#writing autistic characters

[memento-morri-writes]

I really want to see more low/no empathy characters (NOT antagonists/villains) in books. Especially as protagonists, rather than side characters. I want to see characters who react with practicality after a tragedy. While everyone else is mourning, they're immediately thinking "how can we fix this / how can we make sure it doesn't happen again." Or alternatively characters who don't even react "reasonably". Who see tragedy and their first thought is "Well, at least we don't have to worry about X anymore." Or who sigh in relief that "at least it wasn't worse" while looking at the worst thing that's ever happened in their life.

I want to see characters who don't know how to react when their companions are experiencing strong emotions. Who try their best, but sometimes their best is a really awkward pat on the back or thumbs up. Or alternatively characters who avoid people who are experiencing strong emotion because the awkwardness and uselessness they experience is so uncomfortable for them.

I want to see characters who misread the room and crack a joke too soon, or try to offer a distraction when people don't want to be distracted. Characters who mean well, but act outside the "norm".

And I want to see characters who aren't villainized for it. I want to see characters whose friends say "It's okay, I know you're not good with this stuff." Or who make sure that their low-empathy friend has an important job to do to keep their mind busy, because just because they don't have empathy doesn't mean they can't be traumatized.

[ichverdurstehier]

If you want to describe your characters as autistic without explicitly saying they are autistic, you csn say they have the lonely disorder.

In China, the word for mild autism (higher functioning autism, level 1, low support needs, whatever you call it, you know what I mean) literally translated to "lonely disorder" which I love so much. So damn accurate 🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲 狐独症 gū dú zhèng

The word for a more severe autism is 自闭症 self enclosed disorder, zì bì zhèng. My autism is more mild so I can't speak as to whether I like that, as a translation.

A bit of writing tips!

[asharestupid]

If you're not autistic and writing an autistic character, or even if you are autistic here's a list of stims they could do (by an autistic guy):

- bouncing their leg(s)

- squeezing eyes shut and then opening them as wide as possible

- shaking head

- making the sound certain letters make over and over again (eg. T-t-t-t-t, k-k-k-k-k, etc)

- tapping a pen

- chewing gum

- bouncing on heels of feet

- rubbing knuckles together

- fiddling with hands

- humming in monotone

- shaking hands like they've just punched someone even if they haven't

- using fidget/stim toys

- rocking back and forth (contrary to most movies, it helps (me) pay attention)

- doodling

- chewing on the draw strings of a hoodie

- tying and untying knots into the draw strings of a hoodie

- chewing on inside of cheek

- tugging on their hair

- tapping their finger tips together (like clapping without palms touching)

- popping their bones

- clicking their tongue

- balling their fists as tight as possible and then relaxing them

- pressing their lips into a fine line

There are lots more stims that other autistic people do, this is just a few examples of things I do. All of them can range from gentle to violent. Feel free to add more.

[rjalker]

Giving this its own post too because I'm right and I'm going to say it no matter how many bigoted autistic people it pisses off.

I’m so fucking tired of neurodivergent (usually just blatantly autistic coded) characters being evil and we’re all just supposed to pretend it’s okay because uh *checks notes* “autistic people are pure innocent babies and can never do anything wrong” (Even when they're doing blatantly evil shit on purpose and having fun with it)

No. Shut the fuck up. Normalize beating the shit out of bigots even when they’re autistic. I’m so fucking tired of other autistic people saying it’s okay for them to be bigots because they’re autistic.

Especially if you're allistic and you write an autistic character who's an absolute fucking trashcan of a bigoted human being but then you pretend it's okay because "they're just a wittle baby uwu" you need to delete the fucking save file and stop infantilizing autistic people.

Pro tip, all of you assholes: Putting autistic people up on a pedestal and pretending we can never do anything wrong or never be bigoted is literally just another form of infantilization and ableism, and especially when you're claiming we can't be bigoted, you are actively oppressing other people.

Knock it the fuck off.

[iamxuechengmei]

"you're not like other girls" the politically correct term is Autism Spectrum Disorder

[archivomeow]

tips on writing an autistic meltdown?

[magpiecrust]

Ok, so a writing advice post written by another autistic person lists these as diffferent moods people may have different stims for. I'm bad at labeling things, so i'm just going to trust that this is a Complete List Of Moods:

Happy

Stressed

Overwhelmed

Sad

Frustrated

Scared

Nervous

Excited

Bored

Comfortable

Distracted

Focused

They also said stims can overlap, like excited and scared are both high-energy emotions so can have the same stim.

