There’s being exceptionally picky and there’s being nauseated about different foods being chewed up at the same time by someone else. It seems like a textural type issue. One of many issues Joyce needs to see a therapist about.
Long answer: Yes but diagnostically it’s at least somewhat superseded if there’s another sensory processing disorder in play. (Which is to say, in an edge case it might be considered part of your Sensory Issues Expansion Pack to autism/ADHD/OCD/insert specific neurotype here.)
Regalli
Also, in this particular case it seems to be more on the anxiety/intrusive thoughts side of her issues than sensory, but like. One frequently begets the other.
And this is reason 517 why I relate to Joyce. There are some things I can’t even look at without setting off my Sensory Brain Issues.
Just to be clear, do you think anxiety/intrusive thoughts are distinct from GAD?
Regalli
There are many, many things that qualify as anxiety disorders or have major anxiety components beyond generalized anxiety disorder. OCD, for example. Some forms of PTSD have the intrusive thoughts and anxiety as key parts. Eating disorders definitely seem to have an anxiety component, though I won’t pretend to understand any but my borderline-ARFID diet, which is deeply influenced by autism and GAD.
There’s definitely an anxiety disorder in play here, but you could make a case for anything I just listed and probably a few more besides.
By the way, there’s something you wrote a while ago that’s been floating around in my brain for quite some time, so I guess I’ll just ask you now.
You wrote some time ago that “Autism Speaks is a hate group”. I’ve already known for quite some time that they have been engaging in some very dubious and even pseudoscientific practices, but them being a hate group is a new one on me.
Could you please elaborate? Who exactly do they hate?
@King Daniel, Thanks? But I was actually asking Regalli.
Regalli
King Daniel had the right of it. I could go into further detail, but this isn’t particularly obscure information once you go looking – you just have to know to Google with ‘controversies’ or ‘eugenics’ or, say, read through their Wikipedia page in detail – and I have neither the spoons nor the willingness to put seriously traumatic recaps at the top of the comments section. Especially not without spoiler capabilities, but like. I’m not subjecting MYSELF to a lengthy recounting of their history, either, nothing good can come of that one. Basically any autistic advocacy group run by actual autistics can give you an overview about the issues. You’ll probably also see a recent post in any US-based one calling out the Judge Rotenberg Center, which Autism Speaks supported for years. If they cut ties, it was only very recently and yes, that practice was going on then. No, I will not elaborate, because again: Not putting a lengthy discussion of ableist violence at the top of the comments section or making myself write it.
I may not mind doing periodic internet education about my neurotype, but it does take a fair bit out of me and this particular topic can get disturbing. Unfortunately, some of the most disturbing aspects are at the forefront of our collective community’s mind right now.
Demoted Oblivious
Wikipedia has a solid write up on Autism Speaks. Some fact checking is in order, but it doesn’t paint the organization or board members in a great light.
I live in the UK, so I’d never heard of them. Having now read up, I have to say, as the parent of an autistic son (and a teacher in schools for autistic students for many years), I’m horrified. Autism is a developmental condition, so far as our limited understanding of it tells us. It can’t be caught, it can’t be ‘cured’. The most us neurotypicals can ever hope to do is (a) understand, (b) try to give autistic individuals the means to develop a mental toolkit to help them deal with a world that is massively not designed for them, and (c) actively work towards changing that last thing I mentioned there in (b).
On a related note, my son’s favourite quote at the moment is, “Vaccinated children ARE more likely to get autism, because they’re still alive.”
I don’t even think calling them “evil” could do any justice. I think a far more appropriate adjective to describe them would be “FASCIST”.
ischemgeek
Short list of why:
1, making anti Autistic propaganda including: commercials portraying autism as a demon that will destroy your marriage, ruin your family and steal your real child (the “I am Autism” video) and lionizing parents who openly fantasize about killing their Autistic children, presenting these infanticidal fantasies as the inevitable result of having an autistic child (the “Autism Every day” video), among others.
2, promotion of pseudoscientific abuse of Autistic ppl including ABA (which by some metrics is actually less effective than placebo and is associated with long term serious negative side effects like increased risk of suicide, mental health issues and PTSD symptoms), so-called “Miracle mineral solution” (aka bleach) enemas, and whatever tortures dreamed up at the Judge Rotenberg Center
3, refusing to allow Autistic ppl in real positions of authority within the group while engaging in tokenism to give the appearance of inclusivity (this is in violation of ethical principles of disability issues which demand real inclusion of the directly affected population, not just their parents or siblings (does YOUR mum understand your body and preferences as well as you? Neither does mine and she shouldn’t speak for me when I am totally capable of speaking for myself. It is NOT the same to platform autism parents and call it inclusion).
