Tag: adhd

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“The compiling is done?”

“I could refine it further, try to give you some additional features, but the coding and the hardware I’m working with here is so tightly structured that I think I’d do more harm than good.  It’s like the techie equivalent of trying to put toothpaste back in the tube after you’ve squeezed it out… you can’t, so maybe you try to make more tube that sticks out of one side, but you keep doing it and you wind up with this kludgy mess that you can’t even use for its original purpose.  For getting toothpaste.”

This is a beautiful analogy.

Very relatable, actually, though more in terms of the thought processes that lead to this kind of concept than of the concept itself.

“I think I understand what you mean.  Thank you for this.  It’s already uploaded?”

“Yeah, and it was my pleasure, really.” Kid Win smiled.

Not just for the computery parts, I’d imagine.

Legend stood and stretched a little.

The goodbyes had already been made and he’d had his meeting with Emily.  Business was wrapped up here.

For now. Just wait until the Simurgh shows up. And Nilbog. And Behemoth for good measure.

Not to mention the apocalyptic threat looming in the future.

Actually, who knows, maybe the Simurgh’s arrival will make itself known before we’re even done with this Interlude, kicking off the boss Arc of this… Book, or whatever you want to call it.

He’d called home to let Arthur know he wouldn’t make it to dinner but that he hoped to be back before midnight.

I’m increasingly sure Legend won’t be leaving anytime soon, if at all.

There are few bigger death flags than “I’m leaving the story to go home and be happy with my loved one, whom I’ve already told I’m coming home, see ya”.

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Kid Win nodded.  “I’m figuring that out.  I spent a long time trying to be like other tinkers and struggling.  Ninety percent of my projects just stopped before I finished it.  The stuff I finished, I finished it because it was simple.  Guns, the floating hoverboard… well, I used to have a floating hoverboard.  I sort of copied Hero’s approach.

Maybe his specialty is simple things.

…nah.

‘Board instead of jetpack, but I made the guns, tried a few disintegration rays.  Maybe part of the reason I finished that stuff was because I felt like I’d be insulting Hero by trying to copy his style and making a mess of it.”

As good a motivation as any, I suppose.

“Makes sense,” Legend spoke, primarily to show he was listening.

“But lately I’ve started to relax about that.  Maybe it helps that we’ve been working as hard as we have.  I’ve been too tired to keep to the rules I thought I was supposed to follow.

Work outside the box!

Still have to spend time in the workshop, I think I’d go crazy if I didn’t, but I’m winging it more.  I’m trusting my instincts and spending less time using the computers to get the exact numbers and measurements.”

Considering you almost certainly have superpowered instincts for these things, that’s probably a good thing.

“To help compensate for your dyscalculia?”

Oh, right.

“I didn’t know you knew about that.  I didn’t know the PRT knew about that.”

I suppose Arcadia would have discovered it and told the PRT. That or they’ve dug up a diagnosis.

“Dragon’s talents make for very comprehensive records, sorry.”

Big Dragon is watching you.

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Kid Win shrugged, tapping a few keys on the laptop to rotate through a series of progress bars and graphs.  “Nobody told me about that.”

That’s a real shame. We know Kid struggles with self-worth. He could use the validation.

“That’s a shame,” Legend said, turning his gaze to the window to relieve some of the pressure his very presence seemed to put on Kid Win.  “The ability to manage yourself with the public is crucial if you intend to go on to make a career out of working with the Protectorate.”

So we’ve got the kid who feels like the weak link of the team he’s in, and we’ve got the leader of the team he’s likely to move on to telling him that yes, there’s something you’re good at besides tinkering and yes, that thing you’re good at is very very important.

These two are such good eggs.

“It’s kind of weird, that someone as important as you are is making such a big deal out of an event I barely remember.”

…okay yeah I can see that. That is very fair and honestly kinda relatable. I haven’t had that happen to me with someone “as important as” Legend, but it does feel weird when people make a big deal out of something you did that you don’t really remember all that well.

“I study the records of everyone I intend to work with, and I studied yours.  I try to make a note of individual strengths.  That event stuck in my mind when I was reading through your files.  It was a very easy mental picture to put together, especially the part with the gun.”

The fucking gun still cracks me up.

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“Director Piggot yelled at me for drawing the gun.”

Ahahaha!

Oh man, I changed my mind, this is way better as a noodle incident.

“It was something that could have backfired very easily, but you struck the right tone and you defused the situation with humor.  I think that’s a good thing, and so did the staff at the school.

*gestures to entire blog* Can you tell why I relate to Kid Win, besides the ADD? 😛

I mentioned earlier that Legend’s one of my favorites. Guess who else fits that description more and more by the paragraph.

The teachers sent emails a few days after the event, commenting on the overall positive impact you had on the students, the hecklers included.  And when I say you, I mean you specifically.”

Niiice.

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Aisha stared her mother in the eyes.  She didn’t deactivate her power.  “Mom.  You gotta stop.”

“Where are the rest of the papers, Sam?” her mom asked, oblivious.

