You do not know the depth of madness til you realise Bloodborne devs bothered to add THE GODDAMN RING OF BETROTHAL ON YHARNAM’S FINGER:

(Rip from the bosses up close vid here: ( x ))

Well, now we know for sure what finger it goes on. But DEAR GOD. The AMOUNT of detalisation the devs are going through.

Silly Game Time: Who are some of your favorite mechanical characters, be they robots, androids, cyborgs, or something else? And what do like about them?

OOOOH...

Well, first, gotta mention my man Data.

A lot of people has said that he is autism-coded in the way that he is presented, and in how other people react to him. And I kind of agree tbh. He's also just a sweetheart, and his bonds with the crew (especially Laforge), his cat Spot, and sometimes with people who are briefly onboard are so lovely.

I also feel I should mention Connor,

Because his arc has probably inspired so many OCs at this point. Bryan Dechart did such an excellent job playing him, and his growing bond with Hank is very well-written. I think it's honestly touching how it's often emotional bonds that show humanity.

Another I feel would be a crime not to mention,

Because between the iconic lines and the dynamic he has with John Connor, and the way it shapes his various decisions, how could I not? And yes I'm specifically talking Terminator 2 here. Though I will say he makes an EXCELLENT force of nature and presence of absolute horror in the first movie.

Then, of course, the sapphic community's favourite,

Because "Want You Gone" hurts me on a personal level, and I don't just mean because it's how GLaDOS says farewell. I relate to that song so much (and did a cover of it :D) and, in general, relate with much of her story. Of course, she's a sassy motherfucker who you can't help but love. But for how much Portal 2 is considered the inferior game, it really does make her story into one of self-discovery and complicated morality. I guess it just gets overshadowed by Oh hi. How are you holding up.

Next,

I MEAN. COME ON. This guy used to be, and honestly still is, one of my biggest fictional crushes. His charisma is magnetic, of course. His STORY being wrapped up by the connections he used to have being rekindled, resulting in him choosing to be a star for those who need one most, rather than a star for the most people possible???? Ugh, poetic cinema.

Speaking of stars,

[vibrating] I have so many headcanons when it comes to this one But more to the point, Star Dream is an absolute force of nature. Its boss fight is incredible, an absolute marvel of multiple types of play styles coming together. The themes? Slap.

Star Dream's draw, for me, is that its sentience is so…debatable. I'm on the side of “had sentience the whole time”, and more to the point, “based on how much Haltmann copied homework, it's possible he brought something back from the dead” but I dunno, I don't like arguing my case when it comes to the second. The point is, for many of things that it does, it's uncertain whether that's just part of its program, or if it's a sentient decision. Was Susie sent away because of something accidental, or was it Star Dream's intention? The fact that Haltmann became so focused on its creation after her disappearance, in my eyes, kind of implies the latter…

… It's also interesting that even without Haltmann giving it a voice via him-being-possessed, it only chooses to speak to Meta Knight.

Can you tell I have The Kirby Autism, is it noticeable, is it obvious—

Also I'm gonna put two of my OCs here, because self-indulgence is alive and well.

This is Palharine and Mayday! They're my favourites out of a group of robot/android characters I created about three years ago, and have finally taken the time to draw recently:

From left to right, you got Eodel Remidoros, Palharine, Mayday, and Ziah Hyperion. All very different interpretations of robotic.

Palharine and Mayday stand out to me due to their emotional states. They're kind of opposites, in that regard. Mayday is a very sensitive gal, who has been through a lot of pain, and is trying to become stronger so she can confidently say she has no doubt in who she is. Palharine, as far as they're aware, has no emotions. Which is interesting, since the other three all seem to, to some degree. Among the four, Palharine is also unique in that they're programmed to dream. Both of these things shape them a lot.

But these two have a very sweet bond, where they're both passionate about biology, especially botany. Mayday, in a training exercise, also nearly wipes the floor with Palharine. It's more touching than it sounds.

Also, Palharine's genderfluid and Maydays a trans woman, so those things just inherently spark joy for me, haha!

This has been, real robotic character hours.

Guardians of the Galaxy 3, Rocket, And Why I Keep Thinking About This Damned CGI Raccoon

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOLUME 3 SPOILERS AHEAD

For much of early to mid 2023, I had been in a rut. My work on personal writing projects had ground to a halt, and I was now more focused on the minutia of specific lines and the emotions they conveyed in the moment rather than seeing the overall work for what it was. I was anxious, terrified that I didn't know whether I was saving my work with any given edit or ruining it.

Eventually, I figured it was time to take a break from the things. Time to let my mind rest so I could let go of this arbitrarily high standard I had set for myself. While this relieved my anxiety, it brought about a new ailment: a sense of depressing aimlessness. I had dedicated essentially my entire life to my work for so long that to be without it felt wrong. I realized that ever since I'd went all-hands-on-deck with my perfectionism streak, I had taken to eating the exact same meal three times a day. I had stopped going outside. I had stopped listening to music. My passion for life had disappeared without me realizing it, and I was left with nothing but dark musings on my own mortality and the unshakable notion that I was wasting time. That I no longer had purpose.

I was never really invested in Disney's Marvel Cinematic Universe. I had seen some of the films, but did not feel overly attached to them outside of "Hey, that was a cool movie." The one aspect of it that both I and my family came to the theaters for whenever a new entry released was Guardians of the Galaxy. I've always been fascinated by the space opera genre (there's a reason I write so much of it) and James Gunn is great at weaving comedy and sincerity into his work in equal measure to create characters that are easy to care about, something I cannot say for other aspects of the MCU. Still though, my fandom of Guardians' characters was only in passing... until in May of 2023, when I watched Volume 3 on a whim.

I'm sure you've heard of the 'Gifted Kid to Anxious Adult Pipeline.' It's something I'm fairly sure I experienced first-hand. When I was young I was considered smart for my age. I was also considered a troublemaker who hated listening to authority. At the time, I had yet to be diagnosed with Autism or ADHD, so I'm sure my teachers and the other adults that interacted with me simply thought I was 'disobedient' and just needed to 'apply myself.' I suspect that this notion carried over into my modern life and education somewhat as well.

Once I had my diagnoses, I knew that I was different. I knew I had a reason to not concern myself with being in line with what was trendy or popular, and I had a prime excuse to violate the social norms I hated most. It also made me incredibly aware of how specific the aptitudes I possessed were. I am no savant, but I've heard from a lot of people that I'm good at what I do, probably on account of me pushing myself to fully commit to whatever task I engage in to the point of anxiety-inducing perfectionism. I suppose that's symptomatic of the high expectations people had for me in my youth.

Something that probably didn't help was the fact that my ADHD makes it incredibly challenging for me to focus on things I'm not burningly passionate about. I can handle whatever task is thrown at me, but it's extremely emotionally distressing unless I want to do it. It's not a sensation of boredom or irresponsibility, but a deep pain that registers on a level beyond the physical.

The common core education system didn't care, though. It, and all of the adults in my life, demanded success above all else. And so I pushed myself to success above all else. The latter half of my education felt like a constant struggle to survive, a battle against my own nature to ensure that I could secure a comfortable future (and so I would not lose the things that made me truly and wholly happy - my video games and my comfort objects, i.e. stuffed animals and inflatables.) The cost of this battle was only my happiness, and to some extent, my personhood.

The time that I began this 'fight for my life' in my education was also the time that my older cousin began to have a major presence in my life. He'd grown up rougher than me, adapting to become more 'street smart' to avoid hazing from bullies. I think he saw me, a neurodivergent, scrawny, and likely pretty obviously queer kid, and wanted to make sure I was safe from the riff-raff he was used to. So he tried to toughen me up. He taught me how to walk right, what clothes to wear, how to keep my voice and head down to avoid trouble with the older kids, etc. (He even advised me to burn my collection of stuffed animals - advice I will never regret ignoring!)

I think it was this, the growing disparity between my perception of maturity and my own comforts, and the overall apathy of the world around me towards my academically-based emotional distress, that made me into a more reserved person as I became a teenager. I already had trouble making friends, considering that so much about my interests and personality were - and still are - intrinsically based in the nebulous, indescribable web of my life experiences. But this was the turning point that rendered me closed off from almost everybody, save for those few special people I could and can still be candid and emotionally open with. I became afraid to make new friends, scared that the more they'd find out about me the more they'd realize how strange I was, and say or do something horrible to me or the things I love.

I wanted to share this experience and the way it made me feel with others, and I think that's why all of these sentiments (intentionally or not) worked their way into my writing.

(I swear this is about Rocket, just be patient.)

My main story, WarTorn, is set in a space opera universe where humans and anthropomorphic animals co-exist, and sometimes groups of the former decide to try to destroy the latter in big wars that are metaphors for religious persecution of LGBTQ+ people, and there are ancient secrets left behind by past intergalactic civilizations, and so on and so forth, but for the sake of this current topic of conversation there is only one aspect that matters: the main character, the namesake of my online presence, Luke Sanders.