4. Supporting eugenicist research and research aimed at forced normalization of Autistic ppl above and to the exclusion of research that benefits actually Autistic ppl.
5. Until very recently, eradication of autism and Autistic ppl was an explicit part of their mission. Most of us autistics don’t want to be eradicated.
That’s the short version.
Regalli
Thank you, ischemgeek, for the rundown, and thanks to Keulen for the links of awful.
The sad part is I’m inured to things like ‘yeah they shock people into compliance at levels you legally can’t apply to animals.’ Once they started causing measles outbreaks because vaccines cause autism (they don’t) and therefore measles was preferable to that risk, even if it killed their kid? Once they published a video where a woman fantasizes about killing herself and her autistic child with said child in the room with her, and the only thing that stopped her was thinking about her non-autistic kid? Once ‘autistic children killed by their parents’ became so horrifyingly frequent, and the media narrative inevitably sympathized with the murderer, that it inspired an autistic with ASAN to found the Disability Day of Mourning, which now can only read the names added to the list since last year because so damn many disabled people are killed by their caregivers they have people on staff whose job it is to search news articles and update the list? (Some of them are from years in the past, some are not, yes it happens here and now. This doesn’t even include other forms of lethal ableist violence. Just ‘killed by a caregiver, usually a close family member.’) It doesn’t horrify me anymore. That implies surprise. It hurts, because society hates disabled people so damn much, but it does not surprise me. And because Autism Speaks has the best PR of the lot, and spends all their money on research into ‘detection’ and ‘prevention’ and ‘awareness’ and precisely none to anything that would actually help autistic people or their families with day-to-day life, this is just the background radiation of my life. Our ‘awareness month’ is frequently a source of dread.
Robbie
Thanks for the info. I’m really picky but my ten year old (who has other sensory aversions and signs of spd not related to food as well), is wayyyyy more limited in his diet than me or Joyce.
Of course he’s only ten and didn’t really expand his diet much this year probably due to the pandemic turning everything topsy turvy and exacerbating anxiety… But before the pandemic he had recently started trying new foods occasionally. He eats plain cheeseburgers sometimes now!
I suspect it’s less an eating disorder and more like a sensory processing thing. Although I suppose the two aren’t mutually exclusive, the latter might be the cause of the former. I knew someone who couldn’t handle condiments in a similar manner, grossed out by them, barely able to look at them. Joyce reminds me of him.
Eclipsa isn’t saying that Joyce is grossed out by condiments – they were just drawing a parallel with their friend, who was grossed out by condiments, to Joyce’s weird thing about foods being combined.
Not liking condiments is one thing. Rather simple, really.
But I get the sense that Joyce’s food neuroses being against “foods being combined” is a major oversimplification.
I mean, isn’t ketchup still just tomatoes?
Regalli
From how she’s described it, it ultimately seems to come down on whether she perceives the food as separate foods (such as cheese and bread, like on a charcuterie board or something) or a single one (such as a grilled cheese sandwich.) If the food meets her One Thing threshold, like a casserole, then it’s fine even if it’s technically a combination of several distinct ingredients. The act of putting the noodles in the cheese sauce makes them the acceptable Macaroni And Cheese. Mashed potatoes and peas, on the other hand, are two distinct foods, and therefore must be kept separate at all times. A condiment, therefore, CAN be okay if it’s part of The Food (like ketchup on a burger) or eaten separately but her brain nonetheless sorts it as part of The Food (ketchup and fries, dunno if Joyce is okay with that offhand but this is absolutely how I handle sauces and condiments.)
No, this isn’t a thing you can apply 100% rational thought towards. It’s the kind of thing that starts as a sensory issue and balloons into a massive ball of anxiety, especially when people don’t really know how to deal with your sensory stuff so they just… don’t, in one way or another.
I guess the unspoken need for there to be a defunct rational reason or past memory driving such a tendency is really more of a Freudian ideal, isn’t it?
Regalli
There are very good reasons why Freud is discredited by modern psychology.
And I mean, in some ways there is a rationale – if this is historically a Safe Food that doesn’t trigger sensory issues, then no need to worry! If it’s not a safe food or it’s unknown, even if it’s things that are fine individually, then avoid at all costs. But what makes some foods acceptable and other foods not is a rich tapestry of scent, texture, flavor, and sometimes your brain just spontaneously decides this is no longer an Acceptable Food, don’t keep trying to eat it, you will gag.
