#and how many times do we autistic people have to beg for a someone other than a savant white boy?

[engagemythrusters]

It would be nice if Star Wars actually treated their "good" disabled characters as actual disabled characters.

We see a lot of "bad" disabled characters have viewable disabling disabilities (ex: the latest The Bad Batch episode featured a cane-user with a prosthetic arm. This man was a hoarder of resources, and quite greedy and self-serving. Disability=hoarding resources is a TERRIBLE thing for Star Wars to highlight, but there they just went. That's a whole post I can make on its own, but I digress.)

But there are so few times that Star Wars truly acknowledges its disabled characters' disability in a positive light. It is always swept under the rug and forgotten about. This is what we have for our disabled "good" characters:

Anakin's hand only ever has problems twice--both of which aren't even true issues. His hand just gets caught by magnets. That's it. Sure, one time a little spark went through it durring the Zillo Beast arc, but despite all other mechanical appliances dying and short-circuting, Anakin's mechanical prosthetic does NOT. They didn't want to show Anakin without the use of his hand. Oh and he's turned into the "bad" character when his disability becomes actually acknowledged. Facisit disabled person... how charming (sarcasm).

Luke's prosthetic hand also does not cause him any true issues--again, minor inconveniences.

Echo's prosthetics are not acknowledged, ever. They act as if Echo has two hands, and he's constantly seen holding stuff as if he has two hands. Sorry, but he can't balance a giant ass box on a scomp like that. He would have to compensate--move his arm so that it balances differently.

Tech does not need to be more than autistic-coded. It's not a requirement to label everything. However, he has only had issues with his autism once. That's a good first step! But it's just a first step. Not to mention, he's a whitewashed savant. This is the most blatant, frustrating autism stereotype. I've already made a post about this.

Kanan and Chirrut's blindness is perhaps the most visibly disabling disability in any of the shows; however, said blindness is magically compensated for by the Force. They both still struggles with many things, which is a good change of pace, but ultimatley, it's not the representation it's meant to be. And, for Kanan, it is CURED at the end, before he DIES. Chirrut ALSO dies. I think that speaks for itself.

Yes, they are still disabled. That is not in question. But it's repackaged in a 'non-disabling' sense. Because why show disability when everything can be magically fixed? Why show disabled characters having realistic issues with their disability when it could be disabled characters made palatable for an abled audience?

Yes, a good number of disabled people would like to be, for lack of a truly appropriate term, ""fixed"" (a whole different topic, though--and a huge one at that). I don't doubt many amputees would probably like the a prosthetic like Anakin's. And yes, it would be nice to be so easily and readily accepted as disabled people like they are in Star Wars.

However.

The continued treatment of disabled people as if they aren't disabled is a massive problem in today's, real-life world. Because we don't have that luxury of being treated as nicely. So as great as it is to dream of a life where we're accepted as normal, IT IS IMPORTANT TO VIEW THEIR DISABILITY AS NORMAL IN THE FIRST PLACE.

It is necessary to see openly disabled people being clearly disabled, while still being viewed as equal, "normal" people. When disability is only shown openly as disabling when it is for the greedy or the facists... that is ableist writing.

All I want is for a main character to be openly disabled, in a disabling way, rather than just magically fixed and unacknowledged. Disability representation can only go so far when it is just "hey, here's a disabled character." We need them to be acknowledged as disabled, too.

[happysparklingshadows]

𝚅𝚊𝚗 𝙿𝚊𝚕𝚖𝚎𝚛 + 𝚈𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝙰𝚕𝚙𝚑𝚊𝚋𝚎𝚝 (’96)

Warnings: Gore, Smut, Melodramatic fights, mentions of a mommy kink, and mature themes. 

Note: Vanessa Palmer is my wife and my favorite yellowjacket! I just want her to be mine in so many ways lol! I hope you all like it! @zhivaxo​ @g1rlsriot

                            *.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*

Affection: How do they show their love and affection? How intense would it get?

Van is very affectionate in her love for you. She loves to hold your hand, puts her hand on the small of your back, links pinkies, maps shapes on your arms and back, she fixes your hair just to touch the soft strands. Her hands are always on you. She kisses you whenever possible and just wants to be there with you. Because Van is autistic (our collective headcannon), she gets into things so much and can’t help it. She gets rough in sex without meaning to or realizing it, you can sometimes hear her overthink when she touches you, and she doesn’t do anything. She freaks out when your feet or her feet touch each other, and she doesn’t like the feeling of cuddling when she falls asleep. She will cuddle you but turn away when she goes to bed because it’s not how you fall asleep.  I also think some bonding time with her would be watching new shows and sharing media to talk about. Funny enough, sometimes you fight about characters more than actual relationship stuff. 

Blood: How messy are they willing to get regarding their darling?

Van will do anything for you. She is very aggressive and feral out in the woods. Think of Shauna’s postpartum hallucination where they eat her baby and van SNARLS! Van is very loving and gives off overthinking golden retriever energy, but Van is very in touch with her animalistic part to her. Pre-crash, I think they would go into fights for you, but nothing bloody.  She would do anything for you after the first winter in the wilderness. She will hunt whoever, she will kill whoever threatens you, and she is willing to be hunted if it means you would be fed. The thought of being inside of you forever comforted Van.  

Cruelty: How would they treat their darling once abducted? Would they mock them?

Van would never abduct you. The worst they would do is trap you in a room with them by standing at the door and stopping you from leaving in a fight or something. Van would not mock you at all, she hates condescension so much because of her mother, so she just tries to calm you down to talk about whatever is starting the fight. She can’t handle you being mad at her and can’t stand you being away from her.  

“Fuck off, Van!” 

“No! You’re not leaving before we talk about it!” 

“I don’t want to talk about it-” 

“WE’RE GOING TO TALK ABOUT IT BECAUSE THIS ISN'T US!” She screams at you with tears in her eyes. She moves her weight from foot to foot and waves her hands frustratedly. “What do you want from me?” 

“I want to be away from you right now! I can’t do this-” You sob as you try, and she stops you again. You groan in frustration and let out a whine of annoyance in your angry sadness at the stupid fight over nothing. 

“NO! (Y/n) Stop. Please. Please.” Van begs in her cries, she wraps her arms around you, and she hugs you with dear life. She doesn’t have any support anywhere. Her parents are shit, and her friends don’t know about her being gay in a homophobic town; she only has you as her light. You bury your face in her neck and cry; you are overwhelmed and tired. You let Vanessa win. 

Darling: Aside from abduction, would they do anything against their darling’s will?

Van wants to be good to you and loves you as best she can, but sometimes what is good for you isn’t what you want. That is okay. Van is willing to ensure you are in order behind the scenes. Van will take people out of your life for you, and if they are a problem, she has no problem getting in trouble for punching the shit out of them. If Vanessa feels like a friend is getting too close or someone is taking her away, she will beat them to a bloody pulp, tells them to never speak to her again, and says that she will do worse if they rat. In the wilderness, she will just evolve, and she will make a co-dependent relationship with you to the point there are no threats out there in the woods outside of you getting picked for the hunt. Funny enough, Van was more relaxed in some ways because of the wilderness and trusting the girls she was with not to take you; so much more energy she has now because she doesn’t helicopter you 24/7 with 90s tech. 

Exposed: How much of their heart do they bare to their darling? How vulnerable are they when it comes to their darling?

Vanessa is very bare and vulnerable with her lover. She doesn’t have much of a filter once you are inside her walls. She hasn’t had many inside of there and the ones who have hurt her deeply. Wine stains and cigarette burns from her parents and whispers from girls behind her in classes about how she is “dykey, right? No boys ever ask her out, and she never tries with them.” And you are the first to hold and nurture her without any motives outside of wanting to love yourself. Dating Pre-crash, she tells you all her thoughts about shows she masked all day and her special interests; she tells you about her mom and her emotions. She does have problems crying infront of others and being seen by others. 

In the wilderness, Van vents her frustrations and gossip with you. Lowkey Van is a quiet bully with you about other people. It’s fun because Van would die if someone ever heard her and felt horrible about it. She doesn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings because that was a line in the sand. Like beating someone up or hunting is one thing, but messing with emotions is horrible. Van cries to you at night, crying because she misses her shitty mom and shitty dad and her shitty house. She hides her face in your breasts and cries as you pet her hair. She needs extra love because she is still very soft despite having a rough upbringing. 

Fight: How would they feel if their darling fought back?

Van would shut down and hide away. She doesn’t want to push you away further by reacting, and she has disassociation as her trauma response, and she just leaves her body for a long time. Van just gives herself space, and that gives you space. She doesn’t like being away from you, but sometimes, tensions grow from being around too much in a relationship. 

Game: Is this a game to them? How much would they enjoy watching their darling try to escape?

No. Van doesn’t play games with her heart or with you because this is fucking real. This is the most healthy and comforting relationship Van has ever had, and she will not let you go without a fight. She would let you go if you broke up with her, but she would try to win you back. She gives you space even if it kills her. She will win you back. 

Hell: What would be their darling’s worst experience with them?

I feel like with Van, and the worst things would be typical screaming fights when you are young adults and figuring things out. 

Ideals: What kind of future do they have in mind for/with their darling?

Vanessa incisions you two getting married, living in New York by central park, and having some kids. Vanessa has a more traditional idea about what she wants out of romance and you. She takes things very seriously under the surface. Van in the wilderness thinks about rings she will get for you when you are saved, she knows she will never want anyone else, and she knows she will make sure you will want anyone else. She wants to claim you in the ways she was raised with. Van thinks getting married is a fuck you to Republicans who would meltdown at the thought of two women marrying. 

Van lays on her side beside you in the cabin’s attic, it’s cold, but Van is enough for you as you both try to fall asleep. Van’s jade eyes watch your face as you try to go to sleep, and she blurts out, “Will you marry me?” 

You’re eyes pop open, and you look at her in surprise. Two women getting married was insane in normal 1996 America, a world you wished to be a part of again, but these could happen inside the wilderness that traps you. “Van, we can’t get married.” 

“Yes, we can.” She said back, determined as she cupped your cheek, looking deeper into your eyes. “I want you to be my wife.” 

“Van, I would love to be your wife, but we can’t get married in Jersey! We must move to San Francisco or Hawaii to get married.” 

“Then, we’ll move to Hawaii, Care Bear.” She says to you as she cuddles into your chest. She closes her eyes and breathes in your scent. “I love you, and I only want you.” 

You’re eyes well with tears as you happily cuddled her back and said, “I will marry you. I will do anything for you, Vanessa. I love you.” 

“I love you too.” 

Jealousy: Do they get jealous? Do they lash out or find a way to cope?

She gets jealous but is very good at masking her feelings enough to bite her tongue. Don’t get me wrong, if someone was hitting you or making you uncomfortable, and she would not hesitate to confront them. Vanessa primarily manifests her jealousy in the dirty whispers and vice grip on you when you two are alone. 

Kisses: How do they act around or with their darling?

