#goatmon

Some digimon with hooves. ^w^

Aegiomon reminds me of my child, so I absolutely adore him! Can't wait for the price of Digimon story: Time Stranger to go down enough for me to afford it, so I can actually find out what his story is all about! 💖

Extra points because people think Goatmon, the evolution of Tailmon with the Digimental of Hope, does fit, but again, not everything about Takeru and Hikari have to be matchy matchy. They do supplement each other, but they do not have to match all of the time.

Goatmon/Oryxmon from Digimon Frontier

I started watching Violet Evergarden back in March, and it didn’t take long for me to notice a pattern with her behavior. As an autistic person, I don’t often get to really connect with people, or fictional characters. There’s almost always a communication barrier, to some extent, that makes it hard for me to be comfortable around people. And fictional characters always lack something and rarely strike a chord. But with Violet? I felt a kindred spirit, almost immediately.

I’ve always felt pretty isolated from people, and media almost always feels like it’s speaking to someone else. Even as a cis white dude, there’s just so much media that doesn’t speak to me even among the stuff that’s aimed at the demographics I fit into.

But this show? It was not like that at all. I finally got to see someone going through the struggles I’ve had to deal with. Someone being confused in all the ways I’ve been confused, when dealing with other people. It feels really amazing and validating to see it on screen. It was a breath of fresh air.

So, naturally, allistic (non-autistic) people feel the need to argue with me almost ever single time I’ve ever brought this up. Because god forbid autistic people get good representation, I guess?

So, I decided to compile a list of things she does throughout the show that all fall within the spectrum of behaviors and issues that are known to manifest with autistic people much more than allistic (non-autistic) ones.

And if you attempt to argue with me on this by telling me “she’s just bad at social stuff because she grew up in the woods”, SO HELP ME.

But anyway, here are some issues that come up a LOT throughout the show in general.

- Being bad at understanding feelings. This can apply to your own feelings, or those of others.

- Having difficulties working and interacting with allistic people (non-autistic people) due to communication breakdowns.

- Frequently speaking in technical language, even when talking about mundane things like eating or sleeping.

- Taking people too literally. - Being honest to the point of being unintentionally rude.

- Relying on routines in daily life. (It takes Violet a while to stop applying military terms to everything she does).

- Obsessive interest in a small number of activities.

- Being totally oblivious to social cues that most people use to communicate things nonverbally

- Seldom expressing emotion in obvious ways; Both characters in her own show and reviewers of the series describe Violet as being emotionless, when she really never is at any point in the show. She’s just not obvious in the wya she expresses it.

Here are some examples that come up in specific episodes.

(Episode 1)

- Becoming deeply unsettled when established routines are disrupted. (Claudia is about to leave her behind, and she has no idea what to do with herself)

- Mouthing objects (Teddy bear)

- Sometimes being very perceptive of others people’s intentions when interacting with them.(Telling Tiffany Evergarden “I can’t replace your lost child” after she offers to let Violet stay)

       The above example is a thing that be pretty armor piercing for those who aren’t self aware. I’ve dealt with this myself a variety of times, and have had to learn to NOT do this in order to avoid causing issues.

- Having a poor understanding of physical boundaries. (Undressing in front of Benedict)

- Focusing on tasks to the point of neglecting other needs well beyond what is required. (working all night without eating)

- Taking people too literally. (working all night)

- Mouthing objects again. (the Brooch)

(Episode 2)

- Being oblivious to how loud you are. (the typewriter)

- Being oblivious to other poeple’s hurt feelings. (telling a crying client to stop crying)

- Having a poor understanding of physical boundaries (restraining the angry client)

- Having little to no understanding of how words communicate indirect meaning. (Violet’s hilariously bad letter)

- Taking people too literally (she says “Her name is Erica” when an angry client shouts “Who do you think you are?!” at Erica.)

(Episode 3)

- Extremely good memory. (Violet says she remembers the introductions of all the doll students early in the episode)

- Expressing intense feelings with subtle body language and gestures, rather than with words. (squeezing her letter as the instructor explains that what she wrote is not acceptable as a letter.)

(Episode 4)

- Doesn’t understand deception.(She immediately corrects Iris several times in front of her family, when Iris attempts to exaggerate her popularity at work)

- Struggles to cooperate with requests that she doesn’t understand.(She doesn’t listen when Iris asks her to not write an invitation to the boy that turned her down, because Iris wouldn’t tell her why she didn’t want him to come.)

- Doesn’t understand discretion.(Telling Iris’s family what Iris told her about her past, not realizing she was expected to keep this private.)