This Pebble Made Me Think of You: Funko Pops in the Love Language of Neurodivergents

For some neurodivergent people, gift-giving conventions can be hard to navigate. But, like so many things surrounding neurodivergent people, there’s a deep contradiction in gift giving because, while it can be confusing to us sometimes, it’s also a common love language for us.

Stimpunks, a nonprofit dedicated to direct support and mutual aid for ND and disabled people, identifies the five languages or locutions of neurodivergent people based on a half-joking tweet by @neurowonderful. Two of these that I’m going to focus on are infodumping, which means we share our knowledge of our favorite interests with people at length, and something called “penguin pebbling,” which means showing affection by giving small gifts unique to a person’s interests.

The term “penguin pebbling” comes from the Adelie penguins who, in nature, often show affection by giving each other pebbles. Personally, finding gifts that speak to someone’s particular interests and the ways that we bonded with each other is how I tell people that I care about them and their memories with me. And, one of my favorite gifts to give for that purpose are Funko Pops.

For those who aren’t familiar with the popular figurines, Funko Pops are pop culture figurines designed to look like popular fictional characters and celebrities. While they often focus on science-fiction and fantasy franchises, there are Funko Pops for almost every fandom you can think of. Funko Pops always have a distinctive style which includes heads that are larger than their bodies and eyes that are just irises. My personal collection of Funko Pops is mostly made up of characters from my favorite science fiction show, Doctor Who, but I also have a Commander Saru from Star Trek: Discovery, a Captain Marvel from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and one of Kevin Smith, one of my favorite directors, which was given to me as a present by an ex-girlfriend.

For me, infodumping is a big part of my relationships with the people I love, and a large part of the way that I form bonds with new friends. A shared affinity for a movie or a television show may seem shallow, but for an ND person, it’s a passion, and our passions are very important to us. And thus, Funko Pops end up becoming the memento that I use to commemorate that bonding, that shared passion, that connects us.

And, since there’s so many Funko Pops out there, you’re likely to find one that’s perfect for any situation. My friend whom I spent countless nights in college watching Will & Grace DVDs with until the wee hours of the night got a set of all four main characters—Will, Grace, Jack, and Karen—for her birthday. My friend with the David Bowie tattoo got a Funko Pop of Jareth from Labyrinth, and she was kind enough not to tell me that she already had one.

They’re also a part of my courting ritual, so to speak. When trying to win over a friend who would later become a lover, I commemorated them introducing me to Adventure Time with a Funko Pop of their favorite character, The Ice King. Another ex I was seeing more recently got a rainbow-colored Stitch to commemorate her love of Lilo & Stitch as well as her love of all things queer, in addition to Funkos of Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender and Callum from The Dragon Prince to celebrate how those shows helped bring us together.

I’m never going to be one to promote a name brand and, if you want to buy other brands of pop-culture collectables as your penguin pebbles, there’s no harm in that. Funko has an amazing selection, and I like the style of their figures, but I also have a few figures from other companies, like the Futurama figurines that were gifted to me by a friend to cheer me up on the anniversary of my mom’s death. Those mean as much to me as any of my Funko Pops. It’s not the brand name that matters, just that the figure has an emotional resonance with the person receiving the gift.

So, if you’re looking to find the perfect gift for a friend with a shared passion this Christmas, I highly recommend Funko Pops or other similar figures. And, if you happen to be shopping for me, there’s a rare 2017 SDCC exclusive Funko Pop of Clara Oswald from Doctor Who that I’ve been wanting to get my hands on for some time. Okay, so you’re probably not shopping for me, but a girl can dream!