Van is a supportive and goofy girlfriend who wears her heart on her sleeve. She is very much a golden retriever girlfriend and just wants to make you happy. She spends time with you as much as she can and always has a hand on you; she likes to praise you when you do good things! She is possessive and vocally says intense things sometimes, but overall a wonderful girlfriend. 10/10

Love letters: How would they go about courting or approaching their darling?

Van would be somewhat shy, and she would follow you around almost like a puppy. She approaches you in a way that seems like she just wants to befriend you, but quickly, things would become sexual and romantic. She doesn’t know anything about you or why there is this pull for her to get you. Becoming a couple would take a few weeks of being friends. 

Mask: Are their true colors drastically different from how they act around everyone else?

Somewhat. Van has had to meet the more primal parts of herself and the selfish inner human instincts we all thought could be fought with logic and morals. Van is very aggressive and Territorial. She is a murderer but does it all because she was pushed to that point. I think Van is masking her Yandere behaviors very well to the point you couldn’t tell, but it’s more open afterward. And you kind of like that in the brutal wilderness. 

Naughty: How would they punish their darling?

Van isn’t someone in the relationship to punish anyone because she doesn’t like to punish. When Van is unhappy with you, she shows it clearly on her face but just tries to ignore her anger with you. She doesn’t like feeling this way. She gives cold shoulder and snippy comments that she doesn’t even mean to say. The worst punishment would be getting into a screaming fight together like an average couple. 

Oppression: How many rights would they take away from their darling?

Only a few. Vanessa would give you standard monogamous rules and doesn’t like you giving other people attention in a way that seems like the attention you give her. 

Patience: How patient are they with their darling?

Van is very patient because of how her mother was all her childhood. She doesn’t mind things others can’t stand, and she has had to tolerate worse than an 18-year-old girl expressing emotions. 

Quit: If their darling dies, leaves, or successfully escapes, would they ever be able to move on?

Van would straight up never move on and would even give up. Simply a shell and doesn’t have the will to live on when the sun goes away. Everything is dark with her only light, especially in the isolated woods where Van is trapped without you. Van would become Shauna in the show, tbh. 

Regret: Would they ever feel guilty about abducting their darling? Would they ever let their darling go?

Van wouldn’t ever abduct you, but she has no regrets about the bloodshed she spilled for you. Never. Van would let you break up and get back with her because she knows she will always win you back somehow. 

Stigma: What brought about this side of them (childhood, curiosity, etc)?

Childhood. This need for someone to validate and love her comes from her distance and abusive relationship with her alcoholic mother. She always felt like she would never be good enough and never be loved because if her mother didn’t care, how could anyone? When Van first feels the safety and warmth of your arms and love, she never wants to let you go. She is paranoid and scared at times people will steal her away or she will grow to not love her. 

Tears: How do they feel about seeing their darling scream, cry, and/or isolate themselves?

Van comforts you and tries her fucking best, man. Van doesn’t mind being a shoulder to cry on for you. She doesn’t mind being a punching bag when you scream and doesn’t mind giving you space if she can see you. Isolating in the wilderness, Van is so chill. Isolating pre-crash, Van is so not chill. 

Unique: Would they do anything different from the classic Yandere?

Van is like Shauna in the way they are chill and okay with their darling having their own life and being able to leave them. Van does understand how ordinary love is and knows that she is somewhat crazy, but she doesn’t think she is that bad. But she is crazy territorial and possessive during and after the events of the wilderness. 

Vice: What weakness can their darling exploit to escape?

Three words: words, pets, and boobs. Van’s favorite spot in the world is in your breasts as you pet her hair and say sweet words to her. It’s kinda like giving her some motheringly affection she has never had; she thinks it’s some kind of magic in your heartbeats. She loves your breasts and finds a lot of comfort in them. Just coo at her and pet her. You will get whatever you want. 

She hums in the valley between your breasts, her cheek rests against your left breast, and she kisses the other. She looks up at you with her green eyes and sighs, “You’re perfect.” 

“What? No way, van-” You giggle at her, pushing her away from your naked body from how tender she sounded. 

“You are, Care bear! I love you!” She giggles back and kisses your breasts, and she bites down on the fattie flesh as she moans in pleasure of feeling the skin in her mouth. She then moves to suck onto your nipples again, as if it was her guilty pleasure in sex. 

You bite a moan in your lip as you arch your back to the sensitive feeling of her sucking onto your breast. Her thick finger slides down your down hotly as she starts to pound into you again with her palm. 

Wit’s end: Would they ever hurt their darling?

Van tries not to, but she is just a human being in a relationship with you. It’s bound to happen, and words are shared that hurt the other, not intentionally. Van doesn’t mean to leave marks from her bites, kisses, and touches, but sometimes it happens. She would never intend to hurt you in any way. 

Xoanon: How much would they revere or worship their darling? To what length would they go to win their darling over?

Van worships you like you are an angel; she will prey on you and ask for forgiveness for her bloodshed. It always is because you were fed and alive. You love her, which seems unworldly to her, and she will keep you as long as possible. She will not stop until she has you or to get you back after a breakup. 

Yearn: How long do they pine after their darling before they snap?

After a few weeks, she puts her moves on very quickly, even though she only has cheesy jokes and autistic rizz. 

Zenith: Would they ever break their darling?

Not in any way outside of breaking your back with her strap. 

Yandere Level

6/10 (She tries her hardest to hide these dark tendencies and isn’t the best at not showing her motives for keeping you. But she is so cute and sweet that it doesn’t show much of a problem.)   

Freedom Level

9/10 (You are free, but Van tends to follow you.)

Taissa ✿   Misty

[justareallyverychillperson]

Rocket Raccoon-Autism and Immaturity

One way that autism can present in a person, is behaviour and speech patterns commonly associated with those younger than the autistic individual themselves. Here are a few examples of this appearing in GotG, related to Rocket.

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SPOILERS FOR VOLUME THREE!!!

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Vol.3 (Counter-Earth flashbacks)

Rocket as 89P13 plays with his friends much like a child would all the way until he becomes an adolescent. This is partially justified by their collective enhancements and their ignorance of social norms pertaining to the outside world. Regardless, the way he does not influence any of the admittedly adorable aspects of their childish games points to a mindset that rather chooses to embrace it fully.

He has learned to speak and enough equations to fly a spaceship, but forgets a phrase that has two many consonants (the enzyme thing that gets suppressed to make "angry turtles") Here the maturity of his vocabulary varies greatly. He also says thems and cants instead of them and cant. Of course he is still just a child but is nonetheless a gifted one with the theoretical potential of sounding much older than he indeed does in the scene.

vol.1

While we do not know how old Rocket is supposed to be, his criminal record implies he's very much an adult. And yet, here are some things he says before his arrest.

(to Groot) Learn genders man!

(gets bitten by Gamora) Biting? That's not fair [we later learn of his alleged history of this]

I live for the simple things. Like how much this is gonna hurt--- yeah, writhe, little man!

The schadenfreude mixed with slur "humie" which no one else says but him, makes him seem like the youth he was when he ran. Naturally, since no one was around to tell him to grow up in one way or another. Likely, his brain misremembered the word human and no one ever bothered to correct him, as it was after he escaped the High Evolutionary.

Vocabulistics is a rare example of advanced language similar to technobabble- half the words stored in his cybernetics are engineering related.

In the prison he is unarmed and does not hesitate to seek out security in his new humie pal, pawing at him several times to beg him away from the danger. His hunched-over stance adds to the meek display.

Another bonus is when he misses Gamora's sarcasm, before barking at Quill and whining about the plan going awry. Every parent has seen their child pull at their face like he does.

On Knowhere, his main objection to the way the rest of the team treats him is when Gamora, a woman, calls him a rodent. That's the last straw for the poor guy...not a pest, not a thing, just a smaller animal ^^

He mocks the Collector's mannerisms and goes straight to raising his voice when their dawdling customer stalls further by asking about type of currency. Yes, he is scared. Also, he is having a bit of a tantrum as opposed to speaking up about his anxiety. Not just trust issues...

"you got issues Quill"- sounds like someone skipped out on giving a raccoon sex education

Furthermore, his jokes about prostethics. That's it. His issues translate to innocent mischief. Why? Bc psychology.

Honorable mention goes to a touch-starved fella letting a complete stranger pet him due to Tree Death.

Lastly, his inability to grasp right and wrong. You apparently can't fit moral code and piloting next to each other.

Vol 2.

The winking. In the words of James Gunn "Cybernetics glitch sometimes" Tic disorder, anyone?

Again, the sarcasm. He even goes so far as to request Peter spell it out for him.

The desire to threaten with bodily wastes. Someone else's to boot.

He thinks objects getting larger as they get closer is a groundbreaking observation.

He doesn't know what suspicious behaviour looks like but is very tuned in to his general feelings towards people.

His blunt warning to Quill about his dad gets misconstrued as an insult. Not his fault his own 'dad' made him a bit cynical towards parents.

He chooses to use his captivity to laugh at the name Taserface and gets hung up on the reason Groot doesn't like hats. Confusion about other people's behaviour? Busted. (sidenote: he doesn't mind being called a rat as opposed to a rodent. Interesting standards)

His cybernetics glitch again when attempting to show scepticism towards Yondu's excuse for keeping Quill around. Can't express what you don't know.

He dubs the button not to press the Death Button. Dramatic much?

The irony of a guy who says frickin' at every opportunity teaching his plant baby brother not to swear xD

vol 3. Present day

He jumps into the arms of both Quill and Groot upon waking up. Reflex.

He listens to music even when Quill isn't there to hear it. It's only ever been a stim to him. Peter gets credit for reminding him, though.

[nerdyenby]

DRS2 reactions (spoilers)

Ep 1

Ras at the shadow dojo???????? Who woulda thunk

New intro?!?!!!?!! Idk why I wasn’t expecting that, actually

The public including Pix with the missing ninja my beloved

Gosh, big Riyu will take some getting used to

Wait… is that a curious george reference??

I don’t know if I’ve heard someone outright say something isn’t good for their friend’s mental health in a cartoon before, it’s really refreshing

Casual Frohicky and Sora/Arin interactions my beloved <3

Omg Kai explaining Shang to Zane is such season one vibes

Lloyd having open and honest conversations with his students about both his and their wellbeing is so important to me

Ok, hear me out: au where baby Wu didn’t age back at an enhanced rate and gets lost at somepoint and Arin is teenage Wu

Dang it, Cinder’s kinda funny

Ep 2

I legit started happy stimming so hard at that opening shot, I’m really invested in Euphrasia’s story already and nothing’s even happened yet lol

Percival out here making the gen z solarpunk dream a reality!!!!

Lloyd calling it what it is — a panic attack — soothes something in me

Sora did really bad graffiti of cats when she was young, that’s adorable and kinda tells you everything you need to know about her

MY GIRL!!!!!!!

