own guilt. Not because he loved her (that was an act). When he saw Will’s dead body, but heard his voice, he went on a rescue mission to save Will (from another dimension). But, Mike didn’t even bother going into the woods after seeing El outside his window (something he did for Will in ep 1, during a storm). And then in s3 Mike couldn’t even bother to call El and apologize- but ran to apologize to Will in the woods during a storm (bringing that whole parallel -full circle).

Plus, El told Mike, he treats her like ‘garbage’ and ‘a pet’ . And Finn after s1, said that the Duffers told him Mike thought of El as a puppy, and she is even compared to Dart (a demo-dog in s2). Mike asking Dustin, angrily “What, You have a bond? Just cause he likes nougat (eggos)?” A blatant dig at people obsessing over this shallow aspect of their relationship.

Bob and Mike parallels- the Rubik cube

Both are unathletic, smart, love comics, the only 2 to not treat Will ‘different’- and would do anything to protect their loved ones. And they also had crushes on Byers in childhood, and tried to give their Byers normalcy (despite them not being a ‘normal family’). They purposely display, and have Will -mirror Joyce- and Mike -mirror Bob- in multiple shots, throughout s2.

And both Mike and Bob are AV club leaders. Bob mentioned in one of the  earlier episodes  that he founded the Hawkins Middle AV club . And Mike later grabs Bob’s Rubik cube, and mentions this after his death (to solidify the connection- even if subconscious in our minds. He even proclaims after this “we can’t let him die in vain” . And this is when Mike makes the plan to help Will (before El shows up). 

gif credit: cath-avery, dailystrangerthings

#byler #byeler

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

Honestly, the more time I spend in the autistic community, the more I am convinced that the problem is less that it's divided and more how it's divided.

Say we divide resources into formal and informal spaces, with formal spaces being official seeming websites like the one from the National Autistic Society that offer advice guides and stuff like that, and informal spaces being stuff like the #autism tag on Tumblr and other forms of social media.

In my experience (which I accept may not reflect everybody's), the formal spaces are pretty much owned by parents. Even the National Autism Society— which generally seems to be considered 'one of the good ones' when I see people in the community talking about organisations— has most of its advice guides about autism written in third person.

Which is really fucking alienating. Like, I don't know about anyone else, but I have real difficulty using resources that are in third person just because it feels like it's not meant for me. It's advice on how to care for your autistic person, not advice on how to care for your autistic self.

And it doesn't always cover topics we need. I saw a post a few weeks ago where somebody was complaining about the difficulty of finding advice on how to cope with pregnancy while autistic— because most of the information on offer was aimed at NT parents who were trying to prevent autism (as far as I know, not possible guys).

And when people do write articles about autism from a more positive perspective, the comments are often full of parents insisting that autism isn't really like this and citing their kids as examples— even if the author is writing about their own lived experiences.

Conversely, informal spaces like social media seem to be more dominated by #actuallyautistic people (although I'm not on every platform, so experiences may vary), who tend to have a more positive view of autism. This is great in that it helps people feel confident in themselves, but these spaces don't really provide formal advice guides, and they aren't the first things that come up when you google 'autism', so unless you're intentionally looking for a community (rather than just looking for information because you/a family member have recently been diagnosed) you're unlikely to find them.

And the community is less useful for everyone as a result.

Parents get all this formalised and clear advice on how to look after their kids— but a lot of the time they're expected to do so without any real idea of what's going on in their kid's heads. Barring the odd genuine extremist who thinks we should all die, I feel like a lot of Autism Parents™ are genuinely trying to help their kids, but are just ignorant of what these children are actually going through. Because that would require those advice guides to have input from people who have been in that situation— autistic adults— and we aren't really involved that much in the formal spaces.

Autistic people, meanwhile, find it harder to find information about how to deal with sensory issues and stuff, and also have to put up with articles and books being written that portray our condition inaccurately and the stereotypes that result from that.

What I'm basically saying here is that it's not enough for organisations to not openly demonise autistic people, or to have autistic board members— we need more and better organisations that are run primarly by autistic people for autistic people.

We need advice that's directed at us, rather than at our parents, friends, pets, or whoever's meant to be reading those third person guides.

We need advice for parents of autistic children that is written by people who've been autistic children in the past and actually know what the hell they're talking about.

We need advice for autistic kids— information that's easy for kids to access online with a google search and written in language that is directed at them and that they can understand.

No idea how we'd go about doing this, but this is what we need.

#actuallyautistic #autism #autistic community #national autism society #autism acceptance month #autism awareness month #april #autism april #light it up gold

[johnnyprofane1]

How to Get Diagnosed #ActuallyAutistic in Just 26 Years

First off, this is not a poor-me story.This is a journey to #AutisticJoy story…

I’m a singer/songwriter, pretend Rock Star with a decent following… after at least 5 other careers.

