About Me

Time to get parasocial!

My name isStar I'm 25, trans, non-binary, autistic and chronically ill. My hobbies include writing/playing/listening to music, watching tv/movies, playing video games, thrifting the most insane and obnoxious clothes I can find, cooking, writing and now coding!

I grew up in a sleepy little corner of the U.S., lived on the same street the first 18 years of my life, and I got as far away as I could as fast as I could. I didn't come out of the closet until around that time but didn't come out as trans until 21, and this year marks three whole years on hormones for me. I can't believe how much time has passed already.

I've done a lot of things in my first 25 years of life, from overcoming 7 years of addiction (I'm three years sober now), to driving 36 hours straight across the country just to see if I could. It's always been a rocky and tumultuous life but looking back I wouldn't trade it for the world (and I certainly have tried to trade it in more than a few times). This might be a lot for a simple little website bio but I think its important to make space for every story and I'm beyond tired of how stigmatized things like addiction and suicide are.

I'm going to give most if not all my special interests their own little spot to shine, I hopes theres a few things you can relate to and maybe even some new things to discover!

Music!

I am and always will be a goofy little ska enjoyer. The Aquabats have been a favorite of mine since I was a teenager, but I still have such a fondness for their insane jams and antics. When I was younger I would watch the Aquabats Super Show any chance I could, it scratched that saturday morning itch like 1000 times over.
My favorite album of theirs will always be The Fury Of The Aquabats and Super Rad! will always be my number one!

David Bowie was immensely formative for me growing up. When I was 7 or 8 I got a compilation album of his greatest hits, (which I found as adult didn't have any censorship, big win), so listening to "I'm Afraid Of Americans" on my ipod on a loop for years definitely made me who I am today. Beyond that, "Young Americans", "Station To Station", and of course "Heroes" are my all time favorite Bowie albums.
When he passed I was still a teen, had been listening to his music as much as I could for almost the last ten years of my life, and ended up shutting myself in my room for an entire week. I didn't go to school, I barely ate, I just sat in my room, cried and played every Bowie album and CD I had on a loop.
Some of my most favorite Bowie songs are "Who Can I Be Now", "Right", "Wild Is The Wind", "Rock 'N' Roll Suicide", "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)", "Lady Grinning Soul", and "Teenage WIldlife".

Deftones, damn. What was once an entire catalog of music I didn't understand and wrote off as "edgy" and "emo" (I was a dumb kid with bad takes, what can I say) has become some of my favorite music ever. I don't knwow when it changed, maybe when I came out of the closet, maybe when I finally decided to get sober, but one day Deftones just clicked for me.
I heard "Be Quiet And Drive (Far Away)" one late, hazy night, probably chainsmoking after needing to fill the gap left by sobriety, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. Now I listen to Deftones any time I get that strange, nameless, soupy, longing kind of feeling that comes on rainy nights and foggy mornings. Maybe my tastes overall, not just in music, have calcified and hardened over time, everything feels a little farther away and so the things I consume need to be a little sharper and more jagged to cut through the noise.
Anyways, my favorite Deftones albums are of course "Around The Fur", "Diamond Eyes", "White Pony", and "Adrenaline". My favorite Deftones songs are "Around The Fur", "My Own Summer", "Sextape", "Headup" and "Mascara".

Rage! Started listening to RATM as a shithead, self-absorbed, closeted kid, right around the switch from Middle to High School. I'm just glad my world was still so maliable and my dumb ideals at the time didn't solidify into my thoughts on Rage forever. I started listening because I felt seen in my angst, but at the time all I knew was the surface level, still living in a tiny little middle of nowhere town. However, the more I listened, the more my eyes opened, to my own shortcomings, privilege and sheltered worldview.
Slowly but surely the rigid walls that I internalized at such a young age, fostered by the place and time I grew up, started to crumble and fall apart before me. When I first stared down the world outside of my little bubble, the suffering, the injustice, the genuine rage that was so far beyond the superficial angst I had known, it was overwhelming but so important. I began to see the cracks in the world around me, in myself, the people that raised me, and it was terrifying but also liberating.
Rage Against The Machine, among other bands that helped shatter the illusions I lived so comfortably within at the time, became a window for me to see through, into myself and into the world around me, to start my journey of seeing the world as it truly is for the first time.
Anyways my favorite Rage albums are "XX", "The Battle Of Los Angeles", and "Renegades". Some of my favorite tracks are "Take The Power Back", "Testify", and "Renegades Of Funk".