Euphrasia using a cane!!!! Hell yeah mobility aids!!!! (Even though it’ll probably be gone in two episodes lol)

I kid you not, I was 100% expecting Suetonius to say “resurrect… the Great Devourer” lmao

I love that the gang is (mostly) all together, but it’s a bit too many characters for a conversation, I get why they like to split them into groups

Nya grounding Lloyd :(( /pos

Kai boasting about a fight that he won a decade ago when Cinder probably doesn’t even know Ash is endlessly amusing to me

Ras is so dramatic I can’t really take him seriously

Damn, they’re letting characters get hurt, it’s kinda refreshing but it’s scary

Ep 3

Wait I didn’t see Euphrasia get captured :((

WHAT THE HELL?!???? /vpos

Strength, motion, energy, and life?!??!!??

AYOOOOOO?!?!????

Kai comforting Wyldfyre <333

We know this takes place after the mech shorts, so why hasn’t anyone mentioned Cole? He was also seen in public, so why did that conspiracy guy say he’s still missing?

Why do they keep leaving Zane behind?? He’s in his housewife era fr

Kai making sure Wyldfyre’s taken care of :((

This show is so unserious, I love it

I wasn’t feeling people calling Kai Wyldfyre’s dad after season one but…

No… Sora took Arin’s thing from him… she didn’t mean to, but he feels like he’s not special anymore :(

I’m going to pretend that was a believable amount of parts to make a mech that big

Kai getting moments with Arin and Sora my beloved

Kai’s “hey kid, nice of you to drop by” is giving the same energy as when Lloyd and Arin first met during the merge

THE WALLS ARE MOVING, REPEAT: THE WALLS ARE MOVING

These nightmare sequences are going so hard

Nya being the first one to realize it isn’t real when her nightmare is reality, I’m screaming

Riyu comforting Wyldfyre <333

Nya best sister award when

Ep 4

My boys!!!!!

THE found family of all time

IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO MY CHILDREN I WILL RIOT

Seeing Kai and Nya fight so smoothly together is so special after how much they and Lloyd were tripping over each other when they first reunited

Basketball?!??!!??!!!

Autistic Arin real and true

I love Bonzle so much

Geo is such a lil bastard actually /pos, makes more sense why he and Cole are a thing, knowing Cole’s taste in men

COLE!!!!!!

Cole will never stop being overpowered, it seems, he deserves it tbh

Censorship pog /hj

“Not funny, Wyldfyre” “Not joking, Sora” the sheer cousin vibes in this interaction are too much to handle

Lloyd PLEASE just mention being 1/4 dragon, it will almost certainly get Egalt on board, I am begging

Glacier reunion!!!!!!!

Ep 5

I wanted a more emotional reunion, but they’ve probably seen each other off screen (or I’m just forgetting a scene from the shorts)

Zane, why are you still carrying that doll like it’s your child??

Bonzle my beloved, she’s says that so deadpan I don’t actually have any questions

Wyldfyre my beloved

I would die for Bonzle

Cole and Geo holding hands 😭😭😭😭😭

Is Egalt the motion source dragon?? Probably not tbh but I’d believe it

Man’s spitting facts, flatearthers are going to lose their shit

“Little fire man” IM DYING OH MY GOD

Wait when does this take place? My first instinct is while the ninja were in the Never Realm but idk if we’ll actually find out

“Friends can become like family?” “Definitely” IM SOBBING ON THE FLOOR

Letting Arin be angry is so important

Cole shutting down Bonzle’s suicidal thoughts without hesitation “no, you are loved and needed. We will find a way to protect you” <333

The physical affection in DR is so dear to me

Human sacrifices???? In MY lego show?????

Ep 6

Wyldfyre struggling with her body’s limits is really relatable as a young disabled person

FOREHEAD TOUCH :((

Plot twist: where the other ninja are right now is Mysterium and they have that tua meme of two cars passing each other moment

Damn, that exchange hit hard as a former gifted kid. Sometimes having someone believe in you hurts. You’re not just letting yourself down, but them, too

Nya just fucking bodyslamming Kai, Egalt didn’t know what he was getting into pitting the world’s most competitive siblings against each other

“The Finders are like my family” *looks at Zane* “My other family” screaming, crying, sobbing on the floor

Oh no

Wait yeah, why are they thirsty if Zane can just make ice for them to chew on? At least Cole and Jiro, idk if Bonzle needs water

The nonbinary pirate!!!

Cole CANNOT escape the performing arts fr fr

Ep 7

Bonzle is giving transgender

That is the most Jay and Cole thing I’ve ever heard it, it’s so in character it almost feels out of character

Arin and Sora going through the exact same thing and trying and failing to not take it out on each other :( it’s ok tho, the real ones are the ones you can be snippy with and love regardless

Wyldfyre referring to the ninja as “Kai’s friends” honey, they’re your friends too, I promise

Anyone who calls Wyldfyre dumb can fuck off, she’s so perceptive and intelligent and is really good at connecting others when she truly wants to

Bonzle’s mom <33333

Bonzle’s smile when her mom compliments her name <3333

Who you calling stolen equipment bitch?????

Lil Kai and Nya!!!!!!

Nya’s so proud of him!!!!! I could cry

Kai being the first to achieve it because fire is an element under motion’s domain methinks

Oh you bigoted son of a bitch

Zane why are you considering it????? Honey

What the fuck did you do to Jiro??!?!!!

JAY?!?!!???

Ep 8

NOOOO 😭😭😭

There’s literally a nindroid agent right there????

The og musical cue playing when Jay comes back <3

Jay on his Euphrasia arc, this is highkey breaking my heart though

I’m counting this as a fakeout death and you can’t stop me

Are you kidding me???!!!? How many times is Jay going to be one room away from the ninja

Lloyd SHUT UP /aff

“And cursed!!” She says cheerfully, this lady is an icon

The subtitles keep calling Cole Kai, what is this, season one??

Ep 9

Aww, baby Ras (trying desperately to not care about him)

Oh ok, he’s making my job easier

Poor Wyldfyre :(

I love this trio so much, their banter is so good

Lloyd honey, fighting it is making it worse

Nya holding him through his panic attack :((

I was expecting Cole to deny that it was him, the earth is going through it

The disco toaster!!!!!

Heck yeah Riyu!!!

I love them so much it’s not even funny

“What’s your elemental power, imperviousness to sarcasm?” She just called him autistic in 13 languages (I’m autistic, dw guys)

“First time driving?” “Believe it or not, no” Bonzle and Arin my beloved

I’m a touch disappointed Wyldfyre’s perfectly fine now as someone with chronic pain, but I’m glad it was handled as well as it was and it’s a really important lesson for younger audiences that pushing your body while it’s in pain only makes it worse

The silent exchange of Cole suggesting Zane takes the parrot potion is endlessly funny but also sad considering it’s probably the closest well get to talking about the Falcon

Cole turning into a puppy who cheered?!???

“At least you’re adorable” “I’m always adorable” get a room /aff

Tournament of elements flashbacks

The workplace gossip omg, Cinder really out here beefing with a 16 year old

Don’t you even fucking dare

MY BABIESSSSSS

Ep 10

Arin mistaking Lloyd and Nya for his parents hurts :(

Oh no… I mean, it was obviously coming but it’s still very bad

WYLDFYRE POPPING OFF!!!!! THIS GIRL NEEDED HER ENRICHMENT

Let Euphrasia do stuff 2024

Wyldfyre jumping in front of Kai and protecting him

The basketball practice coming in handy lol

The fight cinematography in DR is fucking superb

KAI D: (he’ll be fine, I believe)

Nya!!!!!

BONZLE MVP!!!!

I was prepared for Rontu and Egalt to stay dead, the breath I let out when the stone cracked was unparalleled

Are we legit not getting Kai back????

Cole and Lloyd hug!!!!!

RAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH

Oh no… that lie is going to hurt when it comes out

Kai and Bonzle!!!!

Not like Master Wu says, like Lloyd says ;-; /pos

[rhythmic-idealist]

Most of the most important feelings I feel are ones that 98% of humanity doesn’t relate to. I don’t talk about them, I don’t write about them, I didn’t realize that I wasn’t doing either necessarily.

When I was in middle school I started having a persistent fear that I might not be perceiving the universe accurately—that I have no proof of that. It was this fear that when I was speaking to people, I’m saying nonsense that doesn’t actually respond to their question. The fear takes different shapes- the most common version is that I’m sitting in some kind of hospital chair with my family—the same family I perceive in this universe, always, that’s never in any doubt—begging me to understand them, or else just talking to me and trying to be okay with how I’ll never respond back sensibly, how my coma-world seems to be one I’m having an okay time in and feeling important in. At other times the fear is just that I’m navigating my everyday life as I see it, but I’m speaking nonsense, sometimes or often, and people are just humoring me.

It only recently occurred to me that one of the biggest reasons I’m so afraid of this might be because I’m autistic and so often HAVE been perceived as not saying something that makes sense. Or I get tired and say something that doesn’t make sense. Something I’m coming to terms with is that I’m kind of out of it and slow and have been my whole life and we’ve never really named that, so I’ve felt like any fear of it is some doing something big and irrational.

But it also has inflated to something big and irrational. I fear that I’m going to completely stop understanding. I fear that I’m going to drift off the face of this earth, and never be able to come back—and my loved ones will never be able to reel me back. I fear this even as I hold down a job and remain very functional in very many areas of my everyday life.

There’s art I don’t make because what would it do except trigger someone else’s OCD or other thing? What would it do except give someone else a new compulsion or new paranoia?

One story I want to write over and over and over again is about two teenagers, or two people any age, and one is talking the other down from suicide. It almost always rings hollow because I don’t write down any of the real reasons. It’s not because I need to reason it out now, it’s because I want to parse and process out the same story that happened to me over and over and over again, but I haven’t written it with the reasons since I lost the safety of anonymity and my internet anonymity has quickly become another person who people get to know and so she can’t carry it either.

I live with my partners now and so who am I supposed to tell secrets to? (Them, of course. But we messaged for years mostly on Tumblr—that’s why I’m publishing this where they can see it.)

[airlock]

supposed to be asleep; instead thinking about what it is we really mean when we say Neurotypical and Neurodivergent

I remember mentioning those terms to a former therapist of mine (who I stopped seeing for amicable reasons, not because he was bad or anything like that), and him always finding them strange, and saying that he doesn't think there's anyone out there who would actually fit the description of Neurotypical. at the time I kinda thought he was full of it, but lately I feel I've been starting to understand what he was onto.