I’m also #ActuallyAutistic. Or my fave hashtag… #AutisticAF.

Two most frequent private-message questions I get?

Not about lyrics, my guitar playing, or even my mohawk…

1. Could I be autistic?

2. Should I get a diagnosis?

Well, here’s my way-long, way-detailed, way genuinely autistic answer…

I was born in 1953. Long before autism or Asperger’s were widely discussed in medicine or popular culture. More or less, just beginning in the 70s.

At least by 1957, at 4, I knew I was “different.” Family and neighbor kids told me so.

A lot.

In kindergarten, a teacher reported I was unusually creative, but “stayed to myself.” After 2nd grade intelligence testing, I was tagged “gifted.”

But my behavior was “odd.” Solitary. Formal in speech, a know-it-all. “Insensitive to context,” liked talking and playing in class. “Inattentive” to lessons.

I had one close friend at a time… In fact, only one I remember in all of primary school. In 4th & 5th grade. Jeff.

Wonder what he’s been up to the last 56 years…

My intelligence: uneven. My reading skills were off the chart, but verbal learning, most of education at the time, was difficult for me. Math tested high, but I was so impulsive on quizzes, I needed remedial classes.

Tests were a silly game to me. It was fun to be the first-one-done. I couldn’t have cared less about grades. I’m a process-, not results-oriented guy.

And most glaring? I was disliked, even hated, by schoolmates, cousins, perhaps even parents.

I was a target for mockery, hate speech, bullying, physical and sexual attack, and later molestation. And universal disappointment: “You’re not living up to your potential.”

A history of dozens of jobs, dozens of relocations, lost years in a cult, lost years in badly matched relationships…

And honestly? A history of causing great pain to others. Inadvertently perhaps, but not always. Then circling back to the couple of decades in what most would label a “cult…”

Something was just not right with this picture.

I first sought diagnosis at 17 following suicide attempt #1 in 1970. The experience was horrific.

I felt badgered by the therapist, “I know you have a secret you want to tell me.” I wanted so badly to please her. But had no idea what I was feeling, much less why.

As still happens under great stress, I temporarily lost language ability. I became mute. Which has several times been interpreted as “resistance,” “guardedness,” or even “passive aggression” by “helping” professionals.

I didn’t try therapy again until my first year in grad school, 1980. The psychiatrist summarily dismissed me without a plan when I didn’t respond to imipramine (an anti-depressant)– possibly I pissed him off. I seem to have a talent for stepping on therapist toes.

But in 1991, I entered the mental health system and essentially never left. Every new psychiatrist, psychologist, therapeutic social worker confidently diagnosed me… with something entirely different.

Between 1991 and 2016, I was diagnosed with adjustment disorder, major depression, type II Bipolarity, rapid cycling bipolarity, malingering, borderline personality disorder, dissociative disorder NOS (including discussion of multiplicity), PTSD….

There have been additional discussions of various anxiety disorders (especially social anxiety), attention deficit, schizophrenia, TIAs, stroke damage…

Pretty sure I’m leaving a few out.

With each new diagnosis, each and every professional confidently told me he or she had nailed it.

This time…

And they could help.

I was medicated accordingly with imipramine, Prozac and all the modern SSRIs, Welbutrin, Effexor, Lithium, depakote, tegretol, gabapentin, klonapin, lorazepam, respirdal, the occasional syringe of haldol, provigil and other narcolepsy drugs, sleep aids, supplements like fish oil, more I’ve forgotten….

And offered suggestions of Abilify, Seroquel, other anti-psychotics, electro-shock (ECT)…

As well as therapies including Jungian, supportive, interpersonal, analytical, psychodynamic, cognitive, task-centered, solution focused, dialectical behavior, cognitive behavioral…

I was myself a counselor from 2001 to 2011. Strange, but true.

Not one of these interventions helped me materially.

Not one.

And I experienced some very concerning side effects: tics, emotional numbness, difficulty thinking, feeling like a stranger in a strange mind. I totally gave up on treatment and medication in 2011. Bouts of suicidality ensued.

A very few friends and one wife threw the term autistic around over the years, but I never followed up. It seemed so unlikely. I was so bright. So articulate. Even somewhat successful… for a few months at a time.

And without conscious awareness, I had become adept at hiding the fact I was actually dysfunctional… perhaps the majority of the time.

