#(this is my neurotypical friend who does not vocal stim)

[jupitercl0uds]

oopsie accidentally started saying '90 day fiancée more like 90 day chimponzay' around my friend and she's started saying it

[reserwrekt]

I feel like I had everyone fooled into thinking I was normative or "okay" for two years. (2017-2019)

But the thing is, I never said I was. I had started over after my oldest brother passed away and all my friends left me to deal with it on my own.. I had told everyone around me that I'm not okay, that I have all these diagnosis, that I was sui, and I'm sick all the time.

But everyone ignored me. They ignored those parts. Then, when I started showing signs of my problems and disabilities- they'd act surprised. "I didn't think it was that bad."

My situationship at the time famously told me to drive myself to the ER when I woke up with sepsis, beginning stages of shock, kidneys shutting down. And as I was getting ready, I passed out, pissed, and vomited everywhere. It took me not being able to get back up, for him to sigh angrily and take me.

When we got to the hospital, I was stoic. The staff didn't expect anything. When they took my blood pressure, they suddenly started swarming me, ripping my clothes off my body, and scolding him for not calling an ambulance. (Blood pressure was nothing, like I think 50/40 something like that.)

But again, the fact that the ER staff assumed nothing was wrong, taking their time, and then realizing the emergency. I've always been treated like this..

During my hospitalization, the antibiotics weren't working. That made sense, because I've had a long history with antibiotics and already had antibiotic resistant sickness. But I could hear the staff talking about moving me to a critical care unit, in my valume induced haze. I could hear the nurses explaining "sepsis protocol" to each other. I would get woken up to more anticoagulant being injected through my stomach. I could hear them gossip about how they've "never not felt a pulse in a living person." As they started using my feet to check instead.

During this time, maybe I was hallucinating, I was having long vivid conversations with my passed brother. He told me I had a choice to join him now or not.

I put my deadbeat family's grieving, over my own. It was extra hard bc I was the only one supporting my brother, everyone left us alone.. I told him I couldn't. Then I started to respond to the medication (they switched antibiotics.)

For the next year, I felt I had a tie to my brother and we kept having conversations.

I was dating someone who literally wouldn't believe me or even try to empathize (same idiot.)

I asked my brother why doesn't everyone experience this? And he said it was because they couldn't handle it... and he said "look at how you've been.." and he was right. I was starting to obsess over it. I was regretting my choice to live. And then I'd have to wake up, feeling all this grief, next to a golden retriever who wouldn't even acknowledge that I woke up sobbing every day.

I had to get out of there, but because I had started over, the only people I knew, were HIS people..

I didn't trust his friend that was a little too eager to know me, but I didn't have anywhere else to go. I talked to her about some of the issues and how I don't know how to make it on the street as I'm awaiting disability.

Ofc she invited me to live with her, but I knew she had just married a guy she didn't even like. The red flags were there. And I told her on the first day, what always happens in my life. I said how no one ever helps unless they have other motives. I told her about every "family friend" who promised to get me out of foster care. I said EXACTLY how this was going to end, and I was right every step of the way.

I told her "I have severe problems that no one understands. They always say they do, but when I show signs and symptoms, they demonize me."

"No I won't. "

She did.

I told her "every family friend that said they were going to rescue me, went around and told everyone that's what they were doing, and then usually something happens like their partner gets jealous of me or something, it creates problems, and then when they break up, they leave me to die." And literally all of those things happened.

"I'm a licensed therapist." Yeah, and that's the scary part.

Meanwhile her husband was microagressing me the entire time I was there, I had JUST got my disability money (1yr living there) and then instead of being a dick to just me, he started taking it out on her. Then she immediately found ANOTHER Indigenous, two-spirit, Bipolar person to abuse. Then, that person told me that she basically told them that she was ME. She used her photos, but told them to a T MY personality.

All the people around us during that time, had no idea about me or my life. And then I got to see her go on and be successful at MY personality.

So for the past while, the things that I was interested in, that I showed her, shared with her, no longer felt like mine. So now I'm like in a very weird place with who I am.

I basically feel like for the past couple years, everyone ignored the real me, and cherry picked every detail THEY liked. So now I'm just extra messed up.

[hyperfixingfr]

I'd like to remind everyone that Hoagie being autistic isn't just a headcanon - it's heavily implied. It may have been intentional, it may not have been. My vote goes for it being completely intentional, however. I mean, this show does have a lot of diverse characters (even if some aren't the greatest representation for their diversity...)

I'm sure we all know this kid is like, super into planes. SUPER into planes. We've seen his room, right? Instead of hanging planets or stars from the ceiling like most kids do, he's got PLANES on the ceiling. For fucks sake, he (very passionately) wrote a presentation on the ENTIRE history of the airplane in the USA. Most kids don't have that kind of dedication for the things they enjoy. Also, no neurotypical kid, at age ten, knows the entire history of the airplane in the USA. It's clearly a special interest for him. He isn't hyper focused on it and putting his attention towards that subject and that subject only, however he does have extensive knowledge on it. That one was probably very obvious to just about every viewer. They don't really hide the fact that he's educated on the topic of planes. Something I do believe he's hyperfixated on, is anything Yipper! related. He's shown to be attached to that specific franchise, and whenever he's watching or reading something, it's almost always about Yipper!. He's never depicted showing interest in other media (beyond the Doctor Who rip off of the universe, which I'm 95% sure was SUPPOSED to be a joke about autistic people), as if he were hyper focused on Yipper! and currently unable to enjoy other media.