(something to clarify on those statements. some of you might be thinking, wait, you really had to explain to a practicing therapist what "neurotypical" and "neurodivergent" are? and others of you might be thinking, wait, how could you possibly think that your therapist, who unlike you has a degree, might have been full of it? so let me clarify on both of these fronts in one fell swoop. I've studied psychology myself for a good long while, and one thing I learned doing so is that staggeringly little of the field is actually about neurodivergent people, and what little is, rarely ever says things that are serious and sensible about them -- seriously, you would not believe the type of ignorant shit I've heard out of students and professors alike. makes it quite strange that as a society we're so stiff on the assertion that they're the sole rightful authority on neurodivergent people, no?)

the thing about it is that I'm really not quite sure I've ever met an actual neurotypical person in my life. and I know, I'm extremely online, of course the people that I hang out with are overwhelmingly depressed autistic types -- but I'm talking about more than that. I'm talking about, say, how, when earlier this year a clinician was explaining my ADHD diagnosis to me and my mother, she was seeing herself in every symptom described but also begging the clinician not to diagnose her with nothing. and y'know -- ADHD is thought to typically be genetic in nature, isn't it?

and y'know, most people are more like my mother, stubbornly refusing the idea that they might be different in some way, than like me, earnestly trying to figure out who I am, what my limitations are, and how I can live with them.

how many people are there who would seriously self-identify as Neurotypical? people who care about the distinction are overwhelmingly neurodivergent. and if Neurotypical is only ever other people, then, how do I really know that someone actually is that -- am I just assuming, when I talk to them?

and again to be clear, I'm not thinking of my obviously neurodivergent internet friends when I'm talking about this. I'm thinking about family members, I'm thinking about people I went to school with, I'm even thinking about the ones who bullied me in there. do I really know, for a fact, that any of these people are Neurotypical? if I think about it long and hard, is there not a single thing that they do that I could possibly spin into diagnosis? do I know that they don't fit in with not just not a single one of the conditions that people talk about a lot, but also with every page in the DSM? do I know, or is Neurotypical just some chimera that I'm forced to assume perhaps exists somewhere out there?

is Neurotypical like gender biology, inasmuch as not even cis people ever fit perfectly into the checklist of things that are supposed to signify a certain gender or another, much less trans people?

so I then asked myself: if I had the power to take those words two, Neurotypical and Neurodivergent, and put them up on the shelf forevermore, never to be used again -- what, if anything, would that change? would there be any experiences that can no longer be described? would anything be lost?

I came to a conclusion, in the end. and it's that, while there doesn't seem to be anyone who can aptly be described as Neurotypical, there most certainly are people who are Neurodivergent. but it's not because of the definition given -- it's not merely because some diagnosis or another described them aptly. it's because there are some people in this world who, directly or indirectly, knowingly or not on the part of their oppressors, have been othered because of their minds.

or perhaps I should say -- consistently othered because of their minds. because every once in a while, everyone puts other people up in a box that's labeled "this person does not think human thoughts in the way that I do". I don't understand how someone could be so stupid in traffic; I don't understand how someone could be so rude to a stranger; I don't understand how someone could commit murder -- things like that. but not everyone gets their lives shaped by people constantly, continuously coming to that conclusion about them, and often from a position of power.

it's really a lot like race, in a sense. race is not a concrete, material fact whatsoever. the racial role that a person is made to play can vary greatly with the context. but racism is nonetheless pervasive enough that it would be silly to tell people that race doesn't Exist in any sense. it may be a fickle, imaterial idea, but it's one that impacts people's lives for better or for worse time and time and time and time again.

similarly, it may be the best way to draw the line between Neurodivergent and Neurotypical isn't to draw the line between having or not having mental conditions, but to draw the line between people who are or are not othered because of their mental conditions.

not, mind you, that it would ever be as simple as redefining those words (or coming up with new ones) and then rigidly adhering to that definition.

firstly, because I imagine that the reason why we drew the line where it presently is, is so that no one has to play Oppression Olympics for the right to identify as Neurodivergent. I must surmise that moving it from that spot always carries the risk of inviting people to practice all sorts of disingenious gatekeeping about what does or doesn't count as a Neurodivergent Experience.

secondly, because it can be so tenuous anyway to settle on what is or isn't exactly being othered for mental conditions. we know that someone who knows of your diagnoses dropping an r-slur on you would be unambiguously that, but what about, say, all the ways that bullying kids for "being weird" often surgically targets autistic people, while seldom coming from people who do realize that the people they're targeting are in fact autistic?

and thirdly, because of how contextual these things can be. like, in school I've always been the Other because of my mind, but when I'm posting shit here on Tumblr, I'm really just one of yall, am I not? and sure, here we're all deranged weirdos anyway, but like -- are anxiety disorders more "normal" in a group of ambulance drivers than in a group of bored socialites? is depression more "normal" in a group of social workers than in a group of athletes? is autism more "normal" in IT than in a marketing studio?

so at the end of the day there are still a lot of open-ended questions I'm beholding here, but the one thing I feel I can take away for sure from these ruminations is that Neurotypical, in the way we've defined it, is almost certainly a chimera.

[tiphprince]

Coded doesn’t actually mean that person thinks they are a women or a wife or the sun or whatever it’s literally just about symbolism (a pretty big part of literature), or more of a gen z way of talking about symbolism. Like someone can say a character is queer coded because the struggles they face is a great metaphor for the queer experience even if the character appears straight in canon.

I know that Snape being described by some as "woman/feminine coded" doesn't mean that the person thinks that Snape is actually a woman. When I said "(wands are dicks, cauldrons are vaginas, Snape loves cauldrons, therefore he's a woman...?????)" it was an exaggeration to illustrate how ridiculous this argument sounds to me, it was not intended to be taken as me iterally saying that they think Snape is literally a woman.

I don't agree about it being a Gen-Z way of talking about symbolism, character being "coded" has existed for a very long time, it's just the internet doing its thing and taking one word with one specific meaning and then stretching this meaning so far that it stops actually meaning that first thing (I'm starting to confuse myself here...).

The thing is that, a character being "x-coded" is, as is used in the fandom, just a way to "officialise" an interpretation.

Saying "I like thinking that [x] character doing [y] or talking like [z] means that they're autistic, so that's what I headcanon them as" and "[x] is autism-coded, here's why:" are perceived very differently.

One is clearly a personal interpretation made by one person based on their own experiences and what they want and/or enjoy in fiction, for example seeing more representation of neurodivergent people, the other is written as an attempt to convince people that what they think is truth and fact.

The famous post about Snape being "feminine coded" (though in defense of the OP they were talking about "insufficient masculinity" which is very much not the same thing at all) has many points that several people added to, and frankly... so many of them make zero sense at all.

The post I replied to earlier says:

He is also wifecoded. He pretty much sells his soul to that man in power, begging on hands and knees for his help, to save his best friend. And having to serve him for the rest of his life in return.

Am I the only one who thinks there's something very wrong with this? Their first argument in favor of Snape being "wifecoded" is that he begs Dumbledore on his knees for his help and agrees to serve him. Who... that's very concerning if anyone thinks that this is what wives do.

Even if I don't like the whole "coded" thing, at least it usually rests on generalities and stereotypes, but even if we were to talk about wives in the 90s, thankfully the overwhelming majority of them did not have to beg their "husband" on their hands and knees for them to agree to be served by their "wife".

If the OP had said "I headcanon Snape as being Dumbledore's wife because he obeys him and begs him and follows his orders" I would hope that more people would have had a "wow there, what the fuck" reaction, but also... who cares, headcanon Snape as a pink frog if you want, but then don't try and convince me that he's "pink frog coded".

Just like a character isn't "mothercoded" because he vowed a decade ago to protect a child he hates. That makes absolutely no sense.

[pastelcryptid]

something that I’ve personally not seen other people talk about exactly before re: Nope (despite talking in general about neurodivergency in the characters, some offhand jokes about being gender non-conforming) is that

as someone who loves a lot of action movies, save-the-world movies I am very aware on some level when I watch those films  (I mean, movies in general are like this but especially those genres) that they are taken up by (white, cis, straight) men. And as much as I might love those movies and the characters and the tropes, there is a fatigue that comes with experiencing such a high percentage of films where the cast is dominated by men. Sometimes there might be only one woman in the main cast, and you’re lucky if she’s treated well (this is obviously improving slowly), to say nothing of NB people. However, I noticed at some point that, huh, Nope is still a majority male cast. Yet I don’t feel that fatigue when I watch the movie. Why? 

Of what I consider to be the key players, four are men  - OJ, Angel, Jupe/Ricky and Antlers. Even with Otis Sr., who has about 3 minutes of screen time, he is a figure that looms large over the story. He established the ranch, its reputation (that in itself inspired by his great-great grandfather).

Apart from Emerald (appropriately named as she is a fucking gem) there are only a few female speaking parts in the film and they get a handful of lines. I would say that the most important women in the film aside from Em, in terms of how they fit into the themes of the movie, are Amber Park and Mary Jo Elliott. Amber has doesn’t have a huge part, and then she dies horribly. You could say Mary Jo also doesn’t have many lines but actually, when I was writing this I realised... Mary Jo doesn’t have any. The only time we hear her speak is when she’s saying Haley’s lines, the rest is barely intelligible begging as she’s brutalised. Adult Mary Jo never says a word, and then she also dies horribly. She never gets to speak for herself, Jupe takes all the attention, and she is consumed. This obviously fits into the whole thing, and I feel like you could write a tonne about Mary Jo alone, but this isn’t what I came to talk about exactly.

so, if it’s so male-heavy, why does it almost not feel that way? I think one of the most interesting things about this film, and something I love about it, is that it has such varied, interesting portrayals  of masculinity. Even in their mildly problematic to incredibly reprehensible moments, the men in this movie do not feel like cookie cutter sticks of bravado. The same ones we have been exposed to decade after decade, especially in Westerns.

firstly, you have OJ. I’m not saying anything new in talking about the fact that he is very spectrum-coded. He dislikes eye contact, finds it hard to pick up on social cues, he comes across as awkward or blunt to those who don’t know him well, likes his routine, and prefers to spend his time alone, working with the horses. He’s also speaks very little, in fact as a side bar, I would say Daniel Kaluuya has made quiet characters into an art form. He has played many roles that are not loud, or overly talkative, and yet they all feel incredibly distinct from one another.

I also find it important to note that another very good post by tumblr user @soupbi​ pointed out that, while I consider the autistic tones to OJ’s personality to be undeniable, there is a history of Black men having to avoid eye contact with white people in order to protect themselves from racist abuse/murder. I’d say this definitely factors in during the commercial shoot, particularly given Bonnie’s reaction to his name and everyone’s general rudeness to him that can’t be handwaved as general “well everyone in LA is rude af”. OJ’s Blackness is also relevant because his presence is not just another example of white masculinity and heroism. OJ is a hero, but he is allowed to be one not in spite of his lack of - for a better term - conformity, but because of it. His family’s place in film history is intertwined with Black history. His knowledge, his care, his skill, his love, his reluctance to Look, are all things that help to figure out how to deal with Jean Jacket, and keep his sister safe. And despite his difficulty relating to others, he accepts Angel pretty easily despite the fact that Angel has incredibly contrasting traits.