I personally think that such tendencies could be diminished as long as one has strong enough incentive.
I myself used to be really finicky about my food (and to some degree I still am), sometimes due to texture or taste, but mostly due to incredible attention to nutrition in the interest of maximizing brain power.
I began being a lot less picky once I found out that foods I hated were actually essential ingredients in some of my favorite dishes (such as onions in mcdonald’s nuggets and pre-made potato soup). When I started to cook all kinds of food from manga that I thought looked amazing (like the Omiricu from Dragon Maid) I began cooking dishes from all over the world, and my excess of pickiness for the most part nearly diminished from there.
Also, sometimes I experiment with these supplements called Miracle Berries, which make things like lemons and mustard taste SWEET. Seriously those things are the key to unlocking a whole new UNIVERSE of flavors.
Regalli
I’m just gonna leave it at ‘my incentives need to be incredibly strong indeed to overcome the anxiety wall.’ Again, Joyce is worryingly relatable.
Just where did you get that avatar? It looks really nice!
Regalli
Cartoon Network’s Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld shorts, from their short-lived DC Nation block. Back when I picked her, it was recent enough you’d sometimes see Young Justice fans who recognized it. These days I’m too attached to my AmeWHAT face to change it, even if it’s well past the point of common recognition.
That was a very fun series of shorts. Still kinda wish someone had picked up the video game magical girl concept for Amethyst and Gemworld somewhere.
Spencer
The DC Nation short had the bad timing of existing around the same time that other Gem-themed show happened to take off.
Its profoundly weird to me that DC’s putting out all these kids-oriented OGNs like Superman Smashes the Klan and Shadow of the Batgirl, these really good comics that exist in their own continuity and just tell really good stories about these characters instead of whatever Crisis event is coming up, and they still haven’t twigged onto giving Amethyst her own, even though Amethyst was basically a Magical Girl/Fantasy comic a decade before that became a thing in North America.
Regalli
The Gemworld shorts were a bit before Steven Universe (the GLTAS/Young Justice block ended in March 2013, SU’s first episode was in May, but I believe the Amethyst shorts were all in the first wave a year earlier,) but yeah, the time period where you could greenlight something without worrying about confusion by the time it aired was pretty much nonexistent.
Oh hey, Googling it DC DOES have an upcoming middlegrade Gemworld graphic novel! Shannon and Dean Hale on writing, Asiah Fulmore on art. Excellent.
Spencer
Haha, I was just about to say since I found that out just now.
One for Shazam too, thank god. I’d seriously give up the entirety of DC’s ongoing, in-canon universe for these. They are exactly what I want out of superhero comics right now.
ischemgeek
As someone who was extremely picky as a kid (I am autistic and at one point there was a total of about 10 real foods I would eat, plus a few condiments. Milk, Weetabix cereal, apples, bananas, beef, mushrooms and broccoli, lettuce, cheese and rice.) plus chocolate and cakes that had no nuts or raisins. Not saying this happens for Joyce but for some folks the more you get pressured into trying things too far outside of your comfort zone, the more your brain just goes NOPE.
I was at my pickiest around 8 (not coincidentally the same year I had an abusive teacher encouraging my classmates to bully me, was adjusting to a new school, house and town, experiencing horrible bullying from the aforementioned classmates, and starting to realize how different I actually was from my age peers). For me it wasn’t ever things touching (salads were fine as long as they didn’t have bad things, Frex) but texture/sensory stuff plus probably a whole heaping pile of too stressed out to have the mental bandwidth to push my food boundaries. I could do some Bad Foods if they were pureed so I didn’t have to feel them (blueberry compote was fine but blueberries themselves were bad).
In uni, I WANTED very badly to be able to eat more things (by then my ok foods had expanded to include cauliflower, beans, some types of pasta, pureed tomato sauce, and carrots) so I did something they call food chaining. Basically slowly working on my comfort zone to expand it at my own pace. In my case, there’s some things that are still very firmly a sensory NOPE (celery and other things with a stringy texture,, peach fuzz, dough boys and other types of dumplings with a slimy texture, and carbonated beverages to name a few) but so long as it doesn’t have a texture I hate I am now actually a very adventurous water – mainly because when I try new foods people aren’t watching and recording what I eat or judging me for eating that way or putting the pressure of their excitement to see me trying a new thing on me and I am allowed to not like it, throw it away or give it to someone else, and get something I can eat.