Plus, I could pass for “normal” by masking… when not under stress. I learned by junior high to practice my favorite classmates’ neurotypical behavior in the bathroom mirror. Hide stimming, meltdowns, panic attacks, the total autistic burnouts lasting sometimes months, years…

In 2011, the intimacy of the most successful relationship of my life forced me to look inwardly as deeply as I could in order to avoid losing my third wife. (We are still together, deeply in love, but live in separate houses a few hundred feet apart. She needs breaks from my intensity. I find even her company exhausting after a few hours.)

My now-third wife had a family member with “high-functioning” autism, what we used to call Asperger’s (and what we now call, simply, autism). Watching this young boy negotiate his world was like watching myself in a magnifying mirror.

We had so many behaviors in common. Mine were just somewhat better disguised. With my wife’s encouragement in 2012, I began reading articles, books, online forums…

In 2016, when we separated briefly, I finally re-entered therapy. This time, I contacted various experts in adult autism through Indiana University’s Indiana Institute For Disabilities Community (IIDC).

Bingo.

Every symptom…Explained.

Every “flaw” in my character… traced back to this pervasive developmental diagnosis.

I am making progress in a kind of task-oriented counseling. Working on strategies to accommodate characteristics that just ain’t gonna change…

But the key gifts that external, credible diagnosis gave me:

Accepting I really am different, with very different needs from neurotypical folks.

Providing for those needs, as I discovered them. For instance, understanding my “special interests” are not hobbies. They are central to my survival. My job.

Reducing stimulation, sensory & social. Accepting I will have few intimate relationships in my life and becoming cautious about “friendships,” only those few folks who take the long, long journey to know and like me. After a lifetime naively assuming each new stranger was a new friend, my motto became, “Don’t like me? Don’t hang.”

Spending unashamed time… alone. I have a radical need for autonomy, while simultaneous difficulty managing independence when any other human is present. As much as I crave intimacy, I must manage my time with humans. Say less than 5 minutes with a stranger before anxiety or panic sets in, maybe 2 hours with my wife. Which brings me to…

Over the last few years, I’ve not only experienced reduction in anxiety, depression, suicidality, dissociation, night terrors, meltdowns, panic… I’ve come to realize my natural state.

Finding love. My neurotypical wife and I respect, admire, encourage, and desire one another. Pretty much a first for me.

Autistic joy.

Not disease…

Joy.

When I’m creating words or music, walking alone in Nature, watering my garden, cooking, fermenting pickles, making bread, decorating, yard sale-ing, reading, loving my pets, meditating, even shaving…

I’m in the flow.

There is no time. There is no space. No surroundings. No memory. No pain. Just lizard-warming-in-the-sun…

Joy.

Everything that restricts that joy? Gotta go. Good riddance…

So, diagnosis?

Yeah.

That’s my story.

And this time, I’m sticking to it.

[opalsiren]

W.I.T.C.H. Reboot! W.I.T.C.H. Reboot! W.I.T.C.H. Reboot!

hi love! so, with the plethora of reboots kicking around mainstream media these days, its no surprise that the question of a w.i.t.c.h reboot has been broached by its fans. i have so, so, so many thoughts and this, but ill divide them into three categories for the purpose of brevity: firstly, general thoughts on what i would like to see if a w.i.t.c.h reboot is on the cards; secondly, what i would like to see in a live-action w.i.t.c.h reboot; and finally, what a decent animated reboot of w.i.t.c.h might entail. this is not an exhaustive list so please feel free to add onto this if youve any more thoughts! without further ado because jesus, we might be here a while….

general thoughts:

a w.i.t.c.h live action reboot should largely use the comics are source material. while the cartoons are beloved by many including myself, i reckon the good parts of each should be combined to be thematically consistent, fix plot holes etc. but the comics should be the bible here

the target demographic of younger women and girls would need to be established early on by the producers (personally i would love to see a slightly more mature, w.i.t.c.h college AU where the target demographic could be teens/young adult women and girls, but more on that later). this isnt to say that young men and boys would be absolutely excluded as an audience, but misogyny is alive and well in 2019, and our voices as women need to be uplifted. this is exemplified by the fact that caleb was given far, far, far too much screentime in the cartoon so that the show could reach a young, male audience, and his characters was mangled by chauvinistic tendencies. thank u, next.

i have my own preferences wrt to ships, but i think we can all agree that introducing male characters as mere plot devices for drama/conflict only to put them ‘on a bus’ when theyre no longer useful is just plain bad writing. this is a critique levelled both at the cartoon and comics, but largely the comics (see: Eric)(rip in peace).