Luke is spotted out as a child by the government of the human-anthro' Coalition to take part in a Super-Soldier program to destroy the puritanical anti-anthro' army that has risen in the dark corners of this fiction's Galaxy. They take him and a bunch of other children, both human and anthro's, and mold them into the soldiers the Galaxy needs them to be. Luke becomes a hero, but after all of the brutal training, extensive education and brainwashing, and the agonizing and near-fatal chemical and cybernetic augmentations, he has lost his personhood. He sees himself as a machine, existing only to serve and be a beacon of strength to the people he protects, burying his emotions so he can't be judged for them. But while he attempts throughout the story to steel himself from his emotion, it subconsciously slips in anyways.

From the beginning of the military career he lost his childhood training for, his life is painted by tragedy. He loses his childhood best friend early on, and his lover much later, both people he had formed bonds with that defied physical description. Every loss becomes not just an emotional toll but a personal failure, and he beats himself up for not being able to meet the expectations placed upon his shoulders. Eventually he becomes so afraid of losing the ones he loves that he stops loving altogether, and becomes even more stoic and isolated than before. It's only after circumstance forces him to create new bonds and become close with new friends that he realizes that he is indeed a person, that his feelings matter, and that the time he spends with the ones he loves while he has them make all the heartbreak worth it. Later, when Luke and the Coalition finally win the conflict against the puritanical threat that has gripped the Galaxy for years, and Luke is able to get his happily ever after, he can't help but feel aimless in a universe where he no longer has purpose. His journey becomes finding a purpose of his own, fully becoming a person, finally free of the high expectations he likely imposed upon himself. One big dramatized metaphor for my own personal feelings throughout life.

In Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3, the snarky and cynical Rocket the Raccoon's past is explored heavily. He is revealed to have once been a raccoon from Earth, taken at a young age by the evil High Evolutionary and molded into a thinking and speaking creature through extensive and cruel surgery and augmentations. Despite the hardship, he is driven by his connection to his friends (three other test subjects, Lylla the Otter, Teefs the Walrus, and Floor the Rabbit, all three of whom have also been extensively modified) and together they look forward to the promise of a happy life in the High Evolutionary's perfect society once his work is done. However, eventually it is revealed that the High Evolutionary no longer has a need for Rocket and his friends - they were only created for their intelligence and ingenuity, for their knowledge to be a stepping stone towards a better iteration of the High Evolutionary's perfect beings - and that he and his friends are to be killed. Rocket attempts to break Lylla, Teefs, and Floor out of their captivity, but all of his friends who he was up until this point motivated by the dream of a perfect life with, die in the escape attempt. Rocket is left the only survivor, alone and depressed now that that the only things that made him happy and hopeful in the universe have been ripped from him. He becomes cynical and jaded, afraid to let others too close to him for fear of losing them too. He feels like a monster, warped and created without purpose. He only overcomes this when forced into an alliance with the other Guardians, who are also carriers of their own trauma, and together they create an unbreakable bond. And it's only on the verge of death, in his darkest hour, that Rocket is visited in a dream by his friends, and Lylla tells him that his existence is more meaningful than he knows. He pulls through and rejoins his friends in the fight, not only defeating the High Evolutionary but saving the other animals that were being tested on, learning that he is indeed a raccoon in the process. Up until this point, he has seen 'raccoon' as a demeaning term, something to label him as something other, something less than a person. But here he realizes it's actually his identity, that he's not alone and never was. And by the end, he heals, ready to find that purpose and set his own expectations for himself.

I wrote the entirety of WarTorn way before Guardians 3 came out, so seeing the parallels between Rocket's story and Luke's, especially when Luke is so heavily inspired by my own life, was an extremely emotional experience. I've been going over scenarios in my head where Luke and Rocket interact. They'd clash at first because of their different personalities (and because Rocket is Rocket) but slowly realize how similar their lives and troubles are, and then help each other find their missing pieces and become better people. I adore the idea of these two forming an understanding of each other's histories just from seeing each other's reactions to little things and recognizing their own trauma in each other's behavior, to the point that they know they can confide in one another and be met with unabashed understanding and acceptance, free of judgment because "Hey... I've been there." And in some abstract way, I have too.

The first thing I had thought leaving that theater was "I want to hug that raccoon and let him know that he is beautiful and loved." So I ordered a plush. I needed something physical to latch onto, some way to express this overwhelming emotion physically. And now he has a special place in my arms as I lay in bed or on my desk as I work or in my canvas bag when I go out of the house.

Rocket is very important to me. He's the first thing I had poured over in months that wasn't "oh my God I'm a terrible writer" or "I'm going to die someday." And that puts him at least somewhat above all of the other comfort characters and hyperfixations I've had over the years. Because he's the first thing I have loved with all my heart in a long, long time. And now, whenever that oppressive melancholy begins to creep up my mind, I think of him and the parts of my life that led me to being so emotional about him, and I am reminded that love and feeling still exist in my heart, and always will.

Hi! My name is Noelle or Sanguinary, depending on where you know me from. Please don't call me "Sang" or "San", if you must shorten my name, please call me S. I am a lesbian who's gender identity is best described as trans lesbian. I am twenty-three years old, my pronouns are she/her, they/them. I also use moon neopronouns, but these are optional. Please respect grammar though and do not change pronouns in the middle of sentences (she went to the park and they brought her frisbee, at least I think it was moons) as this makes it incredibly hard to read and understand.

I am currently in a long-term relationship (08-28-21) with my joyous little beast, @incubian. While it is my little beast, I am it's little freak.

(P.S., you don't need to read more. Knowing this is plenty about me.)

I am physically disabled. I might talk about this sometimes, because it sucks balls. The exact specifications in regards to my disability are private and poking and prodding in regards to what exactly disables me is inappropriate. If I feel the need to disclose my disability, I will, but I am under no obligation to be your personal Bible in regards to answering questions about disabilities unprovoked. Please use Google instead.

Past my physical disabilities, I am neurodivergent, I have several "scary" mental illnesses that I am not obliged to share, but what I am willing to share is the fact that I have autism. I may type with a flat tone, miss social cues or misread your tone. However, do not use tone indicators with me. They do not help me and I spend more time Googling what they mean- I do not appreciate time wasted.

I spend most of my free time creating, reading and playing games. I have been writing since 2010 - 2011, a fact that startles me. I have writing commissions open- Check my other blog, @sanguinaryrose for those. When I am not doing that, I often spend my time badgering my long-distance significant other like a cat realizing you are mere moments late to it's regular feeding schedule. It loves me, though, so I'm allowed to be a little cat running in front of it to play insurance fraud every once in a while. Past those activities, I spend a lot of my time resting on account of my chronic conditions.

Some of my special interests are dragons, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh! (TCG & Anime), Warrior Cats, World of Warcraft, Monster Hunter, Baldur's Gate (I - III), Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Axolotls, Dinosaurs and Spyro. If you want to make friends really fast, ask me about these. However, I ask that you err on the side of caution when it comes to critique of any medias mentioned in my presence unless I initiate it; I can take it very personally, like you're attacking me, and it will, 100%, make me act like the big companies need defense from some random online.

I am a non-practicing, baptized Wiccan. I respect all religions, even if I do not personally practice them or have bad experiences with them. So long as you respect my religion, I will respect yours, or your lack thereof. Please do not try fighting with me or debating me in regards to my religion, it has taken me over 15 years to even want to consider my religion properly past a "God hurt me!" level of comprehension. I am not going to try and debate you in or out of any religion or world view, as above all else, unless bigotry (racism, trans/homophobia) is involved, I believe in mutual respect. However, in having said that, I reserve my right to sharply cut contact should you prove yourself to be a threat to me, my partner, or my mental health in any way, shape or form.

I have a blacklist of media or things that I avoid at all costs, it's either triggering or I loathe it to such a deep degree that I just cannot discuss it civilly without making an ass of myself.

Additionally I have a whitelist of a few special interests of mine. Note that these links do not work on mobile.

If all of this [written while motioning to the whole post] doesn't bother you, or sounds cool or whatever, you're more than welcome to reach out and start chatting; I'd quite appreciate having more mutuals to talk to. I hope you have a peaceful rest of your day; thank you kindly for reading this all.

Divider template by @/cafekitsune / @/kithsune.

This is just going to be a ramble and talk about Futaba’s childhood growing up since I find that fascinating. A lot of this will be my headcanons/interpretations of things sprinkled in with the canon stuff that is said. I probably will forget stuff so please forgive me. Anyways, Futaba as a child growing up I imagine was as fun as it was stressful. When she was a very small child, Wakaba would read her some bedtime stories, also reading her some stuff that probably shouldn’t be read to such a small child. As in, more advanced stuff than she was ready for because Futaba would insist.

Wakaba saw that she had a love for reading and learning from such a young age. Instead of trying to push down her a preordained path; you know, following a certain “this is when your child needs to learn stuff” sort of deal, Wakaba taught her that stuff. Futaba would understand it quicker than she expected, and that’s when Wakaba learned a little bit about Futaba’s eclectic memory that was passed down from her. Eventually this would culminate in her going to a doctor and confirming this. She did also see signs of what could be autism but declined to test for that specifically. 

Some of the first books that Futaba came to love growing up were about UFO’s and aliens. She would read them thoroughly and whenever she would see something with a UFO on it, she would want to look at it. Something about the designs of them drew her in.  Same with Egyptian mythology.  Something about seeing hieroglyphics and the way that those images were painting an entire language must've been fascinating. After all, all she was taught at that point was Japanese which are just words. This is pictures creating words!