I dunno if my case would have risen to ED nowadays (in the 90s I was just called a picky brat). But I can say Booster’s apparent lack of judgement around Joyce’s food hangups is probably helpful to Joyce (and I wouldn’t be surprised if Joyce’s food issues have ramped up to 11 this year owing to the stress in her life right now – from someone who had adjacent issues, some of it is very much a coping mechanism. I don’t know what fresh hell is waiting for me at school but I DO know my Weetabix and banana with milk will be the Exact Same Every Time if I pick the Right Banana (bananas had to be the right stage of ripeness because overripe bananas are a big NOPE on texture for me, but my range of acceptable ripeness has expanded a lot). It was a source of stability when literally everything else was changing and life was chaos.
Some Ed
I think my grandfather would have done better in life if he could have accepted the thoughts expressed in your comment. But he was a picky thinker in much the same way as you’re a picky eater, and I don’t think there was any way anyone was going to be able to force the thought “trying to force someone to experience a food can make them more avoidant of that food” into his brain.
I expanded my food interests widely after escaping from his influence. Not that he ever found out, because I was still food avoidant in his house when my family came to a visit, because just so much nope.
In more recent years, I’ve even found a restaurant that has a seasonal dish that prominently includes one of the foods I most detest which is somehow still delicious. To be clear, I wouldn’t put the sandwich in my top ten, but it is still somehow good.
I’m sure someone has said this but it seems like she has a selective eating disorder! It’s a very bad thing to suffer from (I do) so I really like the…representation? that comes from Joyce. Never seen it in any other character before. Mine branches from autism.
Yeah, I know that Willis replaced Mike in part because they had trouble developing a cartoony asshole into a fleshed-out character in a more realistic setting, so I’m really hoping that Booster actually gets some of the development that they were created to get.
It’s early yet. We’re at the end of the first book post-skip and this is the first real focus Sal has gotten, for one. And Amber’s been dramatically out of focus compared to where she and AG were pre-skip.
Yeah I meant to have a speech bubble of her saying something like “I think it’s a little much for me”
I picture her being very “deer in the headlights”
Kyrik Michalowski
Fair enough, though I wonder how that look would change if Walky gave her a compliment on said lingerie?
Delicious Taffy
There’s a scene in One Punch Man where Saitama is on an alien ship and the navigator tells him to go one way instead of another, so he won’t reach the bridge. The face Saitama pulls a moment later is exactly what I imagine on Lucy.
Schpoonman
It’s been a long time since I watched season 1, should do that again soon.
241 thoughts on “Concoction”
Ana Chronistic
“well it all sounds so great when you put it THAT way”
Demoted Oblivious
Soylent Green, not just people, it’s a homogenous paste with excellent taste!
Thag Simmons
I don’t care how good people tastes, this stuff is costing me more than Lobster, so we’re going back to fishsticks.
Rocketboy1313
Now I am hungry at midnight.
Wagstaff
Anything in particular you’re craving?
AeromechanicalAce
Joyce, i think you MIGHT have an eating disorder there. Might wanna see someone about that.
Robbie
Is being exceptionally picky an actual eating disorder?
EAG46
There’s being exceptionally picky and there’s being nauseated about different foods being chewed up at the same time by someone else. It seems like a textural type issue. One of many issues Joyce needs to see a therapist about.
Clif
I don’t keep up. Is neurosis not still a thing?
Regalli
Short answer: Yes.
https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/eating-disorders/what-is-arfid
Long answer: Yes but diagnostically it’s at least somewhat superseded if there’s another sensory processing disorder in play. (Which is to say, in an edge case it might be considered part of your Sensory Issues Expansion Pack to autism/ADHD/OCD/insert specific neurotype here.)
Regalli
Also, in this particular case it seems to be more on the anxiety/intrusive thoughts side of her issues than sensory, but like. One frequently begets the other.
And this is reason 517 why I relate to Joyce. There are some things I can’t even look at without setting off my Sensory Brain Issues.
Wagstaff
Just to be clear, do you think anxiety/intrusive thoughts are distinct from GAD?
Regalli
There are many, many things that qualify as anxiety disorders or have major anxiety components beyond generalized anxiety disorder. OCD, for example. Some forms of PTSD have the intrusive thoughts and anxiety as key parts. Eating disorders definitely seem to have an anxiety component, though I won’t pretend to understand any but my borderline-ARFID diet, which is deeply influenced by autism and GAD.
There’s definitely an anxiety disorder in play here, but you could make a case for anything I just listed and probably a few more besides.
Wagstaff
Thanks for the info!
By the way, there’s something you wrote a while ago that’s been floating around in my brain for quite some time, so I guess I’ll just ask you now.