(Image depicts his room, which as you can see, is filled with stuff related to airplanes and Yipper!)

Onto something a little less noticeable. Hoagie has an unusual set of obtained knowledge. He can be considered mediocre at just about anything in terms of knowledge, yet he happens to know facts that not many people know (or care to know). It's not directly stated, but he doesn't have the best memory when it comes to things you literally just told him. Somehow, he manages to remember these facts, and along with that, remember minor details about his friends that they most likely told him long, long ago. This is a pretty common trait in autistic people.

This clip is a personal favorite of his facts and random knowledge. I mostly cropped this from a Tumblr because of the change in tone from Hoagie to Nigel, but I think it demonstrates exactly what I mean.

An even less obvious one is his mannerisms. He often fidgets with his hands or positions them differently whenever he's nervous, mostly near his face. He also stims a lot, vocally and physically. Things like rolling on the floor, repeatedly hitting something lightly, clasping his hands together, biting his nails, tapping his foot, and many more. He seems to have an anxiety disorder of some kind, so this stimming is mostly as a way to calm himself down.

One thing that I know is definitely overlooked is how affectionate he is, especially with his best friend. He gets very touchy with Wally, holding him close very often, standing in front of him in an attempt to shield him, holding his hand, and at one point even kissing him on the cheek in a S6 episode. He's touchy with Tommy, too, as they tend to hug very often. Some autistic people hate touching others, but there are quite a few who actually feel touch starved and need to feel physical contact with people close to them. He's also very affectionate verbally, too. He's often trying to compliment his friends, and even stated in an episode that he's "a bit of a softie" for defending Joe(?). He was shown in a very early episode feeling sad because of a mistake he made that caused everyone to feel annoyed with him, which can be linked to high empathy (along with everything else affectionate he does). He seems to avoid verbal conflicts, and seems especially emotional after any conflict he does get into. He seems to suffer from too much empathy.

Summary: he's just a silly little guy

[shrimpmandan]

do you mean you feel alienated around self diagnosed autistic people? (aka 99% of the online autistic community) because if so I completely agree. I'm not sure if you have access to it but I go to public therapy for disabled adulta (if you're over 18) and in my group there is a bunch of autistic/adhd people. we usually talk about medication, funny stories about therapy and experiences with growing up autistic and such. it's pretty relieving, and completely different from speaking to autistic people online, which just feels like talking to neurotypicals

No I feel alienated around autistic people. And people in general. It's for a lot of reasons tbh, not JUST being autistic, but I've definitely have had grievances with the autistic community online for some time now. This is because there's this prevalent idea that what does or doesn't work for one autistic person must be true for every autistic person, which inevitably leads to alienation. I'm considered weird and offputting even by the standards of other autistic people. This isn't an uncommon experience for me.

Also, part of my alienation comes from the general politics of the online autistic community. I call myself Asperger's and high-functioning, which while I totally get why other people don't call themselves that, it's just kinda what I grew up with and what works for me. Also being trans on top of that, and hearing so many autistic people talk about how they personally don't understand gender, whereas I didn't have much of an issue with it (I view it through a strictly neuroscientific lens; I don't do well with metaphors and vague feelings). Being told I can't say "retarded" even though I've been CALLED retarded, not to mention directly threatened (I was nearly shot lmao) over being autistic. A mixture of oppression olympics among autists, and also 'higher-functioning' autistic people speaking over 'lower-functioning' autistic people. My stims also don't get represented much (I don't really flap, I've always been more of a rocker/bouncer/vocal stimmer) and I don't fit into the "good autist" role that a lot of people-- both neurodivergent and neurotypical-- want out of me. All this to not even mention how I get alienated for my other forms of neurodivergence, with people in general being extremely ableist towards those with OCD and dissociative disorders.

All I'm saying is it's not self-diagnosed autists who make my life harder. Not when me and most of my family has had to resort to self-diagnosis due to doctors not listening to us or just a simple inability to even see a doctor due to a lack of money and time. Actually, most of the people I click with are the self-diagnosed "I think I might be neurodivergent" people-- whether that's autism, ADHD, or some other various neurodivergence. The self-diagnosed people are my immediate family, as well as my friends who had to figure out they're neurodivergent because nobody else told them, or gaslit them over it. We're pro-selfdx here, and honestly therapy is the least of my concerns right now, at least when it comes to autism. I don't need therapy for being autistic. I don't need therapy to teach me how to be normal. I need therapy to teach me how to live. Y'know, tackling my ACTUALLY problematic disorders, like my severe OCD and CPTSD and what I believe to be some form of OSDD. ADHD... yeah I just need meds for that, it is what it is. But I've been in therapy SEVERAL times for my autism, with people who were supposedly specialized in it, and even they didn't really know what to do with me. So shrug lmao.

