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edwardianmumbo · 5 months

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Verbal Terminology in Autistic Tumblr Survey Results

After quite a long while (and for that I apologise) I’ve finished the results of a survey about the descriptivist uses of the terms Nonverbal/Non-Speaking and Semiverbal/Semi-Speaking in Tumblr’s Autism Community. This survey was originally intended to cover more, and just be a fun side project that unfortunately ended up with many flaws throughout the whole process. I'll go into specifics more at the end in the “Further Notes” section!

All that to say, I heavily implore you to do your own research and listen to others outside of this survey about these terms. Admittedly I think this survey is best taken as a small peek into how a very small group of people currently use these terms, in a fun non-informational survey format. (Also this was my first time doing image ids, so well i tried my best they might be really bad and for that i apologise in advance!!)

Demographic Questions

[image id: a bar graph called “What Would You Call Yourself” with the options going top to bottom the graph says Nonverbal at 16 (3.5%), Semiverbal at 118 (25.9%), Someone Who temporarily Loses Speech or Temporarily Can’t Talk at 308 (67.7%), Verbal or At allistic Level at 171 (37.6%), and Hyperverbal at 95 (20.9%) end id]

First things first I looked at the different ways survey respondents identified personally, and at a base level we can see most people said they had varying speech levels. The next highest given types overall were Semiverbal and Speaking Autistics, with Nonverbal being the least used term among survey participants. Due to this being multiple choice I also looked at what group of responses where most common:

[image id: a bar graph of Unique Term Use Types. The highest is Temporary Only at 141 respondents. The next Highest is VT (Verbal and Temporary) at 60, followed closely by Verbal Only at 59. The rest in order of highest to lowest is Semiverbal Only at 41, ST (Semiverbal and Temporary) at 33, TH (Temporary and Hyperverbal) at 29, Other Combinations at 21, VTH (Verbal, Hyperverbal, and Temporary) at 19, Hyperverbal Only at 18, SVT and STH and VH are all tied at 8, SV (Semiverbal and Verbal) at 6, and finally Nonverbal Only at 4 respondents. end id]

This graph more clearly shows that a majority of responders would consider their verbal speech levels to change, but only a minority of that group also considers themself Semi or Non-Verbal. You can all also see how a majority of responders considered themself either as just temporarily losing speech or a combination group using the Verbal option, which highlights a potential bias in the future questions. (Also the other section is for all combinations that got under 1% of respondents individually!)

[image id: A pie chart pf praticapent’s age groups. The highest at 56% is 18-29 year olds, with 13-17 place at 38.2%. The rest have the percents cut off but in order are 30-29, Under 13, and then 40+ year olds. End id]

Most responders fell in the age ranges of 13-29. This seems to follow general Tumblr trends after a quick search, but possibly leans a few years younger then the general user base. The lack of older adults taking the survey is unfortunate as some of these terms have been around for a while, and it’s always a plus to get an all ages response on surveys like these.

[image id: A pie chart titled “Where did you find the survey”, The top choice being “Another Tumblr Blog” at 59.1%, and the 2nd “Nd Culture Is” at 37.1%. You can see the slices for “From Someone I Know” and various Other Responses in the pie chart, with the other responses blurred out in the index sheet. end id]

This graph is admittedly a bit worthless, as I made it before deciding where I was going to post the survey to, so a decent amount of people, both those who selected “Another Blog” or Other mentioned getting it straight from the og post or a reblog of it. So needless to say i wasn’t quite exact enough by what i meant in this question (which was to see how far it spread vs any bias from just my “in-group” so to say), but it does does imply that that the survey didn’t make it far from the groups I posted it in. Which is expected with how little "promoting" was done during the survey period.

