July 21, 2026 • 10 mins
The autistic, bisexual Pakistani character Norma Khan from Dead End: Paranormal Park, resonated with a lot of people, and led the creator to get his own diagnosis. We dig into her story and why her depiction meant so much.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Sanny and Samantha. Come. Welcome to stuff
I Never told you production of iHeart Ideo And welcome
to another subset, subsegment fictional women around the World. Today,
we are doing a character I have never heard of,
(00:28):
so once again I'm a little nervous, but I'm going
to do my best. We are talking about Norma Khan,
who is an autistic, bisexual Pakistani teen, first featured in
a webcomic and then later in two seasons of the
Netflix show Dead End Paranormal Park. She was voiced by
(00:49):
Cody Covisa and created by Hamish Steele. What I find
really interesting about this character is in her earliest iterations
in the webcomic that was turned into a graphic novel
called Dead India. She wasn't explicitly written as autistic, but
Stele got so much feedback from autistic readers and readers
(01:13):
with anxiety, to the point that he himself eventually got
a diagnosis. Oh, because so many people were like, this
is so well written. I'm so he started to take Oh.
He was like, maybe that's me. Is this play about me? Right?
(01:33):
And I actually was thinking about this. I've had this
concern before. What you know, in his case turned out great.
But we've done episodes where listeners have written in and
said I think you have yeah Xyz. I'm sure the
listeners are very sure that I have knock Alepsi. I'd
very forget about yes. Yes, So that can't be kind
(01:55):
of scary when you're putting something out there, validating and
scary exactly. But I kind of love that so many
people were like, this is such a great representation that
eventually he went and got himself a diagnosed. Maybe I
should go look into this. Yes. According to him, he
hired an autistic consultant for the show, and there were
(02:17):
autistic people and staff, and he would get notes like wow,
you must have really done your research in terms of
autism and autistic representation, and he was like not, actually no,
wait what Yes, he was pretty much writing what he knew.
He just didn't know quite what it meant. When the
(02:41):
show debuted this character, Norma was officially canonically autistic. She
comes out as bisexual on the show and has a
crush on her podcast best girlfriend Iral like not just somebody,
she's listening to their podcast Bad. Yeah. The show is
a coming of a horror comedy slash modern Scooby Doo
(03:03):
that follows two queer teens, Norma and Barney, who is
a gay, trans Jewish fat boy, and their friend, a
talking pug appropriately named Pugsley. While working at Phoenix Park,
they discover a gateway to Hell and various other strange
paranormal things. It's an animated show aimed at teen audiences,
(03:27):
and it really stands out for its nuanced depiction of
queerness and disability, which is pretty rare in a show
like this. Like every episode has some paranormal happenings, but
it's more a backdrop for a coming of age and
self discovery story. As you can imagine, the show got
(03:47):
a lot of backlash from conservatives. It was one of
their focuses for a while. The creator said, too quote,
another reason I'm so proud is that I had constantly
pitched show of characters like her, her being Norma as
a lead, and I always got the note about how
female characters need to be more fun and less anxious.
(04:10):
But he really didn't back down from this. So character wise,
Norma was raised by her single mother and displays many
autistic characteristics. Early on, she has an anxious personality around people,
at least She's extremely logical, introverted, and obsesses over actress
(04:30):
Pauline Phoenix, which is a hyperfixation that she's had for
fifteen years. According to her, her fanishness means that she
makes a yearly visit to Phoenix Park, which is owned
by said celebrity, and eventually she gets a job there,
and she just has a wealth of facts about the place,
facts that help prove helpful later save lives later. While
(04:56):
she is very brave when it comes to facing ghost,
she has a love a lot of social anxiety that
can lead to panic attacks and being overwhelmed or overstimulated.
She visibly flinches and moves away from touch on a
few occasions, and sometimes struggles recognizing faces, which is a
fairly common thing in the autistic community. There's an episode
(05:18):
about team building, and in it, after being pushed to
make a human knot with her coworkers, which is just
like a they're all holding hands, it's not as gross
as she think, she curls up in a ball and
anxiety overtakes her, and in that episode it really highlights
what she faces every day. That being said, she can
(05:42):
hold her ground with people too, and she is extremely
boil to those who are close to her. On top
of that, while others cower away from ghost and demons,
Norma is largely unflinching. She is the most level headed
and clever when faced with the paranormal. When she learns
that Pauline Fie Nix her idol is a superficial liar,
(06:03):
Norma's hyperfixation shifts to demons, angels, and the multiplane. She
has a quote that's essentially along the lines of it
is the real world that scares me, not this paranormal one.