Of course, her fascination for both crossed over at times, but for the most part she learned about them seperately. As she grew older, she started to get fascinated in other things and was really learning how smart she was and her eclectic memory. But, as talked about in canon, her intelligence  and the way that she wanted to share what she enjoyed resulted in her getting constantly bullied. She couldn’t understand why and it gave her anxiety. Plus, she always felt like she was closer to a book and her mom than anyone else.

That resulted in her being an incredibly lonely child. She would always be off by herself whenever not in class, eating meals in some other part of the school and taking any opportunity that she could to hide herself in a book. Eventually, however, she found herself gathering an interest in computers as well. There was a computer lab in her school, and they had classes in there, learning the basics of computers. How to use a keyboard and mouse, how to use a word processor, etc etc. In typical Futaba fashion she learned all of that incredibly quickly and also played games on it as well (3D pinball anyone?) Her love of video games started from here and grew to console gaming as well, eventually.

Computers made sense to her. People did not. Computers were (mostly) predictable and there was so much information contained within them combined with the power of the internet. She used it to learn more about her favorite subjects and probably get into a bit of trouble as she tried to bypass the school firewalls and restrictions put on them in order to get closer to the lower levels of the computers and operating system. Once she learned about coding that’s where she really wanted to learn more.

Coding was structured and once again, it made sense. Input some code and for the most part assuming there wasn’t some weird things going on, it would display some things on screen just like how she wanted them. The stuff that she created would be incredibly basic programs, including a pong game that at the time, she was really proud of. She rushed home and showed her mom her programs and other assorted things that she had made through a usb drive on the computer that Wakaba had for work related and personal stuff. She felt like she was truly accomplishing stuff. And that’s when her love of computers would blossom more towards how it is in her current day life.

Of course, she didn’t always get the chance to show off her love for things because of Wakaba’s increasing busyness. Often Futaba was left to her own devices though sometimes Sojiro when he wasn’t busy would look after her for a bit. At least until Wakaba came home. Or sometimes the other family members would look after her. Futaba didn’t realize that she would come to despise them as they would end up seeing her as nothing but a waste of time and space.

At some point Wakaba realized that Futaba’s love of computers needed to be nurtured more. And that’s when she would end up giving the young girl her own computer. Was it particularly powerful? Not really. It was a mid-range machine at best. However, just the fact that she had her own machine that she could do whatever she wanted with, assuming she took any and all responsibility for potentially breaking it? Was great.

So, you had a child who at this point was lonely and a little bit jaded because other kids would pick on her and make fun of her for being so smart and having an eclectic memory. She tried to demonstrate this by saying stuff from memory about a book and it just caused her to get even more bullied. There was only one person in her life besides her mom who didn’t immediately bully her. However, that whole thing is in itself a whole can of worms.

Plus, she was seeing less and less of her mom, and was assuming incorrectly that her mom didn’t see her as a high priority. The reality was that Wakaba was an overworked single mother trying to do everything that she could to support her daughter and ensure that she had nothing but love and support at every turn. She would help upgrade her computer a bit and still gave her all the books and stuff that she could ever read. It was just when it came to physical affection and being there for her that she would sometimes fall flat.

Most of her time was now focusing on reading, coding and just trying to get through school. That feeling of loneliness and isolation never left her, just was left to fester and grow inside. It was on the day of her mothers death that everything changed for her. She desperately wanted to spend more time with her mom, someone who she trusted completely. She suggested a family trip and was being insistent on it. Wakaba then told her that she couldn’t do it now, probably a bit harshly and that when her research was done then they would do what she wanted.

Of course, that would never happen as her mother was about to be killed in the cognitive world. But from Futaba’s perspective, it was like her mother suddenly was giving her the cold shoulder. That she had done something really wrong by insisting on going on that family trip. It didn’t matter where they went in particular, the point was she wanted to go with Wakaba and maybe Sojiro if he was available. She liked Sojiro since he was nice and friendly, and was like a father she didn’t have to some extent? Though mostly just a nice and friendly guy.

Speaking of that, there’s no mention of Futaba’s real dad at all. My interpretation of this was because he was a deadbeat that Wakaba had a short relationship and then realized he was a real scumbag. Especially once he refused to do anything with taking care of Futaba with her. She told him to go to hell and they mutually parted ways. Whenever Futaba would ask she would say that he was just a bad person and not worth talking about. Futaba eventually stopped caring about her father.

Everything else we basically know in canon. Futaba getting taken from family member to family member, getting neglected by her Uncle and then being brought in by Sojiro. I imagine that Futaba really doesn’t remember much from this time. It’s all a massive blur to her since it was happening so quickly. She wouldn’t have much time to even process the fact that her mother was dead, and that she got blamed for it and was harmed so thoroughly by this that it left her feeling absolutely devastated and dead inside.

Those feelings of isolation, guilt and not being loved that she had left simmering inside her was growing incredibly fast and it resulted in her getting a palace. It was so overwhelming that of course it ended up with her hallucinating. Her memories of her mom that she loved was replaced with those of her hating her and it left her just feeling like there was no point in anything. This resulted in her in being a neet and not wanting to interact with anyone. At first, her sleeping a lot was because it was the only way that she could escape her intrusive thoughts.

Eventually it just became something that she did a lot because of a lack of energy due to her lack of doing much of anything. She didn’t have particularly great stamina growing up and would find herself getting tired more than some children, but for the most part she was a normal child in that regard. However, her isolation really amplified that, plus there was a thyroid problem that goes undiagnosed, because getting a doctor to see her was hard and when Sojiro would get doctors to see her, they wouldn’t exactly do a great job addressing her problems and not suggest any sort of help. Plus, Futaba was incredibly socially adverse at this point.

Sometimes she had the energy to actually go out but she was incredibly shy and would try to do everything that she could to not stand out. That’s how the café was bugged, and she looked in on Sojiro. He was upstairs grabbing stuff and cleaning the attic a little bit and she installed them. It was her way of keeping tabs on him and to know when to call him when she needed something. During this time her only social interactions were online and that molded how she talked to people in real life for a long time after. It’s something that she takes with her even after the events of persona 5 strikers.

I do think however, she does at some point get an appreciation for how people act. Not so much about what they go through but there was something about watching people and seeing them go through life that was fascinating to her. Once her change of heart happens, she gets into the habit of doing people watching now that she doesn’t hate people and just finds the whole thing fascinating. Social interaction of course takes her a while still.

There is absolutely so much more that I could mention but this post is incredibly long as is. I just kind of wrote and wrote and was putting my thoughts down on paper. As you can see, I’m fascinated by a lot of Futaba’s stuff and especially her childhood since we never really get to see tiny Taba and her relationship with her mother and Sojiro all that much. I really wish I did because it would absolutely be adorable for sure. But yeah, this was just a ramble I decided to make on a whim.

G'day, Adelaide!

Welcome to our blog, Autism Eats! Run by a pair of hungry queer neurodiverse students of Flinders University who believe that accessible food is Very important. It's a little more than frustrating to walk into a restaurant hungry, and walk out disappointed and $70 lighter than you were when you entered, se we're here to cut out the guessing game, and help with deciding whether or not you want to eat somewhere! Our rating criteria is based on a few things we deem important to the Autistic Good Needs, such as: -Flavour

-Texture

-Level of communication needed

-Are the staff friendly?

-Do they have chicken nuggets/tenders? -Accessibility

Now is the time for introductions and, in a later post, our first food review. Hello! My name is Magnus, I'm 23 years old, my pronouns are he/him, and my favourite colour is blue. My special interest is the Legend of Zelda franchise, and my safe food is salmon sashimi with soy sauce and lemon. I am less food averse so I have a wider palette, and am open to trying a new food every now and then :)

Hi! My name is Apollo, and i'm 26 years old! My pronouns are also He/Him, and my favourite colour is green. My special interest is Minecraft- specifically, creating and running modded roleplay servers, with tonnes of lore and worldbuilding! My safe food is Chicken Schnitzel and Chips, usually with Creamy Garlic Sauce, although this is currently in contention. I have pretty bad ARFID, and will generally focus on the 'plainer' foods in great detail (because, y'know, i've had them 62,000 times).

hello :3

my name is Ivory, and this is my tumblr blog, which I have had for 8 years! I've tried to tag all my posts and reblogs from 2020 forward; the others are in the past and should stay there lol

I am 21, and my main interests are autism (which I think about near 24/7) and animals (which I am studying in school). I am from the US

I am autistic (level 1) and ADHD (primarily inattentive)

that is the TDLR, now for the extended version...

Special interests:

Autism. Since being diagnosed in 2021, autism became my special interest, and I think about it nearly all the time. right now it is at, I would say, a fairly stable level of interest. Things I research right now include how higher support needs autistics experience the world, including AAC and discrimination.

xQc. I'm hesitant to include him here. I feel like this interest is almost 'in remission', which is almost certainly an inappropriate phrase here. xQc is a twitch streamer who streams a variety of games and reaction content. he streams for like 10+ hours per day, so he is an essentially never-ending source of content.

He is a very over the top personality, and exceptionally candid compared to other top streamers. Yet when he gives his opinions on things, even if I disagree with his conclusion or how he delivered it, I can always see where he's coming from.

I relate to his awkwardness, and he is very honest which I appreciate.

I also think it's fun to see how different his life is from mine, like he moves like 2x per year, and he buys all new furniture every time!