I can't even identify my own stims as stims, except for pacing when i'm anxious (stressed? Nervous? Scared? What's the difference between stressed and nervous?) or bored(???). And ripping strips off kitchen paper and twisting it into strings, mostly when i'm sad/upset/in some kind of panic. Not sure if i'm explaining this well, i don't even know what you call kitchen paper in english.

I have to come up with stims and sensory things for at least one OC, and i don't know what to assign him or how (except propably my pacing). Above all i'm worried this is turning into a checklist.

Help please, not just empty likes.

[dorianbrightmusic]

What bothers me about the 'N is a zoroark' theory is that it debilitates the balance of stereotype and nuance in his characterisation—specifically, it reinforces many unwittingly negative stereotypes of disability in a strongly autism-coded character.

The thing is, N might not be explicitly stated to be autistic, but the coding is there. His empathy is largely situational, being neither uniformly absent nor uniformly excessive, but a delicate balance of messianic tears and hollow gazes. His dialogue and manga depiction imply a significant degree of flat affect. The menger sponge he carries could be interpreted as evidence of hyperfixation or even a stim toy—and while the 'mathematical genius autist' trope is a little painful at times, N's depth of character and the unimportance of his massive intellect mitigate much of the potential damage done. He's a great example of how storytelling context and structure are everything. Whilst for much of the story depicts him as somewhat inhuman, his association with Ghetsis invites reader pity and sympathy for him. Pure evil villains can often rob a story of its depth, but as N is far more thematically important than Ghetsis, the latter's sheer heartlessness serves to render the former more comprehensible, and, rather ironically, more human. Ghetsis' being so black-and-white in his worldviews prevents N from being so monochrome, thus reinforcing BW's message of nuance and understanding mattering deeply. In this way, the potential damage done by N's magic-adjacent ability to hear pokémon voices is lessened. Being a supercrip is prevented if the superhero is rendered overbearingly, achingly human. The depth of N's backstory largely accommodates and justifies many other dangerous autism tropes within his character; where backstory falls short, light autism coding of other main characters compensates by showcasing that disabled people aren't a hive mind. Indeed, Bianca's poor coordination, nervousness around speech, and general presentation could be read as evidence of an autism spectrum disorder, as could Cheren's ruthless monotropism and general blunt speech. Cheren is a stereotypical portrayal; Bianca is not; together, their contrast and respective arcs largely salvage the damage done.

In N's case, the danger is that while he's granted depth and near-universally beloved by the fanbase, much of the early game relies on his being slightly in the uncanny valley. Indeed, his musical theme is one of few atonal pieces in pokémon, implicitly associating him with the likes of Giratina and Eternatus. The fan theory that establishes N as being a pokémon thus plays into his being seen as not only disabled, but fundamentally inhuman; and equating disability and inhumanity is a dangerous trope. By no means is this a condemnation of those who endorse the fan theory. What this is, rather, is a cry for contemplation of stereotypes. Do not necessarily take this as a reason to desist in a theory; only use this as reason to scrutinise.

[owlbloop]

Neurodivergent coding and correlations with stereotypes

Neurodivergency coding is very common both intentionally and unintentionally in media. It's important to realize what stereotypes and archetypes are rooted at least partly in neurodivergency, particularly autism.

Marcy Wu's a solid example of ambiguous unintentional coding. They read as neurodivergent because the nerd achetype is very heavily based in neurodivergency. The clumsiness, hyperfixative areas of interest, over expressiveness, social obliviousness, feeling ignored and isolated from friend groups, scientific interest, rambling, much of that was formed with autism and neurodivergency as a basis. Which isn't much of a problem in amphibia but if we look to other media often that accidental "coding"(though I don't really consider it true coding) gets used to turn a character into comic relief.