The Talking Heads are, will and always have been one of the most important bands to me, and doubly so now that I know I'm autistic. It was one thing to know you're different from eveyone around you, in some strange, ineffable way, but to have it reflected back at me, describing the things I saw and the ways I felt, truly was a life-changing experience for me. On top of all that, I didn't like the Talking Heads that much when I was a teenager. My shitty little band in high school used to even cover some Talking Heads songs but it just didn't click with me yet. Being closeted, and masking, really runs deep, in more ways than one I suppose.
Regardless, some time in my late teens/20's something shifted and I finally noticed what had been there the whole time, a reflection of so many parts of myself that I didn't even know were there. I recently watched "True Stories" for the first time and it was such a clear-cut and compact exemplification of everything I've come to love about the Talking Heads. Seeing, hearing, feeling the world is completely unique for everyone but even more so for an autistic person trying to make it through an allistic world. And that was spelled out so well, through every different way I can think of, in this movie courtesy of David Byrne. It really helped me recognize everything I already knew I loved about the Talking Heads and the way their music makes me feel in a tangible way.
Now I listen to "Crosseyed And Painless" and think of so many moments in my life where I "lost my shape" or "feel like an accident". The Talking Heads helped me recognize so many things in myself and other people that I had always known intrinsically, just by being different from everyone around me, but had never been able to face head on or fully acknowledge. Some of my favorite Talking Heads albums are "Little Creatures", "More Songs About Buildings And Food", "Remain In Light", "Speaking In Tongues", "Talking Heads '77", and of course "True Stories". Some of my favorite Talking Heads tracks are "Love For Sale", "People Like Us", "Radio Head", "Making Flippy Floppy", "Girlfriend Is Better", "Crosseyed And Painless", "Television Man", "The Lady Don't Mind", and "I Get Wild/Wild Gravity".

Soundgarden has been near and dear to my heart since I first heard them as a teenager and felt so seen in my "Chronic Suicidal Ideation" as my doctor at the time called it. For so long I thought there was no place for me, that I was broken and always would be, ever since I was a little kid who wanted to die for seemingly no reason at all. When I was a teenager I was really heavily hooked on alcohol, drinking alone every night for years, pushing my body to its limit over and over with lethal amounts of alcohol, hoping that one night I would finally go to sleep and never have to wake up.
During that dark time very few things made me feel seen or heard, there was no one in my life I could talk to about everything that was consuming me, and I felt so alone. One of my shining stars in that time was Soundgarden. Knowing that I wasn't alone in feeling the way I did meant so much to me, as silly as that seems now, when you're a fucked up, closeted, teenage addict in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere it really seems like you're the only one suffering.
When I would listen to Soundgarden, and Temple Of The Dog as well, I wasn't alone for once. I could listen to "Blow Up The Outside World" and even though I wasn't getting better any time soon, I could keep moving forward another day. My favorite Soundgarden albums are "Superunknown" and "Down On The Upside". My favorite Soundgarden tracks are "Blow Up The Outside World", "Like Suicide", "Rusty Cage", and "Let Me Drown".

Dude, fucking Ween, what the fuck can I say. My first exposure was of course Spongebob, but I didn't know it at the time. Both the show and the movie gave me a little glimpse of Ween but it wasn't until I found their discography online as a teenage that I really started to dig in. I love Ween for the sheer range they're able to pull off, and they inspire me to always try to push my boundaries in my own music.
My favorite Ween albums are "White Pepper", "Chocolate And Cheese" and "Junkie Boy". My favorite Ween tracks are "Stay Forever", "Push Th' Little Daisies", "Roses Are Free", "Its Gonna Be A Long Night" and of course "Ocean Man".