X was certainly a special interest last school year, but now as I go to in person school and work, I see a lot more people. Streaming is almost a stand-in for socialization, and now that I have in-person socialization, I'm not as interested in X's life.

Animals are another strong interest for me, although I don't know that it qualifies as a special interest, but maybe it does! I guess it's not a super technical term, so there aren't clear guidelines on that... anyway:

I love whales and all cetaceans! I know it is kinda controversial to like dolphins (they are sorta violent) but I like them. I also like beluga whales, these are the two I have stuffed animals of. But I love all whales!

I also like manatees and aardvarks, the reason I list them together is because they are 'closely' (not that close) related - they are both afrotherians, along with the elephant! I have actually seen a manatee in the wild :D

similar to the aardvark, is the anteater! I love the anteater and how the babies ride on the mother's back! it's so cute

speaking of babies on mothers' backs: the opossum! I love the opossum and I think they are so cute! The virginia opossum is the only marsupial in Canada and the US and so their pouches are so curious to me.

Snails!!! I can't believe I almost forgot! Snails are so cute and slow and my favorite invertebrate. I have a snail squishmallow who goes with me to school. I want to get snail pets in the near future.

humans - not really a favorite animal, but I love learning about our evolutionary history - Stefan Milo on YouTube is a great source of information on this topic

--tags--

#orange - funny tumblr posts I reblog, I didn't want to just tag them 'funny' or something, because I thought that would be rather presumptuous, like saying a joke and then telling you to laugh. but I do find them funny

#purple - more serious tumblr posts. they are on a variety of topics, but autism posts I tag with #autism instead

#animals - literally anything to do with animals, and I will also tag the post with the specific animal so I can find them later (not humans tho!)

#my addition - when I add something to a reblog

#mine - for posts I create

I posted 1,268 times in 2022

That's 110 more posts than 2021!

209 posts created (16%)

1,059 posts reblogged (84%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@araccoonthatlikesmurder

@leederpfucker

@cyanityinsanity101

@daughterthethird

I tagged 429 of my posts in 2022

#colored chats - 80 posts

#inanimate insanity - 72 posts

#the colored shrine - 57 posts

#colored’s reblogs - 55 posts

#colored's reblogs - 29 posts (wh)

#colored’s doodles - 26 posts

#colored’s faves - 23 posts

#colored’s responses - 19 posts

#colored bliss - 15 posts

#oc tag: velvet scarf - 13 posts

Longest Tag: 113 characters

#when somebody triggers my misophonia i usually go into fight mode instead of flight mode & my family hates me 🥰 (when did i ever tag this)

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

The lineless roles of a (Chap)man capable of many styles!

[Tags as kin, ID, f/o and the like: OK!]

39 notes - Posted May 15, 2022

#4

Y’ALL READY TO WATCH ME HYPERANALYSE SILVER? NO? IM DOING IT ANYWYAY AND I PROMISE IM NOT STEALIMG OSA WILLOW’S JOB

MAJOR III8 P2 SPOILERS DOWN BELOW

So, I get it. Robow is canon, Testy and Fan made her too. That’s fun and all, very very fun.

I’m more focused on something else, though. Specifically, the scene right before Silver accidentally commits arson. Mostly because of Candle’s expression before Silver pulls out the comically large match, which is as follows.

She looks shocked, as if she never expected Silver to crack the code of an inner flame. Also worth noting that not even a few hours earlier, he had recklessly tried what he had seen last time when looking to unlock his flame.

So the fact he could supposedly put things together in the span of one day just doesn’t make sense.

But at the same time, I think there’s far more to our anxiety riddled friend than meets the eye.

Why? Look at what he’s triggered over the season besides from the inner flame stuff.

He’s led his team to both disarray and redemption, triggered self consciousness in the likes of Yinyang and also self confidence in likes of the Floor. Lifted others up, dragged others down… but look at what happened to who he’s brought down.

Yinyang, while originally severely affected by Silver’s plotting, has actually grown to respect and understand one another thanks to Candle’s guidance and a change of perspective. This doesn’t mean the pair are done yet, not by a long run.

Paintbrush was angered by his actions at first, but they opted to warn him of what’s to come. This led Silver to lift the floor up and secure the pre-rearrange Thinkers safety into this new swap. And Paintbrush, not expecting their actions to get through to him and lead to his advisor status, got shocked by this.

And now Clover. Silver’s words had stuck with Nickel, leading to him calling Clover out. Yet Silver seemed to be indifferent about Clover after his outburst, as he hasn’t been shown to interact with her further. Yet Silver’s actions had led up to Clover exiting the game not even a few minutes later.

So without a doubt, there’s more to come for Silver. There’s his true inner flame that has potential to shine through, ongoing situations such as Balloon maybe getting through to him… I get a feeling Silver may wind up on a Microphone level of development in one way or another. Just without a Taco-like backup

39 notes - Posted April 29, 2022

#3

Things in II that I like:

- silver’s canon anxiety

- the implications that lifering has some kind of trauma, presumably to multitask

-TK’s likely empty nesting thingo

- goo being the autism creature

43 notes - Posted August 16, 2022

#2

@evbobevisgoinginsane

you dare assume the case is sleeping on the grass? lies, as you can see here she is very comfy and happy /lh

52 notes - Posted August 22, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Lineless swagging

[Tag as kin/id/me: OK!]

61 notes - Posted April 21, 2022

Can't believe Tumblr said Pinkers supremacy.

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

An introduction to myself:

Hi, I’m TsukaiInLight. I generally just post thoughts about various things that are happening with me or that I’m interested in (usually video game-related). I sometimes post drawings of my OCs using the tag #tsukai22-draws-ocs. Don’t expect the quality of them to be anywhere near as good as most other artists on the internet though.

Now, a bunch of fun facts / random trivia about myself (long read):

- I'm on the autism spectrum. It was diagnosed as Asperger's but I don't think you're supposed to use that term anymore. I also have ADHD. - I want to be mostly positive and stay as positive as I can, but it's hard for me.

- I’m a mega-fan of Soleil from Fire Emblem. Why?

- I've done approximately 25 playthroughs of Fire Emblem Fates. I've also done 6 runs of Three Houses, 4 of Awakening, 4 of Three Hopes, 1 of Radiant Dawn, 1 of Echoes: SoV and one of the original FE Warriors. I also play FE Heroes daily. - I'm also a big fan of the Digimon games - I've played every English game except DW4, Data Squad, and the Battle Spirits. I've also played the Re:Digitize games - first in Japanese and later using their fan translations. - I bought a PSP specifically for Re:Digitize. I also bought a Japanese 3DS specifically for Re:Digitize Decode. - In fact, my name comes from my favourite Digimon Tsukaimon. "Tsukai" conveniently happens to be unique enough to be a username. Why is Tsukaimon my favourite? [Insert another "I Just Think It's Neat" picture] - I'm also a massive Persona fan. Persona 4 Golden was my favourite game of all time for a while, and might still be - Persona 5 Royal gives it a run for its money though. - Speaking of, my favourite final boss of all time is Persona 5 Royal's. I didn't have a favourite final boss prior to this, so I'm not sure who my second favourite is. - I've also enjoyed the SMT games I've played (4, 4A and 5). - Despite Fire Emblem and Persona being two of my favourite video game franchises, I don't "ship" characters, or have "waifus", etc. In the latter case, I just have characters I really like. In the former case, the closest thing to shipping would be pairings in specific playthroughs of FE Fates, or maybe "shipping" canon pairings such as married couples. Similarly, I think I’m one of the only Soleil fans who doesn’t ship Soleil and Ophelia - that relationship seems too one-sided for me. - My top 10 (or maybe even top 20) favourite video games list would be entirely Japanese games with the random exceptions of Skyrim and Total Annihilation ranking really high, and The Witcher 3 being in there as well. - My favourite SoulCalibur game is 6. I haven't played or watched any other SoulCalibur games. - I once got a new laptop, and upon starting up Skyrim for the first time everything worked as normal and I didn't need to tweak any settings - I consider this to be some sort of achievement. - I enjoy the WWE games because of the character creators. I almost never actually play them, I just watch the CAWs fight. - I'm more likely to enjoy a game if I can create my character - I like playing as my OCs, and it encourages multiple playthroughs from me for different OCs, or even characters from other games. - My musical tastes are all over the place. While I mainly enjoy rock-pop music, the songs I have in my main playlist at any given time are from all sorts of media, all sorts of genres, all sorts of eras and of varying levels of obscurity (from massively popular worldwide to known by almost no one). - I'm Australian. - I prefer dubs to subs when watching anime. - When playing games, I often talk/think to myself as if I'm doing a Youtube video or Twitch stream. - Over time, I've become generally unfazed by / used to / de-sensitized to lewd things - and it becomes easy for me to forget that a lot of other people aren't like that when I talk about that kind of thing. - I often feel the need to over-explain things to make sure people have the full picture of what I'm talking about. I'm fully aware this may have the opposite effect though. - I'm not really a movie person - I think the most recent movie I watched was released in 2015. - I've lost - and put back on =( - substantial amounts of weight three times in my adult life. - I play Smash Bros with tap jump on - I do wish I could play with tap jump off but my attempts at doing so have gone badly. I just can't get used to it within a reasonable time frame, so I keep giving up and reverting to tap jump on. - I want to make friends but am completely inept at doing so. I consider myself very fortunate for the friends I do have. - I just noticed how many of these points start with the word "I". I guess that's to be expected with this kind of post. - I enjoy some sports - mainly Australian Rules football and tennis, with a passing interest in gridiron. - One of my hobbies is making games with RPG Makers, or editing Pokemon games. These never get released publically, they're just for my own personal amusement. Similarly, I also like making Mario Maker levels, Miitopia Miis and the like.

