I had this idea once for a character called “De Rien Gris.” De Rien Gris isn’t bothered, nothing’s a big deal to him. But his attic-portrait is very bothered indeed.
For all their other antics, Booster never creeped me out. I like them well enough. This however, is the most Patrick Bateman behaviour I’ve seen a cartoon do. Yikes.
After a breakup of a 5 year relationship, I took selfies of myself anytime I was crying or about to cry in situations where I wanted to keep it together – on the bus, waiting for class to start, etc. The act of getting out my phone, and something about seeing myself through a lens, slightly objectifying/othering myself, made it much easier to calm down and stay in control. So I relate pretty hard to booster here
I did let myself be sad and cry, just tried to avoid it while out and about
I mean, don’t all teens/younger ppl have some sociopathic traits before they mature? That’s why middle school is so rough on ppl lol, but i feel like another person in their own psych class would’ve called them out (assuming they aren’t all egomaniacs trying to “one up” each other and diagnosis everyone)
People trying to “one up” each other was my experience with freshman psychology students… Honestly a lot of science students in general… And some people in creative writing… Some college freshman are just brats I guess
As much as they look sad here, I have no sympathy for Booster. Amber asks a good question, do they have any friends? Walky is their roommate and appreciates using their Switch but besides that, who do they have?
Considering their former roommate dead named them I betting no, they don’t have any friends. Maybe their cool with their twin though. So far they seem cool with their sib.
even a shitty person doesn’t deserve to be deadnamed (tho other than their legal/birthname being shown somewhere when they first joined the dorm, i’m not sure how they could purposefully call them the wrong name if they introduced themselves to everyone as ‘booster’ unless they realized they were non binary in the middle of teh semester)
Sirksome
I don’t think it was because Booster was shitty, but I do think it is a sign they struggled to form any social connections at their last dorm wing. If even your roommate is hostile to you it’s a decent sign you’re not doing well socially, cause typically a roommate should have interest in staying in good term with you just to function in their living space. Like Roz tolerates living with Mary despite how awful she is. If Booster was doing worse than Mary something was up. I’m really interested in details for why they transferred now.
thejeff
Or a sign you’ve got an awful roommate.
Roz isn’t doing poorly socially just because Mary is hostile to her. Roz, who was trying for the RA job just to get away from Mary.
Or see Walky and Mike. Or Malaya and anyone.
Sirksome
I don’t doubt their roommate was shitty and I was implying that Mary was the social outcast because the entire wing hates her, but Roz has still established a functioning dynamic with her. So has Sal with Malaya. To me that shows they were capable of forming connections with peers outside their dorm. They all have a support network. To me the fact Booster left their wing implies they might have felt more isolated there for some reason. They didn’t have anyone to confide in, challenge their roommate, possibly even their RA was shittier than Ruth. Like imagine if that period where Ruth was blackmailed into ignoring Mary’s transphobic tormenting of Carla except it never got solved. That’s what I’m imaging Booster was dealing with.
Nova
Booster is nonbinary and displays a few traits that upset a large subsection of people. Someone being shitty to them (especially by deadnaming them) could easily have absolutely nothing to do with them. I’m sure you didn’t mean it, but this comment reads a little victim-blaming like “if Booster wasn’t struggling to form social connections they wouldn’t have been deadnamed” which, in my experience, is the furthest thing from the truth.
Maybe they also struggle to form social relationships (I do think we can see that’s true), but I definitely don’t think that’s why they were deadnamed. And if it was the excuse their roomie used, it’s still their roomie who is a massive jagoff in that situation, not Booster for struggling with likeability.
Sirksome
I’m not trying to victim blame Boister what I’m trying to say is they didn’t have anyone to support them when it happened. In the comic we’ve seen the wing rally around our cast when bad stuff happens. Like everyone rallying around Billie when she punched Mary for being horrible to Carla, or them all hiding and protecting Becky when she was homeless and on the run from her dad. I don’t think Booster had that at their old dorm wing, which is why they transferred when the dead naming happened. And I’m interested in how it all went down. There is potential for an interesting story there. Other wings probably don’t operate like the one we know.