I have something of a complex relationship with Weezer. They were already big when I was growing up, when I was busy buying the new Paramore or Fall Out Boy CD at the local Bullmoose. But I didn't come to appreciate them until my late teens, and before that I even had a passive hatred for them. But when a dear friend at the time showed me them, with all their passion for their music, some of it definitely rubbed off on me.
Now I listen to Weezer whenever I want to think about how far I've come, how grateful I am that I was finally able to come out of the closet and get sober. When I was first trying to quit, "The Gppd Life" became something of an anthem for me, always making me think of the life I wanted to be living, even though its a lot different then Rivers Cuomo's ideal. My favorite Weezer album is of course "Pinkerton" and my favorite Weezer tracks are "Memories", "The Good Life" and "Tired Of Sex".

Movies!

I first watched the original Alien at my friends house in the 7th grade, on a random afternoon when it was playing on cable. I am and will always be grateful for the unsupervised access I had to horror media of any kind as a kid, it formed who I am today in so many ways. Alien specifically scared me so bad that every time the power went out in the house I grew up in I would run up and down the basement stairs as fast as I could, thinking a xenomorph would crawl out of a hole in the basement wall.
Beyond that, the movie has become a real darling for me later on in life, showing me one of my earliest gender envy moments (Ripley in nothing but an A shirt and underwear made me want to be her so bad, what can I say), and informing many of my tastes in horror. The slow burn was terrible for my ADHD, but somehow the movie keeps me locked in the whole time. It also turned me onto Ridley Scott's film catalogue, including an all time favorite movie and book for me, Bladerunner.

Will there ever be a movie I love as much as Evil Dead 2? It remains to be seen, (Wild Zero sure is a close second) but this movie will always have my heart. I watched Evil Dead for the first time when I was around 13 and at the time it was just another stupid B movie (which was always my movie of choice, even then) but after seeing Evil Dead 2 become everything the first one wanted to be and more, it became an all time classic.
The script of this movie lives rent free in my brain and I think it always will, Bruce Campbell fighting his own hand, the overflowing blood, the claymation, puppets and masks, everything about it sparked so much joy in my twisted little kid brain. Not at any point did it scare me but that wasn't even the point anymore, it was a romp of tropes and cliches mixed together into a masterpiece. Its what every B movie wishes it was.

And what better time is there to talk about all time classic B movies than after Evil Dead. I found my first Troma movie, "The Toxic Avenger", through some niche Mystery Science 3000-esque youtube video some time around 2012. As my teens went on watching as many Troma movies as I could became a passion of mine, and god there are some awful piece of shit movies in their catalogue! Eventually it became a drinking game with myself in my addiction days, giving me at least an outlet (and an excuse) to get blackout drunk alone in my room on a weeknight.
Movies like "Bugged" and "Father's Day" had some fucked up, guilty pleasure, hate-watch allure to them, (Father's Day especially, that movie is TERRIBLE but god, it will always have a place in my heart) but Frankenhooker is somehow different. Still terrible, still stupid as ever, even mildly transphobic in the ending, (I don't really see it that way, but they were certainly playing a sex change for laughs so don't watch this movie if that's a dealbreaker for you) but this movie makes me so unreasonably happy.
So much so that this halloween I went out to a local drag show dressed as Frankenhooker, full 5 inch platform boots, purple wig, makeup and all. I don't think anyone recognized what it was from but plenty of people seemed to enjoy it, and maybe that was just because I was wearing a mini skirt and push up bra without mush else. Regardless, this movie has become such a comfort for me, for so many reasons, and in so many ways it makes me feel seen. Being taller than all the girls I know, the sometimes erratic way my chronically ill body moves and spasms, if she can go out in the big city and electrocute people with her pussy, why can't I?

I knew nothing about this movie the first ime I watched it, and now finding out everything going on behind the scenes, how the movie was intended to be seen, it makes so much more sense why I love it so much. The idea of breaking out of your prescribed conditioning to create a new reality and a new self is inherently queer and autistic, and I related to it even when I was still stuck in the closet.