i also believe that sticking to the conventions of a particular genre, or hybrid genre, would be preferable if a w.i.t.c.h reboot were to take place. some shows get it right, but I’ve seen a ton of shows go off the rails when they try to be a fantasy/comedy/crime/drama/horror/sci-fi/occult/soap-opera extravaganza all in one. i reckon a YA fantasy drama with comedic moments, something with a similar vibe to Shadowhunters or The Shannara Chronicles, could work really well. if we’re talking animated reboot, something with a similar tonal atmosphere to The Dragon Prince or Into the Spiderverse, would also be great

this shouldnt even need to be said but please, for the love of god, no musical episodes (heres looking at you, Riverdale).

i think i speak on everyones behalf when i say that, irrespective of the age demographic of the show, LGBT rep in w.i.t.c.h would be amazing. irma/cornelia have always been a practically canon fan favourite, but cassidy and nerissa’s relationship is definitely more than strictly platonic, so that could be developed upon too. trans/nonbinary!will is also a popular headcanon that could work. once there are lgbt heroes, and not just lgbt villains, i think we’ll all be happy.

similarly, seeing some neurodivergency in the characters could also be great: elyon dealing with pts after the fallout with phobos; irma struggling with adhd in school or college; hay lin and taranee also exhibit some traits of anxiety in canon. autistic!will would also work, and someone else in the squad is bound to be affected by depression given its pervasive nature these days.

much and all as i adore the guardian outfits, i think there would need to be a few changes made. the midriff-and-leg-baring get-ups, though very cute, become very jarring when you realise the characters are meant to range in age from 12 to 14. i dont have any specific thoughts on how improvements could be made, but lengthening hemlines could be a start. if anyone has any more thoughts, i’d love to hear them!

of course, there needs to be women in the writers room, lgbt people in the writers room, poc in the writers room, people with neurodivergencies in the writers room, etc. we all know what happens when writers rooms lack diversity, and it sure as hell aint pretty.

body diversity was something that was tentatively approached in the comics (irma is curvier than the others, at least in her mundane form), but eschewed almost entirely in the cartoon, with all the girls maintaining similar heights and waifish proportions. it would be worthwhile, not to mention realistic, for the girls to go through some body-image hang ups. maybe will is insecure about her ‘underdeveloped’ body, or maybe taranee longs to have the same curvaceous figures as other dancers her age. i think if they were to go for a message of body positivity, irma, loud and brash with no fucks to give, should love every inch of her fat body and encourage the girls to adopt her 'devil-may-care’ attitude. the patriarchy be damned.

one flaw with the comics AND the cartoons are that they dont really explore the worldbuilding a lot. we do spend some time on meridian in the comics and the cartoon, but largely from the perspective of either elyon, or caleb and the rebels. i wonder what a day on meridian would look like for the average meridianite peasant? what do meridianites do for fun? what language(s) do they speak? what are their religious/spiritual belief(s)? what are the styles of dress dictated by? meridian is based on medieval societies, and a caste system is suggested, but i would have loved to see the social hierarchies expanded on a little more. does the matriarchal nature of meridian rule value women and their labour? what about LGBT people on meridian? people with disabilities and neurodivergencies? is there any discrimination against the different species on meridian? in fact, i dont know if it was ever explicitly outlined to us the different species of peoples on meridian, in the cartoon or the comics. honestly id be happy to see a filler, AtLA Tales of Ba Sing Se-esque episode on meridian to cover all of these bases

one thing i loved from the comics that didnt translate as well in the cartoon were the girls’ passions and interests. will is obsessed with frogs, she rides her bike to her job at pet store, she swims, stresses over math homework. irma loves music and talking to her pet turtle, leafy; i could totally see her doing a stint at the college radio station or working part time at a record store. cornelia loves ice skating and has received tons of awards and accolades for her achievements on the ice. taranee is an avid photographer and dancer, but i could totally see her spending her spare time at rallies and protests too. hay lin is a proficient artist, making her own clothes and poring over paintings between shifts at the silver dragon. all of these things and more are what make these characters so well-rounded, relatable, likeable. their hobbies need to be weaved into the fabric of the show (not just brought up once for a silly plot device in cornelia’s case, or never brought up at all in taranee’s, as seen in the cartoon) in order for it to work

live action reboot thoughts:

this should go out without saying, but a live action w.i.t.c.h reboot should cast actors of colour to play characters of colour. hay lin, and by extension her family, need to be played by Chinese actors, while taranee needs to be played by a black actor, preferably one of east asian descent, etc. if they add a little more diversity to the cast i would be totally pleased. latina!irma is a popular headcanon that i ascribe to, and will has always been kinda ambiguously brown, so adding less ambiguous representation for poc to the cast would really be excellent

of course, age-appropriate casting is a must. more specifically, there should not be any 25-30 year olds playing characters in their mid-late teens, unless ofc they could actually pass for the age they are trying to play. shows like The OA and The End of the Fucking World really get this right (most other teen/YA dramas, not so much. less of the chiseled abs and rock hard pecs on teens, please)

