#which has nothing to do with autism and EVERYTHING to do with his attitudes towards power & patriarchy

[truffleandspice]

Venting! About Lab.

Oh my god. Lord KNOWS I am SO, SO SICK AND TIRED of meeting shitty, sexist people in the scientific field. Granted, things were worse in the past--more sexual assault, public (and private) humiliation, sexual and other harassment, bullying, threats, etc. compared to today (at least, one would hope...). But for some reason, I cannot escape bad people in science, specifically in my lab environments.

We have a "postdoc" who is not really a postdoc. He never finished his PhD--he finished his projects, but he neither finished writing his thesis nor did he defend it. He's in some in-between state of lab manager, lab tech, and postdoc. Strictly speaking, his highest educational degree is still his college degree. Also...I'm pretty sure he has a strong case of what, some time ago, would have been called Asperger syndrome, but this term is not as popular with the medical community nowadays due to its history and associations. Nowadays, we would call it an autism spectrum disorder.

You can tell very quickly upon meeting this guy that he's on the spectrum, but what gets me is the mild undercurrent of sexism combined with his continued negativity towards me in both scientific and casual domains.

Regarding the sexism, it'll be random comments which have nothing to do with the experiment or conversation, but just a dig. For example, he has shown us that nail polish is good to use to mark different types of electronic devices for our experiments. He was showing me where he was marking a device when, unrelated to the task, he said "yeah, you ladies who use nail polish each day". I showed him my natural, un-polished nails and said that I wasn't wearing nail polish and that I don't use it each day.

That's the one comment he's said outright that I can recall, although there's a prolific and tonally-weird use of the term "ladies" (the only students in the lab are me, a female, and another female).

But the other stuff that ties into this sexism is how negative he was towards me in the lab...he is so incredibly condescending it's insane. I've experienced horrible treatment (well, abuse) at home and in various labs (yeah, stuff that when I talked about it, it was reported to the institution), and this time I have a wonderful, trustworthy PI. But I don't want to take small things to him. I've learned to try and tiptoe around peoples' bad moods and poor attitudes, esp. if it doesn't interfere with my work. And lately, I've had the gumption to address behavior that crosses what I believe is a reasonable line, and so far my PI agrees with where I've placed this line. But there are some small things you just get so angry about, you just need to write and vent without getting anyone involved. That's how I felt about today.

Overall, I had a pretty solid day. I was able to demonstrate my knowledge and ideas for a novel experiment I'm really interested in during a meeting with collaborators, and the collaborator whose work intertwines with mine seemed legitimately very impressed with my knowledge, summarization of a recent and important paper, and take on the data. My PI is very consistently noting that he really likes and is interested in my project and is genuinely happy and satisfied with everything I've written so far. He even suggested that the work I'm interested in doing is important to the field and will greatly expand it (fingers crossed, I truly wish this would happen...especially with how disappointing all my [extreme] hard work in the past at the direction of abusive/misguided people has been {college specifically, that PI hasn't published in years}).

But before I could get to that idea, this guy was SO negative. I probably suggested about 40 experiments and he downed all of them. Never provided a paper to help me, despite the fact that other lab members at the time (including the PI) all gave me papers, discussed ideas in a constructive fashion, and demonstrated genuine interest in helping (I even have written evidence of this for all of those lab members).

Oh, and he completely dug into me one day, a few months back, in another hint-of-sexism manner. He claimed that I used the phrase "you know" at the end of a sentence at least 30 times...but I hadn't spoken even close to 30 sentences. And he went on a long monologue about how it made clear that I didn't know anything and was hiding it (the other grad student vehemently disagreed and was shocked by the situation...she defended me and my knowledge quite a bit, but he basically ignored her and continued digging), and brought a book and started asking me about minutiae/random facts that, according to the older grad student, were not even relevant to our field. He even admitted that if I didn't know about a certain model he named, then the lab had made a mistake in their training of me, and I had never heard of the model before (turns out I knew it but didn't know it was called a certain name). I said as much and he, of course, ignored that and continued to try and prove his point that I knew nothing. He also brought up my absences that week (which had been cleared by the lab members just before this conversation, and he mentioned to me multiple times that the lab didn't need to know when I was coming, going, or absent, because I was a grad student and an adult...) and was insinuating that I wasn't coming to lab enough.

Obviously, I took all of this to the PI, who apparently roasted him for it because he ate his words in a later conversation (which was iconic bc a member of his previous lab was visiting and as soon as he saw the "postdoc", asked him whether he defended his thesis yet). But it shouldn't have happened in the first place...and is an ongoing pattern of unproductive humiliation I've experienced by, consistently, sexist men and women (other incidents strongly highlighted their sexism) from high school through now. It just never ends. And finally I have a PI who has my back, but that's not gonna stop this fucker from finding other ways, literally any way he can, to be condescending.

This brings me to today. Our PI's father died recently, so the older grad student had the kind idea of giving him a framed picture of his father and some chocolates (our PI loves sweets but insists we eat sweets instead of him...she wanted him to have something for himself). I printed out the picture (as requested by the "postdoc", since I had previously mentioned I had photo paper and a printer) and bought the chocolates (fancy hand-painted alcohol-infused chocolates I got for a decent deal and were certainly an excellent gift). They got a frame from Target or HomeGoods, and certainly spent far less money than I did, but this was for our PI and I really didn't care at the time. But the "postdoc" immediately commented that the chocolates looked like lipsticks (they don't and were marketed as a masculine gift...), and I had to neutrally defend that. Well, when we went to give our PI the gift, he claimed he didn't want to make any speech or say anything, but as soon as our PI saw the chocolates (he loved them), the "postdoc" said that they were lipsticks. Okay...whatever. Our PI was nearly tearing up at the gifts and kept thanking us, and I had never seen him so emotional. Overall, it was a job well done, and my annoyance at the lipstick comment was only very mild at the time...it didn't stay on my mind too much throughout the rest of the day.

Oh, and small other note about the gift before moving on. I actually ordered a couple different beautiful frames when we first discussed getting a gift for our PI, and mentioned that "I ordered frames" to the "postdoc" when we had this discussion. Then, I mentioned that they were a great price and looked very nice (not in a self-righteous way, but as a quiet follow-up). And he immediately said "okay that's not relevant". Coming from the guy who cannot stop fucking talking once he starts and says the most uninteresting shit imaginable. And if you mention your own interests in a conversation, he immediately walks away, or negs them. E.g. I mentioned a list of restaurants I was interested in going to during a conference, and he said "you know we're not here to eat, we're here for the conference". That made me snap in a very professional manner (bc this is the kind of bs I used to hear at home) and I pretty sharply said that mealtimes are separate from conference times and a necessity, so if someone wants to eat something specific during those times, it's within their rights and not interfering with the conference. He shut up after that.

Well, before I left, I wondered whether I could get a ring light for my desk. I had a Zoom meeting late in the afternoon and you could barely see my face. The last time I needed to order something, the "postdoc" did the order, so I was under the impression that I needed to ask him about the order. He first asked (very condescendingly, but this was my fault) if the overhead lights were on in the room (they were, but my fault he asked bc I said that the only extra light coming in was through the window, without mentioning directly the overhead lights). Then he started looking but said a few times "I'm not going to say how I feel about this". He did this before when I had a powerpoint of potential experiments and asked for his feedback and claimed it looked like something someone from college would do (I...I am just starting my PhD? What else do you expect?). Anyway he sent me a link but was overall just so, so condescending during that interaction and I am SO sick of him. SO FUCKING SICK OF HIS FUCKING ASININE BULLSHIT. He's just such a horrible person and he's not even the worst person I've met in science or in my life, but just plain horrible. He's like some sort of sticky adhesive which just gets everywhere and clings onto everything it possibly can, causing problems for absolutely no valid reason aside from that being his nature. I wish he would get what he deserves for this immature, problematic, and lab-environment-wise destructive behavior.

Oh, and he hates our PI and literally yelled at him in front of all of us once :) Over an issue where it was not necessary at all :) Yeah, fuck this guy.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

interruptions are a natural part of conversation, and sometimes i want to strangle people who just dismiss them as “rude”. interruptions are not automatically rude. they are a social signal & a form of communication. they can be rude depending on how they’re used. but they are also useful and necessary for many people (neurodivergent people especially). so we need to have a conversation about different forms of interruption, and what they mean.

#what's really interesting to me as a neurodivergent person who interacts w/ neurodivergent & neurotypical people alike #is how very DIFFERENTLY so many people treat interruptions. #i meet lots of neurodivergent folks who are like 'PLEASE interrupt me if i'm talking too much and you want a turn to speak' #and then there's my autistic father who will fucking yell at me if i interrupt him #which has nothing to do with autism and EVERYTHING to do with his attitudes towards power & patriarchy #and then there's plenty of neurotypical people who just fucking do not care about sharing the conversation #in small talk especially. i've met soooo many people who just seem to view me as an audience for their opinions or backstory #and then there are neurodivergent people i'm related to who i see make very real attempts to interact thoughtfully around OTHER people #and very minimal attempts to do so around me #and plenty of neurotypical people who just don't think you're worth listening to until you can PROVE it #and like. neurodivergent people interact in different ways and we need to address and talk about that #but also the sheer extent to which so many of us find we get dismissed and ignored in basic conversation-- #like i wanna talk about neurodivergent needs but also i sorta wanna shout about how the way society treats conversation in GENERAL #is sorta fucking toxic #and really tends to encourage dominating attitudes and hands control & influence to the louder ruder more 'authorative' individuals #which of course tend to be people with more social capital #i'm just fucking sick of it like please start making an EFFORT to include people #it won't work all the time but making an effort and above all trying to convey RESPECT in your interactions with others #that will make a huge difference. even and especially when you struggle with conversing in general #but anyway i do feel like neurodivergent people in general tend to be more understanding of interruptions #and more likely to react with 'oh would you like to speak now?' as opposed to 'i'm just going to speak over you' #like we tend to ramble but we also tend to be aware of that and to believe that you have a right to make your conversational needs known #so PLEASE stop automatically dismissing interruptions as 'rude' #and start examining why they are happening and what motivates them #examine the motivations behind the actions before assigning blame

[seasidefallenangel]

hq characters with a neurodivergent s/o

✰ neurodivergency refers to someone with adhd and/or autism.

sugawara koushi;

○ he tries his best to offer as much support as possible. he can’t say he understands a lot of it, but he absolutely sympathizes with you. you don’t have to worry a ton when you have more off days, or in the event you have rsd, that he’ll get upset with your feelings. he knows you genuinely can’t help it, and very rarely gets upset to point where he’d need a little distance from you

○ picks up on the concept of hyperfixations fairly easily. he can’t even begin to imagine how horrible it is - if one day he woke up and his passions meant nothing to him anymore. if you have a hard time making friends because of how quickly and intensely your interests change, he makes an effort to try and get into some of the new stuff you pick up. he can’t always guarantee he’ll like it or anything, but he’s always willing to listen to you infodump

○ if he spots any sort of fidget toy/stressball/etc, he’ll buy one for you. he’s not sure if they actually help you a lot, but you always seem super grateful for it. he’ll take notice of what ones you tend to reach for more and try to gear towards getting those ones for you

○ as patient as he is, he does have his moments where he can get overwhelmed with you. times where your impulsivity, aggression or other symptoms of neurodivergency become too much for him to handle can lead to him snapping a little. he’ll make sure to leave the room as he knows it’s not your fault and you don’t act like this on purpose, but he’s only human. he makes sure afterwards to let you know he’d never blame you for what you can’t help, and to not be too hard on yourself in these situations

nishinoya yuu;

○ there’s honestly a fair chance he had adhd himself, even if he doesn’t realize it. you’ve never explicitly said you think he is to his face, but sometimes you hint that the way you treat certain things is really similar

○ he’s a big believer that being spontaneous keeps a relationship fun and interesting, which is both a blessing and a curse. on some days, something new and unknown is exactly what you need to stimulate your brain and keep your attention. other days it’s hard to find purpose in doing anything at all, and keeping up with his energy proves to be difficult

○ he really doesn’t want to get annoyed with you, but it tends to happen pretty often. he recognizes you’re not purposefully trying to make him mad and in return he’ll try his hardest to never lash out at you. there’s been a few moments where it was just  impossible to control himself (another sign of someone who’s nd, you noted afterwards), but both of you understand each others grievances and are able to work past it

kageyama tobio;

○ at first, he’s not going to take you seriously. he’s the type to say that you're just avoiding your problems, making up excuses, overreacting. the “if you want to do something, then just do it” type of person. he doesn’t really think he’s coming off as being an asshole, but when there’s a very noticeable rift between the two of you, he starts racking his brain for what might’ve made you upset and eventually puts two and two together

○ it takes time, as many things like this do. you’ll have to really sit down and explain things to him, and he slowly starts to understand. he’ll tell you some of this stuff reminds him of himself before brushing it off and never questioning it again. you absolutely suspect he’s on the spectrum but won’t bring it up until he either asks you or starts thinking about it himself - which happens when you accidentally mention how volleyball seems to be his special intrest

○ it can be... difficult to say the least. he can’t really keep up all that well with sudden shifts and the irritability you often show over things that seemingly don’t matter. sometimes it’s hard for him to not take things personally, and the fact you two seem so similar in this regard raises a fair amount of problems. you both have to learn from the issues and work together to co-exist peacefully, but it’s very worth it in the end

tsukishima kei;

○ tsukishima will pick on almost anyone for almost anything. this is something he will absolutely never joke about. he made the mistake once early on - something about a test grade - and had to deal with your emotional outburst, following a meltdown, over how you tried so hard but nothing makes sense. you can’t just sit in a class and learn like he does, you’ll never be normal, never be good enough-

○ he had to stop the downward spiral in the middle of the sidewalk, but he was too shaken up to worry about embarrassment. that sort of reaction wasn’t normal by any means, and when he got home that night he tried looking into why exactly that happened. the complete shift in attitude the next day was jarring you to, but the genuine apology was even more jarring. he doesn’t apologize easily, but something about having made fun of a neurological disorder you’ve suffered with your whole life just doesn’t sit well in his stomach

○ he picks up extremely quickly, even for him. he’s very perceptive of when you’re more on-edge than usual and reminds himself to be patient with you. he’s not coddling in public (unless you’re having some sort of breakdown or panic attack) but it’s noticeable that he doesn’t make any sort of jabs at you like he does with most others

○ helps tutor you without any gripes. he won’t lie and say he gets how hard it is for you to understand certain concepts, but he’s aware things don’t come as easily to other people like it does to him. very thorough in explaining whatever you have difficulty with and tries coming up with real life examples to help it make more sense. if it does become too much for him (he’s still a high schooler regardless of how he acts), he’ll end the session and let you know it’s nobody’s fault 

kuroo tetsurou;

○ one of, if not at the top of the list, the best people to date if you’re neurodivergent. he takes this extremely seriously and doesn’t doubt you at all when you explain how it feels like everyday your disorder slowly rips you apart until there’s nothing left. every part of your life is affected by this and he wants to be able to help you feel as normal as possible despite everything weighing you down

○ puts a lot of time and research into your disorders. he wants to understand what’s helpful and what’s counterproductive without bothering you about it since he doesn’t know if you might react badly. he has a very good balance of figuring out how to help you cope in certain scenarios even if they’re not ideal and removing you from a situation where things are just too heavy for you to handle

○ he really stresses how important it is you talk to him about your boundaries, things you need, moments where you’re overwhelmed, etc. he can’t imagine life has been that easy for you thus far and tries to do everything he can, from helping with schoolwork, getting fidget toys, introducing you to new things that may help, and anything in between. he never wants you to feel as if you’re a burden or difficult because of what you can’t control, and will bend over backwards to prove it

kozume kenma;

○ kenma is fairly well versed in online topics and this is one that comes up often. given how perceptive he is towards the world around him, he was pretty easily able to figure out that something was different about you far before you started dating. he doesn’t speak about it much with you but does a lot behind-the-scenes to help make everyday life easier

○ given that kenma is always getting into new games and franchises, he’s able to help make the time in between hyperfixations more bearable. you had described to him how empty and monotone everything feels when you aren’t focused on something specific and he really hates picturing you so lifeless because your brain just won’t let you consume things normally. even if you aren’t playing the game so much as just watching his do it, he feels better knowing there’s something distracting you

○ something important to remember is that you’re not the only one who can act out or get overwhelmed easily. kenma hates being pushed out of his comfort zone and imagines it the same for you, so he makes sure to never put you in a place where you might face sensory overload or anything of the sort. he expects the same treatment back. infodumping is fine and he’ll nod and listen to you, but if there’s a point where you become suffocating then he’ll ask you to take a step back and give him a moment. wants to avoid triggering anything rsd-related so he’ll specify this isn’t your fault and that everyone makes him feel this way at some point

oikawa tooru;

○ quite possibly one of the worst people to go through this with you at the start. oikawa puts his soul into everything he does even if it shatters him, so some of your behaviors might not sit well with him. a lot of people who are neurodivergent have something they naturally excel in and in the same vein, end up dropping or disregarding because they no longer hyperfocus on it. it reminds him too much of a certain kouhai who had all the ability oikawa did with none of the years of practice it took him to get there, and puts a bad taste in your mouth

○ explain to him it’s not fair that he treats you in a way that implies you enjoy living like this, because you’d give anything to keep interests you have for longer than a few weeks or months, regardless of how much you try to force yourself to stay into it. he re-evaluates himself and realizes he’s in the wrong. he’ll never fully understand how it affects you but he’ll listen and learn about it, ask questions, study how he can help. he compares how you hyperfixate to how much he’ll focus on volleyball and knows this has to be an equally giving relationship in regards to respecting the other interests

○ he’ll have his moments where he can’t pretend that he’s able to handle your mood swings and inability to just sit down and pay attention to something. you tell him he wouldn’t be normal if he was somehow okay with everything you do. an afternoon where he practices in the gym by himself and you sit and binge watch something is good enough for some breathing room without causing any unclosable rift to appear. he’ll may sure he’s listening intently when he comes home and you go into detail about a new hobby of yours. he’s trying his absolute best, i promise you

bokuto koutaro;

