i just think Nancy and Max would be an interesting dynamic to explore. Both are teenage girls plagued with the guilt of a lost loved one, and feeling like they killed said loved one, and that manifesting into a deep-rooted anger. Both come off to people as mean and harsh and have a hard time making and keeping friends. I don’t know exactly what this means or how their dynamic would be, but I think they are similar and should interact more, and also I think Nancy would like Max a lot if she got to know her.
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even 2 years ago people still said autism with a whisper. it was also how people sometimes whisper lesbian, like they're afraid of uttering a slur. autistic was either an insult or it was something terrible, a horrible burden only select people endure. "select people" were usually 9 year old boys and skinny white men.
they are not hispanic young adults with a dog and a life and friends. i can make (sustained, calculated, painful) eye contact. with certain people, i don't even have to count how many seconds i am holding their vision - i can just look at them. i can wear clothes that bother me, i will just have a worse day than usual. i might cry about any changes to my schedule - but change is scary! this is normal!
when i was 16 it was OCD. i mean that was the thing everyone said. i totally have ocd. they would arrange 6 colors of gel pen in rainbow order (no worry for indigo feeling left out) and they'd be "so ocd" about it.
if you struggle with intrusive thoughts, be careful at this next paragraph, but. at 16 i developed a compulsion that involved self-harm. my ocd was convinced i was simply forgetting that i'd hurt someone terribly - a thought that persisted for no clear or delineated reason.
at some point i will probably write about how the idea of "morally pure thoughts" was hell for me and others with ocd, but this was the odd dichotomy for many of us: they liked our "aesthetic", but were genuinely repulsed by our lived experience. "intrusive thoughts" now means "cutting your hair in the sink" instead of talking yourself down from believing horrible things. "so ocd" is a label without any true understanding.
it's something i've talked about before - in multiplicity - but i firmly believe in the veracity and necessity of self-diagnosis. i think it saves lives and it saves tragedies from occurring. as someone raised in a house that wasn't safe, self-diagnosis was, for many years, the only viable option. 15 and honestly googling: am i depressed or there demons affecting my behavior.
but it is not genuine self-diagnosis anymore, most of the time. it is a strange, blanched version of that whispered word autism. now certain traits are constantly seen as "autistic" - any passing intense interest. any flubbed social interaction. people say it while laughing - a touch of the 'tism.
and i like the acceptance! i do. i like that people are talking about it. i like that if i self-identify, more people speak up and say me too, bitch. but there is something-else quietly happening, the way it happened to OCD. the quirky, "fun" parts have been washed and sanitized and removed of all suffering. now it is just something that makes you "a little bit silly."
it took me 27 years on this planet before i learned to make friends. something about me just seems incredibly odd, i guess, some kind of radiation monitoring. someone once (in a way that was almost friendly) told me i am doing the right things, but in a way that's off-putting. i have scoured myself raw attempting to be charming.
someone on tiktok does a deep dive into their particular passion. the top comment says "what kind of autism is this lol". like we are a breed of animal. like it has no influence on our experience. like our life is a fresh breeze, an open meadow.
more often for me, life was a drowning.
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Damian, handing Bruce a piece of paper with a very neat calendar on it: father, I will be taking a step back from my participation in our nightly patrols. I have carefully considered factors such as, but not limited to, school tests, most likely days for breakouts and when other people will be available. Here is my schedule.
Bruce: any particular reason you are stepping back from Robin?
Damian: I have reached an acceptable age and am by far mature enough, so I will be participating in Ramadan this year, father. Afterwards I will pick my duties up as normal, but with changed sleeping and eating patterns, this is the most logical step for now.
Bruce, who grew up with a jewish mother and christian father who were intent to raise him on some weird mix of the two, then a second father who was atheist, proceeded to lose his entire way in any form of religion due to losing himself in his teen years, took in Jewish boy, then a catholic one with religious trauma, then an atheist one who had no idea how to even approach the idea of religion, followed up by a pagan girl and already making seven different mental lists of things he will need to research, how to add aspects of Islam into their weird family holidays and trying desperately to show his support for his son: ....hnn
Damian: thank you father
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