This isn't just an enby thing but...

It may be more pronounced to us nonbinary folks, although I'm sure anyone could relate to this. I've been thinking about my childhood fictional influences lately, because I've been writing a story where a character has to think about a lot of similar stuff. I've found mainly two things:

1. Only when I realized I was nonbinary did it finally make sense to me why some characters immediately feel like "my kin" even if I don't relate to their personality.

2. It irritates me a lot how throughout my childhood I was always automatically assumed to relate to only female characters.

It's not surprising, I know, and this isn't to say that anyone should have known better than to assume. I'm not writing this to make anyone feel bad or to claim anyone should understand anything they're not exposed to, or automatically know how to correct every assumption they've been taught to make since their own childhood. It's not anyone's responsibility to know what goes on in other people's heads.

But. That doesn't mean I don't get to be irritated about it. You get to be irritated about your broken leg, even if it wasn't someone's fault. So, in the same way, I get to be irritated that the world is what it is and was what it was.

Sometimes what you need to do is to put into words what you couldn't when you were a kid.

So, I'm gonna share some highlights of incidents that made me feel misunderstood through characters that made me feel understood.

The earliest example I can think of is Peter Pan. One of my earliest special interests. I watched the Disney movie so, so many times.

 

I will never forget this particularly embarrassing summer day when I was walking through some marketplace with my mom. I may have been five or six. We ran into one of my mom's friends, and I think I may have seen something Peter Pan related in the marketplace, I don't remember exactly how things led to it, but I remember what was said so well, because it stayed with me. Basically, my mom started telling this friend how "in love" with Peter Pan I was. And somehow, that felt completely humiliating and wrong to me. I couldn't put my finger on why, back then, but I do now.

*Sigh*

No, gross, I wasn't in love with Peter Pan. I wanted to be Peter Pan. I mean, come on? He's the only one who can fly without fairy dust? I was obsessed with flying. All I ever did in my lucid dreams at that age was fly until I felt tired even in a dream. I wanted to be the one to take other kids to adventures, not just a passenger. I also related to the feeling of not wanting to grow up for a long time, which should be kind of understandable from a nonbinary perspective.

But of course I was always dubbed as Wendy, any time I played Peter Pan with anyone. Because I looked the part, and I was the big sister in most contexts. I probably wouldn't still be so annoyed about it, if Wendy wasn't literally my least favourite female lead of any cartoon I can remember.

(I shipped Peter and Tinker Bell even as a little kid. :D I even had a whole elaborate headcanon when I was in middle school, where they were both reborn as humans and were childhood friends who had to rediscover their memories and redefine their relationship. Peter and Wendy just scream everything that can go wrong in straight relationships, and I disliked them since their very first interaction. No wonder my wife is more like Tink, but let's not go there...)

When I was nine, I saw Spirited Away and fell in love. (No, still not with a character.) It was the most magical and touching story I had ever seen.

 

Nothing new here, I was expected to want to be Chihiro. I like her story of course, her character development is great, and I like that she finds a way to sort of cheat the system and befriends the monsters.

But, it was Haku who caused this pang of familiarity in my chest that was such a rare treat. Not that I wanted to be him, but more like I just related. It may have been a little bit about personality, too. (Like being stubborn enough to sometimes go to self-destructive lengths to achieve something.) But a lot of it was because I perceived this character as androgynous, which I didn't realize then, but looking back it's obvious.

In my teens, I think I also connected with Haku because the way he's a helper to Chihiro for most of the movie, resembled what my role usually was in friendships at that age. Sometimes still is.

Then there's Mulan, my favourite Disney princess since always.

I was told by someone that I relate to her because she's a girl who wants to be a guy. And that... was such a gross misinterpretation of both Mulan's character and me.

I think Mulan is such an enby story. Of course, you don't have to interpret it that way, and I'm not saying that's what any of the creators meant, but from the eyes of someone who is nonbinary, that's totally how it reads.

She literally tries to be a woman and fails.

 

Then she literally tries to be a man and fails.

 

And then she ends up with something that seems neither but kind of both, and fucking blooms.

 

Because it's not like she completely failed at either.