What can even be said about Rocky Horror that hasn't already? This movie was my queer awakening in so many ways. My high school english teacher ended up telling the class about this movie around Halloween for whatever reason, but told us all not to watch it until we were older. I don't know about anyone else, but hearing something like that only makes me crave whatever I'm not supposed have even more. I went home that night and found a site to pirate it on. This night rippled out into the rest of my life and I think about it every time I've watched this movie since, from the time I was at a party, out of my mind high on poppers the entire time, to the time I went to see it live dressed in drag for the first and only time while I was still in the closet. I couldn't understand at the time why wearing stilettos and lingerie in public felt so good.
"I'm Going Home" became an anthem for me when I was still stuck in the closet, and even more when I finally was able to start breaking out, around 18. I went from going to the live shows dressed as Brad at 14 to going dressed as Frank N. Furter at 19. Even now I go around Halloween to a live, midnight showing, dressed up in lingerie, leather and pearls. The queerness of Rocky Horror has supported me more than so many people in my life who claim to care and understand, especially the movie straying further and further from the binary as it goes on. Tim Curry helped me realize my true non-binary self over many years of watching this movie, time and time again getting a little deeper and a little closer to the truth of my own self.

I don't have any one Godzilla movie that changed my life, but these movies have always been there for me as a source of equal comfort and uncertainty. From the local bargin bin, with copies of Godzilla VS Mothra, Mechagodzilla and Rodan to asking my babysitter if the pollution monster was going to kill me if I took out the trash, these movies have been special to me since I was a kid.
Later in life, especially with the release of Shin Godzilla, I came to understand the full depth and meaning behind the series. Watching the original Godzilla again before my first watch of Shin Godzilla, on the heels of four year of high school learning the depths of devastation brought on by our nuclear age, the full weight of Godzilla's destruction and what she represents for that version of mankind became starkly apparent and I understood a fraction of the true grief that makes its home in the world around us every day.

TV Shows!

Now this is an all time classic for me, the X-Files have shaped my life, my brain and my world. I remember catching a glimpse of an episode in black and white as a little kid and getting scared so bad I couldn't sleep. Later on, as a teenager, my highschool art teacher would ask me on more than one occasion if I wanted to be X-files or Twin Peaks. I always let her down by saying X-files, my art was always too literal and campy for her, not strange or Lynchian enough. But I stand by that to this day, the camp and cheese of the X-files is to me a strength and always has been. I love cheesiness, I always have, its why B movies are so fond to me, and I always want that to be reflected in my art. I would rather have something I make be relatable and simple than so out there it could mean anything to anyone.
Maybe thats my lack of media literacy talking, or a reaction to an external lack of media literacy, but I want my meaning to be at least clear-cut enough that the things I say can't be misconstrued against me. My point is, the X-files scratch an itch few other things do, in the same way "True Stories" makes me feel seen experiencing the world in my own autistic way. Fox Mulder's autism is on full display and an integral part of his character, often being a huge part of what drives him through each episode. The sunflower seeds, which I loved as a kid, the strange hyperixations, it all makes me feel seen in its own way.

This show was insanely formative for me growing up and definitely made me gay. This is my "But I'm A Cheerleader" root, Lucy Lawless was the originator of gender envy for me. And the fact that its a mythology hyperfixation, campy, B movie ass romp of a TV show really adds to it all for me. I would watch this show over and over and over as a little kid, my parents had very few DVDs and we didn't have cable, but I never minded much. My dad had the full box set of this show for some reason, it was the only complete collection of anything that we had.
Other than Xena there were a few Danger Mouse DVDs, one season of Northern Exposure, three seasons of Scrubs and Cougartown and that was about it. It was a wild catalogue to grow up on but I got whatever VHS tapes I could find at yard sales and such, I still have my original copy of Pokemon: The First Movie and Jurassic Park that I would watch on an old black and white CRT in the basement.
Long story short, Xena was the for me always, no matter what I was feeling, there was a Xena episode to compliment it. I didn't even understand it was a gay romance, or that in the world around me girls couldn't love each other like Xena and Gabrielle, this was before I even knew what being gay was. And now, I look back on it and see so many through lines that have followed me my entire life, mostly because they've always been a part of who I am.

Good god, talk about comfort show. MST3K was something that my mom showed me originally, I don't even know how or why, but I was hooked and I could not get enough. I was too young to even get most of the jokes, and really still am, but that doesn't stop me. Its certainly dated and a product of its time but it will always be my comfort show of choice that I can throw on when I need to let my brain shut off for a bit.
I was in highschool when I really started to dig deep with MST3K, I would talk with my highschool art teacher about our favorite episodes between classes. "Horrors Of Spider Island" was my favorite episode back then, now its probably "Pod People", I love that little Mac & Me ass dude.
There's not much to say as far as depth goes for MST3K but it always inspired me with the passion put into it. It felt tangible in that way, like it was something that was within my reach, and it definitely inspired all the terrible short films I made any chance I could in highschool.