Thanatos
Unless Booster took pains to scrub their deadname, someone who wants to can often find it. If they have a facefook account, just go look and see what someone called them before they came out. Or take a look at their drivers license since that would have their legal name. Or meet someone who knew them from before coming out who spills the beans. Or maybe the ex-roommate went to high school with them, shared a room because they were friends, but had a falling out. Lots of options.
Insanenoodlyguy
While it doesn’t justify deadnaming, I feel like Booster’s roommate didn’t start with that and began doing it as they grew to despise Booster.
I just can’t read that sentence without thinking “awww poor thing” rather than as a “gotcha”. Not having friends sucks. Especially if you’re bad at making them.
I’d feel worse if I thought it actually got under their skin. They felt bad for a second and then seemingly got over it
Yotomoe
Momentary happiness and momentary sadness may underline a consistent longing, that, while not a crippling depression may be eating away at them underneath it all. The fact that they felt anything at all from Amber’s comment makes me feel like this did strike a nerve, even if they were able to alleviate it with their craft.
Just cuz I draw dumb shit and make jokes doesn’t mean I’m any less lonely than when I lie awake and wonder if I’m wasting my life.
Sajuuk-Khar
? don’t cry out loud
just keep it inside
learn how to hide
your feelings ?
Taffy
Is that what the first line is? I could never make it out.
Needfuldoer
Seems like they distracted themselves with their photography hobby as an avoidance tactic.
Insanenoodlyguy
Oh it definitely got to them. This isn’t a thing they quickly got over. This is a thing they’ve confronted more than once before they’ve gotten good at quickly distracting themselves from.
I would be feeling more positive about Amber here if she had acted as though she wants the answer.
Leorale
Booster keeps trying to find the softest spots to needle her, and she doesn’t like it, plus they’ve signaled an interest in pursuing her. Amber doesn’t have to fix that Booster might not have friends, just to establish that she definitely doesn’t want to be one. Finding friends for Booster is ultimately their job, not hers.
She wants to protect Ethan and herself from a person who seems mainly interested and titillated by their discomfort and vulnerability and trauma.
You don’t have to be unfailingly nice to people, especially if they aren’t being nice to you.
There’s a reason why I commented downthread that this felt like the proper start of a character arc for Booster (where everything to this point’s really been more establishing them as a character in the established cast.)
So far, every time they’ve been in a scene except the Season Two introductory storyline (where Walky and then Joyce were introducing them to the hall), it’s either been set in/the hallway outside Walky and their dorm room, or Booster’s been in a common area alone. We’ve yet to see them enter a scene along with another character – even background ones. They just walk on/are sitting eating/whatever, add to the scene, and then someone walks away. Which is probably why they look sad – Amber is right, they don’t, except maybe their twin. (Who may or may not be at school here. If they aren’t going to the same school, then Booster’s alone and missing their closest friend. If they are, then it’s very noticeable that Booster hasn’t been shown hanging out with them at any point.)
Now, maybe they could have other friends from home… but it’s second semester, and we know they were at school last semester because of the previous roommate. The fact that they haven’t made any yet on campus does not suggest great things for their socializing last semester.
Having had a very isolated college experience due to social anxiety and undiagnosed health issues myself, I can sympathize (no, seriously, I have NO MEMORY of my first semester because my Vitamin D levels were so obscenely low and my thyroid was inflamed so basically all my time not in class was sleeping,) but we can also conclude that a fair amount of that isolation is because the psychoanalysis trick is not a great first step for making friends.
don’t think they’ve shown up enough to mention any previous friends, but i imagine they’d either befriend ppl they only find ‘fascinating’, or they had ‘boring/’normal” friends when they were younger who didn’t have any known issues and maybe got bored of them. (i mean everyone can be unique and individualistic but nothing wrong with being an ‘average joe’ that’s from some cookie cutter set personality or so aka ‘basic’ but i imagine the background ppl that blend in with the crowd isn’t what most teens/college age students look for in a friend)
So, then, I was right when I noted that Booster’s ALWAYS been introduced showing up on their own.