Anyway, I just feel like Mulan is so authentic by the end and I love it. Again, you can relate to this no matter what gender you are and gender expression doesn't equal gender, etc. etc.

But this is still a very satisfying interpretation to me.

Not to say I have strong opinions of any of these characters actually being nonbinary, that isn't the point of this post at all. It's just to self-reflect and write about some assumptions that annoy me.

Good night.

Chronic

 

And I obviously failed my attempt to blog weekly. Last month I had an awesome weekend at Helsinki Book Fair, where my first novel was released, and on top of that I also had to help my mom pack, and send her to Saudi-Arabia, during the same weekend. After that, I pretty much crashed down, and any routine I had managed to build before that weekend fell apart as well.

So, I figured I'd write about why this happens to me.

I've always struggled with different degrees of burn out, fatigue and being overwhelmed because I'm autistic. It wasn't confirmed until this year, but obviously I've always been this way. That alone would be enough to make me tired after spending a weekend surrounded by masses of people, especially after social distancing for so long.

Unfortunately, there are co-morbidities.

These are also chronic and often linked conditions, but the symptoms can vary greatly throughout life. A lot of my fatigue has to do with how my heartbeat rises and my blood pressure drops abnormally when I stand up. It's called POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome), and I was once tested for it by a nurse who didn't think I needed an official diagnosis. It's still not a very well known condition. Ever since I was about ten years old, this caused me to faint a lot, or my vision to black, sometimes for a long time. My worst symptoms with this have been in my early twenties (so far at least). Heat can also be a big problem with POTS, and at this point in my life it got so bad that I could rarely take a shower without blacking out: sometimes on the bathroom floor, sometimes I had time to throw on a bathrobe and stumble to my bed. Luckily, these symptoms have been a lot easier on me for the past few years! I think the last time I completely fainted was in 2018. Sometimes POTS gets less severe with age, so I hope I'm one of the lucky ones.

What has been getting worse during the past couple of years, however, are issues caused by my hypermobility. Currently, I'm diagnosed with a Hypermobility Syndrome, but it's likely that it's actually EDS, I just haven't been able to get to a doctor who would know enough about it to diagnose that one. I'm lucky that I've never had a full dislocation in any joint, but I have daily wrist subluxations that get in the way of drawing, writing and pretty much anything I'd like to do with my hands, and I have frequent rib subluxations, (Lol, I have one right now as I'm writing this) which are not very severe, they just hurt when I breathe deeply or cough, and sometimes I can't wear a bra. They go back in their own time. Other than that, I've only had very small and infrequent subluxations in other joints, such as my knees, ankles and shoulder area. Nothing I couldn't fix myself.

An example of hypermobility in the wrist. By the way, if you can do this, please don't do it, it's bad for you.

 

But, dislocations are often not the biggest problem in Hypermobile EDS, which is what I likely have. It's the pain, and the other stuff caused by the overexertion that hypermobility causes to your body. EDS causes differences in connective tissue, and my worst problems right now are foot and back issues. During the last couple of years, my feet have flattened so much that they've "grown" a full shoe size. Standing still is the absolute worst, and I used to cope with it by standing on the sides of my feet instead, which is obviously not good for my ankles. Usually I cook in a saddle chair now, because I can't stay on my feet for that long. Luckily, I can still walk and dance for a longer time than I can stand still. My back pain is also mainly caused by standing, sometimes sitting. I have mild protrusion and degeneration in my lower back, and Tarlov's cysts, which have not yet been proven to have a link with EDS, but it's suspected to. Obviously, I'm not a doctor, but it would make a lot of sense for there to be a connection in some cases, since I, for example have quite hypermobile knees, and that puts a huge amount of pressure on your lower back, so if the connective tissue in your back is also weak, it would make sense for you to have all of these back issues earlier than someone with no connective tissue disorder.

So yeah, this is not an exhaustive list of my issues or anything, but basically I have a lot of chronic pain and fatigue, and after a day at the book fair, I had to sleep through the next one. After that, I spent another day at the book fair, and helped my mom pack for the next one (it literally took an entire day). So, given that this weekend was also full of emotional stimuli and stress, it basically took me two weeks to really recover from it. This is a normal life for someone with a disability. You crash down, recover slowly, and just when you start to think you're doing okay, sometimes even fool yourself that maybe you're not that disabled after all, something comes your way and makes you crash down again, and then you repeat the process.

