Writer’s Block...

Fan Girl Squeeeeeeee!!!!!!

Just found the Gold quote and I had to put is somewhere so I can read it over and over and over again!

"I know. I know. It's just uh... Sweetheart, I'm dying." After Belle says she sorry to hear that Gold continues. "I know that you're confused about who you are, so I'm gonna tell you. You are a hero who helped your people. You're a beautiful woman who loved an ugly man -- really, really loved me. You find goodness in others. And when it's not there, you create it. You make me wanna go back -- back to the best version of me. And that never happened before. So when you look in the mirror and you don't know who you are -- that's who you are. Thank you... Belle."

Of all the traits I share with my cat, the one I find the most hilarious, because it’s unnervingly close, is the fact that he and I don’t like drinking plain water.

We prefer our water to be flavored.

Yes, he prefers his to be flavored with salmon and other ocean fish while I go for a neon syrup that makes mine taste like a de-fizzed orange cream soda, but that’s merely a minor personal preference between sweet and savory.

The Stories that Heavily Impacted My Views and the Lessons they Taught Me

I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts and videos that have been talking about how stories, whether they be in film or literary media (or even video games!), have made huge impacts that stay with people for the rest of their lives.

So it got me wondering; what stories did that for me?

Now understand, for me, these aren’t the stories that I would consider my all time favorites, though I would rank them in the top tiers. These aren’t the stories that I go to in order to have a good time and escape from the world. Rather, these are the fictional stories that have helped me grasp lessons that I probably wouldn’t have learned had someone just tried to shove them down my throat. And because of that, they give me a personal goal to aspire to as someone who wants to be a teller of impacting stories. 

(As you can see, I couldn’t pick just one form of media.)

Novel - A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Lesson: That there is great power in kindness, empathy, and imagination. The world around us can be cruel and unforgiving, but that does not mean you should bend with it. To be a better person is difficult, especially when life gets hard, but there are those that have it worse and one is never too destitute to help someone else. And all it takes is a little imagination.

Graphic Novel - The Courtney Crumrin series by Ted Naifeh 

Lesson: That our desires, needs, and even well meaning actions, have consequences. In fact, everything that involves choice has consequences. Some are good, some are bad, but you can’t escape right now or years down the road that they will shape life in ways that cannot be changed. But we don’t have to be in this chaotic mess alone. We can choose to find and keep people close to us to help make facing the consequences a little easier.

Film - Laputa: Castle in the Sky by Studio Ghibli

Lesson: That there is nothing wrong with having dreams so wildly out there they could be considered fantasy. Dreaming big is what has pushed humanity to the point where it is now and it will continue to traverse boundaries. That being said, we should not let those dreams become so all encompassing that we forget what it means to be human; to be able to love and see the beauty around us. Yes, it is good to dream of impossibilities that stretch beyond the sky, but it is also equally important to plant roots in the ground we stand on.

Not really sure what they're doing here, but I'm probably better off not knowing 0_0;

This hit me so hard.

As someone who is autistic.

As someone who never had a hometown.

As someone who is first generation Mexican American.

As someone who is half first generation Mexican American.

I’ve never felt like I belonged anywhere or with any group. Because I wasn’t neurotypical enough. Because I hadn’t lived there long enough. Because I wasn’t American enough. Because I wasn’t Mexican enough. Because I was too different.

And finally, it hits me - I don’t “belong”. And that’s okay - great, even. Because that is my Strength.

Thank you, Xiran Jay Zhao, for writing these beautiful words. They mean more to me than I could ever express.

Random Autistic Problem

I hate the fact that my brain has moments of “I want to be super productive today”, but then my body gets in the way by insisting I need food even though my stomach doesn’t feel hungry.

So I’m forced to quickly find something filling that I don’t want to eat and choke it down just to get on with the things I do want to do.

Which is annoying because eating certain foods is a stim for me (like the crunch then yield of a well cooked potato wedge). And cooking those good foods takes time and I don’t have the right mindset to make them (they are their own event that I would like to enjoy at a later time when I don’t have the “productive brain” running).

But if I don’t eat something that shuts my stomach up, I can’t concentrate on anything.

WHY BRAIN WHY?!?!