And that sure does look like the beginnings of a proper character arc, there. Good! And Joyce potentially picking up an art class might put them in the same buildings around the same times to start some active interacting there. (Also possibilities: Malaya and Mary, both of whom are established enough characters that they easily CAN maintain a subplot but haven’t been present enough that they could really carry one without a main character, either, with so many plotlines demanding attention.) So this could be VERY interesting indeed.
Plus, you know, the default hilarity of Joyce in a life-drawing class. I’m just saying. We could get that, AND Mary’s seething one-sided rivalry with Malaya.
See, I’m game for super pathetic if it means potentially getting a little more development for Malaya, who was set up as the potential hook for a subplot with Mary when we saw them before timeskip. We haven’t seen much of him since.
And more of her may also mean more of Marcie. Which is obviously worth it even to Malaya non-enjoyers, but I’d like to see them maybe pick up some things to be genuinely interested in and those things to get screentime.
Mary’s most interesting when the super mean and super pathetic sides of her are at odds. Even though “Super judgmental Christian” is pretty much her entire character, she always seems like she’s about five seconds from flipping a switch to “Super judgmental Athiest” like how Joyce was for a bit, but a million times worse, because she thinks it’ll make her more popular and Christianity was just an excuse to be mean.
And, if and when it happens, Woke Mary is going to be so fucking funny.
Freemage
Eh, we already have Roz…. (And yes, that is pretty much how I view her.)
I have been holding off on judging Booster since I figure they’ve been getting set up for their arc. They gotta get some learnin in em before they get to be a kind-of-okay person.
Also, I think Booster and Joyce, and Booster and Malaya would be interesting friend-ships! Like, B is someone who hasn’t already built an expectation about who Joyce is pre-autism-arc and their interest in psychology could make them an ally for her while her patience as someone who also had to learn how to people could help them be less of a dick.
Meanwhile Malaya and Booster (and Carla) together would be a fun lil volcano of egos that could cut them both down to a more palatable size.
(Plus now I have this image in my head of a coversation between J and B that results in a Malaya-esque moment of “wait, am I the aut-y?”
Malaya, Booster, and Carla, the trio I never knew I needed
Not in a dating way, but like, go down to the corner marr, grab some chips, come back at stream the worst B movie they can find, and talk shit about it while Carla relates it back to herself somehow. Love it
v.gay.person
Just realised they also happen to be all the trans characters which is uncomfy
Freemage
Malaya is trans?
v.gay.person
Malaya’s she/they/whatever “obviously way too cool for gender.”
You know something? It’s said that IRL people with great natural talent in psychology often have that talent because they had to use it survive in abusive environments.
Makes me wonder if this will be revealed of Booster.
I don’t know- honestly I think Booster has an ease in using the information they understand that makes it less likely, but it’s not impossible
Regalli
Some people train themselves a lot/take special interest in the art of How To People, so it’s possible. They definitely seem way better at assessing people (even if their assessments are incomplete) than they are at knowing what to do with that information (ie, people do not typically like being psychoanalyzed by a basically-random basically-stranger, so even if you’re reading them right, keep that to yourself or at least be WAY less direct and interested in it.)
But I agree that they’re picking up on and articulating things that I personally would have a much harder time reading, and it is kind of our defining thing that we don’t read social interactions and unspoken cues very well. Could go either way, and I suspect the ‘Any character who sticks around long enough to be a CHARACTER and not a plot function will eventually take on some Willisian traits, and that’s autism all the way down’ principle applies as well.
I think for autistics who have problems reading social interactions and unspoken cues (which may or may not be true of Booster should they turn out to be neurodivergent), it doesn’t mean not being able to do it at all but specifically lacking much of the natural intuition that makes it as easy as breathing for neurotypicals most of the time.
In this vein, there are a lot of autistics I know who you couldn’t clock as one judging by interaction alone because they learned how to use a lot of non-intuitive, systematic thinking to over-compensate, much akin to Marvel’s DareDevil and his hyper-developed senses.
v.gay.person
I thought this initially. I see a lot of my younger self in Booster (I’m Aut/DHD). special interests that make up 90% of their character, socially unintuitive and overcompensating through study of people to a WEIRD degree, self awareness aint it, lack of impulse control when it comes to saying what comes to their head… literally all of the last panel…
I learned how to do the nonverbal communication thing by studying body language and psychology all through highschool, had a creepy diary with information about people so I had stuff I could talk to them about (also throw back to Dotty), practiced facial expressions in the mirror/selfie cam, made a grand total of zero friends at my first uni and like 2 at my second uni (that’s 2 friends in 11 years) and I look weirdly like B. Like, I have that outfit. And that hair. And those glasses (except my rats ate them so they’re on elastic which is amazing sensory hack btw).