this one might be tricky to get right, particularly with budget constraints, but i think a really good CGI/visual effects team is necessary for a w.i.t.c.h reboot to work. unless an adequate amount of the budget is spent on making sure the magic looks realistic, almost plausible, it will make everything else look cheap by comparison

also, this is more of a personal preference, but i’d love to see someone with a really beautiful visual aesthetic and scope of cinematography. i’m talking Sense8-esque levels of cinematographic beauty

i’m really rambling now but, similarly, it’d be so cool to see someone who could use lighting/colour theory in very particular ways. in Marvel’s Netflix Originals, each character has their own theme colour; in Jessica Jones, for example, all of the scenes are very blue and almost leeched of warmth, while in Luke Cage there seems to be a warm yellow filter over everything. how cool would it be if all Taranee-centric scenes had a slight gold hue? or if all of cornelia’s scenes were lit with green? maybe all of the colours could combine in the a subtle yet effective way when all of the guardians are together to show their unity and combined strength.

thoughts on an animated reboot:

i know very little about animation so these thoughts will be brief, but an art and animation style something like that of Into the Spiderverse would be really gorgeous. it is fluid, dynamic, beautiful to look at and, most importantly, reflects the comic format in a moving image perfectly. alternatively, the animation studio behind The Legend of Korra could also be wonderful. the visual effects used for magic would look absolutely incredible

one thing i have to praise the Jetix cartoon for is their choice of voice actors, which were, in many cases, spot on. while cornelia’s VA was annoying and shrill, the actors playing characters of colour were themselves people of colour. if an animated reboot was on the cards, i think it could be a great opportunity to once again include some diversity to the cast, namely hiring actors of colour to play characters of colour

please let no one who worked on voltron near a w.i.t.c.h animated reboot with a ten foot pole. no i will not elaborate

tl;dr at the risk of sounding like an entitled millennial, a w.i.t.c.h reboot should be less about creating something entirely new for a brand new audience, and more about building on what the longtime fans of w.i.t.c.h already love and bringing it forward for the older generation. all on all, we grew up with w.i.t.c.h, so it’s time for us to have our reboot. thanks for coming to my TED talk!

#phew! #w.i.t.c.h. #w.i.t.c.h. reboot #will vandom #irma lair #taranee cook #cornelia hale #hay lin #elyon brown #elyon escanor #phobos #cedric #finally got around to this adfds #anyway if anyone has any thoughts or disagrees with anything pls add on!! or msg me!!! idm either #always down to talk w.i.t.c.h reboots #since it could go sooo well if its ever on the cards #or it could go to absolute shit #ask to tag #i know it seems like a rambled a lot here but there are a lot of things i could rant aboutfor days so if anyone wants anything elaborared o #n you know what to do

[whiteclericmaris]

Honestly it's way past midnight but I can't sleep because I am still mad about that All in a Row show. Like for real they couldn't have a human actor play as the autistic. Do you have any idea how many times my Mom always likes to point out that Sheldon's actor from the Big Bang Theory has autism? And yet he acts in a TV Series for multiple episodes which are longer hours than that All in a Row must be? You're telling me you couldn't do that for the show (not that it matters as the plot of All in a Row just likes to dehumanize us more).

I'm even more livid at the fact that NAS told them to make changes and they didn't. Heck I just signed a petition to have that show pulled and you know how many signatures they need? 170,000. You know how many they have? 168,000+ (and that's just in one day). NAS told you to change stuff and you disregard it. Like that's some big disrespect for the autism community itself.

You know nothing about Autism. Oh but I know because I have it? Not JUST because I have it but I have met others with Autism.

One person used to be a neighbor in one of the old apartments where I lived. Let me call her Monet for this post. Monet was part of a Russian family and we happened to meet her because during one Halloween my sister noticed Monet and her sister trick or treating. So what my sister did seeing as they were young (like around 8 and her sister 12) she took them trick or treating as their babysitter since she was a teen. Monet was and still is autistic for all I know. Her mother was helping her with some therapy sessions for the autism. She would sometimes visit our apartment and I will always remember how she will say words. The most repetitive one would be something that sounded like "Again... Again..." for most of the stuff. She would not talk sentences but rather short words. Also she'd flap. Not just by screaming when kinda frustrated but actually flap how most autism people stim. When happy she's flap those hands. When upset she'd go up to her mother and push her forehead against her hand in frustration or just tired.

My Mom always had a thing for children and knew how to take care of them. She invited Monet over one time to watch Rio (the bird movie) since it was colorful and she knew Monet might like it. While Monet would walk oddly (like not really in order as kinda tilty from one side to the other with each step) you'd just think she was a baby in a kid's body.