NonVerbal / NonSpeaking

[image id: a multiple bar graph showcasing the correlation between how responders self identified vs how they define Nonverbal. Going from top to bottom is The Fully Always option chosen by 3 from Nonverbal Only, Masking with no chosen responses, Little to No Speech at 2 from Nonverbal and other Terms Users, Allow Temporary at 9 from Nonverbal and other Term Users plus 7 from Nonverbal and Temporary and an intentional Nonverbal Only Responder, then All Above with 1 Nonverbal and Temporary plus a Nonverbal Plus Response, Followed lastly by Other Definitions with no responses. End id]

Before going over this data I want to reiterate that the survey had very few nonverbal people taking it, so this data is not going to be all possibly not even most, nonspeaking people’s option on defining those terms. Next The N Plus section on the graph includes the N and T groups as well as other responders who marked themself with more than just the Nonverbal role. That said it seems that the greater community tends to lean towards the “Someone who has periods or is always not able to speak and/or can't speak well” option, and well quite a few nonverbal autistics agree, there’s a group especially among those who only consider themselves nonverbal who prefer defining it as those who always can’t speak fully ever. This matches with trends i’ve personally seen in the nonverbal tags of nonverbal people preferring definitions that centre on the lack of verbalness, even completely or most of the time vs speaking autistics using more broader terms, but again with such a lack of nonspeaking people involved there is no solid reliability to the data.

SemiVerbal / SemiSpeaking

[image id: a multiple bar graph showcasing the correlation between how respondents self identified vs how they define Semiverbal. Going from top to bottom is Partly All with 8 from Semiverbal Only plus 7 Semiverbal and Temp and 10 from Semiverbal Plus, Next is Inbetween with 24 from Semiverbal Only and 42 from Semiverbal and Temp plus 53 from Semiverbal Plus, Lose Speech has 5 from Semiverbal Only plus 6 from Semiverbal and Temp and 8 from Semiverbal Plus,All Above with 2 from both Semiverbal and Temp plus Semiverbal Only, Context-Based with no responses, and finally Other with 1 from Semiverbal Only plus 2 from Semiverbal and Temp and 3 from Semiverbal Plus. end id]

Like The Nonverbal Section, The S Plus section on the graph includes the S and T groups as well as other responders who marked themself with more than just the Semiverbal role. Otherwise, from this graph we see an overall trend of including anybody “between nonverbal and verbal” regardless of how the respondents identified themself. There also seems to be less of a disconnect between those who are semiverbal vs the greater community when compared to the results of Nonverbal, although whether that is a bias of the survey or a general trend is hard to tell. Most respondents who chose Other seem to have given either an all of the above answer (which I might have manually included???) or mentioned a definition using the idea of always struggling with speech but at different levels.

Further Notes

One thing I really wish I had done was involve more nonverbal and semiverbal people in the whole process of making this, i think looking back there’s definitely moments were you could tell this was made by a speaking autistic and I really didn’t do nearly enough to include and uplift the voices of those who this survey was literally about. In a similar vein I forgot about pretty much every non-autistic community who uses these terms, but also didn’t make it clear enough that it was unintentional, leaving not only countless voices unheard but accidentally ostracising those whose voices are equally as important as what this survey managed to cover.

Alongside that I was very unclear in what some questions meant to the point even future-me wasn’t sure what the data was for, plus I bit off much more than I could chew, making for a messy at best survey experience. As such survey taker’s might notice not every question was given space here, and that is simply because I couldn't process the data in a timely manner.

I did however let people opt-in to sharing further notes about how they use these terms and will share some of those under the read more with no individual commentary so as to let people speak fully for themselves:

There is a gap in the language available to describe autistic difficulties with speech. Verbal should describe the ability to use language, written or spoken, but in the context of neurodivergency almost always describes speech only. Non-speaking would be a more appropriate term and would free up nonverbal as a term for autistics who struggle with written and spoken English (as in syntax or language in general, not spelling). This has been talked about in high support need circles but is not mainstream.

