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Dear Chuck, I’m getting Camp Damascus for my niece for her 16th birthday, and if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to ask a favor:

Whenever I get my nieces books by authors on Tumblr, I always ask the author what piece of advice they’d give themselves at that age, and write it in the front cover of the book. I think it’s a cool way to give them some wisdom they might take more seriously than just hearing it from their parents, and also what teenager doesn’t think it’s kind of cool to get advice directly from someone famous?

So in that vein: I would like to ask, if you could tell your 16-year-old self anything, what would it be?

'every moment is a chance to make incredible change beyond your wildest imagination. this is not just a way of hyperbole or metaphor, it is the truth. every decision you make creates infinite timelines trotting away from you in a beautiful wave, and in these moments you are breathing life into entire universes. never forget that you have this power. wield it in a way that you will look back on and be proud of.'

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I don't care for writing advice telling me not to do something. You tell me not to do this and I am left with nothing. How do I fix it? How do I make my writing better? You tell me nothing, except that I should not do this thing, because you don't personally like it.

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show and tell

while we are at it if you wanna get REAL PUNK ROCK WRITING with me let me hit you with this 'show dont tell' is absurd advice and not remotely true of autistic minds. sometimes i show sometimes i tell but eliminating the 'tell' from my writing is not something i am interested in

i will take a step further: in my personal taste, i VERY MUCH would rather be told. if someone is showing and showing and showing i think 'are we on a journey together or are you trying to impress me?' TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED we are here to FEEL things side by side not stroke egos

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new cave

huge story breakthrough today. the pieces have finally revealed their placement. EVERY TIME this process is scary when you think 'was that my last idea? is the well dry?' but EVERY TIME it arrives in the end. our subconscious knows and waits for our consciousness to catch up

very excited about shape this idea has taken. it is SO dark (just so buckaroos know some of the upcoming horror books are already pretty dang dark but this one... dang) but it feels right. like cracking open a new cavern even deeper, thinkin 'cant wait to shed some light in here'

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By engaging in heterosexual relationships, he is forcing himself into unhealthy coping mechanisms derived from his traumatic experience.

Travis deals with his SA trauma by simply repressing it all until it finds him again

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I've always imagined that when he gets his entire worldview about religion and the town flipped around, that he'd be about... 14 years old? That's a fairly fresh wound considering he's around 17-18 within the main storyline– barely any time to process what happened to him.

Travis deals with his SA trauma by simply repressing it all until it finds him again

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Travis deals with his SA trauma by simply repressing it all until it finds him again

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Copper's behavior during school

As a child, he was a bit of a bully. Just a little boy pushing around other kids whenever he didn't get his way. Because of this, even at a young age, kids just didn't talk to him. He changed from being a bully to just being a weird unsocial kid growing up.

Copper isn't a perfect student in the slightest; he turns in late work at the last minute, he falls asleep during class and misses out on lessons, he fights with other students and comes out of those fights with bruises, and he absolutely cannot focus on any of his work; this is all due to his neurodivergency and physical abuse happening at home. He acts out a result of it and doesn't care about school as a result too; as he constantly skips classes during his senior year and does whatever the fuck he wants around town.

Teachers try their best to be friendly to him, but he makes it hard. He's a troublemaker and terrible student that doesn't see a point in anything. While there are definitely teachers who dislike him and make their dislike of him apparent after a while, there are also teachers are very concerned about him and what could be happening at him to make him act this way. They're also greatly concerned about the bruises that form on his skin so often.

Students don't talk to him and he doesn't talk to them. He doesn't know how to approach other people without seeming awkward or lame or like such a loser who's so unused to social interaction. It's... Not like he dislikes the idea of having friends. He just doesn't like his options and they don't like him either.

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Travis “I'm not being abused. I'm letting this happen actually. I'm the manipulator and they're only falling into my trap. I'm aware that I'm being groomed so I'm letting myself be groomed. You know, to trick them. I'm aware and I'm letting them do this because otherwise they wouldn't be able to.... what do you mean I'm still an abuse victim” Acheson

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Copper would feel very conflicted if an older person were to call him a petname now. Honey, sweetie, etc.

It's a different type of feeling, whereas if his boyfriend called him those, he'd melt into a puddle, but if an older person were to call him those he'd just be ????????

Oscar used to call Copper things like buddy and bud when he was younger.

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Oscar used to call Copper things like buddy and bud when he was younger.

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Travis and Copper both wouldn't have been speaking until they were around 2-4 years old. It's common in autistic children.

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Hm. Travis n Copper dissociating....

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He's a priest, a fleshwearing monster with no heart of his own, and a piece of shit groomer who has existed for centuries

Father Michael is very touchy with Travis.

Hugs without permission, hands being grabbed and shaken, ruffling his hair, placing his hand on his leg, touching the back of his neck, touching and touching and touching.

It feels overstimulating, and gross, and his hands are so damn cold it's like being touched by a rotting corpse.

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Father Michael is very touchy with Travis.

Hugs without permission, hands being grabbed and shaken, ruffling his hair, placing his hand on his leg, touching the back of his neck, touching and touching and touching.

It feels overstimulating, and gross, and his hands are so damn cold it's like being touched by a rotting corpse.

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Copper is bad at school.

He'd not been in the best of headsets during the past few years he'd spent at that high school. He doesn't pay attention because he literally can't, due to undiagnosed ADHD and autism; and so, he's been branded as one of the lazy kids.

He struggled a lot during freshman, sophomore, and junior years, so during his senior years, he'd decided to skip school more than he could count. It doesn't matter. He's not making it into a decent career or anything, so why even try anymore?

It should be worth noting that he's not stupid. He's referred to and seen as stupid by peers and teachers, but he's not. He knows a lot of things (particularly involving his special interests) and tricks and is more street smart than he is school smart.

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Of course this doesn't extend towards all cishets, but from my experience... It seems like cishets tend to not have media literacy when it comes to detecting queer relationships within a story; while watching a show with my dad, these two men were very obviously having queer-coded moments and moments that would be very obviously romantic had they been a man and woman; and then they kissed, and he said “woah! why are they kissing?” and then after a pause said “everything is gay nowadays.”

Something amusing about Trapper is how obviously queer I'm writing them – with all the closeted metaphors, repressed queer thoughts about other men, long descriptions of the other that could almost paint them as ethereal– is that there would be one cishet out there completely missing every single sign.

Another thing very amusing about cishets missing the point is how in the anime Rvolutionary Girl Ut//na the two female leads kiss three times; once in a cutout version of an image in the ending, and twice within the movie; and the kiss is said to be a metaphor by male cishets on reddit. The queerness could not be more obvious!