General rules of thumb for writing nerd archetypes:

-Research the origins and real life application (Honestly applies to all character archetypes)

-Nerdiness can be used for jokes but be careful not to portray most of the archetypal traits as being a laughing stock, weird, or something messed up/wrong

-Just try to be aware of how things come across

-Be extra careful writing robots

If you want to write autistic characters:

-Inexpressive, monotone, or oddly expressive does NOT equal emotionless

-Socially inept does not equal rude or not trying

-Low empathy is not the same as uncaring or low compassion, plus many with autism actually deal with mirror and hyper empathy

-Probably not a good idea to make an autistic character a morally grey mad scientist if you aren't actively researching the autistic community AND have at least one sensitivity writer if posting or publishing to a broad audience

-Do your research but note that most "charity's"(Looking at you autism speaks) don't have our best interest at heart

-Endearingly clumsy and be easy to make minimizing, just note that clumsiness can leave you with scrapes and bruises not just a comedic scene

-We aren't all friendless loners

-Research comorbidities

-We are very disportianatly gay and trans

-We have senses of humor, we just suck at picking up other people's

-Research the less commonly known traits

-We have broader ranges of morality than for science. In fact while our morals tend to be different than non autistic people we tend to hold to our morals a lot stronger than others

-Be careful not to write us as inspiration porn for neurotypical people

-Non speaking, hyper verbal, and semi speaking are often fluctuating traits. I'm physically incapable of speech at times, have a speech impediment, and almost all A's. Intelligence and how good we are at academics doesn't correlate much with whether or not we can talk at all or well(A lot of autistic people struggle with academics and being non speaking is disproportionately met with people with IDs, which is fine. Very belatedly in hindsight I realize that was poorly phrased. Sorry.)

-HYPERSENSITIVY IS A BISH

-Most of the community doesn't want to be fixed or have a cure, just be accepted and have the world recognize we have different needs than others

-We don't just lean towards math and robotics, all the sciences and creative fields tend to be quite alluring. Also we don't all like the same things

-STIMMING, STIMMING, STIMMING!!!

-Stop making us either have zero agency or only villains/morally grey

-Please PLEASE be careful not to infantilize us

[hillbroski]

Hi! so i have a question for any autistic people who might happen across this post (and want to respond), I'm writing something which includes an autistic character (its from their pov) is there any resources/things i should keep in mind or things you think should be represented more? I really wanted to get this right and since im not close with many autistic people irl, i figured this would be a decent way to get opinions. Thanks so much :)

[memento-morri-writes]

Do you have any advice or specific tips to writing a low/no empathy character? Or a resource to recommend?

Hi nonny! Thanks for asking! I'm going to try my best to answer your question, but keep in mind, this is all based on my own personal experience, and that varies vastly from person to person. (if anyone else experiences low/no empathy, please feel free to add on to this post!)

So, some things to keep in mind:

Why does your character experience low/no empathy? For me, it's a symptom of my autism, but there are multiple reasons a character could have low/no empathy. The most common is probably going to be some form of disability (autism), or disorder (psychopathy), etc. (Be careful while doing research though, especially on disorders like psychopathy! You're going to run into a lot of ableist bullshit. Make sure to look for sources written by people living with these disorders/disabilities.) (If anyone has any resources on other disabilities or disorders that cause low empathy that they personally recommend, please feel free to add links!!!) Whatever the reason, it's not going to only affect their empathy. It's going to affect every part of their life. So make sure to do your research, and write respectfully. If you know someone or follow someone who has a certain condition, ask if they'd feel comfortable answering questions for you. If they aren't, that's fine. If they are, they're going to be a great resource. (I'd also recommend getting a sensitivity reader, particularly when writing about mental disorders that are already frequently stigmatized. You want to make sure you're not promoting harmful stereotypes.) I should note, however, that neurotypical people can also have low/no empathy!!! It just happens to also be a common symptom of various mental disorders.

Consider what kind of empathy does your character lack. There are two kinds of empathy! Emotional (or affective) empathy, and cognitive empathy. Affective empathy is made up of three parts: Feeling the same emotion as someone else, feeling discomfort or stress in response to someone else's suffering, and feeling compassion for or understanding another's emotions. Cognitive empathy is the ability to recognize and understand the emotions of someone else. This includes being to "stand in someone else's shoes", or take another person's perspective, and generally understand what they're feeling. This one has been called more of a "skill", in that it's something people can "learn", where as affective empathy can't be taught or learned. When people talk about having low/no empathy, they are usually referring to lacking affective empathy, but a character might struggle with both!