It could also just be that DW is ND so all their characters get a lil dose of magic but my headcannon sits right with me so I’m sticking to it
185 thoughts on “Afar”
Ana Chronistic
*replays Dream Daddy for the correct name and dad in the screenshot*
PirateTawnee
I will get around to playing that one day.
One day.
Dear deific entity my back log…
BBCC
You can’t selfie your way out of introspection, Booster!
Doctor_Who
Sure they can. It’s a postmodern take on Dorian Gray, the selfies contain all the evidence of guilt and shame, so Booster doesn’t have to show it.
StClair
*full-body shudder/cringe*
Jamie
… have you ever seen the tv show The Librarians? If not, you should give it a whirl.
Raven
Oh my god I love that show! The Dorian Grey episode was fantastic
davidbreslin101
I had this idea once for a character called “De Rien Gris.” De Rien Gris isn’t bothered, nothing’s a big deal to him. But his attic-portrait is very bothered indeed.
Decidedly Orthogonal
For all their other antics, Booster never creeped me out. I like them well enough. This however, is the most Patrick Bateman behaviour I’ve seen a cartoon do. Yikes.
Queen Anthai
TELL ‘EM, AMBER!
Yeet
That’s one reason it was a mistake, sure.
Sirksome
Is Booster a sociopath?…Probably not but this strip raises some flags.
DailyBrad
Eh? Like, maybe they just genuinely liked the pic. I can buy this was still a genuine reaction to what she said.
Becci
After a breakup of a 5 year relationship, I took selfies of myself anytime I was crying or about to cry in situations where I wanted to keep it together – on the bus, waiting for class to start, etc. The act of getting out my phone, and something about seeing myself through a lens, slightly objectifying/othering myself, made it much easier to calm down and stay in control. So I relate pretty hard to booster here
I did let myself be sad and cry, just tried to avoid it while out and about
Laura
I dunno. Lotsa people get lost in enjoying the art they can make while sad. I do.
The Wellerman
I more than anything want to get lost in my art again. The art of gamedev, that is. And yourself?
Laura
Music
Yeet
Seems more like they’re learning or at least interested in psychology and misapplying their studies by vaguely diagnosing people.
Wack'd
But are, at least, good enough at it not to validate the concept of sociopathy.
anon
I mean, don’t all teens/younger ppl have some sociopathic traits before they mature? That’s why middle school is so rough on ppl lol, but i feel like another person in their own psych class would’ve called them out (assuming they aren’t all egomaniacs trying to “one up” each other and diagnosis everyone)
StClair
That’s a bold assumption to make, of a first year psych class.
Airyu
People trying to “one up” each other was my experience with freshman psychology students… Honestly a lot of science students in general… And some people in creative writing… Some college freshman are just brats I guess
Ladymissfit
Eh, comic just needs a pumchline and it is a pretty funny one
Caro
I keep going back and forth on whether I like Booster’s lipstick tbh. i like it in the last panel tho so net positive?
Kyrik Michalowski
As much as they look sad here, I have no sympathy for Booster. Amber asks a good question, do they have any friends? Walky is their roommate and appreciates using their Switch but besides that, who do they have?
Sirksome
Considering their former roommate dead named them I betting no, they don’t have any friends. Maybe their cool with their twin though. So far they seem cool with their sib.
anon
even a shitty person doesn’t deserve to be deadnamed (tho other than their legal/birthname being shown somewhere when they first joined the dorm, i’m not sure how they could purposefully call them the wrong name if they introduced themselves to everyone as ‘booster’ unless they realized they were non binary in the middle of teh semester)
Sirksome
I don’t think it was because Booster was shitty, but I do think it is a sign they struggled to form any social connections at their last dorm wing. If even your roommate is hostile to you it’s a decent sign you’re not doing well socially, cause typically a roommate should have interest in staying in good term with you just to function in their living space. Like Roz tolerates living with Mary despite how awful she is. If Booster was doing worse than Mary something was up. I’m really interested in details for why they transferred now.
thejeff
Or a sign you’ve got an awful roommate.