So then you have Angel. Again, not another white dude. I think if he had been played by one, he would’ve been danger of coming off a bit creepy/incel. Angel does have some tendencies that are more in line with what you might expect from a typical tech/conspiracy guy in these movies - griping about his ex-girlfriend in the beginning, referencing the whole “probes up our asses” obsession that so many people seem to have with UFOs (that I have always felt comes from a similar place of fear to prison rape jokes because... why is that such a common thread in invasion stories/theories?), and apparently he mines cryptocurrency based on something he has in his apartment?? I don’t know shit about mining crypto and I don’t want to, but anyway.

All this to say, when you get down to it Angel is a socially awkward guy with a lot of fear played with incredible depth by Brandon Perea (we all know how much the movie got edited to accommodate his revamped character). A lot of scenes in the movie involve him being visibly and verbally scared. Incidentally, maybe the line of his I find most charming is when he goes off about forgetting to do the feed for Antlers’ camera because he was busy rigging the sky dancers and then says “Sorry. I’m scared.” Taking responsibility for his outburst, admitting his fear. And while he isn’t exactly avoiding attention, he is one of the characters that seems most disparaging of fame. Most explicitly in the dinner scene near the end where he essentially says, “we’re doing this for more than just fame, right? We’re doing it to help people?” He is also visibly more disturbed by Antlers death than him potentially sabotaging their efforts to film. He takes OJ and Em in very easily despite his tinyass apartment. He’s an emotional, fearful guy. But he’s also allowed to be smart, loyal, and ultimately indispensable.

So then you have Jupe. I’ve seen it stated that Jesse Plemons was actually Jordan’s first choice for this role, but had scheduling conflicts. I don’t know at what point in the negotiations it was established he couldn’t participate, but I feel as though this makes a lot of sense when you look at the way Jupe is written and his background. If only because Jordan addresses the role that race plays in all his movies, and yet I feel as though Jupe’s identity as a Korean-American is not addressed as heavily as you’d expect - especially in a story that’s about fame, conformity, fetishisation and the consumption of other people’s trauma and personal lives. There are references, obviously, but it makes a lot of sense if you imagine it was written for a white man.

That being said, I think this works very well in a way that may not have been 100% intentional. For starters, Ricky isn’t even known by his name, he’s goes by the name of his most famous character in an attempt to hold onto the fame he achieved through Kid Sheriff. We know very little about Ricky Park as a person, and it seems as though there is a black hole between Gordy’s Home and Jupiter’s Claim. I’m kind of reminded of Ke Huy Quan and how after Indiana Jones and The Goonies he spent decades largely off-camera (and at one time used a different name because of racism) until Crazy Rich Asians inspired him to return to acting, as he didn’t think there was place for him (I recommend listening to his episode on the podcast Feeling Seen).

When you take into account Jupe’s presence on the sitcom, I know there are American shows like Diff’rent Strokes and Webster which involved white families adopting Black children and that was a key element of the show (I’m English and I’ve never seen those shows come up on British channels let alone watched them, but I looked them both up on Youtube and I noticed the living room in Webster looks very similar to the one in Gordy’s Home). So you have the complexities of that at play. I don’t know enough about this and I don’t think it’s my place to really go into it, but suffice to say you have that as a complex element in Ricky’s background. He’s mostly known for token roles and he’s had to play up to them to stay relevant. A once famous dude having unresolved trauma and a desire for  - or need for recognition through - the spotlight which eventually costs him and/or others is not new.

But I think there’s something very different about the way Steven Yeun manifests that, and manages to keep it grounded and even charming. In at least fan reaction to Ricky, it’s a pretty consistent response that we are disgusted by the way he treats the Haywoods and gets everyone at the Star Lasso Experience (including his wife and children) killed and yet we are also fascinated and even endeared to him. He’s not the guy punching holes in the wall, or refusing to open up to his wife, or going around stabbing people to death. He’s an Icarus, and we see his vulnerability. We were under the dinner table with him, we were there when he was alone with his wife, and we were with him as he stared into Jean Jacket and knew he was about to die. This isn’t meant to be a defense of his actions, obviously, just an observation about how he is presented as a man, especially one who literally cosplays as a cowboy (while he feeds the horses of the real cowboys to a flying saucer).

And then finally, you have Antlers. Antlers is the character I feel I least sympathise with and least understand, which is a personal thing (I’ll be interested to see what the Bluray special features affect this actually), but I think is also tied to the fact that he is what you would expect the most, historically, from a film like this. He is an old white guy. He’s sort of the old guard of cinema, and he’s very stoic, selfish, and keeps his cards close to his chest. Not to mention he has such a typically “Western” accent it took all 5 of my watches at the cinema to parse all of his lines. On paper he is the picture of traditional masculinity… except he’s actually not the picture of traditional masculinity. In every scene, he’s either wearing a dress or a skirt of some kind, and the bracelet on his wrist even goes against what you would consider traditional masculine jewellery. If he was a young man, the dress code might almost be read as a piss-take of “quirky” young filmmakers and thereby making a derogatory statement re: AMAB people who wear gender non confirming clothes. But this is a much older man who is clearly making a choice of expression and comfort. It’s not extravagant – in fact on my first watch I didn’t even realise Antlers was wearing a skirt.

All this to say, it’s incredibly interesting to have such diversity in storytelling and representation of gender through it, and that it doesn’t always come down to “there should be more women in this.”

Anyway guys did you notice there’s a big cloud mural on the wall in the Fry’s store? This movie is batshit

[darkobssessions]

Social Skills news flash/alert/realisation

Not building rapport or being able to go deeper with someone you just met, or even more crucial, someone you just met and moved in with, has dire consequences on the isolation scale, but also lifelong discrimination and difficulties. It's simply nightmarish to navigate.

And if there are multiple persons in that arrangement, the issue further compounds. There are so many unspoken rules and hidden things that hold certain spaces together, especially spaces that are unsafe to mask in, such as, the public eye, in public, openly to people you just met or have just begun living with, to abusive parents, to a previously undisclosed monster you are dating, to government officials.

What spell are you under?

I do not want to be willingly vulnerable but masking is exhausting, masking is taxing I want to be free to speak my mind, to truly speak my mind Most people do not understand my words when I unleash on the real unmasked talk of what I feel and sense, real dreams, real visions, so much high talk that people tune out and can't listen, I've been asked to change the subject so so many times, been told that was a cool party trick can we get back to the party?

Others have stood awestruck asked me to slow down, save it for later, possibly keep it a bit more quiet because I'm getting excitable and definitely not loud enough for the neighbours to hear please.

I keep it quiet and I keep it small.

But the world's a stage And I'm at the age where I was 28 for 2 years, our mind just decided I was 28 for 2 years and I realised I'm turning 30 this year I'm at the cusp of luminance But that neccessitates that I have to die the darkest deaths and bleed so loud and strong and for long. this life is too sweet, too fleeting, too deep, too meaningful, to meaningless, cruel and hard and dark and bitter and unfair, sweet and breezy and a whole fucking ride

you've loved, you've lost you've begged, you've prayed you've bled, you've played, you've trusted and got busted

sometimes replaying an entire loop your life is cycles and you can feel it and observe as it does that, and no matter how hard you try, you can't get out of that cycle they don't give you conventional 'medicine' and by medicine i mean wisdom

they have got medicine for you, but I'm afraid the only way that it is a cure is by means of eradicating your sensation of it being an endless cycle or simulation or worse and deeper and darker, and bolder and bigger and brighter- all the same you;ve got an endless antenna unto that world, so you don't take the pills.

It's just something that numbs. And dealing with all that numbness dumbs down, and I use dumb in the same way dampen, for instance something cushioning a heavy flow, or suppressing the sound from an instrument. I've been called dumb and insinuated stupid for quite some time now. Whereas before there was just dumb awe at what I had to say, or discomfort, now, I receive all kinds of responses ranging from sheer pity to shocking loss of human decency and manners.

When you get yelled at by a 40 year old woman on her property in the jungle and she's German American and you're Palestinian-Syrian/American and she's trying to make you feel like a 5 year old, in fron of other volunteers, then you don't really feel 5 years old, you feel very affronted that is what passes for social engagement as an adult with the world as an autistic woman, worse off than the men for many objective reasons like being foreign, naive in more specific and dangerous ways, unlikley to express distress or alert anybody to being afraid or unwilling to engage with something, more likely to hide the results of such ecounters gone wrong, more likely to suffer in silence and act out in more nad more extreme ways, but always directed at herself. This individual didn't get the support that she needed to navigate the world in a way that worked. She was sheltered, she was abused and she had very little emotional support and guidance. She absorbed everything from her environment from the moment of her conception, taking in the milky waves of discord and distress and abuse, weaving a picture of a vessel to take her body side. She succeeded to survive the next 29 years and 5 months and 13 days.

i will blame myself too for driving frantically to my intro to pole class with an amazing instructor I met last time who made me feel seen and supported and was able to guide me through different exercises. and also allowed me the space to experiment, not overcautioning me often about things to know or do as a beginner. Dreading leaving the house well in advance of the day of, and finally having a breakdown the day it arrived. Too tired, too foggy, too spaced out, too apathetic and numb and don't care, and please no more of that, no more of anything please, just nothing, nothing more, kindly no, no sir, not today, not anymore, not this, not now, JUST ABOUT ENOUGH I SAID.

And proceeded to slap on a sizeable amount of more of that stuff for myself by masking and pretending and generally prancing around unable to be seen by individuals that very much give me the vibe of we will be onto you if you tell us all your secrets but a. they very infrequently express any interest in what it is I am saying, making me feel like just trailing off into nothingess, they do not ask any follow up questions about statments I make in regards to be autistic or listing out of any difficulties, I hear 'you're fine' a lot and it is starting to make my head hurt a little. Like actually, no I'm not. Can we stop pretending, and also it's because I can't be my damn self in this room without making an energetic cringe the size of a continent My whole solo universe is full of these instances and I am at a loss what my interactions are doing to the people around me that puts up such a wall or parades ignorance about opics which, well, that might be the point actually. Not knowing about these things and thus projecting their own ideas or misconceptions? Anyway the whole thing is just a mess because it's not leading to infantilisation (which would be worse) but still nobody is being blunt and direct about their feelings and what they mean and what they're saying. I want this thing to change because, ever tired of the insect in a glass phenomena, want to step through the looking glass, part the veil and come out onto the stage to say my piece because I swear, that vision has been with me since time immemorial. The one I have and the other one closely related depict a very ecstatic dance of life upon a stage facing all forebearers and factions and creator and created observing the life of the one, wi7da, who unfurled herself for all of time so that she may experience what each synapse feels as it connects with another, a divsion so expansive she could find herself widely across it in many different ways and with many different people. Many different people at once, and I mean in the feeling of oneness with all of the cosmos to tell all these stories takes time, but she dances in ecstasy as if all that exists for her is one endless moment.