You wrote some time ago that “Autism Speaks is a hate group”. I’ve already known for quite some time that they have been engaging in some very dubious and even pseudoscientific practices, but them being a hate group is a new one on me.
Could you please elaborate? Who exactly do they hate?
King Daniel
Actual autistic people.
Wagstaff
@King Daniel, Thanks? But I was actually asking Regalli.
Regalli
King Daniel had the right of it. I could go into further detail, but this isn’t particularly obscure information once you go looking – you just have to know to Google with ‘controversies’ or ‘eugenics’ or, say, read through their Wikipedia page in detail – and I have neither the spoons nor the willingness to put seriously traumatic recaps at the top of the comments section. Especially not without spoiler capabilities, but like. I’m not subjecting MYSELF to a lengthy recounting of their history, either, nothing good can come of that one. Basically any autistic advocacy group run by actual autistics can give you an overview about the issues. You’ll probably also see a recent post in any US-based one calling out the Judge Rotenberg Center, which Autism Speaks supported for years. If they cut ties, it was only very recently and yes, that practice was going on then. No, I will not elaborate, because again: Not putting a lengthy discussion of ableist violence at the top of the comments section or making myself write it.
I may not mind doing periodic internet education about my neurotype, but it does take a fair bit out of me and this particular topic can get disturbing. Unfortunately, some of the most disturbing aspects are at the forefront of our collective community’s mind right now.
Demoted Oblivious
Wikipedia has a solid write up on Autism Speaks. Some fact checking is in order, but it doesn’t paint the organization or board members in a great light.
Wagstaff
*looks up Autism Speaks and Rosenberg*
NOOOO!!!!! WHYYYYYY!?!?!?!?!?
Wagstaff
So horrible…. I had no idea… I am so sorry…..
Stifyn Baker
I live in the UK, so I’d never heard of them. Having now read up, I have to say, as the parent of an autistic son (and a teacher in schools for autistic students for many years), I’m horrified. Autism is a developmental condition, so far as our limited understanding of it tells us. It can’t be caught, it can’t be ‘cured’. The most us neurotypicals can ever hope to do is (a) understand, (b) try to give autistic individuals the means to develop a mental toolkit to help them deal with a world that is massively not designed for them, and (c) actively work towards changing that last thing I mentioned there in (b).
On a related note, my son’s favourite quote at the moment is, “Vaccinated children ARE more likely to get autism, because they’re still alive.”
Wagstaff
It was so good that you took the time to write that here. Thank you!
And also, SOMEBODY please please for the love of Willis promote that quote like crazy on Twitter.
We need as many people as possible to vaccinate! The WORLD is counting on it.
Keulen
Autism Speaks is terrible and doesn’t represent actual autistic people.
https://autisticmama.com/do-not-support-autism-speaks/
Keulen
And for anyone who isn’t aware of it already, the Judge Rotenberg Center is evil.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judge_Rotenberg_Educational_Center
Wagstaff
I don’t even think calling them “evil” could do any justice. I think a far more appropriate adjective to describe them would be “FASCIST”.
ischemgeek
Short list of why:
1, making anti Autistic propaganda including: commercials portraying autism as a demon that will destroy your marriage, ruin your family and steal your real child (the “I am Autism” video) and lionizing parents who openly fantasize about killing their Autistic children, presenting these infanticidal fantasies as the inevitable result of having an autistic child (the “Autism Every day” video), among others.
2, promotion of pseudoscientific abuse of Autistic ppl including ABA (which by some metrics is actually less effective than placebo and is associated with long term serious negative side effects like increased risk of suicide, mental health issues and PTSD symptoms), so-called “Miracle mineral solution” (aka bleach) enemas, and whatever tortures dreamed up at the Judge Rotenberg Center
3, refusing to allow Autistic ppl in real positions of authority within the group while engaging in tokenism to give the appearance of inclusivity (this is in violation of ethical principles of disability issues which demand real inclusion of the directly affected population, not just their parents or siblings (does YOUR mum understand your body and preferences as well as you? Neither does mine and she shouldn’t speak for me when I am totally capable of speaking for myself. It is NOT the same to platform autism parents and call it inclusion).
4. Supporting eugenicist research and research aimed at forced normalization of Autistic ppl above and to the exclusion of research that benefits actually Autistic ppl.
5. Until very recently, eradication of autism and Autistic ppl was an explicit part of their mission. Most of us autistics don’t want to be eradicated.
That’s the short version.
Regalli
Thank you, ischemgeek, for the rundown, and thanks to Keulen for the links of awful.