Roz isn’t doing poorly socially just because Mary is hostile to her. Roz, who was trying for the RA job just to get away from Mary.
Or see Walky and Mike. Or Malaya and anyone.
Sirksome
I don’t doubt their roommate was shitty and I was implying that Mary was the social outcast because the entire wing hates her, but Roz has still established a functioning dynamic with her. So has Sal with Malaya. To me that shows they were capable of forming connections with peers outside their dorm. They all have a support network. To me the fact Booster left their wing implies they might have felt more isolated there for some reason. They didn’t have anyone to confide in, challenge their roommate, possibly even their RA was shittier than Ruth. Like imagine if that period where Ruth was blackmailed into ignoring Mary’s transphobic tormenting of Carla except it never got solved. That’s what I’m imaging Booster was dealing with.
Nova
Booster is nonbinary and displays a few traits that upset a large subsection of people. Someone being shitty to them (especially by deadnaming them) could easily have absolutely nothing to do with them. I’m sure you didn’t mean it, but this comment reads a little victim-blaming like “if Booster wasn’t struggling to form social connections they wouldn’t have been deadnamed” which, in my experience, is the furthest thing from the truth.
Maybe they also struggle to form social relationships (I do think we can see that’s true), but I definitely don’t think that’s why they were deadnamed. And if it was the excuse their roomie used, it’s still their roomie who is a massive jagoff in that situation, not Booster for struggling with likeability.
Sirksome
I’m not trying to victim blame Boister what I’m trying to say is they didn’t have anyone to support them when it happened. In the comic we’ve seen the wing rally around our cast when bad stuff happens. Like everyone rallying around Billie when she punched Mary for being horrible to Carla, or them all hiding and protecting Becky when she was homeless and on the run from her dad. I don’t think Booster had that at their old dorm wing, which is why they transferred when the dead naming happened. And I’m interested in how it all went down. There is potential for an interesting story there. Other wings probably don’t operate like the one we know.
Thanatos
Unless Booster took pains to scrub their deadname, someone who wants to can often find it. If they have a facefook account, just go look and see what someone called them before they came out. Or take a look at their drivers license since that would have their legal name. Or meet someone who knew them from before coming out who spills the beans. Or maybe the ex-roommate went to high school with them, shared a room because they were friends, but had a falling out. Lots of options.
Insanenoodlyguy
While it doesn’t justify deadnaming, I feel like Booster’s roommate didn’t start with that and began doing it as they grew to despise Booster.
Azhrei Vep
It’s also possible they have friends, just not any at school.
BlackJacques
* they’re
Yotomoe
I just can’t read that sentence without thinking “awww poor thing” rather than as a “gotcha”. Not having friends sucks. Especially if you’re bad at making them.
Thag Simmons
I’d feel worse if I thought it actually got under their skin. They felt bad for a second and then seemingly got over it
Yotomoe
Momentary happiness and momentary sadness may underline a consistent longing, that, while not a crippling depression may be eating away at them underneath it all. The fact that they felt anything at all from Amber’s comment makes me feel like this did strike a nerve, even if they were able to alleviate it with their craft.
Just cuz I draw dumb shit and make jokes doesn’t mean I’m any less lonely than when I lie awake and wonder if I’m wasting my life.
Sajuuk-Khar
? don’t cry out loud
just keep it inside
learn how to hide
your feelings ?
Taffy
Is that what the first line is? I could never make it out.
Needfuldoer
Seems like they distracted themselves with their photography hobby as an avoidance tactic.
Insanenoodlyguy
Oh it definitely got to them. This isn’t a thing they quickly got over. This is a thing they’ve confronted more than once before they’ve gotten good at quickly distracting themselves from.
Mark
I would be feeling more positive about Amber here if she had acted as though she wants the answer.