For the record I am professionally diagnosed with autism. I'm actually self-diagnosed with most of the other mental health issues I occasionally talk about here (ADHD, OCD, OSDD, et cetera). I'd LOVE to get diagnosed but we're just not in a financial situation where we can rn. I don't like throwing self-diagnosed people under the bus-- more often than not they're just trying to understand themselves and genuinely don't have the ability to access proper resources. I don't really think of the cringe "faking disorders for attention and spreading misinformation" people when I hear about self-diagnosis, personally. I think about people who have been gaslit and told either that they're weird/bad children their whole lives, or even the reverse where they're told they're gifted, before they begin to struggle and then are promptly abandoned. I went through the latter more than the former.

[felinedetached]

Fandom Ableism in the MCYT Community

[Edited 14 June 2021]

One thing I’ve noticed about the MCYT (Dream SMP, specifically) community on both Tumblr and Twitter is that when informed of things that are ableist, or harmful to ND people, a lot of people ignore the post/tweet, derail it or actively fight against it.

“I’m ND so I can’t be ableist” is a common statement, which is blatantly untrue. Even I’ve used ableist terms and phrases before, without realising they were harmful. So as a neurodivergent person, with autism, BPD, depression/anxiety, dyslexia, psychosis & brain damage*: here’s some common ableist things both CCs and fandom say almost constantly**.

*note that not every neurodivergent person will agree with me on these, but these are commonly ableist things people have previously talked about online, and/or have been discussed between me and other neurodivergent friends. No minority can ever speak for the entire group.

**note that a lot of these are common outside the MCYT community as well, and that some of these are just considered societally acceptable. This isn’t okay, but it explains why a lot of people don’t recognise jokes or comments like these are wrong, and it means that it’s not a direct moral failing of people that they don’t immediately or directly recognise these comments as wrong.

Now, let’s get into the things you might not have realised are potentially ableist:

1. Use of “Psychopath/Psycho/Sociopath/Schizo” and other demeaning terms for people with mental illnesses as insults, or to describe characters who are considered villainous. Psychopath/Psycho/Sociopath are already terms that people with ASPD dislike using, even not as an insult, but using these terms to describe people or characters who you disagree with or see as villainous only contributes to the villainisation of people with ASPD and other mental illnesses. Using c!Dream as an example: Dream as a character is not confirmed to have any of these mental illnesses. He is, however, commonly labeled as psychotic/psychopathic, incapable of any kind of compassion.

He is also a character that fandom largely insists that nobody is allowed to sympathise with. This is a huge issue, and has hurt a lot of people, especially people with low empathy, or mental illnesses that cause them to relate to some of c!Dream’s actions (e.g. pulling away from all his friends, desperately grasping at straws to gain control of situations etc). Insisting that these characters are characters it’s impossible to sympathise with, all while calling them psychotic/psychopathic/sociopathic, is extremely harmful, and I hope this post draws attention to that.

Here’s another post that talks about that.

2. Use of the term “freak”, in general. As an insult, “freak” has been typically used to insult neurodivergent people, people with visible physical disabilities (ex. “freakshow”, and the term was reportedly created with the intent of insulting people with physical disabilities), or people who display any kind of abnormal/atypical social behaviour/physical aspects — people who are usually ND people who lack a diagnosis or people with physical disabilities. Recent usage has come to mean “people who do things that hurt other people”, but this is harmful as well; using words like “freak” or “weirdo” which mean “socially atypical behaviour” to refer to people who are actually doing things that hurt other people conflates the two, and often has a side effect of hurting disabled people who see it.

3. Calling ND ccs like Technoblade monotone/emotionless. While the term “monotone” isn’t ableist in and of itself, the fact that it’s being used against a neurodivergent man who emotes in a different way to neurotypical people rubs a lot of ND people the wrong way. I’ve partially discussed this here, in a tweet responding to a person who said that c!Technoblade, quote, “has no human capabilities like emotion for example”. This, however, is not something contained to c!Technoblade — one of the most common jokes in this fandom is how rare it is to hear emotion in Technoblade’s voice.

The issue with that is that neurodivergent people almost universally agree that Technoblade emotes perfectly fine, and, in fact, emotes more freely and clearly than a lot of others do. Hence, calling him monotone perpetuates the idea of ND people as emotionless/less able to be hurt/less expressive, which often hurts us. It also contributes to the dehumanisation of ND people — related to how ND symptoms are most often seen in robots or monsters in shows — and is generally extremely harmful, on top of being untrue.

4. Related to point 3: the infantilisation of ND ccs like Tubbo and Dream, usually paired with assigning “caretakers” of their friends, like Tommy and George. This is about the posts that spread like “omg, Tommy helps Tubbo with his dyslexia, that’s so cute” or “omg George is so patient with Dream, I could never sit through that” on videos of Dream vocally stimming because of his ADHD. This is another post that talks about this, but I wanted to talk more about why this is harmful here.