Outside of Money my Mom found a place where they would host Autism meetups in a University. I'd usually go but one of the struggles is... It's mostly boys. Like there were 15 people and I was 1 girl out of 2-3. Sometimes we would play board games with each other and one day we even shared our favorite songs. Most of them could talk relatively normal. Some were even older than 30 and 1 had even written a book about their life with Autism. Some were slow in reaction but it felt normal. I don't remember why I stopped going (it wasn't because they moved where they hosted it but I just stopped).

As someone with autism you don't know the struggles I go through. I am at home and I barely do chores because too much trouble yet when I am at stores I organize nail paint by color and try pairing all the paint together with similar colors or even the exact same color, I organize DVDs where they should be and cans however the idea of doing something similar at home is like 'Does not compute'. I cannot sit still for long periods of time. In a classroom I tend to pull my hair for stimming and something else I'd rather not mention. My sister has been bullied for years all because of these repetitive behaviors of mine and I have been shouted at and told repetitively by my Mom to stop it. I even tried to find some ways to stop doing these tics but eventually I end up going back to eating my nails and other 'bad' tics of mine that I give up trying to even stop. For example I tried letting my nails grow but eventually they got too long (like not pointy long but maybe like 2-3 centimeters long). I do not know about other females but always having bitten nails my life having long ones feel odd. There's this area on the side of the nail that would start bugging me when long. Like not really vibrating but more itchy. I've never been a manicure type either so to me nails are not really important. The most I got teased for is by my Mom for not being able to open canned stuff. However having long nails did not mean I stopped scrating my head. I would bleed more often with the long nails as I scratched often. Eventually I just ended up eating those long nails back to short. However I don't injest the nail like I used to as a child rather I spit it out.

Honestly I usually feel ashamed when scolded by my Mother. Always fighting and telling me to stop doing some of these tics and I try but I always go back to it. It's not like I end up doing it on purpose nothing like 'Haha my Mom gets mad whenever I do this so let's keep doing it'. No it's more something I automatically come back to doing to even a sort of subconscious level. It's a real struggle.

Finding support as an adult is rough. I get denied Medicaid often because I am not in their category for disabled and just recently they set me up for failure. The last time I applied for benefits they told me I had to start working for them. Who does that? How do you expect someone who doesn't drive to find a job in a few days? I ended up having my food stamps taken away just because of this and am still umemployed and spend most of my time at home.

It's not just financial but also group support. I went to a program before but the thing is I felt they would not help my needs. It's like my Mom would say 'You're mentally challenged but not TOO mentally challenge that it looks like you'd blend in with neurotypicals'. I can speak english but I'm lacking as I barely use my words. I even noticed with my Dog whenever I go to pet him I say 'Yummy' cause he makes me so happy yet I also ended up saying 'Yummy' to an Uber Driver not because of the food they delivered but because my body recognizes 'Yummy' as happy.

Being autistic does not mean as if it is the end of the world. It's not that your child is in a coma all because they have autism (no offense to the relatives of those in actual comas). It does not always mean that your child is violent and resorts to violence. Also adults have autism too. It is not something they 'grow' out of. Some people find out in their older years they are autistic (I was 17-19 when I was diagnosed with it but that group I mentioned? I remember someone mentioning somewhere in their 20s). Autism is not something you can take away from the person. It is a way of being. Honestly it is offensive that someone would want to take it away.

'All my child does is go Bah bah'.

Have you ever considered that's not autism but them communicating something? A baby cannot speak words when born yet it cries as a signal that something is wrong. Knowledge isn't something people that speak automatically know. No it's something they learn from their teachers and parents. Maybe they might never say a coherent sentence but that does not mean they do not have a language.

#long post #it's 3 in the morning what am I doing #autism #personal #I hate you All in A Row #text

[kamiyu910]

Sometimes it’s pretty obvious when I’m depressed. I keep dreaming about the people and animals I’ve lost, been getting super emotional and crying a lot, have no energy, and it sucks.

And what sucks more is that I talked to someone the other night who shares the same obsession as me, and I find myself wanting a friend for once, but I fear they’re going to be like everyone else. My anxiety over it is strange. I don’t normally worry about what other people think of me anymore because of everything that I’ve already been through, and now I wonder if this person is going to end up the same as all the others... this is going to get long...

Are they going to suddenly stop talking to me too? Are they going to ridicule me, bully me, insult me, just because of how I see the world? Are they going to throw baseless accusations my way too? I just don’t want to try anymore. I’m so tired of being judged and hated just for existing. 