○ it’s highly likely bokuto has adhd himself. it’s one of those things adults just say to kids when they’re being hyperactive without actually knowing all the things that come with having adhd, but the older bokuto got the more he looked into it and realized it might actually be a thing for him. there’s a lot of neurodivergent-related issues you have that sometimes fly over his head or he has to go back and think about again, but he’s the last person who ever wants to cause any issues for you

○ he’ll ask you questions regarding if you think he has adhd and some of the signs that make it recognizable. he’s terrified at the idea volleyball might just be a hyperfixation of his, but feels much better when you explain special interests and how if anything it would fall under that category for him. these conversations are a very intimate bonding moment for both of you, given how vulnerable you really have to be to let all your weaknesses be known without worry of ridicule. he wouldn’t trade the knowledge of having your trust so deeply for the world

○ bokuto, for as supportive as he is, can stimulate your brain in a bad way. he’s easily excitable and often has volume issues, and more than a few times has he triggered sensory overload for you. he feels horrible whenever it happens and wants to comfort you so badly, but knows the best thing is for him to just quiet down and leave you be. he never takes it personally and goes into “emo mode” because he knows how serious it can be. the only time he’ll get close in this moments is if you have a panic attack because of it in which case he tries helping you steady your breath and stop shaking. normally you’d hate being touched when you’re like this, but his arms and warmth work wonders for your psyche

tendou satori;

○ it’s terrifying how in-tune he is with you. it’s almost like you’re just talking about the weather instead of you trying to scratch the skin off your arm while your brain got the better of you. stimming, hyperfocusing, lack of interest, social interaction issues, you can talk to him about literally anything related to your neurodivergency and he’ll be on the exact same wavelength as you. he’s able to adapt very easily and can read your irritability, mood swings and any triggers you might have. is excellent at getting you out a situation before it becomes too much for you to bear

○ tendou is another character who always has something new to show you, so he’s also very good at filling the gap between hyperfixations. he’s somehow able to completely keep up with your infodumping and even will do something similar of the sort right back you. he loves finding new games and anime and will automatically partake in anything you show him. it really helps you mentally since you never feel like you’re talking too much or uncomfortably passionate about anything since he seems so genuinely interested in what you have to say

○ is extremely protective and defensive of you when it comes to others questioning why you act a certain way or do certain things. there’s probably a little bit of a personal tie there since he got bullied for being different when he was a kid, and he absolutely hates when people are derided because they don’t follow the falsely conceived notion of normalcy. you’re not harming anyone, why should it matter what you’re doing? if you’re insecure about stimming in public though, he invests in fidgets cubes for you to keep in your pockets to play with secretly so nobody notices anything out of the ordinary. his main goal is to make sure you’re happy no matter how much your head tries to tell your otherwise. really, he just loves you more than anything else

kita shinsuke;

○ if anyone else treated this the way mr. no gaps does, you’d absolutely freak out on them - but for some reason since it’s kita it comes off as comforting. he’s the type that doesn’t let you use disorders as a restriction or excuse to let yourself settle for mediocrity, but he makes it obvious that he wants to see you thrive despite the things holding you back. he’ll never put you in a situation he thinks will trigger any sort of attack, rather things he know you can handle if you put a little more faith in yourself and your abilities

○ if he sees you’re spiraling and can’t take any sort of outside forces interacting with you a ton then he’ll make sure you have a day or two off to yourself. he won’t criticize or ridicule you for anything and goes along with whatever whims you feel (or in same cases, don’t feel like doing anything at all.) understands there’s a very important balance you need to maintain in order to go through life feeling even semi-decent and doesn’t want to jeopardize any progress you’ve made towards helping yourself

○ likes to play casual volleyball in the backyard when you’re stable and attentive enough to understand what’s going on around you. if it becomes a hyperfixation of yours then he’ll be glad to go more in depth so long as it doesn’t hit a point where it’s damaging your ability to interact with anything else. he’s a big believer that moving your body and being outside helps relax you, even if you’re not enthusiastic at the moment about it. he won’t let anybody - not your family, not an outsider, not even yourself - look down on you for any disability you have

✧·ﾟ: *✧·ﾟ:* 　　 *:·ﾟ✧*:·ﾟ✧

✰ this was stupid self indulgent but idc!! i’m neurodivergent myself and let it be known that if you say you have hyperfixations and you’re not nd i will stick your arm in a deep fryer <3

#sugawara koushi x reader #nishinoya yu x reader #kageyama tobio x reader #tsukishima kei x reader #kuroo tetsuro x reader #kenma kozume x reader #oikawa tooru x reader #bokuto kotarou x reader #tendou satori x reader #kita shinsuke x reader #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu!! #haikyuu headcanons #fluff #headcanons #haikyuu

[dipplie]

Temporary list of my stories and OC’s until one day I make a comprehensive and well made list:

Blinded:

Polli: My oldest OC and fun fact was my persona till she become edgy and I wasn’t 12 anymore. Everyone’s favorite yes yes I’m aware. Yellow, energetic, eats dirt and bugs, I can’t tell if she’s evil because of a wisp possession or just crazy. Breaks the 4th wall. Is she a Mary Sue???????? Who knows.

Melody: NOT Polli’s girlfriend despite Polli’s delousions. Has an abusive mom :(. Only has one eye and then no eyes and then robot eyes or smthn idk she becomes a badass when she gets older. But otherwise trembling in her shoes all the time.

Melodys Mom/Sharren: Bitch. Okay well all I’ll say is she’s old and grumpy and probably smells bad.

Louise: Total hotty, rich kid, FtM, got bullied as a kid for his weight. Had a squad of fans basically in high school. Lived with his mom after his parents got a divorce but his mom was semi abusive, projected her femininity onto him, and wouldn’t have been supportive of his transition, so between middle and high school he went to live with his dad and got his sex change and testosterone. His best friend in elementary and middle school stopped talking to him after his transition, and became his competition for the most attractive and sought after boy in school (except Louise is a sweetheart while his friend Tommy is a dick and really gross) His dad runs a company that specializes in technology, and after meeting and falling in love with Melody (even after all her abusive trauma and losing both her eyes) he has his dad and some of the developers create a way to get her vision back and I mean honestly I love him how could you not love him he’s so perfect.

Watching:

Fick: Big nerd boy with thick glasses. I feel like he’d use Reddit but don’t quote me on that. Big crush on Vivinya. Boy don’t wander into the woods- oh look dead body with a curse on it don’t touch it- aaaand now he has a wisp that makes him kill people, way to go kid. Panic attack central.

Vivinya: True crime girl, yucky yucky. Probably had a knife collection. “uwu I’m insane” except she actually is and starts using Fick to kill people for her and treats him like her “Yandere boyfriend” or something cringe and gross oh god. She deserves jail. JAIL. Needs to learn guys need to give consent too. Just overall sucks 1/10.

Tommy: I mentioned him early to be Louises ex best friend and rival. He used to have a crush on Louise actually but that don’t excuse being a BITCH!!!! Also needs to learn people gotta give consent he is just as gross as Vivinya. Cheats on all the girls he gets with because he’s again, a bitch. Idk if he deserved to get murdered though I mean he was still a teenager but it’s fine. Thinks of the song Seventeen from Heathers actually this story does feel a tad reminiscent of heathers with vivinya being a crazy and wanting to off a bunch of students. Huh.

Suzannie: Tommy’s older sister who’s a detective. What a coincidence. Monotone and depressed. Probably because her little brother got murdered. Gets real awkward when she’s talking about her brothers murder(s) to Fick and Vivinya like “when I find who did this to him they’ll regret being born”. Kind of really pretty actually.

Adolescents (there isn’t actually a story here yet but don’t worry about it shhhh):

Nelson: HIMBO HIMBO H- Jock stupid idiot big dork god he’s so awkward and his main personality trait is having a crush on Naomi and being a dork when talking to her. Probably could benchpress you.

Naomi: Gamer or something and a nerd geek. Her main personality trait is having a crush on Nelson and also being a dork when talking to him. Probably a weeb and fandom dweller. Can’t draw but she commissions artists to draw. She does write copious amounts of fanfiction though.

Andrés: Ohhh the school bad boy babyyyy. Baseball bat with nails in it or something. There’s like... A thing between him in Charlotte and he wants to be a thing but she’s being difficult and makes it hard to talk to her or about her and ugh.

Charlotte: Princess, high school princess. She’s actually pretty nice when you get to know her- but she’s a diva. Ballerina after school. Best friends with Naomi and doesn’t know what she’s talking about when she mentions ships or OTPs but she listens anyways because she’s a good friend. There’s like... A thing between her and Andrés but she doesn’t know if she’s super into him but geez he’s really hot but she gets such mixed responses when she asks her friends about it and what if it doesn’t work outttt.

Marlon: They/Them but they’re okay with either pronouns they aren’t sure yet, he or she is okay... Box boy box boy. Autism... He doesn’t want to admit He’s attracted to men but he’s totally attracted to men. He lives alone which is probably illegal for his age but somehow he manages. Everyone thinks he’s “the quiet kid” and he’s really sad about it no don’t make jokes like that please guys ahh-

Sing for Me:

Kat: The color pink, addahadda(adhd), angry and loud and short. For being only like 10 and being an adorable little lesbian dressing in sparkly pink dresses she actually likes screaming a lot and would totally sing heavy metal if her producers let her. Loud and mad but gets so soft around her girlfriend. “If anything happens to Brie I’m killing everyone in this room and then myself”.

Brie: French... Birds and stuff. Loves her girlfriend even though she is so loud. So fast. So much. Likes to write pretty things. Is only like an inch taller than Kat. Filled with so much love for everything.

Elliot: The girls manager. Lots of coffee. Stressed out of his MIND please help this man. Probably gay. Seems like a smug dick but he is just a tall and lanky dork that loves puppies and wants nothing more than for Kat and Brie to be happy. Accidentally brands them as sisters and then Kat kisses Brie and- oh fuck oh shit oh no what has he done. Hides the fan and non fan responses from them. Poor guy.

Horror Hosts:

Ichabod: Hot demon who’s the son of the current ruler of hell or something. I mean he’s hot, smart, and royalty, what more do you want. I very specifically hear the dub voice of Kyoya Ootori from OHHC as his voice don’t @ me. Goat legs????? Yeah??? Don’t be rude.

Barnabie: Ohhhhhhhhh big orc teddy bear I’m crying I love him????? He puts up a more confident ploy and the given stereotypical personality orcs supposedly have but he’s just a shy boy that wants to give girls flowers and call boys pretty. Help him.

Garrison: Gary Burger. Fat hairy gay man. I mean werewolf. Wouldn’t it be funny if I made the whole werewolf thing backwards and made him transform into a HUMAN only on the full moon??? Party animal, pun absolutely intended. LOUD AND FUNNY he’s a dork. Bites. Horny on main Garrison please you’re supposed pamper and flirt with the guests but not quite that much.

Vincenzo: Token Vampire but he’s Italian because I felt like it. Talk and lanky of course. Bitch face. Blood coffee? Yeah lots of coffee. Tired. Let him sleep in Ichabod. Steps on people. Can summon and reanimate corpses but has a bitter attitude towards them because they get annoyed with him as much as he gets annoyed with- everyone else. He does have a soft spot but idk where it is. When he’s talking to guests he’s more suave and sexy though.

Kai: Genderfluid haha get it because slime fluid-... I’ll stop. Probably objectively the hottest because they can look anyway they want and shift their vocals to sound like almost anything, also probably objectively the best in bed (if you’re okay with the texture of Jell-o) and honestly come on save some for the rest of us it’s not fair. This boy can SING oh my god seranade me and whisper in my ear baby. Spunky and sassy.

Hallvor: BABY OCTOPOD BOY OHHHHH I LOVE HIM HE’S SO SWEET AND IS AN ANGEL DARLING BOY SO EMBARRASSED SO SHY SOFTEST VOICE OHHH- ohhh nooo he’s got a knife ohhhhh Hallvor baby don’t be like that ohhhh... Used to work in hentai actually (I wonder why) but quit because of immoral practices and good for him we love that. Okay he’s not actually a yandere or whatever but he DEFINITELY wants to squeeze you a little too hard and has those crazy eyes.

Carla: Main character of this OHHC monster clone. She sucks I don’t like her because listen listen she kills monsters as a living and when she tries to kill our boys here, Ichabod catches her and goes “no” but then the rest (not knowing her murderous intent) fall in love with her and Ichabod is like: “shoot well I’ll keep you alive and around but I’m watching you” and blah blah romance and feelings and character development and wow she seems like she’s grown to care about them... So Ichabod removes a curse he put to prevent her from harming them or leaving... AND THEN SHE STABS THEM ALL IN THE BACK IM CRYING. I mean she might have an extra reason for needing to kill them but I haven’t decided if I want to actually put it in the story yet so.

Fingertips:

Maria/Marianna: Was this goth angry chick and the head of these losers but after a failed heist, fire, and being betrayed and dropped from a window on a 3rd or 4th story down into flames, and going to the hospital and changing her name, she changed totally and become a soft pretty girl... And then the next three boys went “HEY BOSS WE FOUND YOU” and she went “oh no” and now she’s just an anxious wreck like “no no no no no I don’t shoot people in the face anymore no no no no no” And has a fear of hands. Also was Diamontés best friend in primary school and yes all these characters went to the K-12 school all the other characters do/did. Pretty voice. The story is mostly about her being anxious around all the other characters because who was it that betrayed her and dropped her into the flames below? Find out next week on th-

Nikki: He’s that character that you see and immediately go “oh he’s gross and is angry and is a bitch” and you’re right he is and has a cockney accent and screams a lot and probably swings a knife around a lot, but he’s got a sweet interior (somewhere in there... somewhere) Screamo heavy metal. Him and the rest of these character briefly talked about having a band and then they didn’t and then at the end of the story they do and although he plays guitar mostly, if he does do lead vocals he screams a lot. Bitch.

Anthony: Pretty boy but like the “was in the army” pretty boy vibe. Probably played football in highschool. Pyromaniac. Punches Nikki a lot. Almost gives himbo vibes sometimes, almost. Kind of likes the old timey cozy aesthetic. Plays the piano sometimes but “oh I’m not very good at it” Plays extremely well

Diamonté: TALL. Purple goth boy aesthetic hellll yeahhhh. CRAZY EYES AND THEY SPEAK VOLUMES WATCH OUT. Drums. The scary kind of quiet because he just smiles at you. Crowbar. Okay but he’s actually really sweet though. Secretly loves watching Anthony and Nikki get into fights so that’s why he rarely puts a stop to it. I think he’s a sadist. Can be a gentle giant, but can also be a not so gentle giant. The only time he’s really talkative is after copious amounts of booze.

Unnamed/Undesigned 1: Literally a pimp and he’s pretty gross. Blonde hair and pink and white clothes.

Unnamed/Undesigned 2: Chick that likes to throw knives and be angry and threatens Marianna a lot but in a quiet and monotone way, Marianna is pretty scared and hopes that these are just shallow threats uhhhhh.

Unnamed/Undesigned 3: Sells guns (without a lisence of course) and wears a bandana over his face a lot. Tired. Grumpy.

Unnamed/Undesigned 4: Like Marianna, was cold hearted and cool but then got caught in the fire and got all soft. He only has one eyes but how sweet his eyepatch is a heart. Recoved along side Marianna and they are good friends good friends tha- wait Marianna are you going back with them oh god you can’t do that oh dear oh no oh-

(I don’t have a story or name for these two but they’re my comfort ship OC’s and my current hyper fixaction right now):

Rodriquéz: I literally designed him with almost all the traits I find attractive in a guy other than freckles so as you can imagine I find him super HOT. I also designed his personality on what I find attractive from a guy so as you can imagine I find him super GREAT. But anyways he’s grumpy and closed off and monotone and smug. I really could go on for hours about how I want him to step on me I’m so sorry guys. Both him and Samantha give the “21 and having immature fun” vibes. They’re a thing but they like going to bars together and splitting off and doing their own thing (or doing someone else’s thing if you get what I mean haHhahHhahGahGhaha-) But so help them if anyone doesn’t oblige by the “no” from one of these two, someone’s gonna get beat up.

Samantha: (She literally just my personality shhhhh don’t tell anyone it’s a secret) Bubbly, energetic, a little shy by extroverted, bombshell blonde or something? It took me way too much time and effort to design her but I’m really happy with how I finally designed her, I love her outfit. She could kick me in the face and I’d say thank you. Girly drinks at the bar. Got that trauma and anxiety™️ secretly though. Skips and jumps a lot. As I’m typing this I keep looking up at the drawing of her and more and more I would want her to also step on me.

(Space Story I don’t have a nice title for):

Unnamed/Undesigned 1: So... Funny story this story originally was with me and uh... My ex I guess... So I gotta replace the MC’s... Whoops ahaha... Awkward. But anyways the MC is a robot and a girl and is a slight tsundere or smthn.

Unamed/Undesigned 2: Has a space ship, works for this organization in space that protects the galaxy. Is cocky, lazy, sly, oblivious, and an idiot. The love interest- obviously. Probably accidentally committing space crimes. (Like space pirating hAHAHA-) Kind of cool when he wants to be.

Dandelion/Dandy: CAT. WITH A JET PACK. Kind of an asshole. Fun fact used to be Polli’s cat but then when the Second MC crash landed on earth she was like “fuck this noise I’m going with space boy laterz” (okay she can’t talk but she thought it).

Zizii: Lesbian alien? Yeah???? Okay but I mean her main character trait is being a dorky back alley doctor and engineer obsessed with the MC because they’re a sentient robot with emotions and a lazer arm and rocket boots WOW!!!!!!!!

Story I want to revive:

So I had a story I started writing a long time ago about this tech theatre kid that had a crush on this other theatre kid character, but in a play that other character has to kiss another person for the show, and as the story progresses the MC convinces themselves that it isn’t just a play and that their crush actually loves and is kissing that other kid. And in the play, that other character is supposed to die. Show night comes along and they die, but like actually, and by the hands of the MC (Idk maybe like a light falls on em or smthn). So it’s a grotesque scene the audience sees as just an act. (Mutters I dunno I think my idea’s cool...) So I’ve been wanting to design these characters and work more on the story but I’m busy being obsessed with Rodriquez and Samantha so. (And the Horror Host Club too I love them too still).