I think we should look to the wheelchair users for language design, specifically the differences with the language around full time wheelchair user and ambulatory/part time wheelchair user

i wish mostly speaking people would find other ways of explaining their experiences without using nonverbal/nonspeaking people's language. we already have a much harder time communicating and when our language is taken or used in different ways that makes people confused about the meaning and they assume that the experience of mostly speaking people is the same as mostly or fully nonverbal/nonspeaking people. when actually the overall experience is very different

I am not sure exactly where I fit within being verbal but losing speech and struggling to speak almost always, or if I am semiverbal. I think the lines between all of these terms can be blurry, but I think it's bad how verbal autistics who lose speech occasionally (and often talk about being able to push through this and force themselves to speak - which is how I feel almost all the time) have taken these terms which makes it very hard to find content from people whose experiences with speech are similar to mine or who are nonverbal. I think it's connected to how in general lower support needs autistics take most of the space in the autistic community and it can feel isolating for people like me who are higher support needs.

And well this survey was about English specifically, I want to share what this survey respondent said about how the terms work in their language and how that affects their usage of these terms:

third of all: the alternatives to that, such as "losing speech", "having verbal shutdown", or "going mute"... simply do not work in some languages. and as proof, let me show you my beautiful native language, that being ukrainian!

"losing speech" = our word for speech equals our word for talk. when losing speech, i CAN talk - but not by using my voice.

"verbal shutdown" = our word for shutdown is not being used in the same way as in english and there is no good alternatives.

"going mute" = our word for mute has a very long and complicated and problematic history, and is not something most people would be comfortable saying!

so, that means that i am left with absolutely no phrases to use in my language - because the only one, that being "going/becoming non-verbal" which is translatable and has the same meaning - is not an option anymore.

#survey #neurodivergent #actually neurodivergent #actually autistic #long post #cw long post #emri.exe #i'm still not certain if this is actually legible as one long ass Tumblr post #and not a reblog chain but that was much harder mechanically to make in advance :/

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plural-culture-is · 3 months

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GAD (generalized anxiety disorder) plural culture is a new headmate being in front and having a panic attack, and because they don't know how to handle the body's panic attacks, we split. somehow, the newbie is blind in headspace? and they're nonverbal*, too. so now whenever they front--which has happened twice already since they came into existence yesterday--they keep the body's eyes closed because they don't like the idea of being able to see when they're blind. we also can't help them choose a name because they're nonverbal. they also won't show themself in headspace yet, so we can't tell if they do or don't like the name ideas we have for them.

(*we're autistic, the body is collectively semiverbal, and the main host has speech loss episodes. but we've never had a nonverbal alter---until now.)

being plural is so whack sometimes.

#plural culture #actuallyplural #plurality #plural system #gad plural culture #anonymous

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sophieinwonderland · 8 months

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u have a v distinct way of doing things and i am v aware of it so i play by ur methods. i will take this excessively diplomatically so no one can possibly misconstrue my words

i made the original post ab this whole thing. in spite of having been labeled as anti endo (and a singlet for some reason) i’m not rly. i have been involved in the plural community long before my DID dx and my last bf was a veritbonder. i have seen the endo community from the inside and don’t have issues w it.

my problem is the disingenuous nature of many syscoursers, and you are not excluded from this. i could do the same thing as you have done and explain why i think PNES should just be called regular seizures and they’re exactly the same now. there are many sources where they have been called seizures for years and years. but language changes, and i know you know this. it is one of your whole arguments as to why you are for the use of tulpa. to you, that word means something different than its origins.

to me, as a bodily semiverbal person, these terms mean something different. these words have evolved within the community that they were applied to. the system community, both endogenic and traumagenic, is dissociated (ha) from the semi/nonverbal community at large. you don’t know how we use these words because you literally do not participate in our community or culture. just like someone who commented on one of your other posts said, this is exactly like when verbal autistics who lose speech insist that saying “go nonverbal” doesn’t hurt nonverbal people.

as i said in my original post, and yet people somehow become unable to read for one sentence, if one headmate fronts for a significant amount of time that you could be considered semiverbal as one body, then you can do that. you are very disingenuous with your “bodily experiences” post, even though i am very sure you understand what people mean by that. my entire body regardless of any headmate fronting will always be semiverbal or nonverbal as my brain damage progresses. i use these words to tell people that as a body i cannot speak how you speak. if i had some headmates that couldn’t talk i would just say that. those specific ones can’t talk. my body is verbal overall.