Some of my favorite posts here on Tumblr:

I just had a brilliant thought:

Anyone who saw the Derry Girls on GBBO and thought it was awesome...

WE NEED A MARVEL CAST VERSION OF THAT.

Can you just imagine some of those people in the tent?!

Even if we can only get the Brits; I would pay good money to see Tom Holland, Tom Hiddleton, Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Karen Gillan, Letitia Wright, Hayley Atwell, and Paul Bettany trying to make victoria spounges.

One weekend, that’s all I’m asking for.

Some of My Favorite Autistic (or ASD coded) Characters : Boys

Lt. Commander Data - Star Trek: the Next Generation (1987)

Sherlock Holmes - Sherlock (2010)

Thrawn - Star Wars (1992)

Subaru Mikazuki - My Roommate is a Cat (2019)

Damian Wayne - Son of Batman (2014)

Newt Scamander - Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)

Drax the Destroyer - Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic - Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes (2006)

Donatello “Donnie” Hamato - Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2018)

Tech - Star Wars: The Bad Batch (2021)

Dipper Pines - Gravity Falls (2012)

Rei Suwa - Buddy Daddies (2023)

Abed Nadir - Community (2009)

Hunter - Owl House (2020)

Seto Kaiba - YU-GI-OH! (2000)

Things I didn't realize I could do despite NOT being Posh/Rich

Namely because I grew up not seeing it done in my own family so assumed I wouldn't ever be able afford to, or that was a class rule thing that I wasn't allowed to break lest I be perceived as a social climber or inadvertently saying I'm better than my peers.

Yay my Autistic black and white logic.

Since coming to these realizations, whole new levels of joy have opened up in my life.

(In no particular order)

#1 - Trimming my nails so they were all the same length on each finger and both hands

I’m honestly not sure what made me think I couldn’t trim my nails so they were all the same length. I grew up seeing adult women in my circle have uneven nails on their hands vs posh women with professionally manicured hands so maybe my mind just made the correlation. I always thought that the even nails were so elegant and wished my could be even too, but the women in my family didn’t care about manicures, and to be fair, I didn’t and still don’t like wearing nail polish, so even if I had worked up the nerve to ask for a manicure, I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed it.

But then one day when I was in my teens, I randomly, from the corner of my eye, watched a bit of some tween animated show (maybe Bratz?) and one of the girls broke a nail and then went on about how now she was going to have to trim all the other ones to match. And my mind was blown.

I realized then that having my nails all different lengths upset me. It didn’t matter if one or two of them had grown in very nicely if they didn’t match the rest. In fact, I was perfectly happy with them all being trimmed to the nubs if it meant they were all the same length.

I still have yet to get a professional manicure and I still don’t like painting my nails. I tend to keep my nails fairly short because I do martial arts and bake and gardening so having them short is practical. And having them all even makes me happier than a few of them looking elegant.

#2 - Having matching sets of themed underwear

As a teen and into my twenties, my bras never matched my underwear. Because I was raised on the kind of underwear you get in large packs. My mother openly scoffed at the pantie displays, saying pantie was such a vulgar term, and from the media it seemed wearing matching sets of underwear was reserved for “the bedroom”. Whenever I passed by a Victoria’s Secret, I’d see the piles of lace and my good Christian girl brainwashing had me roll my eyes and tell myself that I was better than the uncouth masses for not wearing such highly sensual underwear since obviously one only wore it if one was expecting to have intercourse with a man.

And then I discovered matching socks weren’t just a fashion statement limited to men.

Socks growing up had also followed the same rule as purchasing underwear - cheap and in bulk. But then I got several ballet flats and realized my normal socks were not going to go well so I got several pairs of cute floral socks to match with my outfits.

I also had been going to therapy recently and had started lifestyle changes like going to taekwondo three times a week and incorporating more healthy foods into my diet (I’m still pretty picky because most healthy foods aren’t safe foods for me, but smaller changes like using 100% whole wheat bread and drinking 2% milk have helped a lot).

Long story short, I was feeling more positive and comfortable and confident in my body and treated myself to some new clothes. Because I had also discovered Torrid - a clothing store that designs clothes specifically for women like me.

And after get a new wardrobe, the likes of which I never thought I’d get to have because all the cute clothes everywhere were too small for me, I realized I didn’t need a reason besides wanting to feel pretty to buy matching underwear sets. And to have enough to last me two weeks without repeating!