Not everyone experiences empathy the same. Some people lack empathy in some circumstances, but have it in others. For example, I lack empathy when it comes to human beings, but I am much more empathetic when it comes to animals. A character might only be able to empathize with very specific scenarios or people. (For example, if someone else is going through a very similar scenario to one they have experienced in the past, it may be easier for them to feel empathy. But it might not!) Some people can empathize with certain emotions better than others. (I empathize better with anger, but can't empathize at all with grief.)

Understand that a lack of empathy does not equal a lack of caring. Just because a person doesn't feel the emotions someone else is feeling doesn't mean they don't care. A person with low or no empathy can still be kind and compassionate to others. They might go about trying to cheer people up in a slightly different way (I personally tend to try and go for distractions), but they still care about their friends and loved ones. Even seemingly "uncaring" things said by those who lack empathy do not come from a place of malice. (I can't tell you how many times I've said something well-meaning and had people assume I was being cruel. I wasn't, and I genuinely had good intentions.)

Keep in mind how your character reacts to other's emotions. People with empathy tend to feel similarly to those they empathize with, which generally creates a feeling of connection. (This is part of what leads to that sense of "coming together after tragedy".) A person with low/no empathy might instead feel alienated or uncomfortable when faced with large outpourings of emotions. They might be uncertain how to act or what to do, and they may try and avoid situations with strong negative emotions because of it. (In my case, people crying makes me very uncomfortable, because I don't know how to respond. So I try and keep my distance.)

Think about how your character processes their own emotions. Just because a character doesn't feel empathy for others doesn't mean that they are incapable of feeling those emotions on their own. A character who has no empathy for a grieving friend can still grieve! But chances are they will process that emotion differently than a person with "normal" empathy. They might try to push their emotions away and bottle them up. Or one emotion might transition into one they have an easier time processing. (For me, I don't experience sadness normally. It either transitions to anger, or it is replaced by different thoughts.)

Think about how their lack of empathy influences their life. A person who lacks empathy is not going to experience life the same way as a person with "normal" empathy. They might have a hard time making friends, or they might excel at a job that requires a logical mind. They might give great advice, or their friends might know to never ask them about relationships. They might be great at organizing people, even in times of stress, because their brain compartmentalizes and thinks pragmatically. They might totally shut down when faced with an emotional situation because they don't know how to process it.

Having no empathy can be very alienating. People expect empathy constantly. It's a big part of why people love emotional media, and it's the expected response when someone you know experiences suffering. Not having empathy can mean that you feel disconnected from your loved ones or community as a whole. It might mean biting your tongue and not saying what you think because people would read it as uncaring or cruel.

Remember: Having low or no empathy is not a bad thing. People with low/no empathy are often villainized in media, and the trait is often given to antagonists. But that's a harmful stereotype and harmful belief in general. That's not saying that your character with low empathy has to be "good", but don't use their low empathy as proof that they're a "bad person". Try thinking about situations in which having low/no empathy might be useful! I personally am reminded of the post I saw years ago where someone was saying that if not for their lack of empathy, they probably couldn't do their job. (iirc, they worked handling the bodies of organ donors, some of whom were quite young.)

Okay, that's all I can think of for now, but like I said before, anyone else who experiences low or no empathy is encouraged to reblog this post and add on to it! And if I made any mistakes here, please let me know so I can fix them!!! I tried to base this mostly off of my own experience, so take it all with a grain of salt.

[ichverdurstehier]

So I'm writing an autistic character who's currently having a speech loss episode due to extreme trauma (trust me you don't want to know) how should I describe the noises he's making and his attempts at communicating? There's no AAC devices bc they haven't been invented yet. Nonverbal autistics and semiverbal autistics of Tumblr, what sounds do you make when you're trying to communicate but your mouth doesn't work? My strain of autism doesn't involve speech loss so I cannot use my own experiences

[brightlotusmoon]

The Story of Luke - Wikipedia

I'm watching this on a random channel. It's got Cary Elwes and Seth Green in it. It's about an autistic guy living life, and he's witty and snarky and hesitant and persistent, and I like it. It reminds me of moments in my autism life.

Now, it's receiving praise from both the autistic community and Autism $peaks, so eehhhh on that.

If anybody has seen the movie, let me know your thoughts.

