Retrogaymer1983

Great chapter, but Hannah definitely didn't deserve to die. The dead can't learn from their mistakes, and even if she didn't, then she still didn't deserve death because the dead can't suffer.

That seriously bothered the hell out of me too. There is no chance that I would have forgiven my mom if she had withheld my diagnosis from me. Good intentions and "I don't believe in labels" does absolute zero to make up for the fact that withholding that kind of information is abuse, no exceptions, no ifs, ands, or buts.

I was curious and typed "autism" in the search on a whim. This kept my attention because it's the only story I've come across so far that was even remotely accurate in it's portrayal of autistics. In fact it's the only one I've found where the supposedly autistic character wasn't just an abusive douche who was apparently using autism as an excuse for rudeness and abuse. Besides the portrayal of autistics in other stories being more similar to how we're treated, there's also the fact that the perception of autism as a type of mental retardation tends to make people afraid of being perceived as perverts or predators taking advantage of me. The fact that I'm 35 no longer seems to register once a person knows I'm autistic.

It's unusual for me to enjoy a story enough that I care to review, comment, or ask questions about it. Maybe the fact that anxiety tends to make me go mute has something to do with it. 8 years does unfortunately make it unlikely that there will be more, or that you'll even see this. I couldn't help wondering if Micah going mute for the first few chapters was really pretending on his part. He definitely didn't trust any of the other characters in the slightest when he first met them. At least in my experience that seems to be one of the bigger issues with getting me to speak verbally. Anyone who even knows what selective mutism is almost certainly knows that the issue is not at all physical. That's why I was confused when Ken assumed he had been pretending. If course I'm also curious about just how far Joel is able to go now that he is speaking verbally again. You haven't mentioned whether it's just friends and family or anyone that he can talk verbally to. One other thing that was beginning to concern me is Patrick's reluctance to have sex with Micah. Maybe it's just me, but I kinda got some vibes between his comment about being a virgin "kinda" and his reluctance that are making me wonder if something bad happened to him.

All the characters, but Ken especially all sound like they could learn something from Darmok. It felt oddly appropriate that my roommate was watching it as I was reading this chapter.