4a) With Tubbo’s dyslexia, from someone with dyslexia, it isn’t harmful to correct his spelling and move on. Personally, I think this is helpful — others will think it’s condescending, because not all ND people are the same — but as the above linked post mentions, this is not what Tubbo’s twitch chat does. This is not what the comments say. It’s all things about how it’s “so cute” that Tubbo can’t spell, how Tommy/Ranboo are “so patient” with correcting him. This is rooted in the need to constantly watch over ND people while acting like we can't live our lives without someone having us under constant vigilance. It feels like savior-complex ableism, like people are trying so hard to not be ableist that they spin back around to hurting us instead. And it feels like we are being treated like children. Like we are lesser than, and need to be monitored/watched over.

4b) Similarly to what people do with Tubbo, the comments on posts about Dream’s vocal stimming are often full of people calling George “patient” for “dealing with it”, or claiming they “wouldn’t be able to handle it”. This is inherently ableist. They’re praising George for basic human decency towards ND people, and claiming in the same breath that they wouldn’t be able to do that themselves. And then there’s these.

These comments infantilise Dream — claiming he “wouldn’t be able to stop/calm down” without George’s help, implying he’d “spiral out of control” or claiming “everyone is now my child”. It’s all related to the infantilisation of ND people, and the belief that without help/a caretaker we cannot take care of ourselves.

5. The way people treat ccs who likely have undiagnosed neurodivergencies, like Wilbur. Wilbur has openly admitted on stream before that his parents considered getting him an autism diagnosis. He also openly admits on stream that he has habits he doesn’t understand why he does, and hyperfixates on things for months at a time and doesn’t know why. Posts like this have gone around Tumblr, in which Wilbur displays blatantly ND traits.

And fandom generally calls him weird for expressing those traits. This video where he talks about eating sand because he likes the texture? That’s an ND trait. This video where he talks about his irrational hatred for anteaters? While mostly a joke, irrational hatred of something when you can’t explain/understand/articulate why is also a common ND trait. He spends 20 minutes during a Philza stream info-dumping about self-sustaining ecosystems (sharing the photo, because I think it’s really cool) and fandom begins calling them “Wilbur’s weird jars”. It’s demeaning to people who infodump, and as a ND person who hyperfixates and infodumps it’s really upsetting to see. It’s also upsetting to see other ND traits being called “weird” or “freaky” & made out to be soley some funny joke for NT people to laugh at us about.

Additionally: It’s strange to me that people think it’s okay to make fun of ND traits just because they know that or perceive that the person they’re making fun of is NT. It’s still making fun of ND traits. It’s still insulting ND people. It’s still ableist as hell. Why is it okay just because the person is NT?

6. Implying that c!Ranboo’s enderwalking is inherently violent. Ranboo has shown us time and time again that the enderwalk state isn’t a violent state. That the enderwalk state isn’t a seperate version of c!Ranboo that does horrific things. Why, then, is it so common to imply that Ranboo would be violent and hurt people why he’s enderwalking?

It comes back to the perception of c!Ranboo as a character with “two halves”, or as a character with DID. Ranboo has made it clear that his character does not have DID, but this headcanon about his character persists, and it persists in a way that is directly harmful to people with DID — and to people who dissociate or sleepwalk. We do not commit horrific acts while we dissociate, while we’re sleepwalking, because the majority of the time we’re just checked out, our body is on autopilot. Insinuating that we do is harmful. Insinuating that Ranboo has “another half” that’s inherently violent or evil is harmful to people with DID. I’m not going to ask you to stop writing these headcanons etc, but please consider the effect you have on people before you do.

7. Related to point 6: the perception of c!Ranboo as “soft” and “cute” and/or perfectly moral because of his canonical anxiety. This is really harmful, and comes once again from the infantilisation of disorders like anxiety and depression. Ranboo has made clear time and time again that his character isn’t moral, and in fact is extremely inconsistent. He’s portrayed his character as inconsistent, as someone who hurts his friends unintentionally and often due to his want to please everyone, and yet he’s constantly seen as “soft/pure/the only moral one” because of his anxiety causing to have repeated and consistent spirals on-screen. These spirals are not healthy. They don’t indicate his “perfect morals” or make him more moral than anyone else on the SMP. Please stop infantilising people with anxiety, it’s really hurtful.

8. Implying that c!Technoblade is inherently a violent person because of his voices. I’ll admit here: my hallucinations are visual. I do not get auditory hallucinations, and I cannot speak for people who do. But many people have spoken out about this, and discussed how talking about Technoblade as an inherently violent character because of his voices is harmful, and a stereotype of people with schizophrenia.

Technoblade’s character is, in and of itself, inherently a stereotype (despite the fact that his chat are more likely to be a supernatural entity than a symptom of a disorder such as schizophrenia) in that the idea of “hearing voices that encourage violence” is a stereotype of people with schizophrenia. As an actual symptom, is a very uncommon one. More common auditory hallucinations for people with schizophrenia or psychosis are, reportedly, whispers or unrelated conversation. One of my friends hears screaming.