Time to step out soon, and maybe now to aid in that I'll actually deliver the nugget of information I promised at the beginning of this whole thing. The social skill that I could certainly use more of and am so glad I have just learned about is called the hello good morning good night trick. Without the overforced hellos and how are yous the barista certainly feels that you are not normal and feels taken advantage of (*courtesy of my sister who I am pretty didn't read that right either. I mean she says she felt embarrased being out with me so that's another development in the younger sibling department who's been living her own life for the last 6 years and also my best friend and biggest supporter. not living together and me realising about my autism about 2 years ago, and subsequently unmasking, is making me incomprehensible to her I'm afraid, and this is deep sarcasm. She actually told me that she saw the exact moment the barista shut down and she shot her a knowing glance to as if to say, yeah, I'm over here with stupid, I know how you feel and I apologse for the inconvenience. That shit stung, there's not sugarcoating that!). So with even more specificity, within the US there is a strong friendliness, greetings and customary how are yous culture. If you don't say those generally in the public, you are viewed as much more ostile. Haven't got the statistic for you right now, but I am sure it exists.

In what could be closer relationships, like people you just move in with, if they are also from the place you have just moved to, and even if they are not, it just depends on how tight knit their group, what pressures they are under or are exerting and whether or not they are interested. I've found here, things are prevented from going deeper by something as simple as you not being able to gather that every night at a certain time, obviously, it is bedtime. And they disappear on and up to their rooms. The day ends, days begin, people come in from places, they have routines too. If you don't ask about them or greet them good morning, or wish them a good night, they simply either think you are unfriendly or never get the opirtunity to go deeper with you. The question of whether they even want to go deeper is yet to be decided, it is a no as it stands now. I don't know that anything ever makes me close to my true self except standing before a room and teaching and being in the intimate space of the divine things are getting quite tedious I am awaiting my chariot outside the front door It's said in jest but seriously, please, where is the uplevel button that allows me to drive and navigate and succeed and arrive and engage and manage and function well in such a place? I think I don't want to fnction INSIDE of it.

I say I want to create a new one.

[vergess]

What truly bothers me is that in the "system" as the lot of anyone I hear call it, has spawned all of us at the root of it from such a streamlined ideology that we are all 'raised' one way or another for some bare minimum family social system at least, even me. And even through all that familiarity, my shrewd antithesis to it all still stems as much as anyone else. And the hypocrisy of it all as I even exist kills me on the inside. If anything, I always wanted more of a 'choice' .

Hi, Steve. Are you Steve? I'm going to assume that you're Steve, since you're exhibiting very Steve-like behaviors. If you're not Steve and the real Steve is mad that I'm attributing Steve-ness to someone else, well: I'm genuinely sorry, Steve. However, if you didn't want to be associated with "acting like a creepy freak-ass loser", you'll have to forgive me for doing so since you've been behaving like that for ten years - obsessive screeds about Vees are basically your calling card, so you can't fault me for succumbing to pattern recognition. 

Anyway. Regardless of if you're actually Steve or not, I'm going to call you Steve for the sake of convenience since you're being very Steveular. So, again: Hi, Steve. It's Kith! I have hijacked Vees' blog to tell you a story.

Here's the soundtrack for our tale:

Not for any particular reason, mind you, I just like the song.

Once upon a time, I was an autistic nerd in middle school that had recently moved from the faraway land of Sicily to reside in the exotic locale of Florida. There, I met Girl. She was an amazing artist, smart as hell, and extremely attractive to me - on my end, it was love at first sight. As I grew through highschool, I did everything in my power to be with or around Girl: I talked to her at every opportunity, I studied the things she was interested in so we could have deeper conversations, I begged teachers to pair me with her, and I tried to impress her whenever I could, however I could. We became close friends, but Girl was never interested in me romantically (or if she was, she never admitted it). 

During college, I finally realized that romance just wasn't in the cards: while Girl appreciated my dedication and support, she loved me platonically, so I let go. However, while I consciously decided to quit my pursuit, the subconscious feelings that I had for Girl remained: since Girl had set my standards for romantic partners and because I had been so dedicated to the idea of being with her for so long, Girl frequently appeared in my dreams to remind me of just how much I had loved her at the height of my infatuation. This continued for many years, even after I had found true love elsewhere.

The thing is: I never told Girl any of this. As a matter of fact, I haven't spoken to Girl in eight years. The reason for that is because, despite my subconscious's best efforts, I have moved on. I accepted that she was not going to be my partner over a decade ago, which allowed me to pursue other opportunities instead of obsessing over someone that did not want me. The dreams sucked because I'm a hopeless romantic and falling in love all over again was hard to wake up from, but I realized that they were just dreams and discarded them. Nowadays, I am happily married, I make videogames for a living, and I have a variety of strong relationships - some platonic, some intimate - with people that I care for deeply. Vees happens to be one of those people, which is why I was granted access to their blog.

Now, Steve. This whole thing where you send Vees unhinged paragraphs about your feelings and pain and how you view the world? You so obviously want to be their friend that you look stupid. You reek of desperation to become more than a weird footnote of their life and actually enter their orbit somehow. However, the most you're getting is mockery, confusion, and occasionally contempt. Since you certainly don't have the self-awareness to realize this on your own (because if you did, you would not have put your absurd essays in Vees' inbox), I am going to spell it out for you as plainly as possible:

It is time to move on. 

Whatever you had hoped to accomplish has failed. We never read the entirety of your messages because your word salads never go anywhere meaningful. Your commitment to the bit is impressive, but that's absolutely not praise: it's a depressing level of obsession that made me feel so much secondhand embarrassment that I was forced to reach out to you with this deeply personal story, just in case there was the slightest chance that you would learn from it, and maybe do literally anything else.

But if that's not enough, you can also bite the knife of harsh, unforgiving reality.

You are a cuckold of your own making, and every instant that you pine for relevancy in their life, you cuck yourself further. You might know facts about Vees from your relentless stalking, but you will never know them personally or even privately. You might know what it sounds like when Vees laughs, but you'll never know what it's like to make them crack up from one of your stupid jokes. You might know what Vees looks like, but you will never see them smile just because they saw you. You might know the things Vees likes to do, but you'll never be eagerly invited to something just because they like having you around. You might read Vees' blog every day in hopes of finding a shred of recognition, but you'll never be trusted so much that they'll give you the keys to it without a second thought because you asked on a whim. You might know how many intimate connections Vees enjoys, but you'll never be one of them.

You will never be Vees' friend. They don't want to know you, and really, they don't even want to think about you - every time the subject of Steve comes up, they react with disgust and exhaustion. Vees and everyone they associate with are tired of you. You're not a menace, you're not a brilliant dark mind, and you're not important. You're an idiot, an asshole, and a creep, and the most we that we spare you whenever you pop up is mild shock that you still haven't gotten your shit together (or, if you're not Steve, that you're so Mad On The Internet that you just couldn't help but write weird nastygrams). 

You have no hope of being anything more than the occasional pathetic spectacle. It's time that you realized that, and it's also time that you stop.

Goodbye, Steve. I hope we don't have to do this again.

- Kith

(Special guest post written by my moirail, because sometimes you just have to cut loose and ask your spiritual bestie to slag off an asshole for you. --Vees)

[traumasurvivorshelpingsurvivors]

looking for: support, validation, reassurance

tw: sibling abuse (?)

I’m writing this at 3 am trying to figure out if I’m crazy. I can’t tell if I love my brother or not. Most of the time we have a fairly normal sibling relationship I guess but then there are times he is completely awful.

I have to preface this with the fact that my older brother has ADHD, autism, and is currently on anti psychotics for mood. Most of the times when something like this has happened it’s been when he doesn’t take his meds. He gets unbearable when he doesn’t take his adderall, and i understand but it honestly feels like he annoys me on purpose.

He does things, i tell him to stop, he keeps doing it, I tell him more forcefully, he keeps doing it. Until finally I gut so agitated that I yell at him to stop. He then proceeds to humiliate me for getting upset and calls me insane and psycho.

The only time he truly hit me was probably my fault, but he wouldn’t leave my room and when I begged him to please leave because my ears hurt from an infection he mocked and humiliated me. I got angry and jumped at him. He then proceeded to hit me across the side of the head so hard I ended up with a swollen eye with visible broken capillaries around it.

The other two incidents after only really involved threats. This is also probably my fault, but he was making a root beer float and I took a sip of it (what I feel is normal sibling type behavior) he reacted by yelling and repeatedly hitting my arm. I walked away and he said that he wished he could snap my spine in half. I, stupidly, made a snide response in defense causing him to run over with a baking sheet and pull back like he was going to hit me over the head.

the final thing happened earlier today, and is the reason I’m writing this. He was constantly being annoying today and while I was trying to practice my bass he kept murmuring music making it impossible to concentrate. I told him to stop, he didn’t. I was fed up from the rest of the day and shouted at him. He then got up and mockingly screamed at me and fake punched me. Except I didn’t realize he was faking it so I put my hand up to protect my face and he accidentally hit that. He then made fun of me for being scared of him hitting me and faked punching me a few more times before walking away.

every time something like this happens it leaves me in a chokehold of fear. It’s completely irrational but I sit frozen and silent scared that if he hears or sees me he will attack me. I’ve overheard him laughing at something multiple times after an incident, like it didn’t even occur or affect him.

he only ever goes this far when my mom isn’t home. I’ve told my parents but I’m not sure what they can do about it. My brother is almost 20, unemployed, and doesn’t do anything to contribute around the house. My mom doesn’t want to have to kick him out but sometimes I just don’t feel safe.

I hope this wasn’t too long but I really had to share this with someone. I was always too afraid to talk to my school counselor about him because I didn’t want to ruin her view of him so I haven’t had a lot of advice.

thank you so much- scared sister

Hi scared sister,

I'm so sorry to hear about what's been happening. Please know that you're not crazy, and your brother's behavior is unacceptable.

It's common and understandable to have mixed feelings about people who have harmed us, especially if we have relationships to or with them. On the one hand, he is your brother and in many ways it makes sense to love him, but on the other hand he's hurt you a lot and it's hard to figure out how to balance those two opposing things.

I don't know too much about how Adderall affects people, but in my mind, if you can have ADHD, be autistic, or miss a dose of Adderall and not be abusive, then I don't believe that any of those things have any influence on his abusive behavior. I think it's common for abusers to attribute their behavior to factors outside of their control, like the effects of medication or neurodiversity, but the truth is that abuse is a choice. When abuse is blamed on other things, it doesn't hold them accountable for their behavior, and instead says "Well he can't help it, it's really x that's to blame," and enables the behavior to continue. Abusers hate accountability, so that could be why his behavior has been chalked up to things outside of his control.

How you've described these incidents of abuse reminds me of reactive abuse, which is when the abuser works to get a rise out of their victim in order to paint them as the abuser, gaslight them, or humiliate them for their justified outburst. Also please know that none of what he's done to you is your fault, including the incident of physical abuse. Your room belongs to you and he is not entitled to it. You deserve to be listened to and respected more.