Not to sound doom and gloom. :D I just decided to write about these issues now, because I have a habit of only talking about the good things in life. I'm realizing it's partially due to the fact that invisible disabilities are often not recognized or taken seriously, which has led me to develop a coping mechanism of always pretending to be "normal", always pretending to be fine, no matter how much pain I'm actually in. Sort of like a wounded animal trying to hide its injury, because showing weakness makes everything worse: predators might pick you as the target, and your own kind might decide it's best to leave you behind, so you don't hinder anyone else.

Being able to pretend is a kind of privilege, but it's also not, because when you develop a coping mechanism early in life, you don't really know what you're doing, and you don't yet know the problems that this coping mechanism will cause you later in life. You don't yet know, that it will make your condition worse in the long run. I'm 28 and this is something I've learned only recently.

Aesthetics

 

I used to be self-conscious about the fact that I have a very visual imagination and that I need an aesthetic that appeals to me, to be able to really get immersed into a piece of media. If I don't like the drawing style of a comic, I can't read it, no matter how amazing the story is supposed to be. If the setting of a book makes me feel and see nothing but grey, I find myself skimming through it. Only movies that allow me to notice tiny aesthetically appealing details, such as the way a strand of someone's hair curls or the way a flicker of light is reflecting on the surface of the river, are completely immersive for me.

For the longest time, I felt like this wasn't something I was allowed to focus on or need. Even though some media is largely visual, the pressure to not care about what things look like is huge sometimes, as if liking a certain aesthetic means you're vain or that you would automatically judge people by looks in real life. This type of thing is really easy to say if you're not very visual, or you happen to like a more grotesque aesthetic, because no one will think you're vain for liking something "ugly". Actually people seem more likely to think that the deepest stories lie behind an aesthetic that would be considered traditionally unappealing.

And it's easy to say if you're neurotypical.

After discovering that I'm autistic, many issues in my life have made more sense, and so does this one. My brain type explains why my aesthetic includes so many things that a lot of neurotypical people would consider "kitsch" and thus boring or vain. For me they communicate different things, because my brain responds to them enthusiastically.

Glitter and softly flickering lights stimulate my brain in exactly the right way. Looking at them is essentially stimming for me. So are characters with big emotive eyes where you can count the eyelashes and the pen strokes, and clothes with a lot of tiny details in them such as pearls or lace with a consistent pattern, and the contrast between dark woods and a starlit sky and how each branch of the trees contributes to the whole picture. These types of things make me feel absolutely delighted.

Basically, it's very hard to get into a story, or anything, when you're understimulated. And for me the visual aspect is very important, and it's not because I want real people to look like fairies or something. (Obviously no complaints if they do.) The things that my brain needs from visual media say absolutely nothing about how I treat real people. The fact that I have a hard time reading a book with an unappealing font or a cover that ruins the visual experience of the world or the characters for me, doesn't make me a bad reader.

This is not about "not vibing" with something. This is about some media actually being inaccessible to me, and other people with different neurotypes, in a way that is just as real as someone being forced to read in a foreign language. Yeah, you might understand a word here and there, but overall you wouldn't be able to comprehend what you're reading.

My brain is just a little bit particular and a little bit more detail-oriented than average.

I don't ever again want to think that movies like Red Riding Hood or Crimson Peak are a "guilty pleasure" for me. There's nothing cheap about their aesthetic. There's nothing to feel guilty about in liking a movie that has an aesthetic and the level of detail that makes me so immersed that I forget the rest of the world exists.

English and Writing Gender

 

My blog has basically been in a coma for a long time, and it annoys me, so I'm going to try something: From now on I'll sit down every Wednesday (because I rarely have obligations on Wednesdays at the moment) and I'll just write whatever is on my mind. No matter how trivial it may seem to me.

