genreawareness - Tumblr blog

[genreawareness]

I’ll try to post the actual pictures I took soon, but I was bored today and wanted to shirk some other responsibilities, so I decided to do some general vague Minoan or Mycenaean look since it’s been on the mind and also my hair was looking really good today and I wanted to take advantage of that haha

[genreawareness]

here's a compilation of Every FreakTV Bumper That I've Made, in chronological order of creation, along with titles and reviews of them.

FreakTV is a fake TV channel my friends and i created to be used as a discord bot that streamed randomly selected episodes from our favorite TV shows, 24/7, in a dedicated channel. between each aired episode there was a "coming up next" break, and one of hundreds of bumpers that all of us created over time

[genreawareness]

It bothers me how many people are morally incurious, and it bothers me even more how many people seem to think that interrogating morality is proof of immorality- because I'm pretty sure that the latter is at least partly driving the former. Asking why an action or institution is wrong does not necessarily mean that someone thinks that that action or institution is right. If you never ask yourself why something is wrong or right, then what is determining your morality? Because it's not you.

[genreawareness]

Multiple tumblr AITAs have been like ‘i want a Child Free wedding so im deliberately and specifically excluding this child member of my/my partner’s immediate close family-AITA?’ like yes. why r u marrying someone if u can’t be normal abt their child family members. die.

[genreawareness]

boys make things nice for urself. make things comforting and homey and nice-smelling in a way u like. boys to clean is to make things nice. u say "sure I have money to buy more stuff but all I need is the bare essentials. quality of life? what's that? I'm in my 20s and I'm going to live forever, my only desire is THE GRIND". boys u too are soft animals and u need the lovely things that are not strictly necessary for survival. and if u don't know what they for u are yet, think about what makes u feel safe, what makes u happy, what would make ur bed your favorite place to sleep, what soap would motivate u to take a bath at the end of the day. do u attain health and routine by force, by beating urself into it? NO. u make the healthy things as lovely for urself as u can. and if someone makes fun of u for that. one thousand years in the crystal prison

[genreawareness]

[image description: the bugs bunny in a tuxedo "I wish all a very pleasant evening" meme edited to say "I wish all of my Jewish followers a very pleasant passover". Next to bugs is a photo of a small stack of matzo and the cup of Elijah. ]

[genreawareness]

platforming palestinian joy is just as important as sharing the suffering they're enduring during this genocide. despite continued displacement and bombardment, you cannot steal their joy and spirit. happy birthday to this sweet baby 🖤🇵🇸 may they grow up to see a free palestine

[genreawareness]

Okay. Reblog this and tag with a numerical response for how many of these artists you listen to. It’s stereotypical “tumblr user” music.

Lemon Demon

Tally Hall

Death Grips

Jack Stauber

Mr Bungle

King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard

Devo

Oingo Boingo

Aquabats

Weird Al

My Chemical Romance

100gecs

Talking Heads

They Might Be Giants

Mitski

Girl In Red

[genreawareness]

Saturn Devouring His Son if it were a Draw The Squad meme from 2014

[genreawareness]

I was born hungry

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I’m curious because I have a gay aunt and I keep hearing more and more people tell me they have one too or a gay uncle 👭🏳️‍🌈👬

[genreawareness]

there is this trend on tiktok that is like “when my mom was my age she was married and look at me, I’m living at home asking her basic questions about how life works! hehe!” when my mom was my age she bought a pack of cigarettes and smoked one and got so sick she vowed to never smoke again and left the mostly full pack of cigarettes on the table in her living room for several years so visitors would hopefully think she was cool and edgy and a smoker. 23 years old. my mommy.

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:3 !!!!!!!!!!

[genreawareness]

people say folks with adhd struggle with "delayed rewards" aka long term goals and as such we tend to focus more on short term rewards. what they don't talk about is that at when we Do accomplish long term goals we don't actually feel anything proportionate to the amount of work we did to achieve it. In my head I suffered for a while and then money spontaneously appeared in my bank account.

[genreawareness]

Represention of Autistic Frustration in Laios Dungeon Meshi

Like many other autistic people, I related strongly to Laios Touden while reading Dungeon Meshi. This post isn't going to spend time disputing whether he displays autistic traits or not—while I could do that, I want to focus on why specifically his portrayal struck a chord with me in a way the writing of most other autistic-coded characters has not.

Disclaimer: as the above suggests, this post is strongly informed by my own experiences as an autistic person, as well as the experiences of my neurodivergent friends with whom I have spoken about this subject. I want to clarify that in no way am I asserting my personal experience to be some Universal Autistic Experience. This post is about why Laios' character feels distinct and significant to me in regard to autistic representation, and while I'm at it, I do feel that I have interesting things to say about autistic representation in media generally. This also got a bit long, so I'm sticking it under a read more. Spoilers for up to the end of chapter 88 below.