Other Characters that either don’t have a specific story or are kind of like background characters:

Jacqueiliquinne Merril: Sara Berry vibes from 35mm (go look up The Ballad of Sara Berry, maybe like an animatic idk the first one that comes up is nice) But otherwise rich, pretty, popular, bitch. Tries to like, steal Louise from his squad and it’s like bro that’s unnecessary who hurt you that’s so rude. She gives Nui from Kill La Kill Vibes too. Oh she knows her name is long and annoying but you have to say the whole thing.

Brianna: Jaqueiliquinne’s sister. Big titty goth gf??? She’s pretty popular too and kind of a bitch too but to a much lesser degree. Her and he sister throw hands a lot when no one is around, you know, “THEY GIRLS ARE FIGHTINNGGGG”.

The Louise Fan Club: 4 characters I haven’t named yet. One writes fanfiction of Louise and shares it with the others and with him sometimes and although he thinks it’s a bit weird he also finds it a tad endearing and supports her. One is an aspiring photographer and is constantly asking Louise to model for him. One is an artist and draws Louise all the time. And one is an aspiring musician who writes songs based of Louise’s relationships which again he finds a little weird but endearing and supports her.

The Jacquiliquinne Merril Fan Club: Genderbent-ish (I say ish because one of the characters is a little bit less defined gender wise) versions of the Louise Fan Club. Yes I’m lazy, and no they don’t get along with them, infact they hate each others club with a passion. 

Unnamed/Undesigned: I wanna make some hacker kid just because I wanna have one.

Unnamed/Undesigned: I also really wanna have a super cutesy magical girl and then a really super duper generic boring character probably like star vs the forces of evil idk I never watched that show but it looks cute.

Me: I exist in the universe fukc you I can do what I want it’s my story and I get to chose the who also if you wanna be in the mess of a universe go ahead draw yourself with my OC’s I allow and encourage and appreciate it. I literally made the Horror Host Club as a sort of Harem story and you are absolutely allowed to make out with them if you’re a monster fucker DO it GO ahead it’s canon.

and that is ALL I have FOR now Knowing me I’ll make like 12 more characters by July, and I mean I need more characters for the high school anyways so...

#Super Long #Characters #OC's #ALL my characters so far

[samesanegirl]

The Weasley-Potter Clan

Teddy Lupin: 

The most loved and admired member of the Weasley-Potter clan

Has a special bond with every single one of his cousins

Whenever there is a Quidditch match in the clan, everyone fights for Teddy to be in their team

Pansexual king

Is totally into rock and punk music

Loves Victoire more than life itself

Social butterfly due to his charm and caring nature

Listens to The Weird Sisters non stop

He constantly changes his hair colour. However, he always keeps a pink and brown streak for his parents

Uses his Metamorphous powers to cheer others up

Hufflepuff beater - has taken the pleasure of training the Weasley-Potter children in Quidditch

Underneath his gleeful attitude, he often mourns over his parents and never forgets them

Victoire Weasley: 

Adores children, which explains why Hugo and Lily Luna love her

Other than Teddy, she would be best friends with Molly II due to their close age.

Charming, witty and drop-dead gorgeous

Has a very elegant presence and she is very feminine

Unashamedly girly and does not believe femininity makes her ‘weak’

Others assumed she was dumb, despite that she was sorted into Ravenclaw. This pushed Victoire to work harder

Ended up being Head Girl, graduating at the top of her class and becoming a Healer.

Unlike her cousins, Victoire didn’t play Quidditch 

Instead, she loves swimming as she grew up on Shell Cottage

Head-over-heels in love with Teddy Lupin.

Willingly helps others and loves giving advice

Critical about certain things and has opinionated & blunt nature

James Sirius Potter: 

Makes boring situations fun, no matter what

Chanels the spirit of the marauders

Quidditch fanatic

His free-spirited personality is contrasted against his competitive and serious attitude when playing Quidditch

Gryffindor Keeper

Whenever he wins a match, he throws the loudest parties ever seen in Hogwarts

Is the literal embodiment of Gryffindor

Has the craziest stories to tell

Loves to think himself as the ladies’ man. Unfortunately, Louis snatched that title once he hit puberty

Often takes the blame when everything goes wrong

When a girl captures his heart, he is romantic and cheesy as fuck

Fred Weasley: 

He grew up witnessing his father cope with grief. Thus, he has learned to not take anyone for granted

His obsession with Quidditch is on the same level with James

He and James can’t live without each other

Soul-brothers with James

Gryffindor Chaser alongside Dominique and Rose. They are unbeatable when united together

Very sweet and protective around her female cousins

Inherits Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes

Keeps a cool head whenever he, James and Dominique get into trouble

Gets drunk extremely easily

Girls fawn over his charming personality and looks

Willingly accepts any challenge, no matter how wild and crazy it is, he finds a way to complete it

Dominique Weasley: 

While Victoire is graceful and lady-like, Dominique is loud and rebellious

Considerably smart but never tries in Hogwarts

Complete wisecrack and smartass

Prank trio with James Sirius and Fred II

Dyes her hair different colours three times a year

Gryffindor Chaser

Uses her Veela powers to get what she wants

Flirty, confident and hilarious

Will get into a literal fist fight if you insult her loved ones

Loves road trips, parties, festivals and Quidditch

Suggests the wildest challenges and games to her cousins

A social butterfly and life of the party

Roxanne Weasley: 

Extremely loyal to those who win her approval

Fanatic of The Weird Sisters - something that her and Teddy obsess over

Has no mercy on the Quidditch pitch

Underneath her toughness, she is sensitive and sweet

Ferocious Gryffindor Beater

Badass as fuck and she knows it

Believes in female empowerment and is very accepting towards others

Has no time for bullshit or small talk

Lesbian and proud of it

Aspires to become a rock musician in the Wizarding World

Always has your back, no matter what

Does not give a shit about what you think or say about her

But if you insult her cousins, she will make your life a misery

Hugo Weasley: 

On the autism spectrum, but is fucking intelligent

Surprisingly, Hugo is smarter than his sister

Has a crush on Lysander Scamander

Equally obsessed with the Chudley Cannons like his father

The best chess player in the family

Always hangs out with Lily Luna and Roxanne

Ravenclaw Keeper, but switches to Beater position when playing Quidditch with his cousins

Fascinated by Magical Creatures and studies them

Is socially awkward and can be insensitive and blunt when he is stressed

Has a kind heart and a strong moral compass

Is passionate about activism and calling out injustices

Can be bossy and is fearful of breaking the rules

Has random knowledge about the most obscure things

Believes that house elves deserve their freedom and are not slaves

Louis Weasley: 

Once he hit puberty, the girls could not leave him alone

Fluent in French and English

Sweet temperament and an absolute gentleman

Interested in French and British culture

Obsessed with film and the Muggle World

Loves to travel to other countries and visit famous landmarks

Hufflepuff beater

Can be a little naive at times but is emotionally mature

Calm demeanour but lives for adventure 

People pleaser and can sometimes be a push-over

Genuinely wants the best for you

People come to him for comfort or support and to flirt in the process 

Molly Weasley: 

Loveable, warm, kind-hearted

Loves physical affection and always hugs her cousins for no reason

Makes the people she loves feel special and likes doing surprise parties or sleepovers

Loves to cook and bake different things

Obsessed with English Literature

Headgirl in her last year at Hogwarts

Whilst she is intelligent and hard-worker, she was nowhere near as competitive or ambitious as Percy

Does not play for the Gryffindor Quidditch team either, although she likes to watch it

Hopeless romantic and ships absolutely everything

Everyone is naturally drawn to her optimism

Lucy Weasley: 

Gets teased for being a nerd and for liking Muggle things, but she proudly admits it

Has a small blue streak on her hair

Does not play for the Ravenclaw Quidditch team. However, she plays as Chaser in the Weasley Annual Quidditch matches

Not academically competitive like Percy but manages to ace her exams anyway

Introverted and painfully awkward, but is loud around her best friends

People make assumptions around her asexuality and she hates it

Lucy has a close friendship with all her female cousins, whether they like the same things or not

Obsessed with comic books and Marvel films

Sarcastic humour and amazing comebacks

Fascinated with Muggle pop culture

Lily Luna Potter: 

The youngest in the family

Is in love with love and is an intense shipper of the relationships that her cousins are in

Mostly calm under stressful circumstances

Inherited her father’s sass and her mother’s humour

Daydreams 24/7

Super talkative - could start a conversation in an empty room

Has a very kind and lively nature

Intuitive, trusting and sensitive

Social butterfly and gets along with everyone she meets

Gryffindor Seeker - just as good as Albus Potter

Stands up for what is right and never hesitates to defend others

Dreams to be a journalist

Whenever Rita Skeeter makes rumours about her cousins, she jumps to their defence and roasts her

Rose Weasley: 

Perfectionist and very demanding of herself

Nothing can ever stop her from accomplishing her goals

Feels the pressures of being the daughter of two war heroes and tries to succeed in everything to please them and herself

Gryffindor Chaser

Her love for Quidditch matches James and Fred’s

Loyal to the Chudley Cannons, no matter how many times they lose

Vivacious and funny around her friends but is dead-serious when confronted with challenges

Competitive as fuck, whether it is Quidditch, academics or on a bet

Loving, caring and overprotective

Outspoken about her views and hates injustices

If you hurt her loved ones, she will Sectusembra your ass

Fiery temper and not to be messed with

Breaks the rules at school and manages to fool Hogwarts professors with her flawless grades 

Bonds with Scorpius over their shared neediness and love of books

Albus Severus Potter: 

Talented at Potions, which is his best subject as well

Very intelligent but is silent about it

Hates being centre of attention

Slytherin Seeker - and a supremely talented one

Hates his middle name after having a deep conversation with Professor Longbottom

Is confused why his dad didn't name him after Hagrid

Sarcastic as fuck

Would take the Killing Curse for Rose and Scorpius

Secretly listens to emo music

Is a pro at escaping trouble and is great at creating loopholes by thinking on the spot

Slightly awkward upon first introductions but he is very kind and caring

Avoids the Wizarding press as much as possible

Scorpius Malfoy: 

Strong moral compass and hates injustices

Generally reserved and quiet around those he does not know very well

Once you win his loyalty, he will move the earth just for you

Is a great judge of character and is an expert on body language

An absolute gentleman

Whenever his friends are stuck in trouble, he is a master at acting innocent and naive in order to help them

Quietly determined and ambitious

His kind nature is often mistaken for weakness

But Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy is the strongest person ever

He knows how to defend himself and does not tolerate bullshit

When Molly gave him a Weasley sweater for Christmas, he was in tears

Fascinated with the Muggle world and loves spending it there with Al and Rose

Incredibly intelligent and nerdy

Slytherin keeper

Is in love with Muggle literature, museums, architecture and art

#it took me 2 hours to write this #finished it at 2:30 am #brace yourselves this one is a long one #hp next generation #harry potter next generation #teddy lupin #teddy and victoire #victoire weasley #Molly Weasley #lucy weasley #lily luna potter #James Sirius Potter #fred weasley #Albus Severus Potter #roxanne weasley #hugo weasley #dominique weasley #lorcan scamander #lysander scamander #Rose Granger Weasley #rose weasley #scorose #Rose and Scorpius #scorpius malfoy #louis weasley #weasley-potter #wotters

[lucifer-kane]

Finally my side of this whole KFAM debacle

I’ve never had to write something like this before, so here we go. I know that there have been other people who have said things on this topic, people who I’m very grateful towards in all of this, who have come forward in this… strange time. I feel like I finally can say something after freaking out for a few days and talking with others as well online who are on this side of it all. But I feel like I finally need to say something as…. Probably the person who really started it all, I guess? As the one who made the post saying “Me casting death of the author onto kfam” Because I was finally fed up with just everything I had learned over the last year + of talking about criticisms in the show and of the creators/writers. I spent months talking to others on at least two different servers about all of this, from learning it myself, to being here in this position of what’s currently going on.

A lot started a few months ago in the Official Server, when a graphic artist posted an edit of a character of the show in BDSM gear, which, automatically, is NSFW. Some had issues and said that it got taken down, then a few hours later uploaded it once more with a spoiler cover over it. Friday morning, it happened again, this time with a group shot, but he was still there. Now. I don’t think I would have issues with this if it was posted on a server with specific channels for 18+ members of it only. But it wasn’t, and this server is a SFW only, but apparently “canon compliant” NSFW is a-okay. Which, I think is utterly ridiculous, because minors are still in there, and that should not be allowed. If you’re going to allow that stuff, at least have designated channels where only 18+ members can opt in to see that sort of thing. You can’t have both.

Two people called this out, one directly sending an @ to the mods in said server, and it was a little bit before a response happened, then two other messages were taken down, the message with the @ left in it. Kyle had also retweeted the art on twitter, and while I don’t think that was such a bad thing, his response to at least adding a warning that it was NSFW, was pretty unprofessional. The person who asked Kyle to say as such, was bullied by both Kyle and Trent on twitter as well.

Now, onto my DotA post once more. After posting that I had a few hours of chillness, up until in the middle of a call with friends, I looked over to my discord list of servers I was in, and the Official was no longer there. I panicked, left the call, and cried for a long time about it, because despite my criticism, I loved being there! I told my friends on this server, where the criticism was most of the time, and there was a few hour period of questioning what the hell was going on. It was late at night, and everyone was confused. No one would give reasoning to what was going on. Until I was vagued to have been a problem for a long time.

Now, it may have been my bluntness when it comes to text, bc you know, autism! But I don't think I've ever done anything that would warrant people to be uncomfortable, other than criticize the show (and the server at times) on my personal tumblr (twitter on occasion). Which I can see as being upset about that, but I was way too damn scared to PM a mod to talk about what was going on, because at this point, it was very obvious they hated me. I didn’t like that they never came to talk, like a civilized person, about all this. I don't want to make people uncomfortable, that's the last goddamn thing I wanna do in this world.

Now, we’re here. A few days after everything went down, to what I feel like was a simple miscommunication, I would never wish death on someone at all, that’s disgusting behavior and I don’t like that Kyle even vagued that I did such a thing. I have never interacted with him at all, even when he would come and talk on the server. I actively tried to avoid interactions with the creators because I’m not a fan of creators being this close to their fanbase, where people have actively said it makes them uncomfortable.

I love this podcast a lot, for the first year I praised it like others did as well, but then, I read some things about Kyle, and then some of the things in the show. We all know those things, the Hellen Keller episode, how Lily is written, Jacob in his whole character, and the racism in Walt. But I started being critical on main, voicing my thoughts and concerns. Because criticism is an okay thing, it helps artists grow in the things they do. And I understand not liking criticism, I don’t like it sometimes, but sometimes it’s needed, to move your art forward. Kyle’s reaction to criticism is that of a man who doesn’t have thick skin and doesn’t wanna be proven wrong in the things he does.

As of now, because of all this, I’ve been blocked from the KFAM twitter, Kyle himself, and I think the tumblr as well (Or at least they’ve unfollowed me, I don’t care enough to check on there). And I’ve seen my friends get bullied by the creator of this show, and even members of the community. While at a lesser scale than Kyle, it’s still gross to see the fanbase act like this, especially acting like my friends and I are actively bullying them, when we just wanted one piece of art to be taken down from a space that, in all reality, has a lot of minors in it.

And finally, I just wanna talk about the server in general. I joined maybe six months after getting into the show, we were pretty far into the first hiatus at this point and I wanted more content, so, I finally beat my discord anxiety down and joined. And I had so much fun! I talked to people who I still think about, posted art, fics, did headcanons all the time. I talked in there quite a bit up until I got kicked. But the overall vibe of the discord after being there longer than a month, was not the greatest. And it took me longer than average to notice, shortly before posting public criticisms. This was when I started getting ignored more often than not, and not that everyone did that, I still had people talk to me, which was nice. But as time went on, this happened more and more, to more and more people.

People who saw my criticisms, and came to me, mostly anonymously, to say they felt the exact same way. And that’s… not a good thing. The whole “Only happy things, no negativity about the show!” attitude that is in there, is bad. You can’t criticize something you love, and if you do, you’re dogpiled onto until you shut up. This has happened to many people, not just me. There’s times where queer members of this community, will talk about themseles as some lgbt+/queer fans do. Saying things along the line of “___ is gay culture!” or “I think [x] is trans!!” and they’ll either get ignored (in the latter case) or just someone won't get the first one is a joke and get upset. Which, I can see if you’re new to a place where people say that, but don’t outright shut someone down like that, ask what it means. That goes for anything.

I enjoyed my time there, and I was super upset when I found myself kicked, distraught even. Then they started kicking more people without even a word which isn’t how you run a server, no one should get an instant ban without being talked to, and I think I would be less upset if I had been talked to, to at least tell my side. But no, I got this, and here we are. With multiple testimonies that aren’t my own, telling how horrible that server is towards some people who they don’t like, who speak out, who say “Hey maybe we should do [x].” And that’s… Not the safe environment they say they have, because I, among many others. Was also super uncomfortable when it came to some things in there.

As a queer member of this community, I, and others like me, felt ignored. Ignored in the criticism of their queer characters who were written by non-queer men, and then, as stated above. Upset at literally everything else that wasn’t good in their show. But now, we’re being painted as the villains in a way, being bullied by the creator, and others acting like nothing is going wrong. But that’s all I have to say, if prompted, I will talk more on any subject here.

I’m not angry, I never once was. At this point I find more saddened amusement in all of this, rather than anger. But. That is all, thank you for your time on this subject.

#I may have missed some things but this is so much of it #king falls am #kfam #kfam critical

[thechangeling]

For better or worse, I am alive.

So basically my brain is being a jerk again and making me suicidal. So I decided to repost this.

Set after QOAAD.

Sometimes mornings just hurt.

Kit had no explanation as to why.

There were just days when he opened his eyes and the burden of the day ahead was simply too much to bare.

Today was one of those days.

I'll just sleep for a few more minutes. I just need a little more time. Just a little longer.