When people talk about why they like this character and
appreciate this depiction, many of them bring up how she
(06:24):
is not othered or seen as a problem the other
characters have to deal with and fix. Instead, she is
met with sympathy and her story is told with respect.
Her friends comfort her and defend her from others who
don't take the time to understand or empathize, and her
friends do it because they are her friends. They put
(06:47):
in the work to understand her. Often autistic characters are
treated like burdens, and that is something viewers can internalize,
but Norma never is. People have spoken two about how
traditionally autism representation has been straight, white male dudes so
normal was refreshing a queer woman of color who has autism.
(07:12):
As we know, autism is undiagnosed in women, is underdiagnosed,
and even more underdiagnosed in women of color when compared
to white men. This is due to science historically focusing
on how autism presents in men. But representation plays into
this too. If all you ever see when it comes
(07:33):
to autism representation is one specific type of person that
is not you, you might not think it's even possible for
that to be a diagnosis for you. And this show,
from what I was reading, it just meant so much
to a lot of people. It was really impactful and
really loved. From what I understand, the first season largely
(07:57):
focuses on Barney, and then the second season it's more
about her. And then they had a third season ready
and the storyboards were already being like written, put up.
But then it was canceled by Netflix in twenty twenty three.
So this is a recent show and actually at the time,
not to put on my tinfoil hat, but Netflix was
(08:20):
canceling a lot of queer shows, so that's sad, and
I read that it ended on a cliffhanger I haven't
seen it. When they do that, that's awful. It's the worst.
So people were really hurt when I was looking to
this and she does seem like such a a cool
(08:41):
character and such a yeah, unfortunately pretty rare depiction. Yeah
that's ridiculous. Yeah, So I'm really sorry that it was
canceled and a lot of the people involved were really
obviously bummed by it too. But while it was there,
(09:07):
this particular depiction really meant a lot to a lot
of people. So shout out, shout out to them and
to this character, and listeners would love to hear from you.
If this was the show that you watched. You can
email us at Hello at Stuff Whenever Told You dot com.
You can find us one Scott Moms a podcast on
(09:27):
Instagram and TikTok that stuff on Never Told You. We're
also on YouTube. We have some merchandise, a compureau, and
we have a book you can get where we get books.
Thanks as always too, our super producer Rima and our
exective bruser Maya, thank you, and thanks to you for
listening Stuff I Never Told You to Protection by Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can check
out the Heart video app Apple podcast, or if you
(09:48):
listen to your favorite shows. Yeah,
Hey, this is Sanny and Samantha. Come. Welcome to stuff
I Never told you production of iHeart Ideo And welcome
to another subset, subsegment fictional women around the World. Today,
we are doing a character I have never heard of,
(00:28):
so once again I'm a little nervous, but I'm going
to do my best. We are talking about Norma Khan,
who is an autistic, bisexual Pakistani teen, first featured in
a webcomic and then later in two seasons of the
Netflix show Dead End Paranormal Park. She was voiced by
(00:49):
Cody Covisa and created by Hamish Steele. What I find
really interesting about this character is in her earliest iterations
in the webcomic that was turned into a graphic novel
called Dead India. She wasn't explicitly written as autistic, but
Stele got so much feedback from autistic readers and readers
(01:13):
with anxiety, to the point that he himself eventually got
a diagnosis. Oh, because so many people were like, this
is so well written. I'm so he started to take Oh.
He was like, maybe that's me. Is this play about me? Right?
(01:33):
And I actually was thinking about this. I've had this
concern before. What you know, in his case turned out great.
But we've done episodes where listeners have written in and
said I think you have yeah Xyz. I'm sure the
listeners are very sure that I have knock Alepsi. I'd
very forget about yes. Yes, So that can't be kind
(01:55):
of scary when you're putting something out there, validating and
scary exactly. But I kind of love that so many
people were like, this is such a great representation that
eventually he went and got himself a diagnosed. Maybe I
should go look into this. Yes. According to him, he
hired an autistic consultant for the show, and there were
(02:17):
autistic people and staff, and he would get notes like wow,
you must have really done your research in terms of
autism and autistic representation, and he was like not, actually no,
wait what Yes, he was pretty much writing what he knew.