if you go into our communities, we will hear you say “i am nonverbal” and will assume that your body does not and cannot speak. we will defer to you and seek to uplift your voice as one of the most disabled members of our society. our community is based around intersectionality and understanding that there are people more disabled than you. it is the job of verbal people to listen to me, and it is my job to listen to nonverbal people.

if you use these terms just for yourself. just between you and your therapist. between you and your friends. then no, it doesn’t matter. it was never about that. it is about the community and community implications of people who are objectively less disabled taking a word for people who are more so.

headmates can be people, they can do that, but a single body exists. you can’t just ignore that. i don’t become white when my white headmate fronts. i don’t gain the ability to walk unaided when abled headmates front. i don’t become less disabled in any way. i don’t become verbal.

and if you want to counter with abled systems can have alters that can’t walk, because i know you just want to, we don’t call it paralysis. we call it functional, somatic, or psychogenic paralysis. it works differently in the body just the same. you can’t insert yourself into semi/nonverbal spaces any more than you can insert yourself into a SCI support group.

i could do the same thing as you have done and explain why i think PNES should just be called regular seizures and they’re exactly the same now. there are many sources where they have been called seizures for years and years. but language changes, and i know you know this.

I'm already lost...

Is there some sort of discourse claiming that you can't call psychogenic non-epileptic seizures... seizures?

Or that psychogenic paralysis isn't a valid type of paralysis?

The cause may be different, but there are a ton of different causes for various conditions.

Someone blinded by an eye disease is blind. Someone blinded by their eyes being physically damaged is blind. Someone who experiences psychogenic blindness is blind.

Likewise, psychogenic paralysis IS paralysis. And a psychogenic non-epileptic seizure IS a seizure. You can add a qualifier to that... but it's not necessary.

if you go into our communities, we will hear you say “i am nonverbal” and will assume that your body does not and cannot speak.

That could be a fair assumption with no context. Although I... frankly doubt this happens often, or is a mistake that lasts long without being corrected.

If someone hears me say "I'm a cis woman" without context, I'm sure they would wrongfully assume I mean that the body is AFAB.

Obviously, it's important to try to mitigate miscommunications like these. But I assume that if you're dealing with a system with nonverbal headmates, you'll realize shortly the error. Unless that nonverbal headmate is the host or is otherwise fronting all or most of the time, in which case... maybe the miscommunication isn't as important as you think it is. 🤷‍♀️

our community is based around intersectionality and understanding that there are people more disabled than you. it is the job of verbal people to listen to me, and it is my job to listen to nonverbal people.

And this, I think is a mistake. At least when taken to the extremes I see here.

First... I'm really not comfortable with the idea of "more disabled" here. Sure, you can kind of apply this in specific contexts to try to say recurrent symptoms aren't as bad because they don't happen as often... but having your legs randomly give out while crossing the street might be more harmful than being a fulltime wheelchair user who wouldn't have been in that situation.

I'm also not comfortable with this thought in this specific case as it suggests that the nonverbal singlet is "more disabled" than the traumagenic DID system with severe memory loss and c-PTSD who has nonverbal headmates, and therefore gets a right to police their terms.

But let's say for the sake of argument this has merit and DID systems with nonverbal headmates are "less disabled" than nonverbal singlets:

Yes, you should absolutely listen to people with disabilities. Especially severe ones. But...

Dysphoric transgender people are technically more disabled (in that specific context) than non-dysphoric ones.

The same logic you're using could just as easily be used to support transmedicalists over non-dysphoric transgender people. Actually, the same logic HAS been used this way. Repeatedly. It's one of the main talking points employed by transmeds to garner sympathy.

There HAS to be more critical thought put into these issues than just "listen to the most disabled people in the room," which in this context really feels more like "accept what the most vocal members of a group say on a given platform without question."