Yeeah, if this is sinking in at all, it’s not showing any signs of it yet.

“Kitchen.”

“But I don’t want to get up.  I’m comfy,” Celia whined.

“Hey, you managed to misplace an entire package of papers, deal with it yourself.”

“You keep going down this road, your kid is going to be born without a face or something,” Aisha said, her voice quiet.

That is not entirely impossible, especially in this ‘verse. Though it doesn’t sound like anyone’s (known to have) been born parahuman yet.

“You know how hard school was for me?  Even as far back as kindergarten, I couldn’t sit still.  Teacher tells me three things, and by the time they’ve gotten to the third, I’ve forgotten the first.  And Brian doesn’t have any of that.”

That… sounds like ADHD, potentially. Not necessarily, but we’ve got the two main ingredients right here: Attention Deficit (seemingly manifesting in part as poor memory, which is absolutely a thing with ADHD), and Hyperactivity.

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I don’t think Wildbow has ADD (could be wrong thought) but he does have experience leaving projects unfinished. Before he started Worm he spent year writing beginnings of stories in multiple universes. Worm started as an exercise in keeping a single project going, and he used lots of idea from earlier attempts (Amy and Victoria used to be the central characters in a story called “Guts & Glory”). I believe he’s more aware of handicaps in general too, because he’s deaf in one ear IIRC.

Fair enough. He does have a history of handling various topics well without necessarily having personal experience with them, and doing incredibly thorough research… to the point where some of you guys actually seem to get kind of offended whenever I insinuate that I think Wildbow might not have done enough research, and that is something you’ve proven me wrong on every single time.

So if there’s any author I can believe would be able to handle a disorder like ADHD this well without having it or being a trained ADHD expert? It’s Wildbow.

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You mention enjoying the representation for ADHD in Worm, compared to other media. What are the problems that occur in other ADHD characters, and why would it be wrong to assume that many kids have been misdiagnosed? (I’m not trying to say that you are wrong for stating such, I am genuinely curious.)

“But seriously, if I see indications that Wildbow himself thinks ADD diagnoses are illegitimate more often than not, I will take back that “well-handled”. We’re trivialized enough as it is.” At least in the states, the diagnosis is way over-used for things that are perfectly normal kid stuff, things every single kid in the world does. And that diagnosis has them taking pills they don’t need for years, with punitive measures on parents who don’t put their kids on unnecessary drugs.

I may have been a little too harsh in that moment.

More often than not, ADHD is treated in fiction as a joke trait, on par with “ditzy”. We’re treated as people who are just all over the place to an exaggerated degrHEY LOOK A SQUIRREL, while the more serious troubles with having the disorder – such as the executive dysfunction, which makes it incredibly difficult to get started doing certain things even if you want to do them (or to stop, sometimes), or the sensory processing issues (auditory being most common, I think), or the social ramifications, or the hits to one’s self-image that living with ADHD can bring, or the predisposition to depression and anxiety – are glossed over.

In short, we’re treated more like Greg than like Kid Win. Seeing Kid Win actually talk about dealing with some of these issues meant a lot to me, and my outburst when Kid expressed his concerns about not actually having the disorder was motivated by a short-lived fear that Wildbow was about to take that away.

In retrospect, it was probably more intended as a commentary both on the fact that yes, there is a case to be made for ADHD being overdiagnosed (in boys, primarily; girls tend to be underdiagnosed, if I’m not mistaken) in some countries, and on that yes, a lot of ADHDers probably do worry about their diagnosis being a mistake – or hope so.

Overall, I am very pleased with the handling of Kid’s (clearly legitimate) diagnosis, and I’m glad Wildbow decided to include us.

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I’m 100% convinced Greg is on the autism spectrum. He has so many similarities to various people I’ve known on the spectrum, even to myself, it’s uncanny.

Nice! Always nice to see yourself represented.

When I first met Greg, you may recall that I immediately pegged him as an ADHDer. I’ve long suspected that ADHD and autism are closely related, so it’s not far-fetched that some of the traits that made me see him as having ADHD are equally well or better explained by him being autistic.

Incidentally, how do you guys feel about autistic Weld (unless that’s too spoilery to answer)?

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He wasn’t the worst hero ever, he knew that.  He had things he could do.  He could let the worries and the dozens of unfinished projects alone, most days.  That changed when his team got thrashed.

Oof. Sounds like a motivating force at best, but at worst… let’s just say ADHDers are prone to depression.

Thoughts like that had been plaguing him since the Endbringer event a week ago.  He couldn’t shake the notion that he was in the running for the weakest member of the team.

To be fair, there’s not that much competition for that title anymore.

The notion that he was dumb, second-rate.  That this loss, here, was his fault, because he had dropped the ball.

Poor Kid.

The people of this city deserve a better hero, a more focused one.

Ouch.

So, uh…

I’m quite convinced Wildbow has AD(H)D now. That, or knows people who do and consulted them thoroughly. Because this is all damn accurate and covers ADHD problems you don’t usually see in fiction. I am very grateful to him for this representation.