But the issue is with the implication that c!Technoblade is “driven to violence” by the voices. Canonically, he has dealt with the “bloodlust” of chat by grinding withers. He’s perfectly capable of being peaceful, even with “voices pushing for violence”, and he’s perfectly capable of being violent without the “voices” influence. It’s the connotations and the history that fandom has in demonising and villainising c!Technoblade for even having the “voices” in the first place, and acting having them makes him inherently violent and unstable. There’s precedent for that already in society, and it’s not okay to perpetuate it.

[Edit: as of 22/05/2021, I do experience auditory hallucinations, and I can confirm that I am not any more violent, and the voices I hear don’t push me to violence. The clearest one just said ‘click’ in my ear.]

9. Jokes about brain damage and the use of “brainrot” as a term. I made a post about how common jokes about brain damage are here, and I would like to reiterate bits of it.

Jokes like these are really really normalized in modern society. I’m sure a lot of you didn’t even register it as wrong, and that isn’t a moral failing! It’s a norm in society, and that means the majority of people arent going to register it as something hurtful, because it’s said so often. But it does still hurt. The idea of using a disability as an insult is really harmful and it feels dehumanizing, like our disability makes us lesser, something that should be laughed at.

“Brainrot” as a term originated in Skyrim, as a disease that literally rotted your brain. However, as a term, it has very similar connotations to “brain damaged” and has been used in similarly joking and insulting ways. It’s something that feels really off to me and other neurodivergent people to see used by neurotypical people. It even sometimes feels uncomfortable when used by neurodivergent people, even if it’s used in positive ways. I know quite a few people who have removed it from their vocab completely because of the connotations, and I have personally done the same. Once again, I am just asking you to please consider your words before you use them.

10. Calling c!Wilbur during his Pogtopia Arc “Vilbur”. Yes, he was a villain. Yes, he hurt people. But c!Wilbur during the Pogtopia Arc only has one major difference from c!Wilbur during the L’Manburg Arc: a visible depiction of mental illness, specifically paranoia and psychosis. Treating him as a seperate person and calling that seperate person “Vilbur” comes across as extremely hurtful, and contributes to the villainisation of mentally ill people. His mental illness does not excuse him from hurting people, but calling c!Wilbur “Vilbur” upsets a lot of us, because wether or not it’s intended, it feels reductive, hurtful, and insulting.

If you got to the end of this post, thank you so much for reading. I hope that this helped you recognise things that you might not have known were ableist, and that you consider what I’ve said here. I also know that I haven’t addressed everything ableist that’s spread through the MCYT fandom community, so if you’re ND and have something you’d like to add, please feel free.

[collabwithmyself]

I am absolutely in love with catperson Phoenix and Thena. ESPECIALLY Phoenix cause I wanna see how you do that story wise, is it slow transformation from gradual recognition of shared NT/catperson traits? Or is it just “oh wow my friend who is a catperson does things that I do a lot maybe we are Same?” and then overnight POOF catperson? Idk and I wanna find out.

Okay so Cathena is new and I am still formulating thoughts about it and I absolutely want to do her justice. BUT I ACTUALLY HAVE. BIG THOUGHTS ABOUT THE FELINIX BRANCH OF THE AU. This is mostly copy-pasted from Discord please bear with me

good evening lads i have an extremely self indulgent au of the au

it's that phoenix is also a catboy but like. not fully fledged yet? as an allegory for not realizing you're neurodivergent until you're well into adulthood because you masked too well and/or nobody recognized the signs

phoenix started the realization process as a kid when he realized he was really similar to miles and the two of them understood each other better than anyone else did, but it kinda ground to a halt once miles moved away and he started masking

the few inhuman traits he did develop can be easily ignored, or downplayed as something humorous. (as someone with adhd, playing your symptoms for humor so they're more palatable to the people around you, whether consciously or not, is VERY common!) he doesn't actually realize there's something up with him.

Phoenix carefully cutting his food so nobody realizes just how damn sharp his teeth are and starts asking questions (they're just like that naturally? Leave him alone?), and playing off the fact he can wiggle his ears as a weird party trick

He'll accidentally do work in a nearly completely dark office because. He can see in the dark. And he'll scare the crap out of Mia or Maya because his eyes shine and they otherwise didn't notice him in the dark room

He just doesn't realize how weird he is, and he gets panicky whenever people point out that he's weird. But he's weird in a funny way, so it's fine, right? It's intentional, right? There's nothing really wrong with him, right?

Every so often there's cracks in the mask, especially when Phoenix is left alone, because his abandonment issues are made so much worse with his RSD, but that means no one else is around to see these cracks

But the mask starts plain falling apart after he's disbarred and crashing hard, suffering even worse than any neurotypical person would due to his RSD and trauma, and it slips enough that Miles in particular can start to see the cracks and questions if he's really neurotypical

Phoenix starts stimming more obviously when he's alone, is low on motivation, unknowingly self-medicating by drinking sugary grape juice to help him stay collected

But he's happier when Miles and Trucy are with him and he can engage with them, even if he's struggling to keep himself collected, and still trying to support Miles through the whole "accepting his cat side" thing even though he's in pretty serious distress himself

As Phoenix spends more time with Miles during his disbarment and starts being comfortable with sharing behaviors, his mask loosens further and further... and the more physically odd he becomes to match his mental walls coming down

He starts making unnatural noises and doesn't even really notice between Miles's own vocalizations and Trucy being able to mimic sounds. He gets distracted while playing with Miles to help him blow off steam, because for some reason he really wants a turn with the toy himself. He keeps zoning out while focusing on one specific thing, and when a noise interrupts him he jumps high enough to clear the coffee table.