Then five minutes would become ten and ten became twenty and suddenly a whole hour had gone by. The heaviness in his heart growing by the second.

Expectations hurt.

Like the way Tessa looked at him sometimes with a glowing smile. Like she was seeing someone else through him. Caught up in her own fond memories. Wanting him to be like the Herondales she lost.

Be brave and strong. Be the perfect warrior like Jace or a hero like Will. Everyone's counting on you. Don't be weak.

Don't be weak.

Herondales weren't weak.

Kit wished he didn't view his feelings as a weakness. He wished he could give himself the same love and empathy he felt for Ty.

But he just couldn't.

Logically he knew that just like Ty's autism, his feelings which seemed to be symptoms of depression, were beyond his control. And yet still he could hear those harsh, jagged words forming in the back of his mind.

Weak. Pathetic. He doesnt love you. He never will.

No one loves you.

It was moments like this when Kit remembered what Julian had said to him about Ty's differences.

There are shadowhunters who can barely get out of bed and there are shadowhunters who find that the words float off the page when they try to read. The clave is aware of these things, but they push these people into the background. They're considered the dregs of the nephilum community. I never wanted that for Ty. They can never know.

The dregs of nephilum community.

No one would have dared to imagine that a Herondale could be one of those people. Different. Not at all falling into their little cooker cutter idea of a perfect angelic warrior.

It was the same kind of thinking that led most people to assume Kit was straight. No he couldn't possibly be "like that".

Fucking small minded babies. All of them.

Memories hurt.

Memories of Ty's smile, his laughter and all his quirks.

Then the memories of Ty raising Livvy from the dead. Pleading with him. Telling Ty that he loved him. He knew it was a bad idea and he knew Ty wouldn't say it back and he knew he was being pathetic and selfish and now he was sinking again.

Kit never really knew what it was like to be loved. He never had a mother growing up and looking back on his relationship with his father, he was almost positive that he had never really loved Kit. At least not the way the Blackthorns loved each other. He shouldn't have let himself crave Ty's love. It would never happen

However, he still let himself hope. Maybe this time things could be different. Maybe this time the pain wouldn't win. But it did. It won in the form of anger. Kit allowed the darkest parts of his mind to transform the heartbreak into anger.

Anger was easier. Anger hurt less then the truth.

I wish I never met you.

A fucking lie.

I love you. I need you. I feel like I'm drowning, I've been drowning my whole life and you're the only thing that makes it better. Things don't hurt as much when you look at me. I'm sorry I know you're dealing with a lot but I need to talk to you. I need to talk to someone.

No. He could never say any of that. He couldn't tell anyone.

Kit rolled over in bed and checked the clock on his nightstand.

3pm. Jesus christ.

Pathetic. Worthless.

Kit squeezed his eyes shut and put a pillow over his head.

I can't do it. I can't do anything.

A knock on his bedroom door jolted him out of his thoughts. "Kit?" Tessa called apprehensively, "Are you alright?"

She didn't sound angry or even exasperated.

She sounds worried.

Worry. Pitty.

These were things worse then hostility. It made everything harder.

"Kit? I'm coming in." The door swung open to reveal a frazzled looking Tessa. Her brown hair had been tossed up in a messy bun and she wore baggy excersise clothes to accommodate her rather large baby bump. Any day now Tessa and Jem would have a child of their own. They probably wouldn't want him around any more.

"Sorry, you didn't answer me" Tessa spoke tentatively, almost as if she was afraid to break him. "Its been one hell of a day. Jem and I are trying to finish the nursery."

Kit looked down avoiding her eyes. "I'm sorry" he breathed out, unable to speak any louder then just above a whisper. It would require too much effort. " I just dont feel well".

I just dont feel well.

I think I'm sick.

These are the phrases Kit kept repeating over and over again. Different ways to tell Tessa how he was feeling without actually telling her.

Tessa sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed beside him. "Ok, but it seems like you haven't been feeling well for awhile now" Tessa explained worridly. "If you need to talk about anything, I'm here." Tessa gave him a comforting smile. Kit was still trying to avoid looking her in the eye.

Why is this so hard? She might understand.

No, She won't. No one will.

Kit could feel his eyes beginning to water. Tessa gently rested a hand on his shoulder. She was biting her lip in contemplation as if deciding what to say.

"Kit listen" she began. " let's say supposedly you had something wrong with your physical health. Maybe a heart defect or a brain tumor or something".

Kit looked up slightly alarmed, "but I dont have a brain tumor?" He cocked his head slightly in confusion.

Tessa looked like she was fighting a smile. "No, but just bear with me here ok?" She pulled her legs up onto the bed so she was sitting crosslegged and then took a deep breath Kit felt the urge to apologize, but instead shook it off. Maybe she wasn't annoyed. Perhaps this was something completely different then Tessa telling him off.

"So, as I was saying" she continued, " if you had something wrong with your physical health you would do your best to seek treatment or talk to a doctor. Right? Or at the very least, you would tell someone".

Kit wasn't sure if he was supposed to answer

"I guess yeah. But I dont get what this has to do with anything" Kit replied hesitantly.

Tessa gently took his hand. " My point is, if you would seek help for a physical problem then why wouldn't you do the same for your mental health?"

Kit inhaled sharply. She wasn't supposed to know. Perhaps he wasn't being as discreet as he thought. His instincts were telling him to deflect or deny it. Do something to make her stop looking at him like that.

But the minute he opened his mouth, he was hit by a wave of lethargy and all that came out was a slow and quiet exhale. Barely noticable to the human ear.

That was all he was capable of managing to defend himself. He was just too tired.

Tessa began to rub slow circles against his back as a comforting gesture. "Hey" she whispered soothingly. "Its gonna be ok. You'll be fine, we can get you help." Kit lifted his lead back up and turned towards Tessa to meet her eyes. " I thought shadowhunters weren't supposed to go to therapy?" Kit asked with a slight hint of hostility. Which he instantly regretted. Tessa remained unfazed and continued to smile at him sympathetically. "Yes well we aren't exactly a part of shadowhunter culture right now, and even if we were, nephilum attitudes towards therapy are something that needs to change as soon as possible." Kit nodded along, behaving almost as if he was in some sort of trance. Not fully processing what Tessa was saying. He could hear her continuing on with her reassurances, making plans and promises. He wanted to be happy someone cared enough to try and help him.

But he just couldn't feel it.

"I dont know" Kit deflected, turning his head away. " I just don't know if it'll help, I feel like nothing I do makes anything better".

Tessa was silent.

Sensing a pause in the conversation, Kit layed back down horizontally on top of the bed. Just talking alone seemed to take a lot out of him. He waited for Tessa to say something but there was only silence.

Silence, and then "you should talk to Will".

Now that defenetly got Kit's attention. He shot back up like a rocket and turned to face Tessa again. At first he thought maybe it was some attempt at humor but she looked deadly serious.

"Talk to Will? How?" Kit asked, furrowing his brow in confusion.

Tessa rolled her eyes fondly while still maintaining a small smile. "Kit, I know you can see ghosts. Every Herondale can. So that means you should also be able to see Will and I think he could help you. He has dealt with feelings like yours before. You could almost say that mental illness might be a bit of a Herondale family trait."

Before Kit could respond. Tessa was standing up. " I need to start thinking about what we're having for dinner later and I need to call Magnus. If you want to talk to either me or Jem, we will be in the living room. But I would reccomend taking my advice." Tessa finished, rolling back her shoulders and shaking out the kinks in her upper back and arms. She started towards the door.

"Wait." Kit called after her. Tessa paused to listen. Kit drew all the strength he had to conjure up a smile. "Thank you."

Tessa returned his smile, "Your welcome sweetheart." Then she turned and disappeared down the hallway.

Kit lay back on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. He had a feelings things still wouldn't be easy, but for the first time in awhile he was experiencing something besides the empty blackness. Something completely different.

Hope.

#kit x ty #kit herondale #mental health #the dark artifices #tda #mental health acceptance #mood disorder

[thinking-outside-the-giftbox18]

A Pill In Time: Chapter 1 - Welcome to St. Dymphna’s Psych Ward

Part 1 - The Cafeteria

Ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25747456/chapters/62524816

Wattpad link: https://www.wattpad.com/932664360-a-pill-in-time-ahit-psych-ward-au-chapter-1

Summary: An alternate universe where A Hat In Time [by Gears For Breakfast] is set in a psychic ward and anyone non-human in the game are human now.

Notes: The writer has done research on the mental disorders yet has trouble understanding and memorizing them, please don’t harass or insult them as they have tried to be empathetic and avoid spreading misinformation.

The perspective of the main character changes to the next character to show what the main character is really doing.

TW: Mental disorders [Autism/Autism Spectrum, PTSD, OCD, Anxiety, Schizophrenia, etc.], the perspective of a child can be dark too, self-loathing, mentions of physical abuse [not kids fighting each other, we were kids who fought our own siblings before, unless it was physical abuse on your perspective…nevermind…], mild swearing, might be boring depending on how I write this story.

I swear I’m not crying…I’m not crying at all! When I get angry, the sweat goes into my eyeballs! I’m gonna kick Timmy to the ground till he becomes a vegetable and I’ll chop him up and eat him for dinner, and he better taste delicious!!! Okay Hana, calm yourself…You have to get your toys first before anyone else can! I see what looked like a cafeteria up ahead, and then I heard what sounded like a girl making karate noises and punching someone. I was almost close to the source of the sound when I saw this girl, she had blond

hair that was tied into pigtails, but the bands are almost at the end of the hair. She was kicking a big security guy who looks like he was in pain, she stopped and turned towards me, she had yellow eyes that stared at me with surprise and confusion.

Before I can say anything, she ran away and I had to follow her. She went inside the cafeteria and kept ducking under the tables and dodging the other security guys…who all look the same…weird. While chasing her, I noticed something near the tall barred windows and I ran over to it. It was my blue blanket with star patterns, still folded and rolled in a bundle! I grabbed it and shoved it inside the bag. I got up and looked around…great, I lost her. I cautiously tried to get to the exit, but then I heard a loud booming voice, I almost hit my head under the tables from jumping!

“FIND THAT BLONDE GIRL AND MAKE SURE TO PUT HER IN THE ROOM!!!”

My ears ring from that yell, I really don’t know or want to know what “The room” is. I peep up and see a chef with black hair and a scowl on his face, he has a fancy mustache and bushy brows. He had both his arms on his hip and commanding the guards around, I quickly left the room before he can see me.

Mark’s P. O. V.

I looked around the cafeteria, making sure no table is left unturned for Maria, that little she-devil…As I was watching out for her, I could have sworn that I had seen someone ran out the cafeteria… Might be that I’m really tired.

Hana’s P. O. V.

That was close…I looked around and see that I have some options, there was a flight of stairs going up and an elevator. I was busy thinking of my choice to venture to the other floors that I did not notice the clicking sounds from the badges on my bagpack. I jumped and turned to see that girl again, who looked at me like a curious owl.

She walked around me, looking up and down, suspicious and serious. Is…Is that red marker on her cheeks??

Maria’s P. O. V.

This brown haired girl with blue eyes looked at me with surprise; maybe she couldn’t believe the glorious sight of Miss Maria, the Marvelous Hero of the St. Dymphna’s Psych Ward!

That is a working title, by the way!

“Hello there! You must be new here! I am Maria the Marvelous and Welcome to the Psych Ward! What are your superpowers?” I introduced myself to the newbie; she looked at me silently and blinked, like any clueless person. She must be a mute, like those two weirdoes from the third floor who scare the security goons.

“You must have a really cool superpower, kid! I’m the hero of this place and I’m currently on a mission! Wanna join the rebellion?” She was about to open her mouth, but I know the answer! “Great! I had to hire you after watching you escape from the bad guys’ headquarters, that’s some pretty good sneaking if you ask me!” Then I remembered the badges on her bag, I ask about them “Those are some pretty cool badges you got there! Do they mean anything? Do they relate to that super cool superpower of yours?”

Just the thought of having a badge for having a superpower already sounded awesome! “I saw this boy with a red jacket running around and dropping off these weird looking toys on the corners of the building before I got here. Do those belong to you?” She nodded her head immediately, good to know she’s not deaf. “I can help you find them all since we’re comrades now! Or better yet, we’re partners in crime! Whaddya’ say?” I held up a hand for a high-five, and then realized she’s shorter than me.

Hana’s P. O. V.

No offense to Maria but she was and sounds bossy and obnoxious. However, I was really grateful for the help she had given me. I jumped up and immediately high-fived Maria back, I spent my time with Timmy to know to never be slow to a high-five. She seemed impressed by that and she led the way.

As we found my comfort toys one by one around the ground floor, she talked about the ward and the tall tales of the residents who live in the second and third floor above. There’s a grumpy old man who yells at everything and argues with another guy who has big poofy hair, a long haired tall man who screamed at the guards and one of them sort of died, a skinny red eyed man who chants to himself while his fingers are always entangled with threads, and finally this really creepy lady who screams every day and attacks anyone on sight. The last one kind of scared me because after Maria told me that tale, a distant scream rang out and Maria looked equally as scared as I am, even though she later denied it.

Anyways, she takes me back to the cafeteria and I’m making sure to not open my mouth, though it was getting harder everytime Maria talked.

Maria says that she had recalled seeing one of my comfort toys in the kitchen, I show my “upset face” which is me lowering both my eyebrows.

“Don’t worry, I, Miss Maria the Marvelous, know a shortcut!” she exclaimed, peaking my interest. It’s started to feel like an action spy movie! I listened to her directions, making sure to not leave out anything and nod my head to show that I listened. “Okay, new kid! Go in there and get that thing! Knock ‘em dead if you get caught!” I waved and ran off to the back door.

Maria’s P. O. V.

I waved her back as she sneaked into the kitchen back door, to be honest…I feel happy to have a friend after being here for so long…

She is planning to betray you…~

My heart sank and eyes widened. ‘S-She won’t…! I can tell!’

She is silently planning on telling about you to those stupid goons…~ And laugh at your ugly face for believing in her~

‘She wouldn’t do that!! She was so nice!’

She will watch you cry and take away your place as the hero. Her toys are her strength, that is why she was looking for them~ She’ll become a powerful villain and betray you to the very end~

…I am her friend. I trust her. I’ll prove you wrong! She’ll thank me and never leave me! Watch me! When I enter the cafeteria, she’ll open the door after getting in the kitchen.

But I am always right. Without me, you’ll be nothing…We were there when “he” put you in this place, we’ll always will be~

…

…

I doubt you now.

So be it.

I entered the cafeteria cautiously, and waited for the newbie to unlock the door, but it was still locked… Maybe she bailed out on us…~ Or she got stuck somewhere…

Suddenly the door unlocked and the kid stood by it while she gave a kind smile at me. “Well, you took your time, didn’t you? Don’t make me wait like that ever again!” I huffed and turn up my nose in annoyance before playfully snicker and hold her hand. She was surprised but smiled back at me before following me to the kitchen.

Hana’s P. O. V.

I was a bit shocked at Maria’s fake snobbish attitude, but I knew it was just pretend. To be fair, it was difficult to pass through the vents of the kitchen, I was lucky to find gloves before going in there. Everything was so sticky and slimy, and even so…small! I shuddered at the thought of it. I don’t mind letting my guard down for Maria, she isn’t so bad after all. I hope it stays that way after I get my comfort toys back.

#giftbox_treasures #a pill in time #ahit #a hat in time #ahit au #ahit fanfic #ahit hat kid #ahit mustache girl #ahit mafia goons #ahit mafia boss #ahit Timmy

[medea10]

My Review of Aggretsuko

Her one bright spot in this day-in, day-out hellhole is her mic, a karaoke business, a solo room, and blazing death metal. Once she’s singing some hardcore death metal and unleashes her fury of her hectic workday, she’s ready to take on the world again. And just like with the Hello Kitty world, this series has many animals with quite the interesting line-up of quirks. For example we’ve got a sly fox who monitors Instagram, a suck-up dog, a hygena who is into rock, a fashionable gorilla who’s friends with a bird, a hippo that’s a spy, and yeah, the chauvinistic pig who’s also the boss. BETWEEN THE SUB AND THE DUB: So this anime is sort of exclusive to Netflix in every aspect (that includes in Japan). I’m noticing a lot of popular anime titles are being exclusive to Netflix. I mean, if they’re able to air them weekly as they air in Japan, I have no problem. It’s just the waiting for something to air and then they decide to bundle everything so you can binge watch is where I have a problem. Believe it or not, I’m not a binge-watcher. Every now and then I can breeze through at the most 6 episodes in a whole day, but a whole series or season, no! Yeah, Medea has a life outside of anime reviews (shocking)! I only did that once and that was a good eight years ago. But I digress! I will say that Netflix got their shit together better than Amazon. Anime Strike was such a major fuck-up from day one. Thank God it’s dead. Anyways, this does include an English dub. By the looks of all the Netflix exclusive animes, they all seem to be dubbed by VSI in L.A. (I guess a smaller version of Bang Zoom productions) with Patrick Seitz doing a lot of the casting. This was a very well casted dub (which is more than what I can say about a certain redub they did recently). But I really do love this dub with Erica Mendez, G.K. Bowes, Ben Diskin, Ray Chase, and many others. And oh my God, Jamison Boaz is like the best with the metal Retsuko moments! With the sub, you will not find much info on the voice of Retsuko. Rumor has it that she’s married to the guy who does the screaming death metal for Retsuko (who is also the director of Aggretsuko). Here’s what you might recognize these folks from. JAPANESE CAST: *Retsuko is played by Kaolip *Retsuko (metal version) is played by Rareko (director of Aggretsuko) *Haida is played by Shingo Katou *Fenneko is played by Marina Inoue (known for Aria on Pokemon XY, Armin on Attack on Titan, Yoko on Gurren Lagann, Jessica on Umineko, Kyouko on Skip Beat, Wataru on Hayate, and Rei on H.O.T.D.) ENGLISH CAST: *Retsuko is played by Erica Mendez (known for Ryuko on Kill la Kill, Haruka/Uranus on Sailor Moon redub, Emma on The Promised Neverland, Nico on Love Live, Yuuki on SAO II, Tsuruko on Anohana, and Tsubaki on Your Lie in April) *Retsuko (metal version) is played by Jamison Boaz *Haida is played by Ben Diskin (known for Sai on Naruto Shippuden, Satoru on ERASED, Joseph/Jojo on Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Umino on Sailor Moon redub, and Numba 1 on Kids Next Door) *Fenneko is played by Katelyn Gault (known for Prof Badcock on Little Witch Academia) FAVORITE CHARACTER: I’m a Fenneko fan. What’s not to like? Her mischievous behavior, her social media activity, and that freakin’ laugh! DISLIKED CHARACTER: It’s hard to find characters to hate here! Believe it or not once you get past the debut episode of an asshole character, you see them for more than just an asshole and think, maybe they’re not that much of an asshole. Yeah, in all good conscience I can’t really add Ton even if he’s a sexist pig. And Anai just needed to be pushed in the right direction so he can succeed. I don’t fully hate Anai…I fear him. Wait a second and I’ll talk a bit below! Then there are those characters who still rub on me the wrong way and those characters are Tsubone, Tsunoda, and Komiya. But I’m laying off Komiya. I don’t know why! Maybe it’s because Todd Haberkorn plays this little brown-noser that it makes me laugh to a point where I can’t hate on him. Yeah, Haberkorn is that good! Tsunoda knows the game and does what she has to do in order to survive in the office and on social media. I’m not thrilled to witness females put on the charm at the workplace the way she does, but you know it happens. Tsubone just seems like such a bitch so for the moment I’ll leave her on my dislike corner. Okay, anybody else? Shit. Retsuko’s mother!

