Through the lens of a Level 1 Autistic Individual

2024: One More Try   The new year will bring one last attempt for visibility and inclusion in my cosplay efforts. There is a photoshoot scheduled, and also there is the rest of the day at Sac Anime for opportunities to be part of a "cosplay squad" and get posted. Of course, there is the Victory Lunch aspect with everyone getting together like friends do. How the day goes will be the final determination of how I move forward with Cosplay, whether this is a new beginning, or my withdrawal from all but a few parades and other (even more) select events.

Brutal Reality I was in San Diego this Labor Day Weekend, and (other than one individual actually talking to me) the class reunion was a sea of backs, shoulders, and turned-away faces. The invisibility that I'm realizing is definitely present, unless an opportunity arises for my embarrassment in any form. This, and the "wolfpack" breaking up during an anime convention which reminded me of my attempts to try to fit in during cosplay gatherings in San Diego, cemented my desire to carve my own path with an Original Character and to weave the exclusion and other "invisibility factors" into the Jambreaker continuity when possible within the flow of the story. Fortunately, though, I did get a positive response from a local fandom group based out of Sacramento, and so my Spider-Man Last Stand outfit could get some action at upcoming events. Also, I wore my Captain Olimar to a photoshoot for a charity calendar for the first time ever. The huge "saving factor" ...

Realization Today, on the way home from lunch, I saw a sign with the name of one of the prolific developers here in Stockton. That reminded me of the volleyball class that I was in, thirty years ago, and remember mention of pick-up games in Grupe Park. I was ignored when I asked about joining the fun, and this triggered a massive realization (actually an epiphany) of some very brutal truth. At work, I was a "loner", with people taking advantage of the knowledge that I have no sense of smell, by gaslighting the "fact" that I reeked with body odor. This fallacy was revealed when both my mother and one of my brothers told me that I never did produce a bad musk all this time. This gave me relief as well as that sense of sadness that people, in different circles, lied to me to "protect my feelings" when shunned. The "mock musk" was the one known "excuse" for people shying away from me. Being tall, large, and autistic seems to trigger an unco...

=== Jambreaker === Prolog "This isn't my bed! Mom? Dad? Anyone?" Bare feet slap to the cold floor of a room far more sterile than the carved stone & wood of the room where he laid his head the night before. In place of the home-woven curtain hangs a decidedly solid door with a reinforced window. A face peers in from the other side of that window with a smirking "Well, well, well! Good morning, there!" before leaving with the sound of footsteps and laughter. The kid, maybe six years old by the Tellurian measure, examines the door, and forms a construct "wand" in one hand and a darkened face shield in the other, like how his father taught him. Looking through the shield, he points the wand at the thick plate between the knob and the edge of door, and sends energy through it. He feels the heat even through the shield as he torches a jagged groove in the door, which then swings open with the "ping" of small metal parts clanging to the floor, ...

DREAM FADE I'm at work, in my favorite Space Suit costume to celebrate Halloween. A bunch of us get on a bus to the fair, and the ride is a happy one, like a bunch of kids going to a favorite theme park. The whole scene is of awesomeness as we roll up to the fair. We pour out of the bus to check out the booths out front, and get photo ops with the costumed characters before we go into the main building for a banquet party. Finally, it's my turn to get a photo with the superheroes, but find that I need to "round them up" to get a group together before they split off. The camera clicks, and I notice that the heroes are all distracted, and there is even someone walking into the frame. There is no re-take though. I go to the door to the banquet hall, only to be told that everyone has already gone in and the event has started. Perhaps I can come back next year. I'm alone out there in the now empty fairground. Maybe Next Year ...  

Destined to be the Lone Wolf Throughout my cosplay effforts since 2009, when I made and wore Chouji (Naruto) to San Diego Comic-Con, I wanted to be a part of something epic. Cosplay would become my Social Outlet, and the space suits with the plastic bubble helmets became my favorite, since not only are the helmets themselves my favorite costume element, the suit made for David Vetter, the Bubble Boy, just yelled out to me as the perfect match for my outlook as an autistic person trying to escape from isolation, and something unique in cosplay gatherings. As time progressed, I would find out that I would be on the outside looking in, with a particular pre-Halloween gathering in 2016 being the writing on the wall. From someone turning to me and spitting "what the hell are you supposed to be?!?" when she spotted my AIM Suit (Marvel Comics) to never being included in the photo shots (no one cared to tell me that the photogs there were commissioned) -- I spent the whole time sitti...

Between jobs and with a dream of Clown College, I took the opportunity to be a vendor with the Disney on Ice Peter Pan Tour on its "rodeo route" from just after Thanksgiving 1991 in Boise, ID to Easter 1992 in Baltimore (the last two stands were with the Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus at two of their largest arenas of that tour). Chicago and Boston was the Time Machine Tour where we went on loan while Peter Pan went to New York City, where there were union vendors. I got to see the broad spectrum of places and people, including my first-ever visits to Canada! My talents don't include sales, so while I did OK, the disappointment of having customers holding off until a favorite vendor arrived, or dealing with various artificial constructs of implied castes. I'll remember the cities and kind people favorably, but have no desire to run the seats to try to sell souvenir mugs full of shaved ice or bags of cotton candy that constantly dropped from the pole used...