I’m such a visual person and it took me a long time to realize and embrace it. Sometimes I just open the special drawer where I keep all my pretty underwear and admire them.

#3 - Spaces beside your bedroom can be themed

By now the visual theme is well established. Stimming for neurodivergent people can take on my forms through the various senses - it’s not just limited to “flapping”. Visual stimming is my biggest stim. Nothing makes me happier than staring at beauty.

My bedroom has always been my sanctuary, especially growing up. We moved 8 times my first 18 years and my mom, being the artist that she is, tried to make the transitions easier by letting us pick a new theme for our rooms every time we moved.

The rest of the house outside my bedroom never seemed to have a theme. It was the 90s-2000s and if you don’t know the aesthetic for that time period consider yourself lucky. My parents also collected things from the places we moved and the trips we had gone on, so the rest of the house looked pretty chaotic to me (especially since in my room everything had to have a place and god forbid a single pillow was out of place).

I didn’t stay long enough in my first two apartments to put any effort into them (first one was while working as a teacher in Japan and the second was when I was in grad school). But when I got my first real job and my first real apartment, that’s when I realized I could decorate however I wanted to (because I was starting from scratch).

It took some trial and error to figure out what worked for me in each of the rooms. Obviously I couldn’t spend massive amounts of money, but with a little creativity I managed to cultivate spaces that made me happy.

My kitchen is very Japanese inspired - white base with sage green accents, bamboo blond pieces, and black or white appliances. My bathroom is white with navy colored middle eastern inspired accents. My study is white, blue, yellow, and green, the focal point being from a large Ghibli Castle in the Sky mural. And my bedroom is cottagecore fairytale with a base palette of white, green, yellow, red, and dark woods.

#4 - I can collect art from my favorite artists

For the final visual theme, ART. Growing up, my mom was a freelance artist. Our home was decorated with pieces she had made herself. From osmosis, I assumed either you were rich enough to buy original pieces, you were creative enough to make your own, or your were neither and were reduced to the cheap mass produced pieces one bought at hobby stores.

I inherited my mother’s talent for art and felt I couldn’t hang up anything on my own walls unless I had made it myself. Because why by someone else’s work when I could make my own?

But this was a problem because what I made didn’t always seem good enough for me to stare at it for hours and that would just make me grumpy.

And then I discovered that a lot of my favorite digital artists had shops. And from those shops, you could order prints.

And I realized buying prints was actually a very important thing to do, because it was supporting a freelance artist, like my mom had been. And what could be better than that? Plus I got to have beautiful pieces hanging in my place for me to stare at and visually stim to.

#5 - Just because something is a name brand and expensive doesn’t mean I can’t buy it if I can afford it

For years my mother has pointed out that I have expensive taste. For some reason I tend to gravitate towards the priciest items without even knowing how expensive they are. She also has a tendency to tell me I’m terrible with money (though living on my own without going into debt for over 10 years now should have proved to her and myself that that isn’t true).

Naturally this evolved into a strange complex of me thinking I didn’t deserve to buy name brand products.

And then I discovered Torrid (which by my upbringing is a name brand), and threw caution to the wind to buy clothes that I loved despite them not being on sale (though I still waited for sales and used discounts whenever possible).

And then I heard a rumor that Mazda wasn’t going to be making the Mazda3 model that I was in love with (because so many things about it from the color to the chassis reminded me of my favorite transformer, TFP Knockout). My old car was starting to break down and I decided I had saved enough for a new car (because it seemed getting a house where I lived would never happen anyway), and I bought my brand new dream car.

I know Mazda and Torrid probably aren’t considered high end name brands by posh people, but to me they are. Because growing up my clothes came from thrift stores or Walmart or from the sales racks at Kohls. I was never allowed to buy anything new at full price. When my family got new cars, the old ones had to be dead and the new ones were purchased for their practicality, not their looks.

My parents kept a tight leash on their finances. Both came from poorer families that had to make hard decisions and be creative to get by at times. And I appreciate the money saving tips they gave me.

But this is my life, and I need to find and make my own happiness. That doesn’t mean buying whatever I want whenever I want, but it also means not denying myself little luxuries because I don’t think I deserve them.