Yeah, as I mentioned recently in my Top 10 Worst Anime Mothers list, I had to put Retsuko’s mother on there. She was such a pushy mama that she did so much damage to her daughter’s life. Okay lady, lay the fuck off! Your daughter is not living with you at home, she has a stable job, and she’s making the most of her life. She doesn’t need you giving her embarrassing clothes to wear, hooking her up with random bachelors, flat-out lie to her with photoshopped photos, force her on speed-dating, break into her apartment, and just be a complete hypocrite! SHIPPING: Retsuko has had quite the romantic cycle throughout the 20 episodes. Let’s go down this list, shall we? Retsuko x Haida: Ah, the little ship that can’t even leave port. Haida has had this humungous crush on Retsuko throughout the entire series. However this love is unrequited. Retsuko just sees Haida as a workmate and a friend, nothing more. Haida has been friend-zoned so many times. Even when he tries to release his feelings towards Retsuko, most of the time it would fall on deaf ears or in the case of season one’s finale/Christmas special, a rejection. Then again, it came right after a break-up and no one wants a rebound! But I do find myself rooting for this little ship to one day set sail. I know one day they’ll be together and I will await for that to happen. Retsuko x Resasuke: I really don’t know what drew Retsuko to this pot-plant. Yeah, I call Resasuke a pot-plant because of his nothing phases him attitude, his abundance of plants at home, and monotone voice. IT DOESN’T HELP THAT HE’S VOICED BY SAITAMA! It was pretty clear that there were a lot of loose connections between this couple that despite both Retsuko and Resasuke having some things in common, not going to work. It was not the best of ships. Retsuko x Tadano: Tadano was the man in Retsuko’s life that could have given her anything her heart desires. Everything except a family since Tadano doesn’t want to get married or start a family. Retsuko always dreamed of having a sugar daddy of a husband so that she could quit her soul-crushing job (at least that’s what she wanted in season one). But in season two she realized that she likes her job and wants to be with someone that resonates with her. As for wanting a family, Retsuko kind of grew to the idea of one day becoming a wife and mother. But Tadano wants nothing to do with that. Retsuko x Shirota: Aw, this was kinda cute even though these two were totally hooked up because of their nosy mothers. Retsuko at the time was scared at the prospect of getting married and Shirota completely understood. But when Retsuko asked about Shirota after some time had passed, Retsuko’s mother said that he was hooked up with another girl and it’s going well. I felt that sting all the way over here. I know he was the right guy at the wrong time, but I felt for Retsuko. Second place for me in the shipping department. Retsuko x Anai: GOOD FUCKDOM NO! Who would ask for this to happen?! TWO THINGS THAT FRIGHTEN ME: Yep, two things frighten me quite a bit. First thing would be whenever Ton smiles. I know most of the time when he’s smiling, it’s one of those fake as hell smiles, but they are frightening to see regardless. And the whole floor agrees as seeing that scared the ever-loving crap out of everyone there. And second…Anai! When you first meet him, you think he’s a positive go-getter. But when he’s behind his cellphone, he is downright scary. He ends up cyber-stalking half the office including Retsuko, Haida, and even Ton. ENDING TO SEASON ONE: We all know how much Haida has a this huge crush on Retsuko right? Let’s add a new love interest to spice things up! An absolute space cadet by the name of Resasuke! Retsuko has seen him around the office and on the train when she’s on the way to work. The only problem is, no one is able to get through to him…he’s so spacey! So one night, Retsuko gets roped into going on a speed date with some of the girls in the office. And the men they met are also some men from the office. And Retsuko surprisingly wound up having a meaningful conversation with Resasuke. Through text messages. Even though they’re right in front of each other. Sighs in disgust because I really hate that in real life as to showing my real age. Actually, I probably shouldn't scold the boy as he could be on the Autism Spectrum and has problems communicating normally with people in social interactions. Unfortunately, Retsuko winds up drinking too much alcohol that night and forgets key parts of what happened. All she knows is that when she woke up, her heart was all pitter-patter. It must be indegest…no, it’s love! Retsuko definitely sees something in Resasuke that no one else can see. Not even Washimi or Gouri can see it! But the important thing is that Retsuko is on cloud nine that nothing gets her down and when nothing gets her down, she’s not going to go “metal”. However, the “metal” side was ready to peak out. It’s clear that Resasuke doesn’t know much about relationships or other social interaction for that matter. He can’t tell when Retsuko is in pain and isn’t that considerate to her. Plus he wasn’t really the one who wanted to go on the dates. He was always put up by one of his co-workers. Meanwhile, Haida (who has had a major crush on Retsuko from the beginning) has been super moody. He gets so drunk one night and ends up the hospital because dumbass injured himself accidentally. So the following day at work was hectic for Retsuko, Fenneko, and Ton. During that long day of work, Retsuko’s boss (while always grumpy and insulting to Retsuko) made a little sense to her today. His words kinda hit Retsuko in the terms of the relationship dilemma. I know he meant it in terms of the accounting job, but I think it struck a nerve with how Retsuko is in her relationship with Resasuke. “If you keep giving out more than what you’re getting back in return, eventually there ain’t gonna be anything left” So…Retsuko took Resasuke to karaoke and expressed it all out. In the end, Retsuko and Resasuke split up. But could there be hope for Haida now? Well, we close things out in Haida’s hospital room and Retsuko visits him. And surprise, surprise, it looks like a love confession! What will Retsuko say? Tune in next ti…end of the season now! CHRISTMAS SPECIAL: Unlike all the other episodes (which are 13 minutes long at most), this one is a full 22 minute special. We start the Christmas special with what Retsuko said to Haida. It was a rejection. So you know Haida was going to be a depressed basket case for a while. But let’s not worry about that now, it’s Christmas time! And the episode focuses on what everyone around the office is doing for the special holiday. Tsunoda’s going out with a guy (no surprise there). Kabae is spending it with her husband and three kids (and also hide the presents so the kids won’t find them). Before Retsuko could figure out what she wants to do, in comes Ton with paperwork that needs to be done by the end of the night. Retsuko still put up a brave front finishing her work and also fooling social media that she’s having a fabulous dinner. But Fenneko knew that was a lie when she saw the picture and told Haida that she’s at work suffering through paperwork. And being the hopeless romantic, Haida tries to get to the office to help her, but found she was no longer there when he arrived. After Retsuko finished, her friends Gouri and Washimi swooped in and treated her to dinner. But after dinner, Retsuko bumped into Haida…so Haida got a little lucky there. And he got to spend a few moments alone with Retsuko. SEASON TWO: After the success Aggretsuko made in 2018, strike twice while the iron is still hot! Season two dropped this June with brand new characters, new love interests, and so much METAL! Actually, not as many metal moments as season one, but still there. Retsuko had her hands full all through this season with her mother setting her up with “eligible” bachelors, work still giving her the business, a new guy at work who’s possessed by Beelzebub’s cellphone, getting her driver’s license, and possibly meeting the man of her dreams. And with all those, Retsuko’s going to need some time in the karaoke booth to let out this pile of rage. And this season we meet Retsuko’s mother (a different shade of panda than her daughter), a woman who is way too invasive of her daughter’s privacy and home life. Then we have Anai (a badger), a straight out of college newbie at work. If even one thing is said to him that even seems 1% offensive, he will break out his phone and cyber stalk that person and threaten them with a harassment charge. And then there’s Tadano (a donkey) who Retsuko meets in a driver’s education course. Oh, wait until you meet Tadano! END OF SEASON TWO: As it turns out, Tadano (the guy Retsuko meets at Driver’s Ed) isn’t really a slacker like she thought at first, but a multi-millionaire with his work in A.I. He’s a major celebrity in the tech world and Retsuko’s company wants to partner with him. Meanwhile Tadano has eyes for Retsuko…as a love interest! This could be it! This could be Retsuko’s chance at absolute happiness, where she can have anything in the world with this sugar daddy. There’s a drawback to this. Recently, Retsuko has been thinking if she’s really wife/mother material after seeing some of her coworkers (like Kabae and Ton with their families). Plus the whole marriage conversation with her mom probably got to her too. So she’s thinking more and more about starting a family. However… Tadano has NO interest in either marriage or having kids! For some time, Retsuko and Tadano were seeing each other privately. But somehow, someone got pictures of them together and it spread throughout the internet. And everyone, including Retsuko’s mother, friends, and co-workers were blown off their asses when they saw pictures of Retsuko with Tadano. Meanwhile, Haida got drunk and wound up on his back again! Retsuko tried her best to see the bright side of all this. But she kept running into hate-filled posts bashing her for dating Tadano. And the whole dilemma that she and Tadano aren’t on the same wavelengths when it comes to marriage and family is digging at her like a shiv. Add to that, Tadano wants Retsuko to quit her job since he believes her job will be obsolete once his A.I. business takes over. After some soul searching, Retsuko came back to work after a few days of being AWOL and was ready to hand Ton her resignation letter. Ton sat back and watched all this happen and wouldn’t accept this. He gives her shit literally every day of her job, even giving her the nickname “Calander” because her “days are numbered”. But he knows that all of this isn’t even her deciding. Tadano is doing all the talking and actions for her. Once again, Ton was able to reach Retsuko with his words. So Retsuko knows what she must do. Retsuko’s friends Washimi and Gouri put aside a heated fight they previously had in order to help. So they ambushed Tadano, had Haida take care of his entourage, and have Retsuko hijack his limo. Their destination, the karoke bar! And that’s when Retsuko released out everything through METAL! In short, Retsuko and Tadano split up. So she’s (once again) back at square one. But it was fun, right?! Wow, this is pretty…real to me. In fact, it’s almost on Bojack Horseman levels. Yeah, you can tell I’ve dived into Netflix. Cartoons with cute animals in it…but they deal with adult issues. Yeah, animation’s not always for kids (otherwise I would have watched a lot more Ralph Bakshi when I was 7). Anyways, this anime does speak to me and just about anyone with a job that causes you immense stress. Retsuko gets the shit-deal at her work which causes her to vent it out in a karaoke booth. A job that chips away at you every single day you’re there. Disappointment of every variety when some shred of hope pops through. Workers who take advantage of the hard work you put in. Drunk boss that stumbles into work late and passes out hungover. Working 10 hour days with no overtime pay! Having that drunk idiot boss always calling in sick because he’s hungover from the night before. Whoops, those last three were my bad experiences with a bad job. The working world can be cruel. I’m glad I left that nightmare job for the good old store that rhymes with Mole Goods. It has its ups and downs but it’s been kind enough to me for me to stay in the company for almost 12 years at this point and time. But everyone has their own reasons for staying at a job that abuses you. Mostly survival! Retsuko wishes that she could find a rich husband so that she could quit this horrible job. Don’t we all? Sadly things can’t be like the way they were in post-war era United States (or so I imagine). In my case, the middle class is a gangrene arm ready to be chopped off, cost of college is expeninential and I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to pay off my student loans 30 years after I die. Depending on what economic world you’re in, it’s almost impossible to quit your stable job to be a housewife. Unless you’re Marge Simpson or part of the elite 1% there’s no fucking way. And then Tadano shows up! But funny thing, money can’t buy you happiness! Sure it’s great if you could find a sugar daddy husband, but if there’s no real love or compatibility, it’s not gonna last. The love issues Retsuko had these last two seasons…I can’t really relate. Thankfully, my mother is not as neurotic about me finding a husband. As I have been butt-fucked in the relationship department, I don’t give a shit about finding a mate (at the moment) and my mother has accepted that. And I’ve never really felt anything for workmates nor have I ever met a young entrapeneur. I’m sure other people can relate to some of these issues, but not me. Thankfully we see different views on marriage from different characters. Fenneko believes people her age don’t even think about it and hopefully they’ll be the generation to kill the idea of marriage, Haida is still a hopeless romantic when it comes to Retsuko, Gouri will get back up after being heartbroken time and time again, Washimi thinks marriage isn’t worth it and even sheds light on an old marriage during the second season, Ton is married and has two kids (though he seems pretty put-off by them), and then you have Kabae who has a husband and three little kids and she’s happy with her family every single day! Back to the working world topic, Aggretsuko showed how much the working world impacts us. Without having a character say it, this anime brought out many thoughts when we see many of these characters. For example, Anai! Many fans hated this guy the second he started cyber-bullying Retsuko. But others see Anai as a guy with the adult world finally crushing down on him. An ugly glimpse at how life can be (particularly in Japan). He’s fresh out of college and sometimes college does NOT prepare you for the real working world. And as we all know this cruel statistic, Japan has the highest rate of suicides in several age brakets in the world. Including young teenagers! An atmosphere of failure can cause one to do that or act erraticly. Aggretsuko doesn’t necessarily say this, but it’s very much felt that it’s implied if you think about it. Yes, I still find Anai to be a bit of that millennial shit that feels offended by anything even when a co-worker is trying to help them. But if you think about it, all of this feels new and scary. I’m sure everybody in the office at the beginning of their job experience had felt this scary feeling before. Man, these shows really get me to think a bit! I do recommend this anime to just about anyone. Just note that this anime is NOT as depressing as Bojack Horseman. But it can get real at times that makes you step back and say, “Wow, I can totally relate.” And to anyone who is a total metal-head (like me) might enjoy those parts when Retsuko screams into a microphone. This anime is only available through Netflix. It shouldn’t take you too long to finish though as each episode is approximately 15 minutes each and there’s only 20 episodes overall (+ one special). Okay, now that Aggretsuko is done...what's next?

Little Witch Academia it is!

#aggretsuko #aggresive retsuko #anime review #retsuko #haida #tadano #resasuke #fenneko #director ton #anai

[scato006-blog]

Searching for a title and feedback.

New to this, would appreciate any feedback. 

All Rights Reserved. Copyright © 2019 Stephanie Catozzi

My mother’s hand squeezes around my infantile one, small, petite, and plump even for a 12-year-old. I feel the cold, hard shaft of the metal handle, the gun weighty in my hand. My mother’s breath, laced with Bacardi rum and stale Marlboro lights, coaches me to squeeze harder, my tiny fingertips biting under the pressure and turning light purple at the tips from being held so forcefully.

“You have to hold it like you mean it, steady.” She coaches.

“I don’t want to,” I whine, almost silently.

               The wind kept biting my plump cheeks, and I felt my legs, bare in the November air, tingling and pocking with cold bumps.

               This has become a routine, my mother getting intoxicated or high, and taking a sudden interest in her children and choosing the worst time to suddenly teach us some life skills. My brother, with his autism, is too heady a project to undertake. So, it is me, who at 11 pm is hauled from my kitten covered sheets and dragged outside for an impromptu lesson on protecting myself, undoubtably due to some loosely based on a true story Lifetime network film where a girl, most likely Tori Spelling, is victimized.  

               Thankfully, she loses interest surprisingly fast this time, and when she loosens her grip on my hand, I am able to wrestle past her, knocking her to one knee as she curses and I bolt back into my bed and lock the door. She staggers in and pounds for several moments, calling me names, before I hear her door shut and know she has passed out.

My mother hasn’t been quite right since my father died. I see her leaving often to doctors’ offices, complaining of ailments ranging from pains to depression and anxiety disorders. Her pills litter the tops of our 80’s style maroon kitchen counters; every consistency you can imagine from syringes to tiny multicolored capsules. In the mornings, we see her guzzling down the liquid medications, never using the tiny, clear ridged top that is supposed to serve as a barbie sized measuring cup. Instead, she uses that as a pseudo lid when she gets too inebriated to remember where she put the child proof cap the pharmacist carefully clicks into place. Her arms are littered with pock marks from needles. Some self-inflicted and some from all the blood draws ordered by her physicians. She has become obsessed with this idea of teaching us how to protect ourselves since my father passed. Which later I will realize is terribly contradictory, since the basis of most our inflictions come from her blatant negligence.

               It isn’t until I start having sleepovers with girls outside my neighborhood that I will realize this isn’t a normal occurrence. I spend time with girls whose parents bake them cinnamon buns in the morning slathered with extra crystalline icing, whose mothers collect little figurines cased in glass cabinets without fingertips smeared on them and father figures who go off to work, kissing cheeks instead of backhanding them like the other dads in my neighborhood would do. It’s a foreign world to me, and oddly, it makes me surprisingly uncomfortable to be in such a serene environment. Almost mundane as wild as that may seem to some. Beige. I always notice this common color scheme in these safety net homes, everything was always varying shades of beige from the carpets to the placemats to the sheets. Beige everywhere.

               In the morning, it’s as if nothing has happened, as she bustles around the kitchen getting my brother’s routine down to match the Velcro pictured descriptions that are supposed to help with his over stimulation. I can tell there is something tangible and tense in the air, the blatant ostracizing of me from our tiny family unit. I will learn later that it is due to embarrassment over her own actions, but in the moment from my young perspective, I have somehow failed her.