All through my life. I don’t think I can take any more, not right now. I refuse to hate, it all just makes me depressed. All these people, so full of anger and hatred, justifying it, and I can’t. Why would I want to do to others what has been done to me through my entire life? Why would I want to become like them? 

So many comments online, people sympathizing with parents who murdered their autistic children in cold blood, parents subjecting their children to horrendous tortures in the hope that it will give them their “perfect” child that they imagined... kids who sound like me, who are as functioning as me, and these parents call them stolen children, some claiming they would have been better off dying in infancy from cancer, many claiming autistic people are a drain on society, that it’s better if we’re locked up or killed, and the major autism based organization seeks eugenics to wipe out autism altogether instead of actually helping autistic people and their families. 

I’ve experienced a lot of discrimination for all sorts of different things, but I think the worst has been for being autistic. Fellow adults my age, sometimes far older, sometimes younger, belittle me as if I know nothing because of how my brain works. They treat me like I’m a child, or an idiot, and if I don’t back down, if I hold my ground, they resort to calling me all sorts of names. Racial slurs, claiming I’m racist, or sexist, or whatever they can think of even if there’s no basis for it... as if they can’t handle that I won’t just believe them at their word. 

I can’t connect to people like “normal” people can. It’s especially obvious in person. I’ve studied facial expressions from things like criminal psychology videos and others that show specific muscle twitches for determining typical emotional responses or lies or thoughts, mainly because I was hoping it would help me figure out how to control my own expressions, but it’s allowed me to learn more about understand how other people feel, and I can usually tell when something is wrong. Body language can tell a lot, and I disturb people. They don’t know what to do with me.

Maybe I should just stop trying. I’ve spent 32 years living like this and a good portion of that was spent trying to fit in, and it’s never worked. I have never been able to, and I can tell the people who claimed to be my friends were disappointed in me, that I wouldn’t be a play thing to them, that I wouldn’t let them walk all over me, that I have a will of my own. As soon as I stick up for myself, I lose friends. As soon as I defend my honor from a baseless accusation, people leave. They almost always leave. People I thought would never turn on me have ditched me. I can’t trust. 

I feel ruined. I want to be wrong about this new person... I love talking to people, no matter their beliefs. I love trying to understand how people think and why they believe what they do... and I want so much for people to understand how I think. I’ve tried so many times to explain it, but it’s like a language barrier, and it never seems to really work... I feel so alone and lost, like I don’t belong here. I’m tired of crying, I’m tired of the insults, I’m tired of actually wanting friends but being too paranoid to even think about pursuing it. I don’t really want to be a hermit, but look at me, I am one practically. Society hates me except for a sideshow freak. 

I’m tired of the pain... I just want to go to sleep for a very long time... I want the sweet embrace of the darkness that I tasted all those years ago when I almost died. I want that peace, I want it to surround me and let me think of nothing else, to never worry again. Such bliss, taunting me, just out of reach. When they brought me back, it hurt. It hurt so much to be ripped from that blessed darkness, that peace... Living is pain. Constant pain. I’m living artificially, I shouldn’t be alive anyway. I’m a disaster, physically and mentally, what good am I really? Am I really doing good? It’s hard to tell when the things I do are mostly anonymous or behind the scenes... 

I know people would miss me if I left. I can’t leave my family. I’m the only one who can do most of this stuff, even if I’m struggling with it. I’m tired of not having enough money for bills... I’ve got a hospital bill and an ambulance bill sitting here waiting for me to pay them still, and I’m not sure I can. I have to figure out how to make sure we don’t go red this month... 

I hate that I keep dreaming about people and pets that have died. The other night I dreamt about my grandma who passed 6 years ago. I dreamt that I missed the family reunion, and that she had just died. I was in her house, alone, and I found the last bag of biscuits she’d ever made, and I tried to eat one but I started sobbing too hard. I miss her so much. I owe her so much. She was the most amazing woman I’ve ever known and if I could even just be half the woman she was, I’ll have had a good life. 

I did not take her death very well. I had just gotten a new puppy, Tank, and I was 6-7 months pregnant with my first child (which was not going well) and we’d finally gotten a house instead of a dinky apartment and it had so many problems that needed to be fixed... losing grandma almost killed me and I had a breakdown and was forced off work for weeks because I couldn’t function. That puppy helped me through so much of that, he was the best dog ever...

He died last year and it was so hard to say goodbye. A month or two after losing him, we ended up at a pet store during adoption day and my then 3 yr old, my 4 yr old, and I ended up sitting in an aisle sobbing because we miss that damn dog. It’s so hard to hear a 3 yr old start sobbing about missing his dog. It’s not exactly easier now that he’s 5 either. That dog helped me through so much pain, so much death... the death of multiple family members, multiple friends dying, the two births of my children, losing an entire support group because I didn’t understand how they could support hate... 