He chews his nails a lot, but he could swear they're growing in sharper. He doesn't know if it's just him being cranky from lack of sleep, or stressed about Kristoph, but it feels like his hearing is getting more sensitive, or at least provoking more of a reaction. His ears are starting to itch uncomfortably, and his back is more sore than ever.

Eventually he puts two and two together. But. It scares him. His life is already so goddamn weird and this is only gonna make it so much harder!

Like. Accepting you're neurodivergent and recognizing your behaviors is a scary thing. Because it means accepting you're not "normal" and will never be able to fit in with society, and most people aren't going to understand you or even make the effort to try. And being visibly neurodivergent in public can be humiliating and even dangerous. People treat you differently when they find out you're not neurotypical, they look down on you and can sometimes get verbally or even physically violent.

So he's fighting against this realization and hastily trying to remask himself right when he's on the verge of this breakthrough, and it's putting him in so much discomfort and pain because he's right on the verge of a transformation. He can't revert, he can't undo what he's already learned about himself, so he's stuck like that because he refuses to accept it.

Miles can see Phoenix is in pain and withdrawing and it scares him, he doesn't know what to do or what's happening and Phoenix won't tell him

He has to approach Phoenix and coax out his thoughts - his fears of being different and being recognized as such, his worries that nothing will ever be the same once he finally puts a name to what's different about him, that he can't go back to the way things were when he was in blissful ignorance of himself

And Phoenix wouldn't wish this hiding on anyone and he hates that it's a necessity for Miles in order to be taken seriously

And Miles, completely clueless regarding the physical aspect of all this, assures Phoenix that he is always going to have loved ones that will fight to be there for him and understand him, that he's fought so hard to understand Miles and create a space for him where he can be open with himself and it's only fair if Miles does the same, because Miles cares so so much about Phoenix.

It's so hard to be understood, but there are people willing to meet Phoenix halfway, to understand him and help him function and give him the space he needs to be his most authentic self. Phoenix is neurodivergent and that is not a bad thing. He is loved regardless, and though the world will be harsh to him, he is deserving of love and understanding.

And poor Phoenix, huddled up in his blanket, being nuzzled awkwardly but comfortingly by Miles, a purr rumbling through them both... he just. Breaks down.

...and then there's an unsteady whisper of a sound, vaguely like a car engine trying to turn over, starting and stopping and starting again.

Miles listens closely. The awkward noise is coming from Phoenix, he's almost sure of it. He asks if Phoenix needs any water, and he coughs awkwardly, responding that he's fine. The noise stops, but... Phoenix is tense.

Miles asks him if he's alright, if he's doing something wrong. Phoenix is quick to shoot that down - Miles is fine, doing his absolute best, and Phoenix appreciates it - but... Changes in behavior aren't the only thing that have been plaguing Phoenix. Maybe it's all a coincidence. His ears don't itch anymore, and his back feels better... maybe it's just all in his head?

Miles is like. Phoenix. What are you talking about. And Phoenix is like uhhhh

Miles reaches up and slowly removes the blanket from over Phoenix's head.

And two soft, triangular ears spring up from his spiky hair.

Miles stares. Then, hand trembling, he gently brushes his fingers against one. It flicks and swivels, and Phoenix lets out a questioning trill, one Miles himself has made dozens of times.

They both freeze.

...Phoenix starts to tear up again.

Miles pulls him into an awkward hug and he sobs into his chest, terrified and relieved and so so confused. When Miles begins to purr again, his own shaky purr tries desperately to match it, new and rusty and awkward. A bottlebrush tail snakes hesitantly from beneath the blanket, and Miles's own sleek one intertwines with it.

They're the only two in the world quite like themselves, but Phoenix has spent years aiding Miles to be himself, and Miles will be damned if he doesn't return the favor to the one he adores most.

[1863-project]

Genuine question- what is stimming?(hoping that is spelled correctly) and of you see any gramemr mistakes or typos, hands are a little shaky rn

Ah, stimming! It's a common thing neurodiverse people do to help us regulate ourselves in our environments, but even neurotypical people stim!

Stimming is short for "self-stimulatory behavior." It involves repetitive movements, vocalizations, etc. Stimming is different for everyone, but it's usually a good way to help keep ourselves regulated so we don't get overwhelmed or anxious.

Common stims that are tactile include petting soft things, using fidget toys, and that sort of thing. Other stims involve certain body movements, including the famed "happy flapping" many autistic people do when we're delighted by something and have to get the extra energy out. Still other stims involve chewing on objects (stim toys designed to be chewed on, known as chewelry, exist to serve this need). Some people's stims are even auditory - repetition of certain sounds, or even words or phrases (which may also indicate echolalia, which doubles for many as a form of communication).