oh Btw nico going back to that book rec posts- any ya recs for me? i figure i should start getting into it a bit more

you absolutely should!! I am getting into classics, it only makes sense. balance of the universe and whatnot

So! A few general things before I give some recs, since this is Baby's First Trek Into YA (this is not necessary. im just having fun):

not all YA is created equal <3 YA is literally just an age target (13-18) and can be any genre & level of quality

there's upper YA and lower YA. Upper is more like 15-18, lower is 13-15. No one really makes this distinction anymore, though. (I like lower YA tbh. it's fun, and more serious than MG, but usually doesn't have the romances that are so often integral in upper YA.)

do not read YA dystopians unless you've seen people talk about things that *aren't* the characters/romance

trust me

you will be sad

Anyway!! Time for the actual recs. (you may or may not have read some of these, idk. Hopefully not, lmao.) I tried to pick ones that I think you specifically would almost certainly like, but I have more!

Six of Crows, Leigh Bardugo; we talked about this one, but it's worth mentioning again. It has heists!! Murder!! A cool magic system!! Probably my favourite YA epic fantasy.

Lost in the Never Woods, Aiden Thomas; this one is a peter pan retelling. Wendy's brothers went missing in the Never Woods years ago, and now, kids are going missing again. This one is slower, and talks a lot about trauma and mental health.

CG Drews' books. This is "a thousand perfect notes" and "the boy who steals houses". they're just... skdhfks. ATPN is a genderbent cinderella retelling about abuse and mental health, and TBWSH is an ownvoices story about autism and anxiety (and waffles).

The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins. 24 kids are thrown in an arena each year to fight to the death on live TV. Best dystopian I've ever read. A story about war and trauma.

These Violent Delights, Chloe Gong. A Romeo and Juliet retelling in 1920s Shanghai, about rival gang members that must team up when their gangs start being brutally murdered. I'm not done, but it's really good so far.

The Raven Boys, Maggie Stiefvater. The first book in my favourite series ever! Five teens search the hills of Virginia for a dead welsh king so they can awaken him and have a wish granted. Much, MUCH weirder than it sounds.

The Gilded Wolves, Roshani Chokshi. A group of mildly-criminal acquaintances must steal something for a mysterious order, and in exchange, the leader might finally get his inheritance. (It's historical fantasy, which I think you'd like.)

@gingeridot said on one of my posts: "But please, can you say anything about Sir Lyle? (For the sequel?) Ahhhh that is (among the more obvious things, hehe) what I'm really looking forward to 🙈🙈🙈"

I started responding... and then realized it would be WAY too long. So, here I go! I'll have two parts, one about the character himself and one about the sequel (though I can't say too much there without spoilers).

Sir Lyle as a Character

This poor guy. I feel like I beat up on him mercilessly in this story, but it's a consequence of (a) the perspective being utterly and entirely outside his own and in his absence, (b) it being difficult for him to communicate and also difficult for others to fully understand his motivations, and (c) the fact that his actions have served to hinder Link, our main protagonist, whose motivations and feelings we have a clear window on.

When I started writing, I knew I wanted all my characters to be real, full people, not stereotypes and not portrayed as one-dimensional mean people in order to serve the story (some fics make Rhoam like that, and it bugs me). People have complicated conflicts due to their differing perspectives on the world, and those conflicts create stories.

For Link's father (Sir Lyle in my fic), I started with Link. (1) In BotW Zelda says Link is following his father's path. This says to me most likely he was one of the royal guard. If I interpret it to be more specific than that, he might have been Zelda's mother's appointed knight, or simply the captain of the royal guard. (2) Link got this idea from somewhere that he needs to keep himself quiet in order to fit the idea of being the hero. Through Zelda's diary, we get a tiny bit of dialogue from him that says he thought he had to, "stay strong and silently bear any burden." Now... where did that idea come from? It made sense to me that if Link thinks he needs to behave that way, he thinks that's how a knight is supposed to behave. I therefore decided this is how Sir Lyle behaves. (It can be interpreted other ways too, but this is what I went with).

A step beyond that, Sir Lyle encourages his son to behave the same way.

Okay, with that established... why does Sir Lyle act this way? It could be the same... that it's traditional in the family and all the sons are knights, etc. That seemed like a path that's been explored thoroughly already, though, and doesn't say as much about Link's immediate family as it does his heritage. So I looked to Link himself a bit again, and to the way I interpreted his pre-Calamity behavior as socially anxious. There are even some scenes in the game in which Link's eyes roam around in a way that looks distinctly uncomfortable to me. Even post-Calamity, if you rotate the camera so you can see how Link's face moves when he greets people with a wave, his face has this MASSIVELY uncomfortable grimace on--it doesn't look like a real smile to me. Then he drops his waving hand and falls back into neutral stance, and it's like he's thinking, "Phew! I'm sure glad that's over. I said hi--job done." It seems like it took a lot of effort for him just to do that. (And of course not everyone will see it this way, but this is what I saw).

The idea grew on me that Link wasn't just socially anxious, but that he really does have a tough time looking people in the eye and interacting with them, most especially when he doesn't know them well (shallower social interactions). And then I figured, that level of difficulty can run in a family. I wrestled with myself a little bit on this because Link gets reincarnated repeatedly, but I eventually decided his genetics do matter and each incarnation of him would be a little different, and this one was born with high-functioning autism, just like his dear old dad. But Sir Lyle's symptoms are more severe. (Now that I've mentioned that, I should include an explanatory statement that I have these social difficulties and other neurodiversity challenges myself, and I am not making light of them. Quite the reverse. I don't even like the word "symptoms" used to describe what are effectively personality traits not shared by the average human.)

So--Sir Lyle is autistic. He's high functioning. But in the pre-Calamity BotW world, they know nothing medically about any of this. He has not had the benefit of recognition, diagnosis, and support. He has simply tried to do the best he can and learned some things by trial and error. (1) It is so, so difficult to look people in the eye. He can't even concentrate on what they're saying if he does. So instead, he draws circles around them with his eyes. It makes him naturally very watchful. All the other knights goofing off chatting with each other? Not him. He's looking all over the place and he sees that fricking Lizalfos long before anyone else does. (2) He's focused on what he's interested in. He is a knight not because he had to be but because it's what he wants. He likes the challenge of precision. He likes that it lets him interact with people in a way that isn't conversation. He likes that his talent leads people to respect him. (3) When he speaks--unless it's about practicalities like sword fighting, rotations, how long to cook that rack of ribs, etc.--people tend to be confused or offended by what comes out of his mouth. This was especially bad when he was a kid and teenager. So he learned to keep his mouth shut so he wouldn't offend people. He became this mostly-silent, all-business knight who in reality was extremely lonely, but it was better than opening his mouth and having people entirely desert him. He got really, really good at his job, but pretty much didn't fraternize with his peers.

He very much needed Link's mom. She's so empathetic she doesn't need him to give the same social signals a more typical person would give in order to know what he's feeling.

There's a lot of backstory I can't divulge without potentially spoiling the sequel or a short story I have running around the back of my head about Sir Lyle. However, if you want some hints, go back to chapter 43 of Link's Thought Brambles and read the part where they sing "My Love is as the Sea." There are many clues in there. There's a reason Sir Lyle likes that song enough to actually sing it in front of people.

I can say that when Sir Lyle starts to realize his son is at least somewhat like him, it scares the shit out of him. He thinks of all the things he said that pissed other people off and tries to get Link to shut up a lot earlier than he did. He thinks he's doing what's best for Link. Unfortunately, he's not all that good with social interaction to begin with and doesn't really understand that it sounds like he doesn't LIKE his son. He also doesn't realize that Link's very silly personality ends up meaning people will find his randomness cute and endearing. For the most part, Link doesn't say scathing things to people like Sir Lyle will if he opens his mouth. Even Link's mom doesn't fully understand the motivation on this one.

In the fic, there is a huge amount of Link totally and completely misunderstanding other people's motivations, and sometimes even their feelings at the time. He even does this with Zelda. At one point, she describes him as "sympathetic and affectionate" but I pointedly made sure she does not use the word "empathetic" because he isn't. He doesn't feel what the other person is feeling. He feels SORRY for them and he wants to help but he can get their feelings themselves VERY wrong. This is still better than Sir Lyle who maybe can have a hard time even telling if someone is upset. He needs very clear signals from the other person or frank, to-the-point (not innuendo) conversations in order to know what's going on. This is not the same as not having feelings, which sometimes people think is what autism is if they're not familiar with it. Autistic people have feelings just as deep as those who aren't, and can find those feelings to be more difficult to control.

I have a whole lot of stuff to say about Sir Lyle and why he picked who for the royal guard, but I think I'll save that for later and get to the sequel because this is already long!