He just didn't know quite what it meant. When the
(02:41):
show debuted this character, Norma was officially canonically autistic. She
comes out as bisexual on the show and has a
crush on her podcast best girlfriend Iral like not just somebody,
she's listening to their podcast Bad. Yeah. The show is
a coming of a horror comedy slash modern Scooby Doo
(03:03):
that follows two queer teens, Norma and Barney, who is
a gay, trans Jewish fat boy, and their friend, a
talking pug appropriately named Pugsley. While working at Phoenix Park,
they discover a gateway to Hell and various other strange
paranormal things. It's an animated show aimed at teen audiences,
(03:27):
and it really stands out for its nuanced depiction of
queerness and disability, which is pretty rare in a show
like this. Like every episode has some paranormal happenings, but
it's more a backdrop for a coming of age and
self discovery story. As you can imagine, the show got
(03:47):
a lot of backlash from conservatives. It was one of
their focuses for a while. The creator said, too quote,
another reason I'm so proud is that I had constantly
pitched show of characters like her, her being Norma as
a lead, and I always got the note about how
female characters need to be more fun and less anxious.
(04:10):
But he really didn't back down from this. So character wise,
Norma was raised by her single mother and displays many
autistic characteristics. Early on, she has an anxious personality around people,
at least She's extremely logical, introverted, and obsesses over actress
(04:30):
Pauline Phoenix, which is a hyperfixation that she's had for
fifteen years. According to her, her fanishness means that she
makes a yearly visit to Phoenix Park, which is owned
by said celebrity, and eventually she gets a job there,
and she just has a wealth of facts about the place,
facts that help prove helpful later save lives later. While
(04:56):
she is very brave when it comes to facing ghost,
she has a love a lot of social anxiety that
can lead to panic attacks and being overwhelmed or overstimulated.
She visibly flinches and moves away from touch on a
few occasions, and sometimes struggles recognizing faces, which is a
fairly common thing in the autistic community. There's an episode
(05:18):
about team building, and in it, after being pushed to
make a human knot with her coworkers, which is just
like a they're all holding hands, it's not as gross
as she think, she curls up in a ball and
anxiety overtakes her, and in that episode it really highlights
what she faces every day. That being said, she can
(05:42):
hold her ground with people too, and she is extremely
boil to those who are close to her. On top
of that, while others cower away from ghost and demons,
Norma is largely unflinching. She is the most level headed
and clever when faced with the paranormal. When she learns
that Pauline Fie Nix her idol is a superficial liar,
(06:03):
Norma's hyperfixation shifts to demons, angels, and the multiplane. She
has a quote that's essentially along the lines of it
is the real world that scares me, not this paranormal one.
When people talk about why they like this character and
appreciate this depiction, many of them bring up how she
(06:24):
is not othered or seen as a problem the other
characters have to deal with and fix. Instead, she is
met with sympathy and her story is told with respect.
Her friends comfort her and defend her from others who
don't take the time to understand or empathize, and her
friends do it because they are her friends. They put
(06:47):
in the work to understand her. Often autistic characters are
treated like burdens, and that is something viewers can internalize,
but Norma never is. People have spoken two about how
traditionally autism representation has been straight, white male dudes so
normal was refreshing a queer woman of color who has autism.
(07:12):
As we know, autism is undiagnosed in women, is underdiagnosed,
and even more underdiagnosed in women of color when compared
to white men. This is due to science historically focusing
on how autism presents in men. But representation plays into
this too. If all you ever see when it comes
(07:33):
to autism representation is one specific type of person that
is not you, you might not think it's even possible for
that to be a diagnosis for you. And this show,
from what I was reading, it just meant so much
to a lot of people. It was really impactful and
really loved. From what I understand, the first season largely
(07:57):
focuses on Barney, and then the second season it's more
about her. And then they had a third season ready
and the storyboards were already being like written, put up.
But then it was canceled by Netflix in twenty twenty three.
So this is a recent show and actually at the time,
not to put on my tinfoil hat, but Netflix was
(08:20):
canceling a lot of queer shows, so that's sad, and
I read that it ended on a cliffhanger I haven't
seen it. When they do that, that's awful. It's the worst.
So people were really hurt when I was looking to
this and she does seem like such a a cool
(08:41):
character and such a yeah, unfortunately pretty rare depiction. Yeah
that's ridiculous. Yeah, So I'm really sorry that it was
canceled and a lot of the people involved were really
obviously bummed by it too. But while it was there,
(09:07):
this particular depiction really meant a lot to a lot
of people. So shout out, shout out to them and
to this character, and listeners would love to hear from you.
If this was the show that you watched. You can
email us at Hello at Stuff Whenever Told You dot com.
You can find us one Scott Moms a podcast on
(09:27):
Instagram and TikTok that stuff on Never Told You. We're
also on YouTube. We have some merchandise, a compureau, and
we have a book you can get where we get books.
Thanks as always too, our super producer Rima and our
exective bruser Maya, thank you, and thanks to you for
listening Stuff I Never Told You to Protection by Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can check
out the Heart video app Apple podcast, or if you
(09:48):
listen to your favorite shows. Yeah,
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
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