Some people may have also heard of the “ADHD leg bounce” - not everyone who bounces their leg whilst focusing has ADHD, but it’s a stim commonly associated with ADD/ADHD. But like I said, nearly everyone stims - twirling your hair around your finger, clicking a pen, or drumming your fingers on a table are all stims, too! Neurodiverse people just tend to stim more noticeably.

My most notable stim personally, which my friends can attest to, is that whenever I’m sitting down on a couch or bed I tend to twitch my ankles back and forth until I’m comfortable, but I’ll also do this if I get antsy about anything. Friends who have sat on a couch at the same time as me have noticed this.

If you’ve seen it in reference to Submas stuff, that’s because a lot of people headcanon stims for them based on them being heavily autistic-coded (which I wrote about here). I am in full support of this and it delights me as someone who sees so much of herself in them (I have the same arm-swinging walk Emmet does in the manga, though not to the extreme it’s drawn).

[bi-and-bewildered]

My Rambly Non-Linear Thoughts About Spencer Being Autistic

so there’s obviously a lot of universal headcanons surrounding Spencer being autistic, but I’m gonna talk a little (a lot actually) about some of my more niche world-building and headcanons with this concept!

disclaimer: I am merely one autistic person, my experiences are not universal and I speak for no one except myself (and maybe my twin sister)

Spencer would’ve never gotten diagnosed as a child. It just wouldn’t have been feasible, that’s not to say he didn’t realize he was different, but it was likely chalked up to him being a genius.

Objectively, he would’ve been diagnosed with ‘Aspberger’s’ in the mid-2000’s and would’ve eventually swapped that label out for Autism Spectrum Disorder at some point.

There aren’t many people who diagnose adults in the US and insurance certainly doesn’t pay for it, so the diagnostic process would’ve been an out of pocket fee.

Setting all that aside, Spencer would’ve know. Maybe he would’ve originally come across the ADHD diagnosis and accepted it as a self-describer before realizing how much it doesn’t cover about his psychology.

When you’re autistic, some times it takes someone else pointing it out to you before you actually think about it. I have no doubts he likely had a lot of not so kind comments on his behavior and, trust me, people love to throw the word ‘autistic’ around as an insult.

Spencer doesn’t mask well. In the sense that okay, yeah, maybe he can mask for a couple hours at a time, but it really doesn’t work for him. Like he can’t get anything done and he’s not particularly good at masking in the first place.

Working in an environment where he has to present himself a certain way would be difficult, but having to team be so kind and understanding would lessen the pressure.

He likely masks to some degree in front of other officers and police departments and what not. He even has a hard time entirely letting his mask slip around the team, but he does usually and it’s a weight off his back everytime.

Vocal and movement stims are likely the most satisfactory for him. He uses wild gestures to overcompensate for not being able to flap his hands in front of most people. He usually rocks back and forth when he’s alone or really focused, and prefers a side to side motion rather than a forwards to backwards one.

He gets words stuck in his head constantly. The more words you know the easier it is to find one that sticks in your brain. Repeating these words outloud (echolalia) is one of the most satisfactory stims. But he does it less often than he would like because society tends to train you out of doing ‘weird’ things verbally.

He goes nonverbal often during or after meltdowns and after a long day. Sometimes words just won’t come and it’s really frustrating for him, but it’s something he works to accept about himself.

He overcompensates a lot of the times, something he learned as a young child trying to blend in. Instead of under expressing himself, he over-expresses things. His facial expressions are usually extremely indicative of the emotion he’s trying to portray. He also is very calculated with his use of tone and humor.

One thing he doesn’t overcompensate on is eye contact. He doesn’t make eye contact unless he has too. Usually too focused on whatever he’s talking about to even think about looking the other person in the eye.

Coffee is one of his safety foods (despite the teams constant insistence it’s not an actual food) and sugary treats usually aren’t as terrible sensory experiences as savory food (the smell, the taste, the texture)

He literally cannot have most kind of pets, even the concept of having fur or drool or feathers all over his apartment is enough to make him want to curl up in a ball. He has a turtle though! Those are super easy, he’s not super fond of cleaning the water (because the texture of water sometimes is just ugh) but he does it!

He collects special interests like some people collect stamps, his brain literally soaks up information on something hes interested in like a sponge. He’s partial to psychology, statistics, and classical literature though.

When he gets going on a rant, he just gets so excited and happy to share his interests! And if someone is actually listening and engaging (sometimes he thinks they are and they’re not, but that’s a different story) he gets even more excited! Sometimes a member of the team will engage with him about a topic he’s interested in for a while and it leaves him feeling completely energized and excited. Especially if he was able to stim throughout his talk.

Sweaters are usually great pressure stims, which is why he prefers them. Although, finding the right texture sweater is really the key.

Working in the law enforcement would come easy for him. Autistic people often have a strong sense of morality and justice, it’s not a surprise he would be an FBI agent. Often times, autistic people go into law enforcement because their sense of right and wrong is so strong they’re compelled to do something that utilizes that trait.

While his social skills aren’t particularly great, he’s really good with the team! Once he gets close to everyone it’s easy to be a good friend. Most neurotypicals are ridiculously easy to shop for, so he uses gifts and acts of service to demonstrate his love.