The sad part is I’m inured to things like ‘yeah they shock people into compliance at levels you legally can’t apply to animals.’ Once they started causing measles outbreaks because vaccines cause autism (they don’t) and therefore measles was preferable to that risk, even if it killed their kid? Once they published a video where a woman fantasizes about killing herself and her autistic child with said child in the room with her, and the only thing that stopped her was thinking about her non-autistic kid? Once ‘autistic children killed by their parents’ became so horrifyingly frequent, and the media narrative inevitably sympathized with the murderer, that it inspired an autistic with ASAN to found the Disability Day of Mourning, which now can only read the names added to the list since last year because so damn many disabled people are killed by their caregivers they have people on staff whose job it is to search news articles and update the list? (Some of them are from years in the past, some are not, yes it happens here and now. This doesn’t even include other forms of lethal ableist violence. Just ‘killed by a caregiver, usually a close family member.’) It doesn’t horrify me anymore. That implies surprise. It hurts, because society hates disabled people so damn much, but it does not surprise me. And because Autism Speaks has the best PR of the lot, and spends all their money on research into ‘detection’ and ‘prevention’ and ‘awareness’ and precisely none to anything that would actually help autistic people or their families with day-to-day life, this is just the background radiation of my life. Our ‘awareness month’ is frequently a source of dread.
Robbie
Thanks for the info. I’m really picky but my ten year old (who has other sensory aversions and signs of spd not related to food as well), is wayyyyy more limited in his diet than me or Joyce.
Of course he’s only ten and didn’t really expand his diet much this year probably due to the pandemic turning everything topsy turvy and exacerbating anxiety… But before the pandemic he had recently started trying new foods occasionally. He eats plain cheeseburgers sometimes now!
Eclipsa
I suspect it’s less an eating disorder and more like a sensory processing thing. Although I suppose the two aren’t mutually exclusive, the latter might be the cause of the former. I knew someone who couldn’t handle condiments in a similar manner, grossed out by them, barely able to look at them. Joyce reminds me of him.
Wagstaff
Wait, isn’t it stated that Joyce likes some condiments, like ketchup and mustard?
Sol
Eclipsa isn’t saying that Joyce is grossed out by condiments – they were just drawing a parallel with their friend, who was grossed out by condiments, to Joyce’s weird thing about foods being combined.
Wagstaff
Not liking condiments is one thing. Rather simple, really.
But I get the sense that Joyce’s food neuroses being against “foods being combined” is a major oversimplification.
I mean, isn’t ketchup still just tomatoes?
Regalli
From how she’s described it, it ultimately seems to come down on whether she perceives the food as separate foods (such as cheese and bread, like on a charcuterie board or something) or a single one (such as a grilled cheese sandwich.) If the food meets her One Thing threshold, like a casserole, then it’s fine even if it’s technically a combination of several distinct ingredients. The act of putting the noodles in the cheese sauce makes them the acceptable Macaroni And Cheese. Mashed potatoes and peas, on the other hand, are two distinct foods, and therefore must be kept separate at all times. A condiment, therefore, CAN be okay if it’s part of The Food (like ketchup on a burger) or eaten separately but her brain nonetheless sorts it as part of The Food (ketchup and fries, dunno if Joyce is okay with that offhand but this is absolutely how I handle sauces and condiments.)
No, this isn’t a thing you can apply 100% rational thought towards. It’s the kind of thing that starts as a sensory issue and balloons into a massive ball of anxiety, especially when people don’t really know how to deal with your sensory stuff so they just… don’t, in one way or another.
Wagstaff
@Regalli,Thanks for the overview! A+
I guess the unspoken need for there to be a defunct rational reason or past memory driving such a tendency is really more of a Freudian ideal, isn’t it?
Regalli
There are very good reasons why Freud is discredited by modern psychology.
And I mean, in some ways there is a rationale – if this is historically a Safe Food that doesn’t trigger sensory issues, then no need to worry! If it’s not a safe food or it’s unknown, even if it’s things that are fine individually, then avoid at all costs. But what makes some foods acceptable and other foods not is a rich tapestry of scent, texture, flavor, and sometimes your brain just spontaneously decides this is no longer an Acceptable Food, don’t keep trying to eat it, you will gag.
Wagstaff
I personally think that such tendencies could be diminished as long as one has strong enough incentive.
I myself used to be really finicky about my food (and to some degree I still am), sometimes due to texture or taste, but mostly due to incredible attention to nutrition in the interest of maximizing brain power.