I dreamt about Tank last night. I saw him, just a glimpse of him through a window... I went into the place and I looked for him, but I couldn’t find him anywhere. I miss him so much. I miss my dog, I miss my family, I miss my friends, I’m so tired of all this pain that just keep building up. I put on a happy face for everyone, I try to pretend I’m holding it together, but I’m screaming inside, desperate for someone to... I dunno. I honestly don’t know anymore. I no longer trust people’s pity or compliments... I’ve been taught through life experience that most of that is a bunch of utter bullshit and that those people don’t actually give a fuck. How can I tell if someone is genuine?

It’s been a year since I lost a person I thought was a very good friend. She just stopped talking to me, refused to give me a reason, and that hurts still too. I thought, of all the people, she wouldn’t abandon me too, but she did. How can I ever trust again? How can I stop feeling so alone when it feels like if I try again, I’ll only get burned again? They always leave... there are only three people who haven’t, and they’re mutts too, outcasts of society who have also been shit on their whole lives, who also have very few friends, who also have serious health issues (physically and mentally). I treasure their friendships, even though two of them live so far away I may never see them in person... 

I don’t want to lose them too, but the chances are high, considering the health issues. There’s a chance they could lose me to my health issues. We have to take each day as it comes. Depression and anxiety make that so hard... how can we live if we just want to lay down and not move? I know it could be worse, it could always be worse... but it hurts. So much...

Grandma’s coffin was sky blue. She loved blue so much. I wore a light blue dress to her funeral just for her.

I miss that big ass mutt... 

#depression #rant #cry for help #I'm not ok #i'm not okay #anxiety #friendship #trust issues #lack of trust #lonely #loneliness #autism #actually autistic #loss #grief and loss #grief #pain #emotionally drained #emotional pain #death #loss of a loved one #loss of a pet #dreams #dog #pupper #mutt

[about-your-oc]

Aaaah, I feel a bit odd bragging on my OC to a stranger, but you did say to let you know about our faves! My baby, Soc, actually has his own blog on tumblr, under the name ‘littlesoc’. He’s actually an alien, of the Kaberonian species, and he’s a precious little thing, He’s a 15-thousand-year-old toddler, and showing no signs of reaching physical or mental maturity any time soon.

I could go on for days about the Kaberonians themselves, honestly. But this is just Soc.Yes. As he’s lived so long, he’s pretty smart for his physical and mental age. He’s invented quite a few things (mostly mechanical, a few biomechanical) that are being used by civilians and military alike, but he’s really just a toddler with a small stroke of genius in him. (I blame his shared genetics with one of his older brothers, honestly.) Sadly, a lot of people don’t see his intelligence, because like his creator, Soc is autistic, has epilepsy, and is physically disabled, and a lot of people can’t get past that, even when he’s acting “normal”. They also don’t seem to understand that, even as intelligent as he is, he is a TODDLER, and his interests tend to range into what little ones like, not what an adult would find super-interesting. Barring long books. He loves books. He just can’t focus well enough to read for long without someone helping him.

Right now he’s going through some rough times. He was in an accident and most of his lower body was crushed. THANKFULLY, Kabeiroi is far enough in the ‘future’ that they’ve developed some medical practices that might give him a decent chance at walking again once he heals. Maybe. His legs were kind of screwed up to begin with, but I’m waiting to see how he heals up from this! So currently he’s doing a lot of sleeping and distracted-playing on the floor, since he’s in a spica cast from his waist down while he heals. He’s started giggling at people again, though, and playing with the family pets and things people hand him! He even 'helped’ his big brother make supper earlier, by being a spoon-holder for him. That’s a big improvement! He’s still not talking much ,but when he IS talking to his family, it’s been to actually answer them, so he’s calming down enough to be his sweet little self again.

Because really, Soc is a sweetheart. He’s smart and sweet and having physical and mental disabilities has not and WILL not change that. He kind of started out as a social commentary on the stigma disabled people face whenever we try to 'integrate’ with society, but Socrates Fifth-child, brother of Tex, child of Hephaestus, has become one of my favourite characters. He’s been going strong for…almost eight years now, and I only see him growing and changing, not going away.

Thank you so much for sharing with me (and all of us) such an interesting and clearly deeply personal character!  He sounds adorable and you clearly have put a lot of love and hard work into him.  The story sounds very interesting as well!  I personally think it’s tons of fun coming up with your own species or ways for creatures to work, so much creativity and potential there!  Keep on going, I hope you get to develop Soc for many more years to come!

#character development #writing #character creation #ocs #original characters #submission #wistsandmagic