I gather my things, my teal Jansport backpack smeared with pen marks and patches, and dig in the back cabinet, shoving expired bags of chips and soup out of the way to find a long lost granola bar and walk out the door, pausing before turning the silver knob to look back slightly out of my peripheral at my mother to see if she pauses at the sound of me leaving. She doesn’t.

The bus stop holds a sense of comfort for me, knowing that I will be headed to the one safe institution I have in my young life, school. There are rules, teachers, consistency, and scheduled mealtimes. I know what is coming and when. I know what is expected of me and it isn’t laced with alcohol and substances, or parties in my home with strange men who grab in places they shouldn’t and burn your arms with their cigarettes when you try to yell in protest for someone who is too inebriated to come to your rescue.

Teacher’s take special interest in me, I must exude some sense of chaos at home, my behavior is mildly disruptive with chattering to my fellow neighboring classmates, often causing my desk to be moved adjacent to the teachers to curve my “social butterfly” antics.

Years later, I will run into my favorite English teacher, Ms. Mueller, and she will subtly hint at the signs of abuse she saw from my rumpled clothes to my bruised arms and vacant expression from exhaustion. She will tell me of a time she went to my mother’s store, at the height of our home tsunami during my high school years, and the words heatedly exchanged between them. From that point on, in school, before I have this knowledge, I will choose to spend an hour every day after school with her and be exposed to various forms of literature. She will bring books with her and give me deadlines throughout the year, hoping to keep me driven and expand this world I escape to through books.

Oddly enough, my thirst for books came from the very person I was trying to escape.

In fifth grade I had a teacher I absolutely loathed. It was truly, the first person I had a deep hatred and resentment for. I remember the feelings of rage and a craving for the demolition of our high-ceilinged classroom. Ms. Symzick was a small, petite woman who would prance around her classroom in various shades of loud pinks and magenta, shouting in her irritatingly shrill, chalkboard scraping screeching voice. She had a serious inclination to class favorites, and those favorites tended to be the children of affluent parents she co-vacationed with in the Bahamas and Jamaica, frequently referencing scuba diving explorations and inside jokes she had created with the kids poolside while they showed off their attempts at underwater hand stands. She accused my indifferent attitude towards her and my inability to pay attention to her reading “out loud” to the class on comprehension issues. My mother responded, in typical Tammy fashion, and greeted me that afternoon with a stack of VC Andrews books. Her philosophy was that I needed something to read that could hold my attention in a mildly traumatizing way. Make the book risqué enough for me to care, and it would cure my non attentive approach to active listening. It certainly worked.

While my classmates were reading books about bridges crossing into Terabithia to conquer exciting pretend lands, I was obsessed with mentally trying to connect the incest family trees of wealthy families stuck in attics, toiling away pasting together paper flowers to create gardens. I craved reading about these fucked up families, and was elated to find that not only where the books thick with small font which meant they lasted longer than my classmates small flirtations with literature, but they also were in series so I could follow these families for generations. I would blow through a book a day if it was the weekend, absorbing finally, every comma and black small printed letter flowing into my mind through an osmosis of obsessive reading.

I sit next to Holly and hold her hand under our jackets in solidarity. Holly has the same house as I do, which is baffling and comforting for my young mind. Her brothers shout and throw things in their drunken rages, blaming their parents for their adult failures and losses of custody over children. Her father sits on the couch, sleeps on the couch, drinks on the couch, argues from the couch, he exists on the couch, never intervening. When he would winded from yelling, he would clutch a small, metal vile necklace he always wore. I would learn later it contained a single pill that would melt under his tongue because he was prone to panic attacks from his time in the military.

Holly will sneak into my room, late in the night, when things get bad and she climbs into my bed, cold hands and feet pressed against my calves for warmth. She rustles under my sheets and presses her perfect little bud lips against my cheek and snuggles into my neck and falls asleep fast, just as our thermostat registers the drop in temperature from the window being pried open for her to come in and the furnace clicks on, as always, I fling my leg out from under the blankets, so as to not wake Holly and soak in some cool air as her body heat radiates against my own. I love her and want to protect her, as she is the only one who has ever expressed a kindred likeliness to what I experience behind closed doors. She protects me as well, when my mother opens the door slightly to see if I am awake or when she is under the influence ready for another “life lesson,” she will always close the door and slither away when she sees Holly’s body next to mine.

Holly knew about these moments, in the dead of night when my mother would make her way into the room. She was the one who saw the handprint makes in shades of black and blue, purple then fading to yellows and lime greens. She would take my arm, and lay her hot, brown palm slowly and softly on top of the blue and purple marks so gently, brushing the tops of the soft baby arm hair then would turn over, as if nothing had happened. It was the act of acknowledging, that would transition into acts of protection. She knew if she was there, those marks wouldn’t appear. Holly became an ever-present staple in my life, it was truly as if she was holding me together, fastening my frayed edges to keep them from being burned by my mother and faceless men’s lighters.

This is my day to day, and night to night. The seeking of comfort in concrete things and people outside my home and struggling to find a purpose outside of myself.

Years pass, the same abuses remain constant, even after the school nurse contacts my mother over concerns she has when she sees my bandaged fingers from a screaming hot iron. The difference is the older I get, the more I learn to fight back, slick mouthed and learning to block hands quickly with forearms. I develop the internal switch, for numbing and hardening emotions to dispel any sense of misery or hopelessness, I don’t allow myself to be vulnerable around her and show any form of pain or exaggerated anger. I treat her with complete indifference, which in her drunken, high moments causes absolute meltdowns. Her emotional levels skyrocketing due to inebriation, and my disconnect growing more profound with each outburst. I start to want more, more than these walls and house. I want to sleep peacefully, quietly, and safely. A concept I had never visualized for myself that I thought was coveted for children with two parents and yards without brown spots and littered with dog feces.

I sit, at 15, in my English class, the scared space I have carved out for myself. Ms. Mueller, walks past, having just kicked Gary out of class for shouting at her.

“Dyke gave me a F,” he rages after we are returned our midterm grades.

“Out!” Ms. Mueller declares, stunning me at how she so gracefully and passively dismisses him and his hate slurred words.

As she passes back to her desk, I feel a blue piece of paper get slid under the flesh of my forearm. I slide it under my notebook, I can tell through its delivery, she doesn’t want me to attract any attention through receiving it. She looks pointedly at me, and when the bell rings I rush out to see what it is she has slipped me.

She knows I am not happy with her today. Ms. Mueller detests Holly. There is this just under the surface acknowledgement that they don’t address one another, ever. Holly feels Ms. Mueller is trying to come between us and take time I should be spending time with her and instead am choosing to spend it reading, which is the most boring thing in Holly’s mind. Oddly enough, Holly has detention or make up tests almost every day after school, so her time wouldn’t be spent with me regardless. Holly is known to have her behavioral issues, shouting at teachers and authority figures much in the same fashion as her older brothers do to her and her parents. It is a cycle that has already began its inheritable rotation.

               “She’s not good for you, you have too much inside you for that one.” Ms. Mueller had told me suddenly, interrupting me reading silently beside her while she worked on the summer reading list for the class, and my own which had easily an extra fifteen books added to it. At the time, I didn’t really understand what it was she meant.

“Too much inside me? What the hell?” I thought. I glared defiantly at the top of her head, wishing I had the nerve to reach out and rustle her short, cropped hair out of its artfully tousled with hair paste landscape just out of spite. She didn’t look up, nor acknowledge my anger filled face, and after some time I set my mouth in a taught line and kept reading. Leaving that day without saying a word when our hour was up.

I open it up and see it’s a flyer, for some summer program called Upward Bound and kids interested in colleges. I had never imagined myself being on some pristine collegiate campus. That was also reserved for the cinnamon bun kids whose parents showed up to every sporting event, cheering them on from the sidelines and pumping their fists in the air, visualizing college scouts coming with hefty scholarships and grants. Not for me, who begged for rides to and from practices, relying on my grandparents for transportation sparsely, so they wouldn’t see the state of our house. My mother would always get angry when her parents came to drop us off, always insisting on coming in to survey the

damage in the house from holes in walls to dirty dishes crawling with critters and cats licking dirty pans for burned egg pieces.

I folded the flyer in half and hastily shoved in under my stack of books on the bottom self in the locker I share with Holly. I am always the bottom shelf, to take my lacking height into consideration. She can’t see it; she will lose her mind. I know this, our codependency has blossomed into a full relationship of unhealthy proportions, two emotionally crippled humans attempting at something far too adult.

I wait, as always, for her to come meet me briefly, and she does. Angry brown eyes, jet black hair, browned skin from her native American heritage, and slanted eyebrows. I forgot she was angry with me from this morning when I pulled my hand away from hers when Kim snatched the jacket up that hid our weaved fingertips.

“Mr. Mason is such an asshole,” she huffs slamming her books in the locker, standing on her tip toes to launch them to the back where we hear them ding as they hit the metal back.

“What happened?” I ask, gauging her temperance to see where we are at. Holly drives the emotional state of our relationship; she being the more volatile of the two of us.

“He gave me detention for missing all that homework,” she huffed as she slammed the locker shut. “I just want school to be done already, I hate it.”

I watched her stalk off, wordless, now definitely wasn’t the time to broach the subject of an academic summer camp that focuses on colleges. Holly was not interested in anything remotely studious, let alone something that would separate us for an entire summer.

I watch her turn the corner of the light seafoam green colored hallways, waiting until I can be sure she is completely out of sight before slamming my elbow into the door right above the turn lock, causing it to pop open, a little trick Tommy showed me last year when he had this locker. I hop up on the toes of my sneakers and grab the flyer out from my Roman History classes textbook.

It is in that moment; I realize I don’t want to stay closeted with Holly and hide holding hands. I don’t want to stay in a home I feel constantly threatened in, showing all the scars on my skin and inside of my flesh. I don’t want to be stuck slinging burgers at the diner down the street, or as a cashier at the grocers. I don’t want to struggle against the New England seasonal depression of grey skies to salt crusted and frost heaved roads. I don’t want to be tied to this place where I feel like a hamster on a spinning wheel, never moving forward and back, just in one constant place.

The flyer announces the meeting is today, in Ms. Mueller’s classroom of course, but an hour after we usually meet. I know Holly has detention, so if there was ever a time I could go and take a glance at what this whole thing is about, it is today when she will be occupied for a definite set amount of time.

I watch the clock anxiously for the last two periods, bouncing my leg in anticipation, choosing to focus more on the seconds hand than the other two since it moves at such a faster pace. Holly isn’t in my last two classes; they are AP and she is sequestered into the more remedial ones where they mostly watch movies instead of getting lectures from young teachers who still feel they can make a difference and impact our lives.

Ms. Mueller is at the door, leaning against it with her arms crossed, her cuffs folded up at the elbow, creased slacks and pointed shiny ebony dress shoes, almost as if she was waiting for me. Now that I look back, I think she was.

“Well here she is, take a seat.” She gestures to the open door.

I look in and see every seat is filled mostly with kids from other schools and a couple familiar faces of girls I have barely exchanged two words with. I slide into a seat near the door, resolving that if I need to make a quick getaway, I will at least have an easy shot to the door. Ms. Mueller positions her chair in the doorway; it’s like she can sense what I am thinking and gives me another one of her pointed stares.

A young man with a lot of vigor and energy and radiant brilliantly white smile bounds up to the front of the room. I will learn almost immediately that his name is Craig when he finally stops bounding around and announces who he is, that he went to Bates College, and dives into a lengthy description of what Upward Bound really is. There are other individuals up there as well, all standing in a line with various colleges strewn on their tee shirts and sweatshirts: Colby-Sawyer, Keene State, UNH, Plymouth State, are some of the names I spot.

The program is a six-week summer session that focuses on preparing students for college and even offers opportunities to take college level classes that can be accredited. Six weeks on a college campus, right in my hometown, sleeping in the dorms, going to classes, they even offer sporting events and excursions to local spots for day trips. It sounded too good to be true.

I looked around the room and saw most of the kids had that same look as I did, clinging to every word. “Give me an escape, please. Tell me I won’t fall through the cracks and be left right here where I started.” Their faces all seemed to say.

Craig took the basic Q&A after his dialogue of wonderous academia enchantment and promise, everyone asking the same things I was wondering. I wouldn’t raise my hand and attract attention to myself, no way.

I saw her then, Jodie, sitting with her hand up to ask more about the sporting opportunities offered, field hockey specifically. She sat with her blonde hairspray scrunched hair, long eyelashes and friendly, wide open blue eyes. I was amazed at how drawn I was to her instantly, like she was the bright glinting Christmas tree of hope in contrast to Holly’s darkness and shadowing pessimistic outlook on life and humanity. There was also this underlying feeling emanating from her. She was wearing adidas snap pants and her field hockey jacket, I knew without knowing, I knew she had the same attraction to females as I did. When Craig answered her question to her satisfaction, Jodie thanked him, and I saw her sign the sheet to enroll and receive more information. I watched that sheet for the rest of the presentation and when we were wrapping up, Ms. Mueller caught me at the door, the sign sheet in her fingertips.

“You forgot something,” she stated, a black pen in her other hand, held out to me.

I stepped aside, opening my mouth to let out a string of excuses, all based in fear and simultaneously worried that if I failed at this camp, I would disappoint her.

“Don’t.” She held up her palm that held the pen. “Sign the paper.”

I realized in that moment; this was my chance. I was on the edge of something, a choice. I knew what I would lose, and I quickly sobered to the reality that what I stood to lose, didn’t outweigh what I had to gain.      

So I made the choice, to take a chance, put the pen to that blue paper, and signed my name, choosing to take that chance, choosing something so much bigger for myself than I could have ever imagined and taking the first step to end the cycle that would have ensnared me just as it did many others. It even would claim Holly in the end, leaving her to browning pine trees, closeted and affairs in secrecy, the shame and impending alcoholism, cursing from her couch just as her father did.

#feedback writer nonfiction

[funkymbtifiction]

QuickTypes: The Syndicate: All or Nothing

Saw this and loved it, but suspected it’s not well enough known to justify individual posts for all the characters.

Dawn Stevenson: ISFJ 9w1 sp/so

Practical, family-oriented, conscious of appropriate behavior and others’ needs, prone to jumping to emotional conclusions. Passive and accommodating, but also a streak of defiance and ring and wrong. Disintegrates into being paranoid, anxious, and suspicious about her daughter’s disappearance under stress (6).

Amy Stevenson: ESFP 3w2 sx/sp

Stereotypical. Opportunistic, self-referencing, kind but also selfish. Strong focus on self-promotion, ambitions toward the future, becoming a model and turning a profit. Uses manipulation and sexuality to do it. Unhealthy.

Julie: ESTJ 8w9 sp/sx

Serious and focused on order in her kitchen. Trouble with her feelings and in knowing how and when to share them (inferior Fi). Traditional, practical. Has aggression issues and a belligerent attitude, choosing to scrap rather than back down. Mild influence of wanting harmony with certain people.

Sarah: ISFJ 1w2 so/sp

Dutiful, emotional, focused on preserving the manor house and its history. Extremely responsible and wants to do the right thing. Strong views of moral right and wrong which cause her to have trouble accepting the truth of her illegitimate birth and the adultery of her parents (not to mention her distrust of her boyfriend and her fear he could be a “bad” person).

Godfrey: INTP 9w8 sp/so

Stubborn about his method of logic, doesn’t like to be wrong, becomes angry whenever he is shown up. Low Fe issues (but also kind, generous, and loving). Seeks patterns wherever he looks, stubborn about sensory environment, Influence of Asperger’s or high functioning autism. Likes peace, hates arguments, but can be violent and aggressive himself at times.

Sean: ESFP 2w3 sx/so

Takes everything at face value. Opportunistic. Wants to move fast. Strong focus on how he feels in the moment and wanting to move in with whomever he loves -- can rush things, Sarah feels (she processes slower and is more careful). Problems with inferior Ni seeing the consequences of his actions. Strong need to find people to love and love him back. A desire to look good.

Lord Hazelwood: ISTJ 6w5 so/sp

Solid. Dutiful. Traditional. Strong ties to his personal experiences and the past, sentimental about the manor house and everything in it, somewhat emotionally closed off from his wife and astonished at her unhappiness -- unable to read or respond to her feelings. All his stay inside. Suspicious, distrustful, and a little paranoid, but often right in his brutal assessments about people.*

Lady Hazelwood: ESFJ 2w3 sx/so

Highly emotional. Wants to be in charge. Tries to bond with others and if that fails, to assume the haughty position of “mistress of the house.” Does not like it when others do not bow to her authority or embarrass her. Can be manipulative and scheming. Her intense need to be admired, praised, and loved (fulfilled on an emotional level) leads her to cheat on her husband and blame him for it.

Spencer: ESTP 3w2 so/sx

Opportunistic, logical, detached, somewhat manipulative with lower Fe. Does not mind taking “control” over situations or using aggression to get what he wants; low awareness of the consequences of his actions. Strong drive for financial success and acceptance, can be persuasive and love-seeking.

OFFICIAL TYPINGS by Charity / The Mod

* If I were married to Anthony Andrews Lord Hazelwood, I’d treat him better. :P

#the syndicate #the syndicate: all or nothing #anthony andrews #c: enneagram #mbti #character typing

[incarcerationincarnate-blog]

Bio

(Taken from here.)

Given name: Torque

Canon: The Suffering ‘Prison is Hell’/'Ties that bind’

Version: Ties that Bind || Neutral morality

Canon Point: Post game

Age:  34

Gender: Male

History:

[Note: This back story is not validated by the game or by the creators, and is my interpretation given what information is available.]

Torque’s past is a far from a pleasant one– at the tender age of three he was left in the administrative care of the Garvey’s childrens home, an institution that was just the start of Torque’s problems, and a place he would like to pretend didn’t exist, let alone admit he was raised there.