[listles-s]

man laios and toshiro's/shuro's dynamic is incredibly compelling to me on multiple levels

when you look at them, you can see the cultural and personal barriers that drive almost every single aspect of their relationship, both positively and negatively. laios is incredibly outspoken and driven by his passions, which he expresses freely even in the face of annoyance and/or criticism- he's allowed to be as authentically himself as he pleases, and it's this drive that allows him and the others to survive as long as they have, especially due to the fact that these passions and interests are intertwined with his skills as a dungeon diver. toshiro, in contrast, is incredibly reserved, not only due to his eastern upbringing but also his status as nobility- a combo of cultures that both demand that one save face, to avoid conflict at any cost, even at the expense of one's own feelings and individuality. this, in turn, has made toshiro the perfect samurai, as he's politely-spoken, agreeable, and an honorable, skilled man. both are also incredibly devoted to falin on different levels, having come to accomplish the same mission of her rescue despite drifting apart from the party.

on the flipside, it's these same strengths that cause them to clash- laios is outspoken but unable to truly decipher the emotions of others, leading to a lot of false assumptions and frustration from those who interact with him. toshiro is stoic but to the point of complacency, leading to a aggressively neutral disposition that's ushered by the needs and wants of others, rather than himself. neither man truly knows where they stand with the people important to them in their lives, and hold the ones that they do know how they feel with a fierce admiration expressed in ways that aren't always traditional.

in the end, they both share a growing feeling of isolation from other people that comes to a head when they meet again in the depths of the dungeon, and they both have different ways of coping with the frustrations that arise, seeing the other as only the things they have seen face to face.

it's laios' ability to express himself emotionally without consequence that sparks jealousy in toshiro, leading to a physical fight born out of miscommunication and envy. while toshiro is a driving force in the conflict, it should be noted that the actual fight is started by laios, breaking the dam of indirect communication through force. nothing is more direct than a slap to the face, and it's only after they start hitting each other that toshiro's true feelings come to light.

however, at the end of it all, toshiro is the one who stops torturing himself, listening to laios and giving him the bell, allowing laios and his party entrance into his homeland should they need it, and ultimately giving him support in his mission to defeat the dungeon mage, albeit in his own way. despite it all, they're still good friends with a conflict that boiled over, but came out the other end with a slightly better understanding of each other. the fight was painful for both of them, but it was a necessity for their dynamic to improve, and for them to be made aware of their faults and improve as individuals as well.

but also, if you think about it, their dynamic is literally just this

[lord-squiggletits]

I think the key component to my personal reading of post-Delphi Pharma is that he's trying to be a horrible person on purpose. Not "on purpose" in the way that people have free will to exercise their own choices, but in that Pharma's "mad doctor" persona is a performance he puts on to deliberately embrace how much everyone else hates him. Basically, if people already think you're a "bad Autobot" and a horrible doctor who just kills his patients for fun, why try to prove otherwise to people who have already made up their minds about you? Just fully embrace the fact that people see you as an asshole. Don't try to change their minds. Don't plead for their forgiveness or understanding. Just stop caring. If you're going to be remembered as a monster, you might as well be a memorable monster, and eke as much pleasure and hedonism as you can out of it before karma catches up to you and you inevitably crash and burn.

I mean, I guess you could just go the route of "Oh, Pharma was always a fucked up creepy guy and Delphi was just him taking the mask off," but I really don't like that interpretation because, for one, it feels really wrong to take a character like Pharma becoming evil under duress and going, "Oh well clearly he did the things he did because he was evil all along," as if somehow Pharma breaking under blackmail/torture/threat of horrible death was a sign of him having poor moral character. As opposed to, you know, suffering under the very real threat of horrible death for himself and everyone he cares about while being manipulated by a guy who specializes in psychological torture.

The second reason is that it just doesn't make sense to write Pharma as having been evil all along. I mean...

Occam's Razor says that the best argument is the one with the simplest explanation. Doesn't it make way more sense to take Pharma's appearances in flashbacks, his friendship with Ratchet, his stunning medical accomplishments, and the few we see of him speaking kindly/sympathetically (or in the least charitable interpretation, at least professionally) towards his patients and conclude "This guy was just a normal person, if exceptionally talented." Taking all of these flashback appearances at face value and assuming Pharma was being genuine/honest is a way simpler and more logical explanation than trying to argue that Pharma for the past 4 million years was just faking being a good doctor/person. I mean, it's possible within the realm of headcanon, but the fact is Pharma's appearances in the story are so brief that there simply wasn't room in the story for there to be some sort of secret conspiracy/hidden manipulation behind why Pharma acted the way he did in the past.