So, what's on my mind right now? The English language and the views on gender that the language itself carries and how other languages (in this case, Finnish) are sometimes just... not translatable at all, or parts that seem tiny but aren't, are not translatable because some mindsets just don't translate well when they are ingrained in the language.

In short: It's impossible to write in English (and many other languages) without drawing attention to people's gender. It's impossible to not see gender. Even if you decided to refer to everyone as they, people would wonder why you'd do that, so the attempt to not draw attention to gender would actually draw extra attention to it.

As a nonbinary person who grew up never having to think about pronouns, because there are no gendered pronouns in my native language, it's understandable that this bugs me to no end.

In my debut novel "Unitytöt" (Dream girls) one of the main characters originally belongs to a species that has no sex or gender. So, I ran into a problem when I was translating the back cover summary into English. The character in question, Venna, acquires a human form in the story, and appears female. I imagine that, if the characters spoke English, they would refer to Venna as "she" and I don't see why Venna would have any disagreements about that. BUT if this story had originally been written in English, then Venna's species would naturally refer to everyone as some equivalent of "they" because they have no gender. And then, as Venna appears as a girl and experiences no conflict about that, she would be called a she, and that would be a change. But in my book there is no change because no such pronouns exist.

So, my question was how to refer to Venna in the summary, because the context doesn't seamlessly translate. You could think of it in multiple ways. I could refer to Venna as they, but that would feel misleading to me, because she ends up having a feminine identity in her human form, and I don't want to trick people into thinking there's "real" nonbinary representation where there isn't. Basically, in English you only refer to people as they, if they are nonbinary or something similar, or if you don't know their gender. And the latter doesn't make any sense in the summary of my novel. So, I ended up referring to Venna as she in the summary, even though that's not technically true in the beginning. I'm not a 100% satisfied with that, but it seemed like the only option. Because in a language where everyone is constantly gendered, the only way to not draw attention to it, is to gender everyone. That is SO weird to me, but I couldn't think of other options. It's only the back cover text anyway, and you don't want to draw attention to anything that isn't actually relevant to the story.

Then there's another one of my stories, where the made up fantasy culture has a concept of gender that doesn't make any sense in English either. Basically, they don't have a concept of gender, only sex, because that's relevant for reproduction. They have no women's or men's clothing, jobs, or any kind of gender roles. Yeah, some things are more likely to be done by one sex than the other, but they don't really think about it that much. Music is a big part of that culture, so yeah, they do note that men are more likely to sing the lower voices in a choir than the women, but it's not like they make a big deal about it. Everyone just does what they're inclined to do. However, intersex people are still pretty rare, so most people have a binary concept of sex, for the most part. And here's the part where my story doesn't translate to English:

They don't care if they don't know someone's sex.

That's very easy to write with a language that only has one third-person singular pronoun. That's how I was easily able to have a character whose sex isn't known by the viewpoint characters, but no one cares.

See how this is easy to write when everyone is a "hän"? I didn't think about it at all. But when I started to consider the possibility of translating the story, it suddenly became clear to me, that if these characters spoke English, it would suddenly become clear that this one person's sex isn't known. Because people would have to call that person "they". When everyone is a "hän" and no one has gender roles then no one knows whether someone's sex is known by someone else or not, without specifically asking something like: "Hey do you think this person is a boy or girl?". But if you call other people "she" and "he" then by calling someone a "they" you make it evident that they look too androgynous for you to guess.

During the course of two novels, one character notes that they don't know this person's sex, and one other character notes that they thought it was different than what someone else thought, but these things are more like a passing thought, or an afterthought created by a specific situation. (There doesn't seem to be many such situations.) It's not something that affects their social interaction, because nobody has a concept of gender identity. Everyone treats everyone the same and while there may be some average differences in men and women, that's what they are, they are averages and people are not really aware of them much, anyway. They don't really think in terms of "men tend to sing lower voices", but rather "people with a lower voice sing these parts". If someone pointed out that these people with lower voice are mostly men, they would go like "true" and move on. It's not really something they think about, because there's no discrimination by sex. They don't need to think about it.