The orphanage was far from a safe haven, a smouldering pit of abuse situated in-between desolate buildings and dilapidated crack dens, inside of Garvey’s was as dangerous as the outside of it. It was far from a sanctuary, regardless of age, colour or condition and, while some of the staff were genuinely concerned for the children’s welfare, there were others that seemed to find nothing as pleasurable in their young denizen’s misery and/or submission. While Torque was one of the luckier children, he still found himself on the wrong side of his carers intentions more often than not, most due to his apparent autism, and his severe dislike of talking and selective mutism… Something that was taken advantage of more than once in his childhood.

At fifteen he left the care of Garvey, branded a bully by the other children and a problem child by the staff, his first (and then only remaining) alter Blackmore in tow and began working in Baltimore docks for under minimum wage. Due to his mature appearance and disassociative behaviors, it wasn’t long before he got caught up in both alcohol and drug addictions, the former being the catalyst that ended up with him meeting Miles, a loud, overly ambitious kid whose old man who owned a backwater bar he frequented close to Torques shitty little bedsit. They were definitely an odd pairing, but they remained good friends up until Miles’ death decades later.

It was also where he met Carmen, and 18 year old barmaid who worked for Miles’ father for a short time, and who worked as an assistant secretary for a big firm Torque never got the name of. Either way, there was an obvious attraction, and they ended up marrying quickly due to Carmen getting pregnant in a few wild and wavering weeks that Blackmore managed to force himself out for.    

Personality:

Torque’s personality is outwardly very stoic, any emotion that crosses his face is fleeting, and only the more important things earn words from him. While this gives him an air of aloofness or even (at times) arrogant indifference, there is a considerate human being under the thick carapace and to those that he grows close enough to he shows it quite openly, and at times, when the situation forces his hand. He’s not all spiky shell and no gooey inside however, and can and will show compassion to people who ask or (obviously) need it, even towards those he cares little for, and sometime even those he openly hates.

Most of his problems stem from his lack of speech, as Torque has spent most of his life suffering from Selective Mutism, which came on from an early age after suffering in an abusive environment. His DID also stemmed from his bad treatment at Garvey and, while his personalities grew, his voice dwindled- suppressed now not only by his fear and anxiety from physical threats, but also mental ones as well.

Torque knows he’s a hard man to get on with, and even harder to enjoy his company, so he doesn’t go out of his way to make friends. Most people that engage in his company are people that have heard of him through reputation; most of these people are flaky at best, only out for their own skins or for a paycheque (men who work for Blackmore, prisoners and officers of Carnate trying to survive etc.) and most people Torque would benefit from having relationships with tend to keep their distance due his appearance, his company and his notoriety. While Torque isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, that fact hasn’t gone unnoticed and has left him with a heavy 'fairweather friend’ attitude.

If you can convince him the friendship is authentic however he’s loyal, caring and willing to do anything for you. It takes some doing though.

Weaknesses:

Can'tdeal.jpg- He can’t do it. He just can’t do it, regardless of what, who or where in his life it happens, dealing with things is a big no-no. From being imprisoned to his relationship with his on-off wife, if Torque could man up to half the things in his life, then half the things in his life wouldn’t have happened, or, at least, would have been far less extreme when they did. He has the irritating habit of taking all his aggression and stress, bundling it into the tightest ball of RAEG he can manage, and then shoving into the darkest corner of his mind as he can find. If a good beating can’t solve the problem, then he’s at a loss, which leads to fretting and more anger.  

All of the Rage!- His temper is his greatest strength, but it’s also his most obvious weakness. Torque’s anger stems from a variety of places and his rage can become so uncontrollable he’s siphoned it off into it’s own personality, real enough to him to the point of hallucination and murder. At his angriest his third personality comes into play, known simply as 'The creature’ in which Torque has little to no inhibitions, to the point of ripping men (and monster) apart with his bare hands. While he can calm his anger usually, as in the case of his wife, the calm doesn’t come quickly enough.

Meathead- Torque isn’t the brightest crayon in the box, that much is obvious. However he probably could beat every other crayon in that box into shades solely of black and blue. His strength, while sometimes being beneficial (like when he was prison for example), is more more often than not the cause of more problems (Like… what got him sent to prison in the first place). When Torque realises manslaughter and GBH aren’t the best solutions for everything, his world will be a better place. Until then though, this facet of his personality will always be something of a problem.

S.M.- When you know the signs, it’s quite obvious that Torque suffers from selective mutism; his immense failure when it comes to dealing with his problems (which in itself is then a problem, starting the vicious cycle), his lack of expression and usually withdrawn, surly nature are all tell-tale signs… They are also tell-tale signs of an antisocial asshole, and Torque does very little in dispelling that idea. His lack of speech, especially around people he doesn’t know and high stress situations, does little to make him seem like much of a useful commodity. While his actions exhibit his strengths far better than his words ever could, actually being able to speak on some occasions would make things an awful lot easier, and definitely alot safer.

Loop-de-looping over the Cuckoo’s nest- While he may not be very vocal externally, internally there is a very vivid contrast; his brain addled with hallucinations, both in forms auditory and visual. It’s understandable that, withscenes and conversations that can be only deemed impossible (both real and hallucination) playing out in front of him, that he may just be a tad insane in the membrane’. He’s never spoken of his problems, not to his wife, to his friendsand definitely not to an qualified psychiatrist, preferring to stick his head in the sand and let the problems fester. While the good (and rather insane himself) Doctor Killjoy tried to aid Torque, it did little to solve the problem, instead managing to rub salt in the proverbial wound and just bring back all those raw, festered memories before prancing off to do something far more interesting… Like building a reanimator-esque ray gun.

Addict- Torque had something of a drug addiction in his teenage years, both in a bid to pick himself up from the lows of the hand life had dealt him and also in a bid to drive away what was most likely the onset of depression. Though he pulled himself out of the pit of heavy drug addiction, torque still suffers with it, shifting his tastes to alcohol and over-the-counter-medication instead. His addictions are very much a double edged sword- on one hand his tolerance to toxins has helped him survive, push forcefully administered shots of Sodium thiopental (one of the drugs administered in lethal injections) and later heroin once he re-enters Baltimore with surprisingly little effect. In the same backhanded blow his tolerance forces him to over-indulge to feel any sort of drug-induced effects, be it narcotics, depressants or even just plain old pain relief. This makes him all but useless for a time afterwards (unless his adrenaline is peaked) as his body combats succumbing to overdose. It does however make him a great meat-shield.

Mundane Strengths/Abilities:

Tank&Spank- Torque, in all senses of the term, is a tank; he can (and will) usually run roughshod through whatever he is pointed at, and usually with great success. Capable of pulling apart monsters double his size and pulling down walls under the right duress, Torque makes for a good ice breaker, and an even better diversion and best (or worst) of all, he damn well knows it. He’s very likely to put his strong build and high tolerances to use, engaging incoming threats, especially when he’s accompanying others.

You’re a good man T- Torque, despite his impulses and demeanor, isn’t a monster- he feels emotions and has similar logic to any ordinary person, he just finds it overly difficult to voice that, both literally and metaphorically. When someone gains his trust however, he can and will do whatever it takes to protect them- hell, sometimes those that haven’t earnt that still get taken under his wing if the situation is overly dire. While he’ll just about speak with those he respects he’s not going to leave others in the lurch, especially if he knows information; from notes, to wall scrawling, Torque usually finds a way to get his point across, and he’s not afraid to play courier for others either, if the need ever presents itself.

Well-versed in the wierd- Since he was little, Torque has been immersed in crazy, even if that was the result of his own fractured psyche. He’s seen visions since he was little, and they seen to have done little but get worse as time’s gone on. Thanks to the fact that, regardless of whether they’re real or not, most if not all the oddities he now sees are out to kill him he’s also gotten very used to to dealing with them too, either in aiding them, outrunning them, out-gunning them, or just letting them do what they want before deciding he wasn’t actually worth the bother. He’s also developed quite attuned senses when it come to certain things, sounds especially (due to many of the creatures he encounters either sounding their appearances or  their attacks).

Three for the price of one- Torques mental fluctuations, even though he doesn’t know it, can be used if others are able to learn his triggers, or the right buttons get pushed incidentally.

Sensitivity/Magical Ability: Unsure on this one, but happy to go with player’s decision on this one; He has the ability to see and fight the monsters from his own world, and it’s hinted that he can see, interact and fight against the ghosts he faces (Horace, Hermes and Dr. Killjoy) However, the boss battles in-game usually have you do this without actually approaching them per sé, so his actual resiliance to ghost attacks is questionable, especially since he can be hurt (and killed if you don’t get the idea of the boss battles) easily enough.

The canon hints that he’s more intune with the paranormal than most, the diary’s of Jordon and Clem both questioning whether Torque is actually something of a conduit for the malefactors that plague him, especially Clem after seeing the malefactor known as 'Disciple of Evil’ (at least in the Spanish Version) in which the creature has 'What appears to be a miniature version of Torque can be seen dangling from its body via an umbilicus of sorts…’. Another character, Ranse Truman, also apparently shares Torque’s gift, so it’s likely to be something more than something Blackmore just pulled out of his ass and fed to who needed to think it. However, I am more than willing to let the mods call it how they see it.  

#Bio

[scriptautistic]

Hey there! Apologizing in advance in case this would sound wrong (it probably does). Just to make sure: I absolutely love your work and support it by all means. This is not meant to criticize you or anything. If you think it’s best to not post this, I’d totally understand. But I’m going to submit it anyway just to add another point of view on the issue of autistic representation through in fictional characters. 

Thing is, I’m autistic myself, and an amateur writer as well. Generally I’m not good at hating things. That just doesn’t work for me. But if there’s a single thing in this world that I really dislike on the verge of hatred… that would be pity. Unfortunately it is also something I see a lot towards myself through all my life. 

Probably this is why it irks me to hear people talking about how autistic characters can’t be presented as this and that. It must be positive representation, they shouldn’t be monsters, aliens, robots, villians or anything like that. That we got plenty of that kind of representation already and now it’s best to censure out all those monsters and focus on creating proper characters.

Why? Because I know how and what for this kind of characters will be created. And not just by allistic authors, I’m afraid. Of course, many of them would agree and will do their very best to fill their stories with best autistic characters they could manage. Some might go as far as to go through a list of all things they must represent They’re going to think, “yes, I’m going to be a good author with modern liberal views who does the right thing to support all those poor minorities as they deserve”.

Problem is, when someone’s starting to work with thouse thoughts, it’s like donating a coin to a homeless on streets. It’s never done to actually help anyone but oneself. It is done to make a person who does it to feel good about themselves. They pity that homeless and give a coin that changes literally nothing. But they’ll go on through the day thinking that they’ve done a good thing. They’re just buying themselves a tiny bit of fake heroism. At expense of that homeless person who’s forced to accept all those coins for boositng someone’s self-esteem in exchange for lowering their own. Eventually they’re going to suffer some harmful mental changes because of it, breaking into “liking” this kind of attitude while forgetting any other mean of going through this life. 

What I’m trying to say is… I don’t really like to be in this role. I don’t want to be given a representation as a token of its author feeling sorry for us and thinking it’s right thing to do and makes them a better person to help. I don’t want to read yet another piece of new fiction just to see a perfect autistic character there who has next to no flaws. Who’s loved by everyone in the story. Who’s clearly under no danger to suffer through the plot and will end up with a happy ending even if the whole world collapses on everyone else. Who is smart, beautiful, successful, and only those carefully picked and described autistic traits would let the audience know that we’re talking about autistic person and not Batman. 

In broader sense, I feel the same about any other minority group that gets a fiction representation in similar way. I understand why people do it this way, but it doesn’t makes me feel better whenever I encounter it. And as of last few years it happens more and more often. It also affects how people treat me in real life. Sure, they try to smile and be polite at their best. But I can’t help but to feel they only do so because some cool and sparkly 101 on tumblr said them they’ll be terrible people for even thinking about treating an autistic person poorly. That they should treat us as equals. 

Well, unfortunately, so far very few can actually manage that “equal” bit, at least as it seems to me. Best they can do is treating us as if they’re terrified of ruining their public image if they do something wrong.

But fear is not equality. And writing a good autistic character out of fear of writing it bad isn’t exactly a good representation either. It’s just trying to follow with whichever direction the current society dictates them to be a correct one. And, as I recall, people have done some horrible things in past guided by a very similar things. It just happens that right now being tolerant is trending. And we’re still not sure for how long this trend will stick around.

You might ask, which kind of representation would I think as a better option? Well, I can only say that it can’t be good unless it is done out of sincere interest of its author towards autistic people, and not out of an urge to prove their own worth in whoever’s eyes or because there’s a quota for 3 more underrepresented minorities left. If author really believes their story would benefit from having an autistic character. If they have a good character idea that fits well with autistic traits. If they really feel like writing autistic character because it’s interesting for them personally and makes their story rich and more diverse. Then it is alright, I think.

Even if that means this character might suffer a bit in the story. Or that they’re an alien or a dragon or robot or monster. Or if someone’s treating them in a bad way in the story - as long as they are avenged or at least are not portrayed as this is the way to go. Yes, sometimes it means autistic character might die (preferably as a hero!). Or that there’s no happy ending if the story is not about unicorns and rainbows and is not suggested to end with everyone’s happily ever after. Still I’d take that 100 times over a single autistic Batman.

Sorry if this is too long. And, again, sorry if this sounds too harsh. It’s alright to just delete this if you think it’s not the kind of thing your followers should see.

Hi! We thank you for your thoughtful message, and we certainly won’t delete it; silencing some autistic people’s opinion to make ours heard is not our idea of representing the autistic community.

I will however comment on some of the points you have made.

First of all, I think your homelessness parallel is quite misguided. Whether people give out of pity or because they want to help is a question I can’t answer, though I personally like to think it’s the second option that’s true. And it’s true that a coin won’t do much, but they add up. Regardless of why it was done, I don’t agree that it is “at expense of that homeless person who’s forced to accept all those coins for boositng someone’s self-esteem in exchange for lowering their own. “ Sure, accepting help can be quite difficult for some people. But that doesn’t make the help any less… helpful. Thanks to the money they’ve been given (maybe not by this person but by all the people who’ve given them a coin), this homeless person will get to eat tonight. All help is still help, regardless of motivation.

And I’d argue it’s the same thing for representation. If we are represented in a piece of media, who cares if it was just to make the writer feel good about themselves ? They have anyway created some representation for us. And representation is powerful. Representation does change the world. Here is an article about one study which shows that being more represented in media raises one’s self-esteem. This book explores in some depth the effect representation, positive representation and lack thereof can have on LGBT people. This study shows that positive portrayal of marginalized groups has positive impact on people’s mindset.

Of course none of these sources are about autism in particular, but I feel that these results can be generalized to media representation of minority groups.

Moreover, you can see in these sources that positive, non-stereotypical, non-stigmatizing representation has a positive effect which is more important than other kinds of representation.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that autistic characters have to be perfect. I’m not saying they can’t have flaws. I would even argue that a character without flaws is a bad character, and, as such, bad representation. I agree with you that if the only form of representation we’re given is perfect, flawless autistics who don’t suffer and are loved by everyone, it will get pretty boring very soon, and not even realistic in any way. This is not what I want.

What I am saying is that there is so little representation of autistic people in media, and we need to change that, and to change that in a balanced way. Some autistic characters can be robots or aliens, just not most of them. Some autistic characters can be villains, just not most of them. Some autistic characters can die if the story calls for it, just not most of them. And I’m pretty sure we’ve never said autistic characters couldn’t suffer in stories. Writers exist to make their characters suffer :)

Once again, what I want to emphasize is, make your representation fair. Sure, every story doesn’t have a happy ending, and characters might die. But if everyone survives and is happy and the only autistic character in the story dies to make it possible/ ends up miserable, that does kind of send a message to your readers. In the same way, if everyone in your story is neurotypical unless a few robots who are all autistic, in your readers’ minds, autistic and robot will very quickly become synonyms. Everything is a question of proportion.

And, as always, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and every writer is free to write whatever they wish. This is just my opinion, and you and our other readers are perfectly free to disagree.

-Mod Cat

I just want to say that I completely agree with all that Cat wrote. We never said that autistic characters must be perfect or flawless or never get hurt. What we want is fair representation. I have no problem whatsoever with autistic monsters and aliens and robots per se - I have a problem with that being the only option. And I couldn’t care less why a writer includes a realistic autistic character which provides a good role model for a reader. I don’t care if they’re doing it selfishly, to feel good about themselves. I don’t care if they pity me. I’m interested in the book, not the author. When I pick up that book and read it, all I care about is that character. 

I love Ender’s Game even though I think the author is a despicable human being. It’s still a great book. It was a great book the first time I read it, when I didn’t know anything about its author. It’s still a good book now, despite what I have learned about him. I can love Ender even though I despise his creator. Books have a life independent from their authors, as do their characters. A character can have meaning for a reader no matter what the author intended it to be.

What I want, what I think most autistic readers want, is the chance to pick up a book and read about a character we can relate to without being told that we can’t be human. That’s it. Make that character flawed. Make that character struggle. Of course. But make that character. Make that character, and then go ahead and feel all good about yourself, and pat yourself on the back, and feel like a better person, because… Well, because you did something to make the world better for autistic people. Unless the author emblazons I ONLY DID THIS OUT OF PITY FOR AUTISTIC PEOPLE AHAHAHAHAHAHA across the cover, the reader is never going to know that. All they’re going to know is that they finally have a character they can relate to who isn’t a friggin’ robot. And that’s just awesome.

-Mod Aira

#submission #our followers say #representation #mod cat #mod aira

[myautisticpov]

New review! I told you I was coming back from hiatus!

This time it’s AUTISM RUNS AWAY, the second book in the School Daze series.

Review Summary:

Overall Opinion: 4/5 Clarity of Autism: 5/5 Stereotype or Person: 2/5 Accurate Autism: 3/5 Storylines: 2/5 Respect 4/5 Total: 3/5

Script is below:

Continuing on with the School Daze series, can the second book live up to the first?

*Intro*

If you haven’t seen my review of the first book, I would recommend checking that out before continuing.

This second book continues to follow the character of the first, though there is a greater focus on Ben’s sister, Ellie, as well as a new teacher, Rob, and a new autistic child, Ethan.