Regarding the root beer float incident, there are far healthier ways for your brother to communicate his thoughts and feelings. If he didn't want you to have a sip he could've said something like "Please ask me first next time," but instead he decided to harm and intimidate you.

I think it's important to remember that your fear is not irrational at all. Your brother has done things that make you feel physically and perhaps also emotionally threatened, and multiple experiences like that over time can exacerbate your emotions and develop trauma responses. It sounds like he's been triggering your survival mode (fight or flight, technically also fawn and freeze).

As for bringing it up with your parents, it sounds like perhaps they haven't taken your claims seriously. I'm also not too sure what they could do about it but I'm sure there are more consequences they could give him than to just kick him out.

Also please know that as far as bringing it to the attention of your school counselor, his image honestly isn't worth protecting. It's more important that people understand your brother for who he truly is, and not an image that misrepresents him as being better than he really is. You don't deserve to let this stop you from getting the counseling and support that you want.

I hope I could help. Please let us know if you need anything.

-Bun

[thirtheenprimes]

Just trying to put it into words here but:

I don't think there's anyone who cares about me the way I care about me.

Some get close, but I've still got to hide important parts of myself from them. I can't be myself, fully myself, around anyone. Maybe that's what they mean when they say that everyone knows a different you.

My grandmother knows me best out of anyone who isn't me, she knows the silly me, the autistic me - though I'm still not ready to use that word around her I doubt she'll agree or be accepting fast enough and my sense of self is so fragile despite my confidence - but she doesn't know the queer me and she is reluctant toward the liberal government-hating me.

My friends know the queer me and I think are vaguely aware of the autistic me but they aren't silly like I am. Like my grandmother is. I feel annoying and worthless when I get excited about my special interests around them. I feel like a nuisance unless they're also in the silly mood already. The friend I'm closest with (location wise and spending the most time with) I feel barely knows the non-people pleasing me at all. I feel they don't actually care about me at all, only the convenience I offer and the idea of me as an easily accessible friend.

Maybe this is normal, but it's exhausting. I don't want to have a dozen people who only know one side of me. Some of it is my fault for not being forthcoming about the parts of me I am trying to protect. Some of it is their fault for not paying attention when I try to share new parts of me. Some of it is shitty fate for all of us having so many of our own mental health problems that we don't make space to help each other (though I don't feel I am as equal in such blame. I used to put so much effort in helping those close to me when their mental health troubles were weighing them down and I have not felt anyone not ONE person help when mine weighed on me. Now I don't help them as much, I don't take that initiative because I am cynical and tired of being the first to put my troubles aside to help them and NEVER get it reciprocated so I'm willing to be selfish now).

It's exhausting. I'm tired of it.

I want to tell my grandmother I'm gay, I'm genderless, I'm asexual and aromatic, I want her to be alright with it, I want her to not make shitty comments about kids these days and however she's going to phrase it. I want to tell her I'm autistic just so I can stop censoring my language without her telling me in wrong and whatever else she's going to say.

I want to ask my friends for help once and get results because I have trauma about being persistent and being annoying and getting help but being hyper aware that I'm not worth it and the person helping me would rather be eating nails. I don't want to have to do all my own emotional work by myself. I want one of my friends to regularly come to my space without me begging because they have no idea how much I crave spending time with them and hate only doing that outside of my space.

I think I've lost my initial point, but I just really want someone to know me and give a fuck. I'm so good damn lonely.

I guess to summarize:

No one cares about me like I do and I feel so fucking lonely because of it. Mostly it's my fault for not recklessly sharing the parts of me I either suppress because I know I'm annoying or hide protectively because I am soft. I don't want to work on my trauma about being persistent about things I care about or asking for help, and I'm bitter about being intentionally ignored even though I know I'm not entitled to others doing any emotional leg work on my behalf.

[normal-with-adhd-is-a-joke]

Filming people without their consent is a massive issue of not only privacy but ableism that's been going on for many years.

It started out with filming more visibly disabled people, like high support needs autistic people having meltdowns in public and (especially fat) disabled people literally just using mobility aids, but once that was deemed less acceptable it moved to other things. Filming people acting "weird" in public. Eating weird foods. Falling asleep in weird places. Wearing weird things. Stimming. You get the idea. It's no longer safe to be visibly weird in public and that's an issue for a lot of disabled people. I recently had to lay down on the floor of a department store because I had an ME crash while out shopping. Not only did I have to worry about the normal things like people coming up to ask me if I'm ok, I also had to worry about some video of me at my lowest point, when I'm suffering immensely, being shared around as "haha look at this weird bitch on the floor". It's upsetting. It's scary.

And then there's fakeclaiming. A fun trend where people will film us in public to "prove" there's some kind of huge epidemic of people faking disability. Spoiler alert: there is not. Most of the time the people they film are real disabled people who don't fit into the expected mold for disability, usually service dog teams or people who use mobility aids who don't "look sick". And you would think this trend would be some kind of abled nonsense, but it's not. It's often other disabled people doing the fakeclaiming. Yes, there are some times when it's obvious a service dog isn't trained properly, but other than that, it's damn near impossible to tell if someone is faking a disability, and you're much more likely to target a disabled person than a faker. I'd love to say this trend was new, but it's been going on since the days of "the people of walmart" where many of the people posted were fat mobility aid users, always with the assumption that they used it because they were too fat or lazy to move on their own. In fact, the image of a fat person in a mobility cart has become almost synonymous with "lazy". It's one of the things that drove me to get my own expensive power wheelchair, to avoid the judgmental stares in the grocery store when I was just trying to exist, to avoid the fear of public shame. Even now when I stand up from my chair to walk to the bathroom stall or reach something on a high shelf, I watch the corners of my vision for that telltale phone in the air. I feel like I'm never safe from the judgemental eye of the internet, even when I'm logged off, and I'm sure I'm not the only person who feels that way.

Tik Tok, YouTube, Instagram, these places are all great for disabled people, especially those of us without access to the outside world. But it's also become a source of great anxiety for anyone who's uncontrollably "weird", mostly disabled people. Leave us alone, I'm begging you, we just want to go to the fucking grocery store in peace and safety.

Tl;dr

Stop filming people for "acting weird" or "faking a disability" in public. It's ableist, it's invasive, it's creepy, and it's humiliating. People don't exist in public for your amusement and especially not disabled people. You don't know who is disabled and who isn't no matter how many disabled people you've known or how sure you are that the person is faking.

[autismeow]

As promised, here is why I am angry at Yale University.

On December 7, 2020, Yale released a research article, where they detailed a study done on autistic 2-year-olds. I don't even think they had actually turned two yet. They did this study to find out if autistics feel fear, and how they express it. That already sounds ridiculous, right? Of course autistic people feel fear. We are human beings. In fact, we often feel fear even more intensely than neurotypical people. Why did they need this study? It's already known that autistics feel fear, and often express it differently. Any autistic person can tell you that.

But wait - that's not all. In this study, they took these autistic toddlers and put them in a room with someone who was not allowed to speak to them. They repeatedly terrified these babies with mechanical spiders, robots, and grotesque masks, giving them between 30 and 70 seconds to respond. Autistic people do not process emotional information this quickly, so they absolutely were not given adequate time to recover.

They scared them over and over, to the point that parents were begging to have their children taken out. This part I can't verify for sure, as it is something I heard from multiple other people and haven't read elsewhere, so take that with a grain of salt.

What the hell? How is this okay? How did this study even happen? Things like this have long been considered unethical. It's 2020. Not 1820. This is abuse. It is so wrong on so many levels.

Even that isn't all. Yale University has social media pages, of course. And, of course, autistic people are understandably angry at them. Many people have been asking them to speak on this. To explain why they did this. To admit they were wrong to do this. Yale has been blocking these people. I've seen multiple screenshots proving this.

As of today, I saw their Instagram has been replying to comments, giving them a link to a statement they finally made, after being battered by comments that I guess they couldn't keep up with. In this response, which I read, they reiterate the study and what was done in it, and say that the children were only experiencing mild distress. But, with breaks that short in-between scares, and the nature of the study in the first place, this still seems wrong to me. It sounds like an excuse.

Just because children would "encounter these in everyday life" doesn't mean they should have those things repeatedly thrown in their faces in the name of "science". They didn't have to use babies, who don't have any understanding of what's happening to them. And why block so many people, who are all asking valid questions? Why ignore them, only until you can't handle the criticism anymore? There are much better ways to study fear in autistic people. Especially when this information is already known.

Here is the link to the study: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/aur.2448

Here is the link to their statement: https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/29344/

Unfortunately, you have to pay to read the study. But you can read the description, and if you are in a college or university that has it in their databases, you can read it for free.

If you have Instagram, @actuallyautistictiktoks has a story highlight with videos from different people in the autistic community talking about this. At least one video shows screenshots of the paper.

As you can probably tell, I and many others are very upset about this whole situation. I don't think their response way okay or enough. They shouldn't have started with blocking people. They should have been upfront. Everything they say about it sounds like excuses to me.

Read it and interpret it however you want. You are allowed to have your opinion, and take the evidence however you want.

However, I feel strongly that this is not okay and was not handled well at all. We are allowed to be angry about it.

[jackonthelongwalk]

Eye Contact and Facial expressions between Eli/Hawk and Demetri

Okay here are my thoughts about Demetri and Hawk’s use of eye contact, facial expressions and gesturing in their communication style.

Beginning with some information on being autistic, masking and mimicking. Many autistic people will use over expression because we think that’s what Neurotypical people want, and it’s how we experience their expressions so we mimick it but it often comes out looking “too much” because we can not naturally do it.

Making eye contact (I call it hard staring because that’s often what it ends up looking like) is something often force fed to us in therapy, we are forced to make eye contact and it’s often taught as a replacement for eye contact avoidance. We are taught to use eye contact in situations where we would usually avoid eye contact it’s a tactic of trading behaviours but it often ends up looking like over intense staring.

This gif is a good example (Hawk’s trying to seem intimidating or threatening but it honestly looks a bit silly/ too much) 

One of Hawk’s most “obvious” signs of discomfort is darting his eyes around, before the major masking and mimicking comes in we see a lot of eye contact avoidance. We also see a lot of over exaggerated facial expressions (once he starts masking and mimicking) and hard staring.

But with Demetri this is not the case, Eli actually uses eye contact as one of his main forms of communication with Demetri which Demetri  reciprocates, he also frequently changes his face and the type of gesturing his does when with Demetri even after he start masking heavily. We can only assume that because of their long standing friendship they’ve had a long time to develop a level of comfort and understanding that can be quite difficult for a lot of autistic people to share with someone.

Now let’s break some scenes down

First we have the lunch table scene, Eli communicates during this scene that he’s interested and attentive to what Demetri is saying (he also could be avoid eye contact with Miguel) by looking at him and holding eye contact while he tells his jokes as well as giving that soft Eli smile.

