Hi!

Hello everybody. I'm 36 and recently diagnosed as autistic.

I felt a sense of relief at my diagnosis, as though I can finally explain, and justify, why I've never been able to get my *** together.

I'm a freelance illustrator because my hyper-fixation throughout my life has been drawing. During university, I created an animation as part of my course and submitted it to the Creative Conscience awards, and won gold. At the time I thought I was portraying my relationship with depression, anxiety, and alcoholism, but on reflection, it seems I was portraying the symptoms and struggles of being autistic.

I love games, especially those with deep lore that I can spend hours looking into. The Fromsoftware games in particular, such as Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Elden Ring. I was heavily invested in the story and lore of Destiny too, but as time went on that dropped off.

Music-wise, I guess you'd call my preferred genre Skate-Punk. I've always stuck with that style of clothing and music. NOFX are my favourite band of that genre. I do like lots of other music too, and I play acoustic guitar and sing. I've been attempting to learn the keyboard through youtube videos. My favourite bit of piano music is River Flows In You by Yiruma. I absolutely love that song.

Films I struggle with because of my attention span (I've been referred for an adhd assessment), which is funny because I'll watch hours of lore videos at a time. That said, I grew up liking horror films like Alien and The Thing, but I also love animation. 

Shows I watch on repeat are The Office, Community, Brooklyn 99, but I do love shows like Arcane very much too. Obvs Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad were amazing and I've watched BB about 5 or 6 times.

I have a rescue dog from Hungary who functions as my shadow. She rarely leaves my side and we're very close. I've always been able to interract with dogs and animals in a more authentic way than I have with people. I've been vegan for 12 years out of respect for animals, but I'm not in the business of giving anybody a hard time about that. I alienated a lot of friends and aquaintences years back with my passion for animals.

I'm currently trying to write my own picture books, since I work in that industry already. It's harder than you'd think. I constantly overthink it because I'm really interested in narrative. I end up with heaps of notes about character arcs and satisfying stories, and then usually give up because it becomes too overwhelming lol.

So yeah, I'd like to feel like I belong somewhere and I was directed here. I only have one friend that I talk to daily and one other friend that I can end up not talking to for months and months at a time, but I still consider him one of my best friends and favourite of people. 

Nice to meet you :)