I began being a lot less picky once I found out that foods I hated were actually essential ingredients in some of my favorite dishes (such as onions in mcdonald’s nuggets and pre-made potato soup). When I started to cook all kinds of food from manga that I thought looked amazing (like the Omiricu from Dragon Maid) I began cooking dishes from all over the world, and my excess of pickiness for the most part nearly diminished from there.
Also, sometimes I experiment with these supplements called Miracle Berries, which make things like lemons and mustard taste SWEET. Seriously those things are the key to unlocking a whole new UNIVERSE of flavors.
Regalli
I’m just gonna leave it at ‘my incentives need to be incredibly strong indeed to overcome the anxiety wall.’ Again, Joyce is worryingly relatable.
Wagstaff
If only the Krabby Patty existed in real life. If that couldn’t push past Joyce’s anxiety wall, I don’t know what can…..
…except the slim-to-none chance that she accidentally tries the carboxylated flower of a certain plant native to Central Asia.Wagstaff
By the way, I have yet another bizarre question.
Just where did you get that avatar? It looks really nice!
Regalli
Cartoon Network’s Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld shorts, from their short-lived DC Nation block. Back when I picked her, it was recent enough you’d sometimes see Young Justice fans who recognized it. These days I’m too attached to my AmeWHAT face to change it, even if it’s well past the point of common recognition.
That was a very fun series of shorts. Still kinda wish someone had picked up the video game magical girl concept for Amethyst and Gemworld somewhere.
Spencer
The DC Nation short had the bad timing of existing around the same time that other Gem-themed show happened to take off.
Its profoundly weird to me that DC’s putting out all these kids-oriented OGNs like Superman Smashes the Klan and Shadow of the Batgirl, these really good comics that exist in their own continuity and just tell really good stories about these characters instead of whatever Crisis event is coming up, and they still haven’t twigged onto giving Amethyst her own, even though Amethyst was basically a Magical Girl/Fantasy comic a decade before that became a thing in North America.
Regalli
The Gemworld shorts were a bit before Steven Universe (the GLTAS/Young Justice block ended in March 2013, SU’s first episode was in May, but I believe the Amethyst shorts were all in the first wave a year earlier,) but yeah, the time period where you could greenlight something without worrying about confusion by the time it aired was pretty much nonexistent.
Oh hey, Googling it DC DOES have an upcoming middlegrade Gemworld graphic novel! Shannon and Dean Hale on writing, Asiah Fulmore on art. Excellent.
Spencer
Haha, I was just about to say since I found that out just now.
One for Shazam too, thank god. I’d seriously give up the entirety of DC’s ongoing, in-canon universe for these. They are exactly what I want out of superhero comics right now.
ischemgeek
As someone who was extremely picky as a kid (I am autistic and at one point there was a total of about 10 real foods I would eat, plus a few condiments. Milk, Weetabix cereal, apples, bananas, beef, mushrooms and broccoli, lettuce, cheese and rice.) plus chocolate and cakes that had no nuts or raisins. Not saying this happens for Joyce but for some folks the more you get pressured into trying things too far outside of your comfort zone, the more your brain just goes NOPE.
I was at my pickiest around 8 (not coincidentally the same year I had an abusive teacher encouraging my classmates to bully me, was adjusting to a new school, house and town, experiencing horrible bullying from the aforementioned classmates, and starting to realize how different I actually was from my age peers). For me it wasn’t ever things touching (salads were fine as long as they didn’t have bad things, Frex) but texture/sensory stuff plus probably a whole heaping pile of too stressed out to have the mental bandwidth to push my food boundaries. I could do some Bad Foods if they were pureed so I didn’t have to feel them (blueberry compote was fine but blueberries themselves were bad).
In uni, I WANTED very badly to be able to eat more things (by then my ok foods had expanded to include cauliflower, beans, some types of pasta, pureed tomato sauce, and carrots) so I did something they call food chaining. Basically slowly working on my comfort zone to expand it at my own pace. In my case, there’s some things that are still very firmly a sensory NOPE (celery and other things with a stringy texture,, peach fuzz, dough boys and other types of dumplings with a slimy texture, and carbonated beverages to name a few) but so long as it doesn’t have a texture I hate I am now actually a very adventurous water – mainly because when I try new foods people aren’t watching and recording what I eat or judging me for eating that way or putting the pressure of their excitement to see me trying a new thing on me and I am allowed to not like it, throw it away or give it to someone else, and get something I can eat.