This is also the logic sysmeds use against endogenic and non-disordered systems.

"We're disabled trauma survivors, so therefore you're supposed to listen to us when we claim this other marginalized group of people aren't real and their experiences aren't valid, and they aren't allowed to use terms we claim are ours regardless of whether those terms originally were or not. If you disagree with us then you're ableist."

We cannot afford to normalize this sort of exclusionism and gatekeeping.

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semiverbal-culture-is · 1 year

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Semiverbal culture is feeling like speech is a second language, and you have to translate your thoughts into words every time you speak

Semiverbal culture

#semiverbal #semiverbal culture #semiverbal culture is #yea. very true

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pda-culture-is · 6 months

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About Blog

Welcome to pda-culture-is!

Inspired from other culture blogs such as @autism-culture-is @ndcultureis @cluster-b-culture-is @narcissisticpdcultureis and more!

This blog is for autistics with Pathological Demmand Avoidance to share their experiences.

Examples of starting off an ask:

PDA culture is

Autism PDA culture is

PDA + (other disorders) culture is

Informed self diagnosis is accepted here, even if you don't plan on getting a professional diagnosis

DNI

basic dni (racism, sexism, ableism, queerphobia, fatphobia, ect.)

transmeds, TERFs, exlusionists

anyone who demonizes stigmatized disorders, believes in "narcissistic abuse", participates in "cringe culture", misuse terms such as intrusive thoughts, narcissist, sociopath, ect.

pro-contact/anti-consent harmful paras

NSFW blogs, ED or SH blogs unless they are based on recovery

anti-self-dx

Other things to add:

don't say "going nonverbal/semiverbal" as they are pernament states, what you can use instead is verbal shutdown or speech loss

you can swear in asks but don't use slurs

in the case your ask mentions abuse, ableism, ed, s/h, suicide or anything of the like, please put a warning on top

in case you send an image with text, it is appreaciated if you add an image description if able, otherwise we will so don't worry

you can also add signatures (emojis, names), we'll keep track of them

we're open to questions but it is unsure wether we can answer

hate messages will be ignored and deleted

About Admin

Collective Info: Dave, he/they/it, Transmasc Non-Binary AroAce

We're a DID system with NPD, BPD, and of course Autism hence this blog. We won't be sharing much about us.

Our stance on syscourse doesn't matter on this blog so anyone can send in questions and interact

#asd #autism #pda autism #pda profile #actually autistic #culture is #autistic culture #pathological demand avoidance #neurodivergent

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pluralcultureis · 5 months

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Semiverbal child alter culture is never being taken seriously or being spoken to with disrespect and condescension simply because you’re a semiverbal child. People try to speak for me or dumb things down when they speak to me. I’m still a person. Just because I’m young and struggle to speak doesn’t mean I can’t understand things.

The worst part is I can’t communicate that I feel this way because I can’t speak well all the time.

#endos dni #osdd #pdid #did #did system #pdid system #osddid #actually did #traumagenic #actually dissociative #plural culture is

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thatonesongyouretryingtoremember · 22 days

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New autism criteria: having traits in common with every member of the Pie family

ahaha jk BUT they do all have autistic traits

Pinkie and Maude both take things very literal, and even though they each make figurative statements have a difficulty discerning when others do so.

Pinkie also gets along great with the yaks, whose cultural speaking patterns tend towards being pretty blunt, but she knows what they mean and doesn't take it as being rude because she takes it literally and doesn't see them as part of the social "play", so to speak. I also HC her as ADHD bc she has some Very Relatable RSD-focused episodes.

Maude is able to "understand" her pet rock and personifying it, and Pinkie acts similar with Gummy.

And there was a whole episode about the main cast thinking that Maus hated them because they couldn't understand the way she showed her emotions, and she later describes to Starlight feeling alienated from other ponies.

Limestone Pie is The Boss, she thinks very practically and says exactly what she's thinking, so it's a good thing she mostly spends time with her family members who know she isn't trying to be mean.