Leorale
Booster keeps trying to find the softest spots to needle her, and she doesn’t like it, plus they’ve signaled an interest in pursuing her. Amber doesn’t have to fix that Booster might not have friends, just to establish that she definitely doesn’t want to be one. Finding friends for Booster is ultimately their job, not hers.
She wants to protect Ethan and herself from a person who seems mainly interested and titillated by their discomfort and vulnerability and trauma.
You don’t have to be unfailingly nice to people, especially if they aren’t being nice to you.
Thag Simmons
They certainly don’t seem to
Regalli
There’s a reason why I commented downthread that this felt like the proper start of a character arc for Booster (where everything to this point’s really been more establishing them as a character in the established cast.)
So far, every time they’ve been in a scene except the Season Two introductory storyline (where Walky and then Joyce were introducing them to the hall), it’s either been set in/the hallway outside Walky and their dorm room, or Booster’s been in a common area alone. We’ve yet to see them enter a scene along with another character – even background ones. They just walk on/are sitting eating/whatever, add to the scene, and then someone walks away. Which is probably why they look sad – Amber is right, they don’t, except maybe their twin. (Who may or may not be at school here. If they aren’t going to the same school, then Booster’s alone and missing their closest friend. If they are, then it’s very noticeable that Booster hasn’t been shown hanging out with them at any point.)
Now, maybe they could have other friends from home… but it’s second semester, and we know they were at school last semester because of the previous roommate. The fact that they haven’t made any yet on campus does not suggest great things for their socializing last semester.
Having had a very isolated college experience due to social anxiety and undiagnosed health issues myself, I can sympathize (no, seriously, I have NO MEMORY of my first semester because my Vitamin D levels were so obscenely low and my thyroid was inflamed so basically all my time not in class was sleeping,) but we can also conclude that a fair amount of that isolation is because the psychoanalysis trick is not a great first step for making friends.
anon
don’t think they’ve shown up enough to mention any previous friends, but i imagine they’d either befriend ppl they only find ‘fascinating’, or they had ‘boring/’normal” friends when they were younger who didn’t have any known issues and maybe got bored of them. (i mean everyone can be unique and individualistic but nothing wrong with being an ‘average joe’ that’s from some cookie cutter set personality or so aka ‘basic’ but i imagine the background ppl that blend in with the crowd isn’t what most teens/college age students look for in a friend)
Cerusee
It was definitely a mistake, and Amber probably will not learn from it.
Doctor_Who
Amber: Now who else would make a good friend for Ethan?
(later)
Amber: Hiiiii, Mary!
darkoneko
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
no.
Airyu
Omg please no I will cry
Stephen Bierce
Freeze Frame…Freeze Fra~a~a~ame
Yotomoe
Hey, you can’t just say factual information at me like that.
Regalli
So, then, I was right when I noted that Booster’s ALWAYS been introduced showing up on their own.
And that sure does look like the beginnings of a proper character arc, there. Good! And Joyce potentially picking up an art class might put them in the same buildings around the same times to start some active interacting there. (Also possibilities: Malaya and Mary, both of whom are established enough characters that they easily CAN maintain a subplot but haven’t been present enough that they could really carry one without a main character, either, with so many plotlines demanding attention.) So this could be VERY interesting indeed.
Plus, you know, the default hilarity of Joyce in a life-drawing class. I’m just saying. We could get that, AND Mary’s seething one-sided rivalry with Malaya.
Bryy
Every Mary subplot is either her being super mean or super pathetic, and I’m so over both.
Regalli
See, I’m game for super pathetic if it means potentially getting a little more development for Malaya, who was set up as the potential hook for a subplot with Mary when we saw them before timeskip. We haven’t seen much of him since.
And more of her may also mean more of Marcie. Which is obviously worth it even to Malaya non-enjoyers, but I’d like to see them maybe pick up some things to be genuinely interested in and those things to get screentime.
ESM
Mary’s most interesting when the super mean and super pathetic sides of her are at odds. Even though “Super judgmental Christian” is pretty much her entire character, she always seems like she’s about five seconds from flipping a switch to “Super judgmental Athiest” like how Joyce was for a bit, but a million times worse, because she thinks it’ll make her more popular and Christianity was just an excuse to be mean.