Sir Lyle in the Sequel

Sir Lyle will finally appear in the flesh in the sequel. He'll feature fairly heavily and there'll be more backstory, stuff that is not above. I personally can't wait to show how he and Link actually interact live, and how Zelda responds to him now that she knows more about him through Link's thoughts on the slate. Before, she essentially thought of him as an automaton because he was so rigid.

Things I think I can say without spoiling things:

1 - Something has hurt Sir Lyle deeply. He's having an enormous amount of difficulty dealing with that thing and in reality needs help. Link doesn't realize. He wants to write to Link badly but he just can't. He has not spoken to anyone in any letters about Link, either. Link's mom is confused.

2 - He is overjoyed that his wife is pregnant again.

3 - He's a major badass with just about every weapon but he's massive, so the weapon of choice is often a claymore. He might find something else he likes in Hebra, too.

4 - Sir Lyle is really, really, really formidable. He can give Link a run for his money for sure. He's extremely smart. Had he been on that melee field, he'd just have hung out while everyone else exhausted Link and then gone after him (he wouldn't have joined the melee, though... just hypothetically if he'd been in the yard).

I... have to stop here because I'm running out of time. I have to leave!! 😂 But I could talk about this character all day. He's really one of my favorites even though he technically doesn't appear in the fic.

One of the things I’m thinking about, is how my hyperfixation stuff works. I haven’t seen it really described this way in autism spaces; maybe different words are being used to discuss this, but whatever the case may be, I can’t map the terms of that culture silo to my experience. (This is distinct from not identifying with the narrative.) On the other hand, this is also different from how I’ve seen people describe ADHD hyperfixation. Which doesn’t mean it couldn’t be either of those things. What it means is that the words being used to describe a very subjective interior experience, don’t seem to account for an interest focus being used as a broader connective mesh for organizing tons of unrelated info and processing stuff outside of myself (including social stuff). Like... one thing I've put a lot of thought into, is how my hyperfixation thing works. It's not "having my attention fixed for hours at a time" - because I literally can’t do this *unless* it’s my particular interest, or it can be connected to it. My fixations are - a period of time when I'm literally interested in nothing else but the particular thing I'm into, and have to find ways to Memory Palace any other damned thing I need to learn or do, into that in my head. I have to find ways to make things relate to whatever I'm into at the moment.  The absolutely easiest I've ever lived with this, has  been in health, because it's a case where everything I studied had something to do with health and I was able to get into health work at a relatively low level, whereas there's tons of interests I've had where there's just no point even taking up the interest because it'd just rob from my ability to participate in capitalism. (I have lost jobs because of the wrong focus at the wrong time, literally, I once lost a job because I wrote a novel on the clock.) The reason I’ve been able to become a somewhat decent artist/designer is because it’s an easy set of disciplines for me to incorporate into whatever my interest of the time happens to be. I don’t need to actually “study art” to do art, I can just do art while I’m studying other things; I feel like a gigantic chunk of art practice came about when I was in courses with a cadaver etc. And it's not a focus thing so much as how my learning style works, and it's frustrating when i absolutely can't make a thing I need to focus on, relate to whatever my "thing" is. I also notice this: When I don't have a "thing," I'm deeply depressed. The weird thing with why I thought I was autistic is because there's a ton of stuff that overlaps for me, in self-described autistic experience, but the social part is not there for me except as very, very severe social anxiety. Like I said there's a point at which you are so good at pretending to be normal that you can't say you're not normal. I feel like a lot of my social weirdness was being weird about my interests - not actually having an impaired ability to socially adapt, not being unable to read people, not being unable to empathize, etc, but *the interest itself.* Once I hit a certain age and people stopped micromanaging me about shit I’m into, this really faded away from attention.  But it's something that's such a fixed part of my brain (one of the few things I'll really chalk up to hardware and not software) that it was a major learning problem as a child except on the occasion I had a teacher willing to break through into "my world" whatever my world was at the time, like the teacher who taught me to read after they figured out my "thing" was cats. Is it a social problem? Well it's an obstacle for gaming because I literally have no interest in playing tabletop RPGs unless it's a specific character/setting I'm fixated on at the moment... or I can just be ultra casual and just create a dumb meat shield who makes stupid jokes. (We are starting a D&D game for a 9 year old. This may be about my speed.) It won’t be fun for me. It’ll feel like work. Meanwhile I know fully well that my friends expect me to play their games, not just mine. It was a relationship problem for a long time too because whatever my "thing" was at the moment, would basically be The Other Woman. (tm) Without a particular thing I”m into at the time, I just don't even feel alive, or like I can function, because of how much of my programming routes around special interests as memory palaces. Otherwise I'm just sitting there struggling to make something relate to other things and it doesn't relate to those other things and I can't make it happen. There is nowhere in my interior universe for that thing or experience to fit. And it's like seeing it there, KNOWING I KNOW THE THING, but being unable to access something I KNOW THAT I KNOW, or even know that I know how to do (because I've done it before.) It's a very very difficult experience to describe. (It's funny how many of my interests almost literally map to the idea of memory palaces because of - when it's a fictional setting - being connected to a fictional place. Fictional places, space stations, cities, adventure maps...) I'm able to learn math when I can connect it to something I need to know for an interest but the moment the interest extincts itself (which can happen if I don’t get enough outlet for it/it develops unpleasant associations), I'm struggling for making connections again. It was almost impossible to get back into studying anything STEM once I was out of health. (Though I wonder if my moment is coming again because of the degree to which astronomy and rocket bullshit and old school electronics are part of my setting.) Another place it connects socially is feeling like, when I'm not engaging through My Thing as a social-neural interface, I'm just dissociating my way through something. (Weed actually made this a lot better in some weird ways. Chemically and socially. Also I'm not required to contribute as much in a group of stoners.) It's like my brain creates these structures through which it can absorb exterior stuff, and translate it. My "interests" aren't interests so much as memory palaces - and compilers for stuff I otherwise couldn't use or make sense of. It's annoying to me that I literally fucking forgot how to program HTML the moment I no longer had the things I was making websites about.

this isn’t me vagueing or anything, or I’m not intending to because people have previously expressed the same of what I’m about to rant on, and I don’t want to @ or refer to any blog specifically for reigniting my bafflement of this take because this isn’t a personal grudge match against anyone, just a general *what* of this concept, but

jesus h christ on a stick, why do people want BioShock Infinite’s Elizabeth to have been a racist?

I get an AU fic of another timeline where Comstock’s motives weren’t messy as fuck and he didn’t just plan to force his messiah with a spinal shock collar from the word go, like “what if” stuff, but like saying she should have been racist in the original game and actually wanting this change because it would “improve” her character?

like, disclaimer because I am a white woman who may not have a say in things like this anyway, but honestly the racism angle was a huge mistake in Infinite in the first place, and should never have been done in this game because the lead writer is a white man and I can bet my bottom dollar he most likely did not consult anyone on race or racism beyond what historically accurate heinous racist acts to not depict in the game so players could “sympathise” with the flying racists getting their dues post-Finkton.

You know how important the racism of Columbia is to him? How relevant is it to the ending of the game? Answer: it isn’t. BioShock 1’s ending has the failings of Rapture relevant to the ending regarding the player’s choices. The ending of Infinite, however, focuses on Elizabeth, Booker and the multiverse, where nobody mentions the Vox or how Columbia was a failure or anything. Nothing with the Vox Populi or Columbia’s hubris is linked to the game’s ending. Both are left feeling superfluous. It was just something to stick into the background rather than be a story element that properly tied in with the story’s real focus. If you wanted Levine to write a better racism story I would have to ask you why??? Do you trust him to?????

What reason was there that we switched from extreme nationalism and its consequences in the demos as late as 2012 to “racism bad but the victims of it are also bad if they fight back” in 2013? Who fucking knows. Probably shock value, because I don’t see how time and resources would cause such a change from what Irrational put out there in interviews leading up to release. Given how Levine tried to retcon Daisy’s story in Burial at Sea (and keep in mind Black Lives Matter didn’t start as a movement until a few months after Infinite’s release and before BaS Episode 2 was released) he certainly didn’t commit to “Daisy and Comstock are the same”. If he had conviction for his “both sides” story, he wouldn’t have tried to rewrite it to Daisy choosing to play monster as a necessary sacrifice for her cause (which itself is its own can of worms with how it now plays out).

Considering as well how we had that article revealing how long it took to get a playable build out of Irrational thanks to Levine’s lack of solid direction, as well as the recent revelation that he had never read Ayn Rand when making a game about a city BUILT ON HER IDEOLOGY, I’m pretty sure the poor writing around Columbia’s racism and the Vox Populi in the final game was just made up as he went along to push out a finished product, because it had been five years at that point and 2k was piiiiiiissed.

Then we have how Elizabeth is your companion character, your escort mission. Friends, do you know how escort mission characters were viewed back pre-2013? Bad. The AI could just look at a player funny and they’d draw a 5 page comic on how awful a character they were and post it to deviantart. One of the worst levels in BioShock was when we had to escort a very killable Little Sister with a fishbowl filter on our FOV, and one of the major complaints people had with BioShock 2 was how they had an OPTIONAL escort mission to get more mutation juice. We didn’t start getting games with escort characters like Elizabeth or Clementine or Ellie, characters people actually cared about and WANTED to protect, until around 2012-2013.