The only way to make this story work in English would be to call everyone "they". I see no other way to translate this culture, because if there are pronouns that refer to people's gender or sex, it's impossible to not care about what that is. The problem would be, that it would take a bit of time for the average English-speaking reader to get used to everyone being called they. It's not intuitive to most people. But it would be the only way that makes sense.

I don't know if you can tell, but this is very frustrating for me. It feels exactly like trying to shove a rectangular block into a round hole.

I love English, but I hate gendered language. It's so unnecessary for the most part. Even in my own case, it's like... I have to choose a pronoun now, after growing up assuming people aren't magically so different that you have to point it out constantly when you speak about them? I'm a she?? I'm a he?? I'm a they?? What the heck does that even mean, like really? It all feels like completely unnecessary role playing to me.

I love to think back on my first English class at school when I was 9. Because no one got it, so you can't just blame the fact that I happen to be autistic, for me not getting it. Everyone looked so confused for having different pronouns for boys and girls. Everyone thought it was weird. People kept mixing the pronouns up long after the first class. And I hate being essentially forced to adapt into this mindset, English being the lingua franca and constantly coming out of all our devices. I don't hate English, I really do love it, I think it's a beautiful language, but I really dislike this aspect of it. (I know French and some other languages are even worse.)

I do respect people's pronouns, but I LOVE that in my native language and every day life I don't have to think about them.

I got married

It's been a while, and I don't really want my blog to turn into something I only remember exists after a big life event. And only after two months have passed. But oh well. The summer is too hot, and I'm tired, and I should be editing my book, so it only makes sense that I'm here, posting my wedding pictures.

We were going to wait after covid was done, but who knows when that will be, right? So we got married in April. We never wanted a big party anyway, because we're just not party people. It was great not having to worry about anyone else but ourselves.

We had a friend take pictures, which turned out pretty good! A relief, because we really didn't have money to pay for a professional photographer.

We took pictures outside the magistrate, and the simple grey wall turned out to be a surprisingly nice background.

We had planned to go eat in our favourite restaurant where we had booked a private room, but all restaurants were closed again literally a day before. So we just ordered sushi instead.

Rita had her hair and make up done and I did mine at home.

It was a fun day. I can't even imagine how people who actually have a wedding party manage to also enjoy the day because we were SO tired even though we did practically nothing. :'D

 

We stayed the night in Linnunlahti camping area. They have these little houses we've always admired, and one night was surprisingly affordable.

Next morning, we picked up our favourite cake from café Houkutus. It's a vegan chocolate cake, and I've never had cake this good anywhere.

It's weird how happy and relieved you can feel about having got "getting married out of the way". xD Maybe it's because pandemic is so stressful. Throwing a party literally would've felt like a chore.

It happened

It really did. I got a book deal.

I know anyone who reads this would expect me to be screaming right now, but tbh it's already been a month since it happened. I just haven't been thinking about blogging for a long time.

I did post about it on tumblr though, because I obviously needed to share it somewhere. This is how it went:

Bizarre, right?

I just got an e-mail. And it was 6 AM ON A SUNDAY MORNING. Things like these really do tend to happen when you least expect them, huh?

Besides, EVERY writer I've ever heard talking about their publishing journey, at least in my country, said that an e-mail or a letter ALWAYS means rejection. It's a phone call if they want you. These writers have already had a long career though, so, things are different these days, I guess?

So, 2021 is going to begin with editing my DEBUT NOVEL (it's just so bizarre), and also a short story that is going to be published in an anthology this year. (Luckily the short story is already on its last editing round, because I have to admit it would be hard to give it my full attention now that this huge thing is happening.)

I did fully expect this to happen at SOME point, because I've got most things I've wanted in life through willpower, hard work and persistence. But there's also so much that is out of your hands, and I didn't expect this to happen yet. In a couple of years, maybe, if things went really well. But this came out of nowhere. I wrote the novel in question in 2017, and I had already sent it to ten publishers (no agents here), and I hadn't touched it for a year or so, while I was writing other things. However, something made me do another editing round in September, and then I sent it to four more publishers. And I thought, if none of them want it, then this novel is just not ready.

Turns out TWO of them did. The other one came after I had already signed a contract with the first one. (No regrets, though.) Telling a publisher "thx I already have another" has got to be the most bizarre thing I've ever done in my life.