And, if and when it happens, Woke Mary is going to be so fucking funny.
Freemage
Eh, we already have Roz…. (And yes, that is pretty much how I view her.)
v.gay.person
I have been holding off on judging Booster since I figure they’ve been getting set up for their arc. They gotta get some learnin in em before they get to be a kind-of-okay person.
Also, I think Booster and Joyce, and Booster and Malaya would be interesting friend-ships! Like, B is someone who hasn’t already built an expectation about who Joyce is pre-autism-arc and their interest in psychology could make them an ally for her while her patience as someone who also had to learn how to people could help them be less of a dick.
Meanwhile Malaya and Booster (and Carla) together would be a fun lil volcano of egos that could cut them both down to a more palatable size.
(Plus now I have this image in my head of a coversation between J and B that results in a Malaya-esque moment of “wait, am I the aut-y?”
Airyu
Malaya, Booster, and Carla, the trio I never knew I needed
Not in a dating way, but like, go down to the corner marr, grab some chips, come back at stream the worst B movie they can find, and talk shit about it while Carla relates it back to herself somehow. Love it
v.gay.person
Just realised they also happen to be all the trans characters which is uncomfy
Freemage
Malaya is trans?
v.gay.person
Malaya’s she/they/whatever “obviously way too cool for gender.”
idk how to hyperlink so:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-11/01-this-bright-millennium/pronouns/
The Wellerman
You know something? It’s said that IRL people with great natural talent in psychology often have that talent because they had to use it survive in abusive environments.
Makes me wonder if this will be revealed of Booster.
Bluewind
Ya know… given my history and talent, you might be onto something.
not someone else
Yep. I only hate on psych majors because I would have been one had I been more medicated or less autistically obsessed with ancient languages.
The Wellerman
You think Booster could be autistic too?
not someone else
I don’t know- honestly I think Booster has an ease in using the information they understand that makes it less likely, but it’s not impossible
Regalli
Some people train themselves a lot/take special interest in the art of How To People, so it’s possible. They definitely seem way better at assessing people (even if their assessments are incomplete) than they are at knowing what to do with that information (ie, people do not typically like being psychoanalyzed by a basically-random basically-stranger, so even if you’re reading them right, keep that to yourself or at least be WAY less direct and interested in it.)
But I agree that they’re picking up on and articulating things that I personally would have a much harder time reading, and it is kind of our defining thing that we don’t read social interactions and unspoken cues very well. Could go either way, and I suspect the ‘Any character who sticks around long enough to be a CHARACTER and not a plot function will eventually take on some Willisian traits, and that’s autism all the way down’ principle applies as well.
The Wellerman
I think for autistics who have problems reading social interactions and unspoken cues (which may or may not be true of Booster should they turn out to be neurodivergent), it doesn’t mean not being able to do it at all but specifically lacking much of the natural intuition that makes it as easy as breathing for neurotypicals most of the time.
In this vein, there are a lot of autistics I know who you couldn’t clock as one judging by interaction alone because they learned how to use a lot of non-intuitive, systematic thinking to over-compensate, much akin to Marvel’s DareDevil and his hyper-developed senses.
v.gay.person
I thought this initially. I see a lot of my younger self in Booster (I’m Aut/DHD). special interests that make up 90% of their character, socially unintuitive and overcompensating through study of people to a WEIRD degree, self awareness aint it, lack of impulse control when it comes to saying what comes to their head… literally all of the last panel…
I learned how to do the nonverbal communication thing by studying body language and psychology all through highschool, had a creepy diary with information about people so I had stuff I could talk to them about (also throw back to Dotty), practiced facial expressions in the mirror/selfie cam, made a grand total of zero friends at my first uni and like 2 at my second uni (that’s 2 friends in 11 years) and I look weirdly like B. Like, I have that outfit. And that hair. And those glasses (except my rats ate them so they’re on elastic which is amazing sensory hack btw).
It could also just be that DW is ND so all their characters get a lil dose of magic but my headcannon sits right with me so I’m sticking to it