I dunno if my case would have risen to ED nowadays (in the 90s I was just called a picky brat). But I can say Booster’s apparent lack of judgement around Joyce’s food hangups is probably helpful to Joyce (and I wouldn’t be surprised if Joyce’s food issues have ramped up to 11 this year owing to the stress in her life right now – from someone who had adjacent issues, some of it is very much a coping mechanism. I don’t know what fresh hell is waiting for me at school but I DO know my Weetabix and banana with milk will be the Exact Same Every Time if I pick the Right Banana (bananas had to be the right stage of ripeness because overripe bananas are a big NOPE on texture for me, but my range of acceptable ripeness has expanded a lot). It was a source of stability when literally everything else was changing and life was chaos.
Some Ed
I think my grandfather would have done better in life if he could have accepted the thoughts expressed in your comment. But he was a picky thinker in much the same way as you’re a picky eater, and I don’t think there was any way anyone was going to be able to force the thought “trying to force someone to experience a food can make them more avoidant of that food” into his brain.
I expanded my food interests widely after escaping from his influence. Not that he ever found out, because I was still food avoidant in his house when my family came to a visit, because just so much nope.
In more recent years, I’ve even found a restaurant that has a seasonal dish that prominently includes one of the foods I most detest which is somehow still delicious. To be clear, I wouldn’t put the sandwich in my top ten, but it is still somehow good.
woobie
ehh, she can function in society so it’s fine.
(why, no, therapy did nothing for me, why?)
Jade
I’m sure someone has said this but it seems like she has a selective eating disorder! It’s a very bad thing to suffer from (I do) so I really like the…representation? that comes from Joyce. Never seen it in any other character before. Mine branches from autism.
Josh Spicer
Well this is certainly something to go to bed to.
John
so’s yer mom.
AGV
Go back to your grave, Mike, it’s past your burial
Thag Simmons
Oh hi Booster.
Y’know for someone who’s on the cast page we haven’t really gotten to know you that much.
RassilonTDavros
Yeah, I know that Willis replaced Mike in part because they had trouble developing a cartoony asshole into a fleshed-out character in a more realistic setting, so I’m really hoping that Booster actually gets some of the development that they were created to get.
I am Nothing
You know what they say: Meet the new Mike, same as the old Mike.
Regalli
It’s early yet. We’re at the end of the first book post-skip and this is the first real focus Sal has gotten, for one. And Amber’s been dramatically out of focus compared to where she and AG were pre-skip.
Yotomoe
https://imgur.com/a/b96a4i5
Someone requested Lucy Lingerie. Apropos of nothing Lingerie sounds like how pretentious people would pronounce laundry.
Agemegos
It means “washables” in French.
Delicious Taffy
So Yoto was dead on the money.
Jamie
Yup. https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=lingerie
khn0
It doesn’t.
You could argue it meant.
But then I’d argue that https://www.cnrtl.fr/etymologie/lingerie
khn0
To elaborate for non french speakers:
wash=laver (see old french lavanderie which gave laundry)
linen=lin (root for linge then lingerie)
Kyrik Michalowski
She looks very uncomfortable in that. Seems Lucy just doeen’t have any exhibitionist qualities.
Yotomoe
Yeah I meant to have a speech bubble of her saying something like “I think it’s a little much for me”
I picture her being very “deer in the headlights”
Kyrik Michalowski
Fair enough, though I wonder how that look would change if Walky gave her a compliment on said lingerie?
Delicious Taffy
There’s a scene in One Punch Man where Saitama is on an alien ship and the navigator tells him to go one way instead of another, so he won’t reach the bridge. The face Saitama pulls a moment later is exactly what I imagine on Lucy.
Schpoonman
It’s been a long time since I watched season 1, should do that again soon.
Jhon
Lucy seems much more comfortable as NightGirl.
Wizard
Too bad, because she looks both sexy and adorable.
Wagstaff
Yet another fantastic piece by Yotomoe! Keep up the marvelous work!
Delicious Taffy
Oh god not the babydoll nightie and garters. My one weakness…
RassilonTDavros
Hey, I was re-reading part of Shortpacked! earlier, and I found a drawing to add to the imgur masterpost:
https://imgur.com/tkvXdbF
It’s supposed to be a (then-)hypothetical Leslie/Robin kid, originally posted on this strip.
Yotomoe
I forgot I did this! It’s like an easter egg hunt.
Wagstaff
Except that the eggs actually help us BURN calories and provide much more than just 10 seconds of pleasure!
Wagstaff
For the love of our porn lord and savior Willis, somebody please PLEASE tell me that was funny!
Demoted Oblivious
Sometimes art is in the eye of the beholder. And that’s good enough.