Igneous Rock and Cloudy Quartz are overly formal because that's how they were brought up, and as far a they know, those are the rules to politeness forever. The grammar rules and inflection they use may be a different set than other ponies are used to, but until being told otherwise, you can bet they will follow their own rules to a tee.

It is unclear to me whether Marble Pie is nonverbal or mute or semiverbal or simply doesn't want to soak that often, but it is clear that , despite liking to be around other ponies, she leaves the bulk of the work in the realm of social interaction for her sisters.

#pinkie pie #g4 pinkie pie #pie family #maude pie #marble pie #limestone pie #igneous rock pie #cloudy quartz pie #mlp maud pie

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aaccultureis · 21 days

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system (working-on-)aac user culture is having one member who's semiverbal and the rest all fully verbal (but with several having anxiety that triggers speech loss) and feeling nervous about using aac or revealing that you want to start using it. because you feel like people will be upset with you for having a semiverbal member in fully verbal body or for being a part time user due to the anxiety

and just. kinda wondering if you should even keep working on your board or abandon it and just tough it out like you've been doing so far

we use an AAC for the exact same reason. Semiverbal and nonverbal alters and anxiety. People who get upset with y'all aren't worth your time. You are valid. We love you/pl good luck on your AAC board

❤️, chaosgremlins

#aac #aac user #aac culture is #aac user culture is #nonverbal alter #plural system #sorry for the rant #But very emotional about this topic #good luck anon

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acertainmoshke · 11 months

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New and Improved Writeblr Intro

I didn't really know what I was doing the first time and my WIP priorities have changed, so here we go again.

Call me Moshke Palmoni (they/them). I spend as much time as I can writing, but that is not as much as it might be because there's also a lot of life going on right now. I also like to read, knit, collect vintage ephemera, and play with my cat. Most of my time currently is taken up with fixing up the 100-year-old house I just bought. It's lovely but it was not cared for in the last couple decades and the previous owners made some interesting decisions. I also visit libraries and museums as much as possible.

Active WIPs

(respond to this post to be added to or taken off any taglists!)

General taglist: @blind-the-winds

To Die Among the Stars

First draft about half done at ~50k words.

In the future, 20 people are sent into space on a second test of an FTL drive, aiming for a habitable planet. The first test was a disaster, so this time they’re more careful—the volunteers are only needed for data on how humans fare at faster than light speeds, so they are selected from prisons and “mental wellness centers” and areas where people would agree to a suicide mission for the promise of feeding their families. No one expects them to live, just to provide enough data to improve the next test. Told from 4 POVs: Pixel, a semiverbal black market modder; Ri, who has so many illicit mods embedded in his body he can no longer experience the world the way most people do; Zippy, a young disabled woman desperate to support her family; and Peppermint, a genetic experiment combining human and cat DNA raised in a lab with only a sentient android for company. Despite all expectations, the group bands together for survival.

Taglist: @hd-literature

A Blade of Ice

In the outlining stage.

Working title. Part of the Legends of Halara series, which follows 1,000 years of fantasy kingdom history. About 300 years into that history, Princen Aryel is born. Aryel is never good at going along with expectations but has a certain duty eso must follow to take care of eson kingdom. Aryel is one of three royal children and not expected to rule, but after eson youngest sibling dies relatively young Aryel has to take on the responsibilities of both leading the army in a generation-long war and leading the kingdom through a time of shortages and despair. Aryel often clashes with the noble advisors in ways eson sibling never did, and the balance between who Aryel is at war and who eso is at court is not an easy one. It certainly doesn't help that in a world of politically arranged marriages, Aryel always seems to be in love with the wrong person.

Worldbuilding Links for Halara: cultural genders are explained here (with pictures of clothing styles here) and non-human gender systems here. This is a basic post about their pantheon of deities and this is a post containing maps of all the local kingdoms.

Cold Iron

In the outlining stage.