You think the people creating Elizabeth, the escort mission character built to be a likeable, enjoyable to be with and empathise with her character, who can never get hurt or kidnapped in combat and actively helps the player, should have had her been a racist??? In a post-Mass Effect world??????

Ashley Williams is a woman from a military family. She is a proud member of the Alliance military who has concerns on working with aliens after having had no prior experience working with aliens. However, you can ease those concerns and help her warm up to building alliances in the first Mass Effect game. Ashley grows to trust alien squadmates, and even without your character’s influence will regard two anti-alien groups with disgust for their outright racism and human centrism.

And here’s the kicker, even with that nuance to her character, in a game of plenty of other more overtly racist and prejudiced characters? ASHLEY IS STILL THE BUTT OF THE SPACE RACISM JOKES. She had flaws, she developed, she proves her loyalties to the point of refusing to work with you when you’re forced to join one of the human centric groups, AND SHE’S STILL MOCKED FOR SPACE RACISM. EVEN IN PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL SHE’S RETROACTIVELY REGARDED AS BEING DIFFICULT TO WORK WITH. THAT IS HOW MUCH THE FANDOM AROUND MASS EFFECT HAS AFFECTED HOW ASHLEY IS SEEN.

And you want Infinite to have Elizabeth be very obviously racist with real life racism? (which is the vibe i’ve been getting) Like, you think all the people behind Elizabeth’s design, her game functionality, her interactions and personality, would give players ammunition to hate a character you’re supposed to enjoy having around on purpose? You think they’re going to give the actual racists and bigots and nazis of the internet a mascot????? Because we already had the facebook header image debacle for a Columbian propaganda poster, you KNOW they would.

And personally I don’t think it would make great character development, because the game is not in the format for that kind of exploration of character’s story. BioShock Infinite is not an RPG with you making dialogue choices with squadmates where you feel like you really influenced them to see the error of their ways. Infinite is a linear shooter. There is no real sense of the passage of time in a linear shooter, the player will experience it like it really doesn’t happen in the span of 20 hours.

Unlearning racism and religious brainwashing is not a quick fixit, and a quick fixit is how it would feel in the 20-40 hours you take to play through the entire game. If Infinite had had Elizabeth going from “I’m racist” to “*sees a black person suffering* maybe racism is wrong???” to “i am no longer racist, I see the error of my ways, you can like me now” in the span of what feels like less than a day to players in a linear game, people would be super critical of the pretty white girl getting cured of her bigotry way too quickly and how the game makes it like we’re supposed to applaud her for being so brave and mature and open-minded, and how much Levine really doesn’t understand nuance or anything about how internalised racism works.

BioShock Infinite’s final release proved that the Vox Populi should not have been handled the way they were. Yes, more media should be discussing and making audiences aware of what is racist, and how irrational it really is when you get down to it, but BioShock Infinite should not have been that media. It was originally written for two opposing sides in a city built on extreme nationalism, much like how BioShock was for objectivism, and then changed relatively last minute. It was written by a white man who’d already written the franchise’s only gay named character as a horrific monster of a man (Cohen) and has expressed how autism is what made a person evil (Tenenbaum). It was written with Elizabeth in mind, a main character who was literally designed to be an escort mission players would actually enjoy, most likely from Day 1 given how much behind the scenes stuff we know of her.

I wouldn’t trust someone like Levine to write a story of a character unlearning racism over the course of a game’s story, i don’t think he should ever have touched a story where racism is a such a prominent element with a 100 foot pole.

Autism Awareness/Acceptance Month

Day 5!

“Special Interests”

Have a quiet Autie in your life? That won’t last long if you tap into their special interest. We can’t shut UP when we find someone who’s genuinely curious about what lights us up.

Every older Autie I know has at least one special interest, sometimes several.

Mine? Dogs. Primarily.

And I mean EVERYTHING dog, but starting with behavior. Then in no particular order, health/genetics, various breeds and their traits, training....literally everything. Even the genes that define coat color & pattern, and what physical genetics are tied to behavior (if you’re curious about that, start with the Russian studies about domesticated foxes and what happened to their red coats, the more tame they became). It was horses when I was younger, but I soon moved to dogs when getting into my late teens (more affordable and accessible I guess lol). And if I don’t know the answer to your questions, we find out together, because I *need* to know, too. 😉 I can talk dogs with you literally all day and never get bored...which helps socially, too (I’ve mentioned that most of my closest friends are dog people) - I have a larger network of friends than most other auties I know, and it’s because of a shared passion for all things dog. 
Then there’s the sciences, but particularly quantum & theoretical physics. I. Fucking. Love. Physics. LOVE IT. Unfortunately, my brain hits a wall with more advanced mathematics, so I can’t “do” physics on the level I want to. Luckily for me, my oldest son is also pretty obsessed with it, and he is now pursuing a degree in physics....so when he comes home, we sit down with his notes and he breaks it down for me (the language behind the experiment or action). I have pictures of his notes saved on my phone, for simply the silly reason that I like the patterns of the math (it’s the “universal language”, if you didn’t know), and like to daydream about understanding it. (He struggles with the math as well...we are both HEAVILY right brained...but he manages.) If there’s a documentary out there about physics (plus many lectures), I’ve probably seen it multiple times. Idk why quantum physics in particular interests me...maybe because it’s almost like magic. ☺️ Quantum entanglement fascinates me, and the theory that things aren’t what they are unless/until you observe them...I can get stuck absolutely obsessing over these things.

Nature/animals are the big background special interest that the specifics tie into, though (and this ranges from astrophysics to the life cycle and structure of an ant colony - and even human psychology). Concerning observable animal/plant nature though (and this is a big one for me), Sir David Attenborough is my hero lol- no one else answers the questions I have, and opens up the natural world for me, like that dude. It was Mutual of Omaha’s nature shows when I was a kid, now it’s him. Sorry not sorry, but a doc on the secret life of plants is *fucking riveting* to me. Science is my JAM! 😆 I am happy to recommend any docs to any other fellow science nerds (Through the Wormhole, The Elegant Universe, and Cosmos are all MUST SEE - if you’re a nature nerd, of course Blue Planet, Our Planet, Life...gosh. So many great series). When I get on a science kick, I get the same feelings I get when I’ve tapped into a difficult dog’s psyche, and we start to figure things out. It’s an absolute thrilling obsession, and I am very restless until all my “why/how” is answered. It’s never enough - I never know enough, and I never will.

It’s also an area where my perpetual 2-3 year old is consistently mostly satisfied. I mean that’s the whole scientific community in a nutshell LOL! “WHY?” “HOW?!” When I was a kid, I’d have to write down all my questions that weren’t answered by our Encyclopedias, and wait till the weekly library trip to find the answers I sought. Now, I have a smartphone and Google LOL....and I cannot even begin to describe how consciously thankful I am for that quick access to answers!! Questions will *eat me alive* sometimes, so answering them in a timely fashion is sooooo satisfying 😆

I guess I’m a bit of an artist/creative personality. I’m unhappy when I don’t have space to create....but that space is pretty damn large, because I’m into almost all of it (you can’t exactly fit a miter and bandsaw into your apartment studio, so I’m very grateful I have the space for the power tools LOL...)

From building things to fabric crafts, I love it all. I get way burned out if one of those things become a “job”, though (ehh except being paid as a regular employee of a historic renovation construction firm LOL) - something I HAVE to do. Then it’s not enjoyable anymore. I had started down a path of marketable creations, and they were in high demand...but then it became something I HAD to do for money, instead of wanting to do for enjoyment - and I haven’t touched that particular craft in 8 years or more now (which frustrates people, because I was good at it). 🤷🏻‍♀️ That’s one of those things I really can’t help. My oldest son seems to be sort of similar....he’s commissioned several pieces (and secured his first few at a VERY young age), but he also tends to get a little frustrated when he’s expected to create something, instead of the urge naturally striking him. The whole beauty and satisfaction from art - for me anyway - stems from pure imagination without constraints. When you’re doing something to please someone, it ceases being art, and turns into just...a skilled task you completed. That’s how I look at it, anyway. So even though I could actually make my art into a career (at least supplementary income), it ceases to be enjoyable for me *at all*, unless I’m creating something for someone who means a lot to me. That, and I really just prefer to give my stuff as gifts. It makes me feel good to see people light up with joy over what I’ve made for them, whatever it was. (I also do a shitload of remote training with people and their dogs, for free. I point folks towards the trainers I respect if they need extensive in person work, but lots of folks don’t have several hundred bucks to sink into understanding their dogs better...so...I just help where I can, now. I think it *used to* frustrate my husband, but he absolutely understands now & is cool with it.)

Oh. And rocks and minerals. I’m an obsessive rockhound LOL - and a cousin is a geologist, so he can break down how and why each is so unique, how it formed & why, etc. I’m actually currently converting a large yard sale antique wardrobe into a piece that can showcase Sir Tommy on one side, and my extensive rock and mineral collection on the other (waaaay not extensive enough, but you might be surprised how expensive quality specimens are. Take moldavite for example...fascinating thing...little chip of it about the size of your pinky nail will run you $20 +, because it’s rare. And yes I am fascinated by the metaphysical value attached to these minerals, and why that’s even a thing.) The way minerals form - let’s cite Aragonite as an example - just captivates me.