Everything I said about MST3K is true about Elvira as well, except I stumbled into this show all on my own. It shaped my tastes just as much though, and learning Cassandra Peterson is a queer icon meant so much to me when I found out.

I feel the same way I do about the X-files as I do with Buffy, but I first watched them in reverse order. The X-files was the more adult graduation that came to me after watching all of Buffy time and time again. It was definitely important to me in different ways but still important none the less, especially seeing two gay witches on the TV when I was a closeted teen.

Video Grames!

My all time number one, as cliche as it is, will always be Minecraft. There are some games on my Steam page I've put days, weeks, months of time into and I am so grateful Minecraft doesn't have something like that, I dread to think how many years of my life I have spent playing it but what can I say. It was the pefect escape and blank canvas for my autistic little brain, and that is as true now as it was when I was 8. I used to play it on the family PC in my dad's office, back when Geocities was still alive and well. When I got to middle school and found out the library computers didn't have any moderation for downloads I put a copy of Minecraft on every single one! (I already spent a lot more time than normal in the middle school library because my mom worked there). Minecraft will always be my tried and true beloved even after all this time. I've fallen in and out of love with it and all the things in my life that surrounded it, watching Youtube letsplays that are well over a decade old now, trying every single mod I could find, but somehow Minecraft still holds the same comfort and charm it always has.

My truest beloved of all time, definitely fewer hours logged but only by a bit, Pokemon games have always and will always have my heart. I grew up playing Ruby, got yelled at one of the only times I went to church for forsaking christ so I could catch Groudon. I played that game so, so, so, many times over and over on my Gamebody Advance SP, the only way to play games other than the PC until I got a WII as a teen. A very wild gamer loadout I know, but alas. Since I've played every Emerald ROM hack I can find, I've been trying to collect enough of the physical games and systems so I can trade Groudon up from my childhood copy of Ruby. My hot takes are: Soul Silver is absolute perfection, I never played Platinum, whoops, I love Black/Black 2 SO much, I hated Y, I loved Sun and Ultra Moon even though they should've just been one game. Sword was awful, all time least favorite, and Scarlet was definitely sloppy but the DLC won me over (but they probably should have finished the game before making DLC huh?). I also used to grind Pokemon Pinball on the GA but god damn that game was rough. (Also I only listed the games I actually played for each Gen but my thoughts extend to each version per Gen).

Next up is Terraria, second only to Pokemon in hours logged, and I'm sure you're already starting to see a pattern! This game was big for me when I was 10 or 12 or so, when modded Minecraft just wasn't enough to scratch that gear grubbing little itch in my brain. This is one I almost always played modded as well, I never had a taste for games with any sort of actual difficulty when I was a kid. I just liked to make some gay ass girl thing and run around living out my escapist little fantasy before having to return to the real world. I was a shy, closeted AMAB kid living in the middle of nowhere, so escaping like that was one of the only ways I had to come even close to the truth of myself. Oh and I can't believe I didn't say this about Minecraft as well but the same is true for both in different ways: absolutely loaded with top shelf bangers!

Next is a game that was too hard for me as a kid so I put it down until a few years ago but now it has become an all time comfort game, somehow: The Binding Of Issac. I know it sounds fucked up that I take comfort in this sick twisted little rougelike but what can I say, I'm a twisted little freak myself and shutting my brain off for 30 minutes to make an absolutely broken build always feels good, especially after working on the latest hyperfixation project for the last 8 to 10 hours. This game also lives in banger city.

Next is Stardew Valley, yes the pattern continues, I am but a cozy little gamer! And this game certainly is maximum cozy times. I got back into it after a while with the island update, whatever it was called, and it felt like such a nice little bookend to all the time I've spent with this game. This is another one I've played modded but the big overhaul mods didn't stick for me nearly as well as other games, it was mostly quality of life stuff. Also belongs in banger city, I'm going to have to get a population count going.