So, let's review.

I wrote my first novel when I was 14-15 and the first time I sent a manuscript to a publisher was 2014, so depending on how you count it took me either 12 years or 7 years to get to this point.

The novel was the fifth one I'd written (well, the fifth one that I'd completed, anyway), and I had already written two more before it found a publisher.

It was the third novel I had sent to publishers, and it got ten rejections if you count the ones that never replied. For all of my manuscripts, I got more than 30 rejections before I got a book deal.

To be honest, I'm not sure what is average. I know writers who got their first or second novel published, and I know writers who've written a lot more than I have, but haven't got a book deal yet, so it's hard to say. I don't know of any official statistics.

This is really only a starting point, but it's still a big milestone since most of us work a ton before getting here.

I guess I'm just saying we should all just keep doing our thing, since you really never know when it's going to get you somewhere? Don't give up. I was literally thinking "This is the LAST time I'm sending this novel out". And here we are.

Kinda hate it when I get stuck on technical problems

About a hundred years ago, I wrote this fantasy series about half-way through before deciding it didn't work out, and ever since then I've been trying to make it work, while writing other stuff. I've finally settled with comic format for this story. But now I don't know if it should be in my comfortable watercolour style or if I should face the next steep learning curve for me and do it digitally.

Watercolour pages:

Watercolour pros:

- I've been practising this for years, so I'm pretty okay with it at this point, I feel like I know (mostly) what I'm doing

- It's kind of the most natural style for me, fits exactly the dream-like impression I want to create

- people have liked my watercolour effects and a fantasy story is the perfect playground for that kind of stuff

- I feel closer to what I'm creating the less I have "between" me and the art, the more minimal the medium is the better

- I won't lose the original pages unless my house burns down or something

- I just always figured I was a traditional artist

- I've already drawn about 60 watercolour pages of this comic

- watercolour is just SO flexible and I love it

Watercolour cons:

- the cost of the paper will be astronomical for a comic as long as this story

- I probably just think I can't create as good digital effects because they aren't "the same"

- I probably just think I can't feel as close to my art in digital form because I haven't got used to it yet

- I'm probably just identifying as a "traditional artist" because I think I can't be good at digital art

- the process just takes so much more time when you have to scan hundreds of pages

- it's outdated in most places that host comics and could be less approachable for that reason

Super quick and rough digital sketches:

Digital pros:

- cheap

- takes up no physical space in my room

- will definitely make me better rounded as an artist

- I finally found a brush I like, it looks soft

- these sketches make me feel like I COULD get better with practise

- I've already been doing some black-and-white comics digitally for a year or so, and I can see I've been improving more than I thought

- what feels like limitations is probably just my lack of skill and if I learned this tool it could open so many new possibilities

- I make speech bubbles digitally so it's way more simple if the whole thing is digital

- you can't ruin a digital picture

Digital cons:

- I think my technical weaknesses will be more apparent because it's still a "harder" tool

- every time I draw digitally I get annoyed by how little variation I can create with the way I move my hand

- even though watercolours may be perceived to be outdated, what if I lose my special touch without them, what if the perceived outdatedness could be a strength and not a weakness?

- I just LOVE watercolours (though that doesn't mean I couldn't turn out to love digital as much in time)

- I literally came up with this thought last night, while sketching those two characters

SO...

????????

I mean, who says it's too late to change course? That's not the case, it's just that at this point I feel like I keep postponing this project because I always start it again in a different way. Why this project? I mean, usually I get a book idea and I write the book. I get a comic idea and I draw the comic.

I don't think it's a problem with the project itself, like, it's not my subconscious telling me not to tell this story at all.

But for some reason this is hard for me. Maybe I've just had it in my head for so long and I want it to be perfect and it never feels perfect enough.

And if I threw a coin and took a gamble I know I would be disappointed if it didn't give me the digital option.

Maybe it's nothing bad? Maybe it's just finally the time for me to really learn digital drawing? It doesn't mean I can no longer do watercolours.

I mean, I should probably just go for it, it's not like I won't notice if it doesn't work for me.