The thing that stands out most to me in regard to Laios' characterisation is the open anger he displays when someone points out his inability to read other people. This comes up prominently in his interactions with "Shuro" (Toshiro Nakamoto):

The frustration pictured above (Laios continuing to physically tussle with Toshiro, using crude language toward him) becomes even more notable when you remember that this is Laios, who, outside of these interactions, is not easily fazed and often exists as a lighthearted contrast to the rest of the cast. Then we get to Laios' nightmare.

In Falin's words: "Nightmares love emotional wounds. Wounds you hold in your heart. Things that give you stress, or things that were traumatic for you. They aggravate memories like that and cause the dreamer to have terrible dreams." (chapter 42, page 10.) (damn. i'm properly citing for this post and everything.)

Thus, Laios' nightmare establishes an important fact: even if he is unable to recognise social blunders while he's making them, he's at least subconsciously aware that other people operate on a different wavelength to him, and that he's an outsider in many of his social circles (both past and present). His dream-father's disparaging words stress the impact this has had upon his ability to live up to the expectations set out for him, and we also get a panel of kids who smirk at him (presumably former bullies to some degree). Toshiro's appearance only hammers home how much Laios is still both humiliated and angered by his misunderstanding of their relationship.

I've thought a lot about anger as concomitant to the autistic experience. When autistic representation portrays ostracization, it's generally from an angle of the autistic character being upset at how conforming to neurotypical norms doesn't come easily to them; as a result, they express a desire to 'get better' at meeting neurotypical standards, a desire to become more 'normal' (whether the writing implies this is a good thing or not). In contrast, not once does Laios go, "I need to perform better in my social interactions, and try to care less about monsters, because that's what other people find weird." His frustration is directed outward rather than inward, and as a result, it's the people around him who are framed as nonsensical.

The Winged Lion starts delineating Laios' anger, and Laios' reaction is to think to himself, "It can sense all my thoughts, huh?" (chapter 88, page 16.) This is the scene that really resonated with me. I'm not saying I have never felt the desire to conform to neurotypical norms that is borne from insecurity, but primarily, I know that I don't want to work toward becoming 'normal'—I don't want to change myself for people who follow rules I find nonsensical. It's the difference between, "Oh god, why can't I get it," and, "WHY CAN'T YOU GET IT?" (phrasing here courtesy of my friend Miles @dogwoodbite). And for me personally, Dungeon Meshi is the first time I've seen this frustration and the resultant voluntary isolation from other people portrayed in media so candidly. Laios' anger is not downplayed or written to be easily palatable, either.

The culmination of Laios' frustrations in this scene wherein we learn that Laios has fantasised about "a pack of monsters attacking a village" drives home just how alienated he really feels. I need not go into his wish to become a monster himself, redolent of how many autistic people identify/have identified with non-humans to some degree as a result of a percieved disconnect from society (when I was younger, I wanted to be a robot. I still kind of do.)

Obviously, wishing death upon other people is a weighty thing, but the unfiltered nature of this page is what deeply resonated with me. The Winged Lion is laying Laios' deepest and most transgressive desires bare, and they are desires that are a product of lifelong ostracization by others (whether intentional or unintentional). This is the brand of anger I'm familiar with, and that my neurodivergent friends express being familiar with, but that I haven't seen portrayed in writing so explicitly before—in fact, it surprised me because most well-meaning autistic representation I've experienced veers toward infantilisation in trying make the autistic character's struggles easy for neurotypicals to sympathise with.

Let's also not neglect the symbolism inherent to Laios' daydream. "A pack of monsters attacking a village". Functionally, monsters are Laios' special interest—he percieves everything first and foremost through his passion for monsters. His daydream of monsters attacking—killing—humans, is fundamentally a daydream of the world he understands (monsters) overthrowing the world that is so illogical to him, that has repeatedly shunned him (other people). I joked to my friends that it's an autistic power fantasy, and it actually sort of is. And in it, his identity is aligned with that of the monsters, while his anger manifests in a palpable dissociation from the rest of humanity. This is one manga page. It's brief. It's also very, very raw to me. I think about it often.

To conclude, I love Laios Dungeon Meshi. This portrayal of open frustration in an autistic character meant a lot to me, and I hope I've sufficiently outlined why. Also, feel free to recommend media with autistic representation in the notes if you've read this far—I would really like to see if there is more of this nature. Thank you for reading. I'm very tired and should probably sleep now.