So I guess those are my main special interests! If you have a *young* Autie in your life, try to expose them to various things. To find a “special interest” is to find a way to ground ourselves. Special interests are a bit different than...well, I’m not sure what words work for stim interests that you can escape into for NT’s, but it’s less of an interest, and more of an obsession for us. It consumes us.

So anyway, EVERY Autie has a special interest. It could be science, it could be gaming (that’s a big one with lots of males, and not a small one for Autie women either, because it’s an escape you actually have to engage your brain in) or computers; it could be mathematics or art. It could be animals and nature. But eventually (for those of you with wee Auties), Your Pet Autie ™️ will find something that they absolutely obsess over & gets them excited to share their knowledge or creations with you. I encourage parents of auties to help them explore the world and find their niche. It helps us navigate your world, and find a way to be at home in it. It also gives us something to fixate on other than our bumbling attempts at fitting in to a world not built for us.

Circling back - if you know an autistic in your life that you want an “in” to get to know, start with their special interest. (Of course we recognize when you’re doing it just for the merits, versus when you actually want to learn something from us, but we appreciate both, really. It gives us a chance to ...idk. Feel important, maybe. At least that’s what it is to me, and my boys. We love to feel needed for our knowledge!)

Special interests are truly your “in” to an Autie, regardless of what their subject is.

So that’s MY take on the special interests. What lights your beloved Autie up?

Castle & Cats is a Tabletop, Role-Playing Game for Preschool and Elementary aged children. Castles & Cats sets itself apart from other role-playing games by providing quick combat, original visually engaging components, and simplified game mechanics.  With the help of a game master, kids will explore, fight and role-play their way through any adventure.

My goal for Castles & Cats is to introduce young kids to the world of role-playing games while also building on age appropriate, social, communication, and critical thinking skills in a fun and imaginative environment.

Castles & Cats is designed for a game master and 1-2 players. For larger groups the Full Party Expansion can add up to 2 more players onto the base game. Castles & Cats includes:

The full party expansion adds 20 cards and 48 chits to the base game.  This provides components for a max of 4 players and will fit into the Castles & Cats Box.

Cards are made from a 12 point 305gsm black-core matte card stock.

Chits are 1x1 inch double sided and laser cut, their final weight is 12g.

Laser cut items will have a slight amount of soot upon arrival.  Chits will need to be wiped down with a damp cloth.

The Digital Copy of the game can be printed for a game master and 1-4 players, and will come with a D6 conversion table to maintain quick and easy combat.  The digital copy does NOT come with 3D components.

What is needed to play Castles & Cats?

The Castles & Cats Base Game

A Campaign

A set of Role-Playing Dice

Unlike many other pen and paper role playing games, players do not level up in Castles & Cats. Instead, players will gain abilities and progress through class items they buy or find on their adventures. Classes, Weapons, Armor and Companions add special abilities or spells which allow players to customize their characters. Each Class will have 5 sets of Armor, 4 companions, and 5 weapons.

The visual organization of the item cards provides players and game masters with a quick and simple reference.

Players will use cards and chits to build their character.

Castles & Cats strikes a balance between exploration, combat, and role playing. Similar to other role playing games, players will use a D20 die to check the success or failure of their role playing actions.

As an example, the players start approaching a bridge, out of the shadows jumps a large troll who begins flailing his arms and grunting.  

It is the player's role to make choices for their characters and it is the game master's role to react to those choices while also keeping the players on track towards a goal.

With young children ideas can get very silly and out of the box, but those ideas are one of the reasons I created Castles & Cats. Meet the child halfway and roll along with their ideas, those are the adventures which create the most wonder and fun.

On each player's turn during a combat encounter, the player has 3 chances to roll combat dice and damage monsters. The number of dice the player rolls is indicated by the power number on the player's weapon card.  On the first roll, the player rolls all dice and then selects the element they want to cast as damage, in this example we will select fire. The player picks all the fire sided dice out and places them to the side.

The player has two more chances to roll the remaining dice and collect more fire dice. Once a player picks an element they can not change the element mid turn.  At the end of the third roll the amount of fire dice collected is the amount of damage the player deals. Dealing damage ends a players turn.  

After all players have taken a turn, any remaining monsters get a chance to attack. Monster combat is a bit more technical taking player armor and monster attack power into consideration. More about monster builds and facts can be found in the Castles & Cats game guide.

Campaigns are stories or guided adventures. Castles & Cats campaigns are written to be one to two hours long. The number of game sessions it takes to finish a campaign is very dependent on the child. A game master's’ responsibility is to keep the child engaged and wanting to return for more adventures. Stopping a game session too early is better then stopping too late.

Like any role-playing game, campaigns are a core component to Castles & Cats. Game masters can use the official campaigns or make their own. Game sessions will consist of a game master and the players navigating through these stories and interacting with the characters in them.

Upon shipping (Projected November 2019) with Castles & Cats, three Campaign Adventures will also be released.  After launch I plan to release a campaign every 2 - 3 months continuing the story from the previous campaigns. Campaigns will be available on castlesandcats.com as a $5 digital download or a physical copy currently estimated at $30 + Shipping per campaign. Physical copies will include Map Mats, Story Item Cards and Character/Monster Standee Figures.  The digital copies also have maps, story item cards and Character/Monster cut outs but will need to be printed and assembled.  

As a Kickstarter Exclusive, backers pledging for a physical copy of Castles & Cats or the Digital Plus package will receive the first three campaign adventures in some form.

Campaign Adventures 1 - 3 will be available after shipping through the Castles & Cats website as well, so no worries if you want to pick them up at a later time!

Specifications of components in the physical campaign come as followed:

Standee Chits are laser cut, cross standing, weighing 12g and are 1 - 2.25 inches in size.

Map Mats are  11 x 17 inch, double sided (2 maps per campaign) quad folding  305gsm black-core matte card stock.

Story Items will be identical to the cards in the base game.  (12 point 305gsm black-core matte card stock)

Keep in mind campaigns are generally a one time use, so the digital copy is going to be the better price option.

To learn more about the Campaigns, Castles & Cats updates and news check out castlesandcats.com

I started working on Castles & Cats when my oldest son was three and my youngest only one. It was quite a year, both started speech therapy and my youngest was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder later the same year. The game sat in the dark for quite some time but as life settled progression on Castles & Cats grew. At that point I had a solid combat mechanic, but the game was still missing art and other key components.  

My youngest son is nonverbal and has been using a PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System) to communicate with us for the past couple of years. The system allows a nonverbal child to use a series of pictures to request items or convey information, which would otherwise be spoken or written in text. It was my youngest son, and his way of communicating through pictures, which inspired the Castles & Cats’ visual character building system, bringing my game the breath of life it was missing.

Kickstarter campaign ends: Thu, April 25 2019 1:00 PM BST

Website: [Castles & Cats] [facebook]

give me sum hatori headcanons >:3

oh okay so you mean talk about myself guhurgiegiprhs;dgjsgijgdfdhsjfsgjsgdds

under the readmore idk how long this is gonna be

HES NERD PASSING PREP OR PREP PASSING NERD. HES A PERD/NREP! AND ITS REALLY OBVIOUS THAT HES KINDA IN BETWEEN BOTH WORLDS BECAUSE HE’LL WEAR SOME REALLY CUTE SHIT AND THEN TALK ABOUT CREATING DISCORD BOTS AND BEING A TECH BITCH!!

he really likes wearing warmer colors. they match his skintone and hair more. also thats straigth up just me

post world domination he starts doing more techy stuff to try and figure out how his powers work. so he starts building video games

games he mains: old mario games (esp the lost levels/real smb 2), crash bandicoot, portal/portal 2, TETRIS

HE ACTUALLY LOVES TETRIS when hes bored he’ll just open up tetris to keep his hands busy

he is actually able to create his own wifi signal a lot of ppl goof about that but like its real.

he likes cats and fish. he has some goldfish that he named zero and one cus idk funny electronix reference

he listens to and creates his own kinda techno music.. idk how to describe it if i ever found a song that reminded me of it i’ll post it

if he was more powerful theres a very good chance he wouldve ended up like serizawa. a lot of espers have complicated relationships with their powers and hes no exception. because he didnt understand how they worked he felt weak, and clueless, and trying to figure them out was hard because he didnt know where to start. it was something he always felt and was always able to understand. he’s eventually learned to like. know when hes using them and when he isnt but like. you know

autistic and adhd icon!

he likes to paint his nails. if u read my fic that was sprinkled in there. he had issues with picking at his nails (specifically his nails. not hangnails or skin) when he was younger so the polish helps him stay away from the bad habit

he likes to wear heels. he already gets picked on for being the shortest so he wants to compensate. BY HEELS I MEAN LIKE boots with a bit of a heel. like. just look at that pic of him i drew lol

he wears metal glasses because his glasses break a lot

i also drew him with two little moles: one on his right cheek below his eye, the other on the bottom left side of his chin

hes kind of quiet and awkward to interact with until you get him talking about smth he likes which is just an adhd/autism mood lol. he loves to talk about video games nd speedrunning

he can actually be kinda rowdy? like. hes the type of person who sees a big rock or statue and thinks “ok im climbing this Now or god help me”

he can touch his tongue to his nose.

he likes the idea of getting an undercut but is worried it’d look weird

i camt think of anything else