Not going to touch on one specific game but I have always been a Sonic believer. As a kid I played Curse of the fucking Werehog or whatever its called and that game is a shitshow but damn did I love it. There are two wolves inside of me and they are gay. But later on I played Generations and really fell in love. I used to play Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic Heroes at my friends house on their Gamecube when I was like 8 and all I wanted to do was play as Shadow and hang out in the Chao Garden. I did at least get an appreciation for Crush 40 from these moments which is till true to this day, I play Escape from the City on Bass and Live and Learn on guitar any chance I can. I'm so sorry but I am exclusively a 3D Sonic enjoyer, and a lot of my love for the series definitely comes from watching Sonic X every saturday morning I could. Same with Yu-Gi-Oh.

My ultimate guilty pleasure game: Danganronpa. Holy fuck are these games SO BRAINDEAD STUPID at times and talk to me like I'm a little baby but I also love the insane convoluted plotlines. Danganronpa 2 is my all time favorite, but we would never have it without the first one. Killing Harmony is honestly a fever dream but I respect them giving the middle finger to the fans with the ending.

Honorable Mentions

The Neverhood is a nightmare to try and play now but when I was like 6, playing it on my dad's PC, getting stuck every like 20 minutes because 90's games were just contrived like that, was somehow a perfect experience. Maybe because it was the first real game I ever played but I wish someone would attempt and actually be able to execute something in a claymation style. R.I.P. Armikrog.

Speaking of visual style that absolves all the gameplay sins, Hylics and Hylics 2 are all time favorites to look back on and think of fondly but christ I wouldn't play through them again at least not sober. Trying to mix-max that game to actually beat it, especially the first one, was a nightmare. But in spite of all of that I always think of it so fondly and of course listen to the soundtrack all the time.

Lunacid is beautiful and so fun to just roam around in, it feels like exploring a dream for me. The first time I played this game I played it for 9 hours straight and just could not put it down. The music is wonderful, some iconic gets on the soundtrack, and it speaks to a nostalgia I don't even have, what's that called, anemoia?

Spiritfarer broke my heart and made me cry and I loved every minute of it. It might have been particularly impactful because I have a very tangled relationship with grief but I think its very much worth playing through. The platforming isn't my favorite but well worth the overall experience.

Slay The Princess is such a heartfelt and incredible romp, I have never seen so much done with so little, and the music is immaculate. No spoilers but if you haven't checked it out at least play through the story once.

Sorry We're Closed seems like an all time icon of a game but I'm very bad at shooting and thus haven't finished it yet!

Peglin makes me so happy, I'm a sucker for niche rougelikes and indie darlings, and I love throwing those little balls around. Reminds me of all the hours I spent playing breakout on my flip phone as a tween.

Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R! What a fucking iconic banger of a game, my ex showed me this one a while ago and I have passively been trying to grind it out ever since. It has not been going well. But I will always perservere for my beloved trans and enby icons! I've just never been very good at fighting games (perhaps a dyspraxia moment).

Fallout: New Vegas will always have a place in my heart but I never had a "real" console as a kid so I don't have those same nostalgic memories a lot of people do.

Ni No Kuni is slept on! The sequel isn't favorite but the original is timeless to me.

I spend way too much time playing Timberborn, very much living my Sim City beaver dreams, another mindless comfort game.

I never played these games as a kid but holy shit do I love my favorite gay icons Sam and Max as an adult.

Balatro has taken way too much of my time but the lust for rougelikes burns within me.

Voices of the Void makes me very happy but I don't play it much, my ADHD does not allow it.

Hotline Miami 1 & 2 are games I played in a high fever while sick years ago so I think a lot of it was lost on me at the time but in retrospect, incredible games. I was just in it for the bangers and head-empty violence and god damn did they get me good. Iconic on every level but alas, so many people, including myself at the time, got too lost in the sauce to understand what the game was trying to say. Media literacy my beloved.

The Lisa Series! Extremely fucked up, extremely impactful.

Highly Anticipated

Mindwave: Don't know much about this game but its on my wishlist and I love the visual steeze.

Don't Stop Girlypop! Incolatus: This game looks like a dopamine I.V. drip and I have a dire need.