I just can't help but look at things like Pharma's friendship with Ratchet (himself a good person and usually a fine judge of character) and the fact that even post-Delphi, pretty much every single mention of Pharma comes with some mention of "He was a good doctor for most of his life" or "He was making major headways in research [before he started killing patients]" which implies that even the Autobots themselves see Pharma's villainy as a recent turn in his life compared to how for "most of his life" he "used to be" a good doctor.

And although Pharma doesn't know this, we as the readers (and even other characters like Rung) know about Aequitas technology and the fact that it actually works, so... if Pharma really was an unrepentant murderer, why couldn't he get through the forcefield too? The Aequitas forcefield doesn't require that a person be completely morally pure and free of wrongdoing or else how could Tyrest get through, just that they feel a sense of inner peace and lack feelings of guilt. Pharma has murdered and tortured people by this point, and put on quite a campy and theatrical show of how much he sees it as a fun game, so why then can he not get through?

It circles back to my headcanon at the start of this post that the "mad doctor" persona is just that-- a persona. Delphi/post-Delphi Pharma's laughing madman personality is just so far removed from every flashback we saw of him and everything we can infer based on how other people see/saw him before that, to me, the mad doctor act is (at least in large part, if not fully) a persona that Pharma puts on to put his villainy in the forefront.

To avoid an overly simplistic/ableist take, I don't think Tarn tortured Pharma into turning crazy. To me, it's more like the constant pressure of death by horrific torture, the feeling of martyrdom as Pharma kept secret that he was the only one standing between Delphi and annihilation, the physical isolation of Messatine as well as the emotional separation from Ratchet, being forced to violate his medical oaths (pretty much the only thing Pharma's entire life has been about), etc. All of that combined traumatized Pharma to the point that the only way he could avoid cracking was to just stop caring about all of it. Because at least then, even if he's still murdering patients to save Delphi from a group of sadistic freaks, Pharma doesn't have to feel guilty and sick about doing it. As opposed to the alternatives, which were probably either going off the deep end and killing himself to escape, or confessing to what he did and getting jailed for it.

In that light, Pharma becoming a mad doctor makes sense. It avoids the bad writing tropes of "oh this character who was good his entire life was actually just evil and really good at hiding it" as well as "oh he got tortured and went crazy that's why he's so random and silly and killing people, he's crazy" and instead frames Pharma's evil as something he was forced into, to the point where in order to avoid a full psychological breakdown and keep defending Delphi, he just had to stop caring about the sanctity of life or about what other people might think of him.

Then, of course, the actual Delphi episode happens, and Pharma's own lifelong best friend Ratchet basically spits in his face and sees him as nothing more than a crazy murderer who went rogue from being a good Autobot. Then Pharma gets his hands cut off and left to die on Messatine. At that point, Pharma has not only been mentally/emotionally broken into losing his feelings of compassion, he's received the message loud and clear: He is alone. Everyone hates him. Not even his own best friend likes him any more. No one even cared enough about him to check if he actually died or not. He will only ever be remembered as a doctor who went insane and killed his patients.

So in the light of 1. Having all of your redeeming qualities be squeezed out of you one by one for the sake of survival and 2. Having your reputation and all of your positive relationships be destroyed and 3. People only know/care about you as "that doctor who became evil and killed his patients" rather than the millions of years of good service that came before.

What else is there to do but internalize the fact that you'll forever be seen as a monster and a freak, and embrace it? People already see you as a murderer for that blackmail deal you did, so why not become an actual murderer and just start killing people on a whim? People already see you as an irredeemable monster who puts a stain on the Autobot name, so why beg for their forgiveness when you could just shun them back? You've already become a murderer, a traitor, and a horrible doctor, so what's a few more evil acts added to the pile? It's not like anyone will ever forgive you or love you ever again.

Why care? Why try to hold on to your principles of compassion, kindness, medical ethics, when an entire lifetime of being a good person did nothing to save you from blackmail and then abandonment? Why put yourself through the emotional agony of feeling lonely, guilty, miserable, when you could just... stop caring, and not hurt any more?