Demetri reciprocates this by giving Eli a lot of expressive eye contact he also uses a lot of gesturing to emphasize his point (he does a lot of gesturing in general but it seems a little more extra in this scene with Eli to emphasize that he’s being sarcastic in his joke) 

Gif by @miguelsc

Next let’s talk about the dojo scene, Johnny’s making fun of Eli in quite a fucked up way and Eli’s eyes are darting around incredibly uncomfortable, his shoulders are rolled inwards. When Demetri first starts talking he looks over at him immediately and I think it’s safe to say he is comforted that Demetri is saying something.

As the scene progresses and both Aisha and Miguel try to jump in Eli looks back at Demetri again and pops his jaw, Hawk does this specifically with Demetri and it communicates that he’s upset, nervous, embarrassed.

Our next scene is the park scene, both Hawk and Demetri are trying to give Miguel advice and Hawk is giving some weird Johnny mimicked advice that Demetri is finding ridiculous (which it is). Hawk giving a lot of eye contact to Demetri as well as popping his jaw again. It’s quite plain to see Hawk is upset that Demetri does not accept the “new person” he has become. When we look at the eye contact, he’s not moving his eyes away from Demetri and honestly it seems like he’s begging Demetri to be okay with and accept Hawk.

In this next eye contact scene we’ve got the fight at the mall, Hawk is upset again because of the review which I think stems from a few different sources. Starting off Hawk is extremely loyal to Miguel and Johnny he trusts them, he believes his life has been ever improved by cobra kai (which is true in some ways) and this written “attack” on Kreese could hurt the dojo which hurts Miguel and Johnny which in turn hurts Hawk. It’s also accurate to say Hawk was still holding out hope that Demetri would join Cobra Kai, the whole time he’s been asking and trying to convince Demetri and he’s really hurt that Demetri isn’t interested. This also has to do with Karate being a special interest for Hawk, Demetri usually shares/ participates in his special interests but this time he’s not as enthusiastic and that is very distressing for Hawk. So in this scene we see the first of many scenes where Hawk is conflicted and confused about his choices surrounding Demetri. Demetri makes steady eye contact with Hawk throughout this scene you can’t just look away from this, I know WHO YOU ARE he’s daring Hawk to make a choice. Demetri knows Eli better then anyone in the world, and that makes Hawk uneasy, he can’t mask completely effectively and push away who he is if there’s always someone who knows him in his truest form.

The party!!

Hawk is coming off an extremely uncomfortable situation with Moon and Piper that was very awkward and difficult for him and then Demetri appears and let’s be honest Hawk does NOT put up much of a fight in terms of talking he caves pretty quickly and falls into a rhythm with Demetri. 

With Moon and Piper though he’s displaying all kinds of uncomfortable stimming and eye contact patterns but as soon as he’s with Demetri he’s eyes brighten up and Demetri gives him the same excited energy back, Demetri is literally always trying to engage Hawk with eye contact. Let’s also talk about how Demetri brings up a special interest for Hawk (Dr.Who) that they both love, and Hawk absolutely melts at the mention. (He’s clearly been suppressing this special interest which brings us back to, how Demetri reminds him too much of his true self.)

Next we’ve got this fucking scene which is so intense, having a full ass conversation through eye contact, it starts off with Hawk weakly threatening Demetri but he quickly dissolves into Eli behaviour and patterns when Demetri lets him know he’s not afraid of him.

Okay this is me being wild but you notice the shoulder tap here? All of you know the shoulder touch/squeeze is my headcanon comfort touch between the boys and just like in the fight scene (the trophy case one) I think this is again an instance where Demetri is letting Hawk know he’s still cares about him. The eye contact they hold after Hawk slaps him back on the chest is lingering in a very intimate way.

Gif by @soe-leo

Okay the last two eye contact scenes I’m going to look at are from the last episode. First up we’ve got the post saving Demetri scene Demetri is obviously wary of Hawk at first I mean this little asshole literally pissed in his bed for years and had the fucking audacity to break Demetri’s arm. But then of course Hawk pulls out his Eli soft doe eyes unbroken eye contact “I’m sorry man” please please forgive me Demetri and Demetri just can’t contain his damn joy that his best friend is finally ready to come back to him, his face opens quite expressively.

Here we go the final scene at the Miyagi-Do dojo. Y’all see that held eye contact before Hawk looks away and pulls his Eli smile. It’s like when they hold eye contact it’s so genuine and comfortable but with most others it’s so put on for Hawk.

These scenes are so important to their relationship, as an autistic person watching this show with my partner (who points a lot of these things out to me initially) it’s really nice to see the display of a relationship between an autistic person and the person they are most comfortable with.

[noa-nightingale]

Gay Oar!!! ✨💖 - second post

After I wrote my nerdy little text about the appearance of Oar Oar in the Mansa Musa PH ep (you can find that post here), I naturally also had to write one about Sword Oar appearing in the Smallpox ep.

I honestly should have expected him to show up sooner or later after his boyfriend already did but it still caught me off guard. ✨

I’ll use my beautiful “autisticwatcher” tag for this (and if you also have to say things about Watcher-related autism stuff or autism-related Watcher stuff, feel free to use it too). Here is an attempt to justify it even though this topic probably is not inherently autistic: a) I experience every part of life through an autistic lense and b) the ways I express joy are... let’s say, atypical.

Here’s what I mean by that (and don’t worry, this is going somewhere): I am not a very outwardly expressive person. My face is kind of neutral most of the time (you could call it resting bitch bastard face), I have a voice that is often monotonous, and I don’t like showing strong emotions.

And this is what I did when Sword Oar showed up: I sort of jerked back in my chair and clapped my hands once. Then continued watching the episode with the biggest autistic grin (i.e. with what probably looked like a mild smile from the outside). ✨

Let’s get into it! Once again, it brought me great happiness to write this, and - be warned - some of this stuff is pretty specific. And once again, I did not expect that I would spend my time writing about a sponsorship part. ^-^

Enjoy! 💖

“Okay, moving along! Oh-” - “Oar are we!” Never stop with the oar puns, please. I live for the oar puns.

I think I already talked about Oar Oar’s voice and how much I like it but Sowrd Oar’s voice is equally amazing (sometimes a bit hard to understand but I can live with that - I love that voice). I also enjoyed his soft little laugh in the beginning. It was sweet.

We get a little more info on the Professor who apparently smells like “rotten cotton candy mixed with expired vinegar” (also, the sound effect after that killed me lol). Oof. Didn’t have to expose him like that lmao. I like that Sword Oar says to the Professor “I like you but you are a smelly guy” - confirming that he indeed likes him (I have one or two headcanons about this but I am... not going to mention them here, for reasons I will write about below).

The sponsor for this episode is Scentbird, and Sword Oar starts talking about “smelling seasonally appropriate” which I like - we are transitioning into autumn, the leaves will change soon, it is almost Over the Garden Wall rewatch time (I usually start my annual rewatch in October), and I just like the autumn vibes, the thoughts of pumpkins and colorful leaves and little ghosts. It’s my favorite time of the year. 🍂

Here’s a quote from the episode: “put that light sexy summer fragrances on the shelf in exchange for a thick seductive scent for the colder months”.

Okay okay OKAY you... you can’t do this to me!! >:( I have Thoughts about this, okay? Again, I am not giving you any details here (see below) but I have one or two new ideas about Sword Oar’s and Oar Oar’s relationship, and all this talk about “sexy” and “seductive” is not helping.

Like... not to get too depressed in a post about anthropomorphic oars and a sponsorship but there was a time when it was not even legal to be gay (and that time was not that long ago) and there was a time when I did not see any happy queer representation in any media. (I had Brokeback Mountain and that movie is sad as all hell; it breaks my heart every time I watch it, it is incredibly tragic, and that was pretty much the only thing I saw happening to queer people in fiction when I was growing up - struggle, suffering and death. It does something to a queer teenager, is what I am saying. And you carry that pain into adulthood, even if things do get better.)

And then look at these oars - openly gay, openly in love and openly sexual with each other. Yes I am getting emotional about a goofy little quote in a friggin’ sponsorship part, goddamnit!! Even considering all the things that are better now, queer people still get hurt and harassed and harmed and sometimes killed for being queer, and queer sexuality is still stigmatized, and it means a lot to me to have these puppets who are just so unapologetically gay and talk openly about it.

Maybe all of this is an overreaction to a tiny little quote. But it makes me happy (and sad), and I want to talk about it. ❤️

Moving on! To more queer stuff (it is more lighthearted this time, don’t worry)! :D

He mentions not having arms or legs, and that’s the bane of my existence tbh. You probably know by now that I draw a lot of gay oars art, and I have complained before about the fact that these guys don’t have hands. Do you know how many gentle things I could draw if they had hands? You can’t lovingly hold someone’s face without hands, you can’t intertwine your fingers with them, you can’t hug them without arms. So. Yeah. The audacity! /lh

(Come to think of it, Maizey and Gebra don’t have hands either. Shane Madej, sir, I am begging you, please give your LGBTQ+ characters hands!)

Here is another quote: “Let me give you a rundown of some of the sweet sweet sniffs I’ve been dancing with thanks to Scentbird.” Ugh it sounds so charming. It’s just such a charming way to put it. 🌻

He then lists some fragrances and I especially want to mention Confessions of a Rebell - Morning After, and the quote “hot nights never smelled so good”.

I AM ASKING YOU AGAIN

WHY

WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME

And again, I won’t go into all the new headcanons and ideas and thoughts I have about these oars and here is the reason - I don’t know how many minors are following me. Like, I don’t want to make this stuff sound too lewd or crass because I think that queer sexuality is already too often seen as something “dirty” instead of something perfectly okay and natural. Still, I will keep some of my thoughts to myself. Let’s just say, I am very fond of... all of this. 😊

Annnnyyyyways, Sword Oar lists a whole lot of other stuff, and I know that he has to talk about the sponsor, but what I am getting from this is, the guy really likes his scents.

He mentions amber+leather, he mentions lavender, and he mentions Gendarme - Sky which is a “complex and sultry blend of bergamot, cardamom and aged leather”, and I now have a few more ideas about what Oar Oar smells like. (Personally, I like “masculine” scents. Wood, leather and the like.)

Watcher has a code again (you can get 30% off). ✨

The last thing I want to mention is this: “you delicious thing, you”. I am not entirely sure if he is talking to the Professor or the audience but I am okay with both. Because a) I already have a headcanon about the oars and the Professor (which I will not talk about here because, again, there are probably some minors following me) and b) ... oh to be called a “delicious thing” by an anthropomorphic gay oar. 😘

That’s it for now. I spent the better part of three hours with this and hey, if you want to do me a favor, be kind to a queer person today (and if you are any flavor of LGBTQ+, please be kind to yourself - you are wonderful). 💖

I did not mean for this whole text to be this emotional and sometimes sad but I don’t mind it either.

Thanks for reading! ✨💕

❤️ 💛 💚 💙 💜

Also, here is some of my older art. Seemed appropriate. ^-^