Shakatra is 107 years old. They are also 33. They are a rare case of a Fae changeling surviving to adulthood without being killed or dying from iron exposure or the weak constitution common among Fae children chosen to be left. They survived long enough to gain magical strength not only beyond any human but beyond many of the more minor Fae. They used to use this to exert power over Wild Fae, to protect humanity, to exact revenge, or just for fun. Now, however, they are widowed and retired with two kids to take care of. Their brother Kris, also their best (only?) friend is equally happy to be done with that world. Neither of them are prepared for it to find them again. When there is a Fae threat against the entire world, Shakatra may be the only one with the power to stop it and enough love of humanity to bother. But things are not what they seem and questions of betrayal, priorities, and what they are willing to do to protect the life they've built are harder to fight than a direct battle, insidious like the creeping poison of iron.

Links: Character posts here and here.

Backburner WIPs

Time to Kill

Working title. Esther Dahan is part of one of the first teams ever sanctioned to use time travel technology. Against all historical odds, they aren’t cops or soldiers—they’re anthropologists. Her team specializes in Jewish history specifically, and as tough as it is to leave her young daughter behind for long stretches the team is like her family as they get to truly experience what life was once like, always careful not to change anything (the butterfly effect having been disproven, they must still not share too much information or come in contact with major figures). And yet, something is off. In more and more time periods, they find suspicious activity. But they can never quite get enough proof to convince anyone why this matters—why they should believe that these scientists found the first known rogue travelers. It’s not until trying to solve the mystery on their own leads to Esther’s life being torn apart that they’re taken seriously, and even then her team might be the only ones capable of finding out the truth and stopping something even worse.

A Tangled Knot of Gold

Also in the Legends of Halara series, about 200 years into the kingdom's history. Tlapil is the cousin of the heir to the throne, Soter, who is also the only person who treats eso like a person because eso is semi-verbal with unusual body language and interests. Tlapil's main useful skill seems to be mapmaking, but when the kingdom needs unusual solutions Tlapil's ready to help—along with eson only other friend, who happens to be a slime. Having proven esonself, eso holds a respectable position as advisor to eson cousin, but when tragedy threatens to tear apart the entire kingdom it might be up to Tlapil to find a way to hold it together.

Falling Petals

A story of imperfect love and family and undiagnosed disability across generations (they're all autistic before they would have been called that). Ira Katz was born in 1913, the only child of Russian Jewish immigrants. He was clever and charming, but there was always something off-putting about him. He didn't understand why blunt observations and mean jokes went unappreciated. He would give long and detailed lectures on his interests, which included photography, without regard to anyone else's level of interest. He spent his adult life working in the drugstore he inherited from his father and had 4 children with his wife, though he never knew how to connect, loving them from a distance.

Ira's second child, Daniel (born 1939), was also odd and isolated. He was gentle and generous but mocked for being sensitive, for his silly attempts at being serious and adult too soon. So he learned to channel his pain from tears to rage and disappear into comic books to forget about the world. He learned to script friendly conversations so no one could see his confusion or pain. He studied architecture because it was more manly than becoming a librarian, married a teacher, and had twin daughters. He refused to become his father--he never mocked his kids and he spent some time with them--but the pain and overwhelm and frustration would burst out of him in rages that terrified them.

One of Daniel's daughters, Shoshana (born 1961) was also odd. She was bright but seemed young for her age, clinging to toys her sister had long discarded. She had a bad habit of freezing when confused or scared, so she would stare blankly and just not answer people. She cried easily. She read constantly but failed out of college and ended up back with her parents and no chance of marrying or living alone. She convinced herself she was stupid.

And then Shoshana's sister had a daughter, Naomi (born 1987). Naomi was odd in a way Shoshana recognized, and she was determined not to project her own pain onto her niece but to use this chance to break the cycle of pain and give a child a chance to grow up loving herself and her differences.

#moshke writes #writeblr #writeblr intro #yes it's only been a couple months and some of this is the same #but I have learned some things since then

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