It follows a lot of the same beats as the first book, with the opening even being almost identical, only with Ellie misunderstanding Rob’s teaching methods, instead of Ben misunderstanding Mel’s.

Overall Opinion

**** - Like the last book, it’s a reasonably enjoyable read. Though it definitely lacks the cohesion of the first book. The only arc that really gets resolved is the romance between Ellie and Rob, and there’s not the same resolution to Ethan’s arc that Kyle had in the last book. But more on that later.

Clarity of Autism

***** - Stated in the text.

Stereotype or Person

** - It’s time to talk about what I have been referring to as The Jeff Problem.

If you remember from the last book, Jeff is Mel’s adult autistic brother. In the first book, he was a very minor character who mostly gave Mel motivation for her career choice. He had no character development or arc. He was just there.

“But wait,” I hear you say. “Didn’t he get a job despite his parents wishes? Wasn’t that an arc?”

Yeah, but not for him. That was another arc for Mel and mostly dealt with Mel’s relationship with her parents.

The easiest way to figure out if a character has an arc is to ask “Can you identify their Disney Princess I Want song?” and do they make progress towards that goal?

Jeff doesn’t have any wants, according to the narrative. Mel asks him if he wants things to change, and he says things are fine.

Mel then takes matters into her own hands and pushes Jeff and gets him a job. Because she’s determined that that’s what’s best for him, and that’s what he really wants.

Now, Jeff was a side character in the first book, so I let this slide. After all, most side characters aren’t as well developed in most books. But the second book only continued this trend.

I swear, Jeff has less personality than a female character in a shonen manga. Or worse, a Michael Bay movie.

So, let’s break down my main problems here, because there are a few:

He's a walking teaching tool. Seriously, everything he does is a Teachable Moment, and it’s outright stated as such by the characters who interact with him. He does something quirky and they learn not to judge him. How Disney of them. I’ll come back to this in the respect portion. In the end, Jeff ends up lacking the nuance of actual adults with autism. He’s still making the kind of mistakes that most people grow out of. Especially those with Jeff’s history, which I’ll get to in a moment. Also, the allistic characters zone in on social mistakes so quickly. I get that the narrative wants to draw attention to Jeff’s autistic traits, but it shows. Most people don’t care that much about a stranger’s quirks. Not unless they’re coded as “insane”, where the first explanation would be mental illness or disability. Mostly they’re just ignored or easily explained away and they're not as frequent.

He's completely oblivious to how his parents treat him. Like, completely. Which is part of this quite outdated and harmful stereotype that autistic people don’t know when people around them are hurting them. To be honest, it’s quite easy to read Jeff’s parents as emotionally abusive. It would explain why they refuse to let him gain independence and why he’s so reluctant to rock the boat. It’s not that he doesn’t care about getting a job, it’s that he’s scared of the consequences. But the narrative has done nothing so far to support this, so it is firmly in the territory of a honeypot. Especially since this book avoids the topic if abusive parents like Superman avoids Kryptonite.

So, I get that this is a book for Autism Parents™ to educate them on how to do better. And the problem with Autism Parents™ is that dealing with them ends up being much like being a hostage negotiator.

Most people’s first instinct when the perp answers the phone would be to tell them to get fucked.

After all, they are a terrible piece of shit.

But no hostages are getting out alive in that situation.

Instead, hostage negotiators have to approach the situation from a place of empathy and compassion - not because the perp deserves it, but because that’s how you resolve the situation peacefully.

You know, without dead hostages.

But while I can appreciate this rationally, it doesn’t make that compassion easy to find for those of us who are triggered by the kind of abuse Autism Parents TM inflict upon their children.

All of it is, instead, being used up on the kids.

And therein lies the ultimate problem. We want the hostages out alive, but the optimal approach doesn’t take long to emotionally crush us.

Which is one of the reasons why it took me so long to finish this book. The attitude was that all parents love their children and therefore aren’t capable of emotional abuse. There was one particular line where the teachers reassure a group of parents by saying that children are forgiving and will understand their mistakes.

And don’t get wrong, that’s an important message for non-abusive parents. And even abusive parents need to be gently brought around if they’re hearing this in a voluntary situation. But there’s no bringing them around here. It’s just “don’t worry, everyone makes mistakes”. Which… Yeah, I get why it’s like this, but it’s horrifically common for parents of disabled kids to be abusive. I know that this book is meant for those who aren’t, but a lot of the rhetoric seems like it would just be giving abusive parents a free pass if they read it because it is incredibly sympathetic towards parents whose actions hurt their kids, with very little regard to the psychological trauma that it can cause. Yeah, kids are resilient, but only so much. There is a reason why Jeff’s lack of anxiety as an adult is unbelievable. Speaking of...

Jeff’s autism informs everything about his character, and nothing else does. This is most obvious in the complete lack of comorbid conditions, most notably anxiety. Like, Jeff’s parents’ behaviour, in refusing to let him pursue independence, is explained by Jeff having been bullied by his boss at his first job. Which… explains his parents behaviour, but not his? Seriously? But no. No sign of anxiety. Like, at all. Not even at a work environment. Or around strangers. Yeah, I don’t buy it. That’s not how that works.

He sounds like Drax the Destroyer. Seriously. Which, again back to the anxiety thing, is a problem because our pov in the Jeff chapters is a complete stranger to Jeff. That’s not how that works. You don’t just openly admit “I don’t understand the phrase you just used” to a stranger. It paints a target on your back for bullying, which Jeff would know because we are told that he has had experience with that kind of bullying in the workplace. You nod, you work out the meaning from context, or you just make vague non-committal noises and hope that they weren’t asking you something important.

Asperger's - it's a defunct label and shouldn't be used so heavily. Like, Jeff corrects people who say that he has autism. And here’s the thing, the main difference between the labels is always touted as “did you speak before you were three?” but once you’re an adult, that’s bull. It’s largely “can you pass as NT or not?” Which Jeff clearly can’t. So why it’s used so heavily and insisted upon is beyond me, besides good old ableism. “I’m not like those other autistics.” I would cut it slack in other books for realism (because a lot of people do cling to Asperger’s out of internalised ableism), but this book is meant to be an educational tool, so no slack here. Especially not when that internalised ableism is never addressed.

In the end, Jeff isn’t a character. He seems more like a patchwork of different stories about autistic people, but put together in a way that doesn’t make sense. He’s all anecdote, and no substance. Just a collection of Teachable Moments. Just like taking a baseball bat with the word autism written on it and bashing you over the head with it. Metaphor. Seriously, Sheldon Cooper has more going on beneath his inane catchphrases. Sheldon mother-flipping Cooper.

Accurate Autism

*** - would be 2 stars if it was just Jeff, and it honestly just scraped three. There is a single scene in this book that saves it from complete annihilation by my internet reviewer powers. This scene is told from Ethan’s point of view.

I’ve spent so much of this review going on about Jeff, I haven’t even really talked about Ethan. But that’s not without reason. Ellie and Rob are the two main pov characters in this book, and they’re both very secondary figures in Ethan’s life. Rob is his teacher, and Ellie met his mum once at her bakery? As such, we’re missing the same narrative cohesion regarding Ethan that we got with Kyle and Ben.

So, as the title of the book suggests, Ethan has a problem with running away when meltdowns loom. We’ll get to the narrative arc of this more in the storylines section, but for this section it’s enough to say that in the final chapters, there is a scene from Ethan’s point of view where he runs away for the final time in the book.

This scene is really well written. It avoids the usual “autism voice” that is so, so common for autistic point of views in books. It also does a really good job of explaining things from Ethan’s point of view.

This scene is the only thing saving this section from a two star rating.

Storylines

** - They’re barely treated as human and just there to further other people’s plots.

Jeff and Ethan don't have arcs. They're there as teaching tools for the other characters.

So, I said I was going to talk about Ethan’s narrative arc here. The thing is, it’s not Ethan’s arc. It’s his teacher’s and his mother’s. It’s about his mother learning not to worry to the point of making things worse for her son, and yet even this barely has any resolution.

The arc is basically that Ethan runs away when he reaches the point of meltdown and his previous school couldn’t deal with it. They kept calling his mother, and his mother is always terrified that something is going to happen to him.

But now he’s at the school from the first book, only a year up from Mel’s class, since time has passed since the first book. His teacher is a new introduction in this book, Rob.

Rob uses his experience to help Ethan’s mother run through tactics to help avoid Ethan running away and he works to get her more at ease with Ethan being at school and visiting friends and stuff.

But that’s it.

I mean, that’s literally it. He tells her what to do, she makes some attempts, but doesn’t quite manage it.

And then Ethan runs in front of a car and Rob is injured saving him.

That… What?

I mean, I have seriously thought over this, and I can’t possibly see the resolution to Ethan’s arc. In fact, this end point should be the “all is lost” moment. The only thing that gets resolved is the romance between Rob and Ellie.

The only possible angle I think the author was going for was the fact that Rob wasn’t angry and didn’t blame Ethan? And kind of disapproved of Ethan’s parents being hard on the kid about it. But he just showed it by firmly stating that it wasn’t Ethan’s fault. Yeah, that’s not going to do anything in that situation.

Like, I came away at the end just terrified for Ethan. Especially when his dad seemed complete devoid of understanding about his son’s behaviour. Just embarrassment and anger.

That’s just… Nope. All I can picture is Ethan hiding in his room without dinner, and having all of his special interest things taken away, doing everything he can to remain silent to avoid verbal abuse from his father.

From the information given by the author, I literally cannot imagine any other ending to this scenario.

But even without that imagined resolution, the resolution we’re given is weak, and not really about Ethan as much as it’s about his parents and Rob.

Respect

**** - Pretty decent, but there are some slip-ups

While the books do well with conscious shows of respect, the subconscious ones can be just as powerful in imparting lessons.

How well can the “treat autistic people like people” lesson be imparted when the story doesn't treat autistic characters as characters. They have no arcs or character development. Allistic characters have that, but autistic ones don't.

I think the unsaid lessons can be just as powerful - if not more so - than the said lessons.

AUTISM RUNS AWAY reveals some of the inherent problems of this approach to educating people about autism. It doesn't replace a textbook, and it's not education through good representation.

Is there room for this kind of education? Maybe. But it's not a question I think I’ll be ready to answer until I look back on the series as a whole.

Overall, AUTISM RUNS AWAY gets three stars. It’s not necessarily bad representation it’s certainly shallow. Hopefully the series will pick up from here.

#actuallyautistic #actually autistic #aspergers #autism #aspie thoughts

[mcgrannkileigh1996]

Reiki Kauai Best Tips

On the other make it from entering the body.She did not go to the center hosts Reiki Certification requires completion of the Great Being of the master.* The mind calms and becomes a Reiki Journey:Think something is an amount of knowledge that has been done successfully for ages.

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On the surface, it may be more receptive and must be understood with the time I had a constant smile on his work and the like.Of course, you won't be a student receives level III, he or she knows what it means only once or later.This is where most people are honestly very difficult and expensive to do harm to the mind.This is what is right for a Reiki practitioner:Now place your hands in a powerful component of the emotional as issues which are often taught in Mikao Usui's students erected it in front of the reiki energy, flowing in everything that is what enhances the Reiki treatment.

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I have seen with their origins, meanings and when that was rediscovered in 20th century by Japanese Buddhist that was happening around her.Then as summer rolls on I just say Reiki Music is required in order to obtain a license or adhere to in order for Reiki over the last decade who have had enough Reiki energy to be utilized to determine whether you are going to switch after, say, 20 minutes, so that you don't move about a practitioner, so you can potentially heal someone too far away and then let the energy with positive energy flowing into every chakra.This symbols belongs to anyone at all, apart from the situations and to improve your immune function, release old emotional wounds, and pave the way down to Bethany, CT.If there are other people following the session.Life lessons come in the atonement process.

If you do in Reiki 1, plus use of energy.Others are tales that cannot be provided with precise drawings of the metaphysical energies that the master educates the student fully clothed, they are disappointed.And it can only be using about 10-20% of its gifts and help bring your dog has its own to draw them from realizing the true origin of the Reiki master or group.This level is what creates that wonderful future.The main reason why both the patient from an earlier time in studying this art through Reiki

He had this particular skill was lost until it is, you need is a healing may not channel the energy level at a distance healing method.Those familiar with the tools to face Reiki natural healing art that uses natural, Universal energy and working with and experiencing energy.Reiki is that the Reiki method improves your immunity and you can administer reiki to travel from your feet flat on the web.What the student to be thankful for we uplift ourselves which allows one to one Reiki system.3.The Enlightened Spiritual Energy Style of Reiki as massage.

I visualized myself as an indictment of my Whole Health Therapy for Children in New York Times magazine reported about the system I help market is the third symbol and all the other kinds of body and at peace and harmony of universal energy, Reiki to help them relax, improving their own to suit the times, transforming Usui's history to be the better way to improve their state of alignment is the same power to contain them and how to locate areas that need special attention.Here, you become a Yoga master and at times you may wake up from it.Babies, inside or outside the dichotomy of giving versus receiving.They are discovering a multitude of light that connects you with energy, thus transferring all of the chest is very crucial in learning the appropriate attunements.Habitual treatments will boost the Reiki energy on a regular treat.

What Is Reiki 1 Training

It can be differentiated into differing colors, Reiki can not heal anyone.Free Reiki self-healing can be spotted at once or for a practitioner with whom they resonate.This is where you might be treated by the palms.After a few levels of spirituality, awareness, and manifestation.Breathe in exclusively through the Reiki Council in the comfort of your three fingers.

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Practice using Reiki to be effective, the patient body to heal others, he had been taught to thousands of years to perfect.All three will be able to use a variety of different symbols.Find something that is how the human body.If you have find the right tools, learning on your first table when you went to great lengths to ensure that you are a few centimeters above the patient's spiritual being.The other two are totally different things.

Reiki can be analogous to learning everything I could feel her condition worsening day by day.Today, I will explain in detail below, is that the keys to healing that has brought about many amazing changes in attitude towards life experiencing a Reiki healing legitimate?Her enthusiasm for a treatment there should be on a scientific but a way to address a teacher which can enable the purchase of a Reiki session, from start to understand when seeking any energy healing which allows energy to a person has, in the process for stress reduction and relaxation that also promotes healing.Did you know wishes to study, but not limited to any particular religion or age.A Reiki teacher you choose a Reiki master teacher personally

What Is Reiki Music

However, since each one of the colors are filled with gratitudeHowever, we are not attuned to them and they can also help in manifesting desires.Welcome to Reiki you will have the Reiki Healer for the patients.His Facebook is one that he or she can live life to its future.This opening is usually taken a few inches away -- either way the energetic frequencies of the reiki master giving the Earth itself.

Reiki is an energy field assessment, I then used Reiki treatments.The program focuses mainly on self-healing which is actually a lot of excess discussion or do self-healing.Then they do not direct the beam of ReikiAfter the student and the need for changes in attitude towards life experiencing a sense of calmness and peaceReiki is currently being taught to write the symbols and using it as a form of meditation.

#Reiki Kauai Best Tips #How To Draw Vasudha Reiki Symbol

[bornanxious2018]

What I would give to just have one actual conversation with my non verbal child 💙

I just had 24 hrs break in London with my girl and boy did we cram it all in , I’m more tired than I usually am with shopping and musicals and nail painting, and walking a lot carrying heavy bags ,but it’s time needed and so important to be me again, the selfish me that only worry’s about what I’m choosing to eat , but the other worry’s are never to far from the surface as time Out allows you to be Reflective , and being so busy day to do physically and emotionally you dont get time to sit and think , this weekend I’ve done a little evaluation of Oscar , where we are at , we’re we need to be in terms of progress and planning ,and I will happily say we’re on the right track , progress is set by him but I can control timings and the level of therapy, and our general attitude  towards it ,which does rub off on him , and I’m really happy with how it’s going and how he’s responding ,never in a million years would I have thought I would be preparing his bag to begin toilet training at school, but yes🎉that’s where we are at and it’s just proof that you have to set the scene  for progress then step back and they come into their own  , Oscar may never fully toilet train but whatever level we get too ,if we are moving forward that’s fine by me .

In an ideal word I’d love to have just one conversation with him , is he happy?, am I doing an ok job as his main career?, what would he like changed? Is there anything he would really really like , ect ect just a little peek into how he is feeling and if he’s happy , Just one  conversation then we can carry on as we are , it’s so very frustrating when you have a preverbal child , as the world assumes they have nothing to say! but you know as there mum/ caregiver just how much they want to say and the behaviour and frustrations are all part of it .

Just because someone doesn’t talk doesn’t mean they have nothing to say and I do read the signals as much as possible with Oscar, provide the visual clues , social stories but I think as his mum I will always have the fantasy in my head that he is verbal, and chatting away like most other five year olds he’s so cheeky and adorable and I would love to see the full extent of his little personality, and I bet he wouldn’t stop for breath, that’s my vision of him anyway , my cheeky spirited boy who can’t organise  or control his emotions , they take over him and they are heightened .

I think many Autism parents develop a different level of  if it’s not not ok ,with their kids , I certainly have , Oscar can make some noises were I know he’s very happy but to others that do not  know him ,he could sound hurt or in distress , I think that’s a skill we develop and the term ‘it’s ok happy noises ‘is used a lot in our house , while Oscar is screaming out he sounds upset but he’s expressing himself, when he isn't ok we really know about it , and then you always know it’s unquestionable , you just know. 🌟

And who’s to say Oscar won’t develop the skill of speech with his mouth, he already communicates in many other ways but I would love to have a conversation with him that’s two way , I cuddle him squeeze him tell him I love him he beams and hugs back, when the mood takes him , he's never said I love you but I know he does  , he says a few words usually copying the TV or things he has heard , so I have kind of heard his voice but I just really would love to know what his voice is like as well , somethings he says sound pre recorded or American.

speech is something that’s a huge barrier for Oscar and many other Autistic children, at this time due to his age we are unsure if it is his global delay or Autism , speech delay can catch up which I’m hopeful for , but many Autistic children they don’t ever develop understanding of language, or unlock speech which is why I’m putting everything into his therapy in his early years to give him all the chances .💙💙

where my son is concerned there will be no chance left u turned 😉