Physical touch is a day to day type of thing. Sometimes he enjoys it, sometimes he hates it, and sometimes he merely tolerates it.

Anyway that’s all I got for now! Feel free to add stuff in the reblogs, I love hearing other people’s thoughts about this!

@spencers-renaissance @spencerspecifics @prentisslove @agents-are-dicks @aesthetically-poetically @betterlucknextttime @paget @pagetsbae @figure-skating-ostrich

[tenthgrove]

hi! could i request some platonic la squadra with a team member who's autistic and mainly stims by repeating short phrases (echolalia but idk how to phrase it) and has/had a hard time unmasking around them? feel free to take as many liberties as you need to, your writing is so fun to read! <33

La Squadra Says Autism Rights

La Squadra x Reader (GN), Platonic, SFW

(A/N: I just wanted to say a particular thank you to this requester because I've been itching to write autistic reader headcanons for months and this finally gave me the right prompt to do it. I definitely want to write more in the future.)

Formaggio- He might be neurotypical, but autism runs in his family (and his social circle as an adult) so he's learned a fair bit how best to interact with you people. He knows his loudness and teasing can be an issue for autistic people with sensory issues or trouble with sarcasm, so he'll drop it around you if that's the case. As far as he's concerned your vocal stim is a non-issue because 'some people just do that, it doesn't hurt anyone' and he doesn't comment on it unless you're using it to show happiness, in which case he always acts chuffed. He behaves sympathetically to your troubles with masking, and makes a point of acting laid-back so it's easy for you to turn down the pressure on yourself. To Formaggio, not being able to be yourself would be one of the worst fates imaginable, so he wants to do what he can to make it easier for you to let loose.

Illuso- You might expect Illuso's understanding to be low, but at this point with so much of the team being neurodivergent themselves Illuso doesn't bat an eyelid. Repeating short phrases is certainly a new one, but nothing he can't put up with. Sometimes, he might ask you what your murmurings mean, but he doesn't mean it in a judgy way. Now, as for your masking, you would be surprised how much he can relate. Illuso's self esteem is secretly down the gutter, and he often feels like the confident persona he puts on is secretly an act. When you tell him you feel like you're putting a show every day of your life, he feels you. The two of you have a lot of heartfelt conversations when you're alone, confessing how you really feel about yourselves away from the act you're performing. It's not something Illuso does often, be this honest even with a friend. But he can't help but find that it's... therapeutic.

Prosciutto- Like with anything a friend of his may be insecure about, Prosciutto very much looks at autism through the lens of identifying positives. This by no means says that he ignores your difficulties or tries to creative positives that aren't there, only that he takes note of your strengths no matter how much you try to deny them and makes sure you remember you have them. He doesn't try to 'fix' your echolalia because he knows it's better to work with an autistic person's traits than erase them, but he does teach you mental diversion techniques to help you tone the stim down when you need to (e.g. when you're trying to be stealthy). Regarding your masking, he can somewhat admire it as a useful skill to have- it's possible you could turn it into the skills of an excellent actor while under cover, but he also appreciates the impact this must be having on your self-esteem to have to hide yourself 24/7, so he wants to help you learn to cut it down. This, of course, is done through plenty of praise and reminding of your strengths. You are a wonderful addition to the team, even without your mask, and he won't let you think any less.

Pesci- When Pesci gets stressed it affects him a lot too. Sometimes he does things like fiddle with random items in his hands until they break or bounce his leg so hard the table shakes, which always get him strange looks. He appreciates the rationale of your stimming and would never judge you for it. If you're in a situation where you absolutely need to stop stimming, for instance if a team is visiting who isn't on good terms with La Squadra, he is a good bet for subtly and respectfully helping you be aware of when you're starting to do it so you can quickly stop. Just a gentle nudge to your arm when you start to whisper is all it takes. He also has a lot of empathy for the fact you has to mask, since he imagines it to be like a more extreme version of how he had to invent this whole 'tough guy' personality after he got involved in the gang. He found that really hard too, so he can imagine what it must be life to do that sort of thing your whole life. At least with him, you feel less of a pressure to put on an act.

Melone- There's a certain intellectual curiosity in Melone towards the various neurodivergent conditions, compounded by a strong personal empathy now he has so many friends who have them. He is saddened by the failure of the common consensus to understand such individuals, and wants to do what he can to help them appreciate their full, unique potentials. Melone is quick to recognise your behaviour as stimming, and hence understands that the stress of being called out on it would only make it worse. He is sympathetic to your plight with masking, and has a few ideas you could try if you want to start reducing it in safe circumstances. He has heard that one barrier to unmasking can be trouble identifying the 'true self' you have to go back to, so to remedy this he asks non-critical questions that help you explore your real, unmasked personality and be comfortable in it. Whenever you go off-script and talk to him as your true-self, he praises you for it and assures you that you are just as wonderful a person to him like this.

Ghiaccio- We arrive at the first member on the list who (in my headcanon) is autistic himself. Although the mangling of verbal speech is typically annoying to him, Ghiaccio would never become angry at someone who did it because of their neurodivergence. After all, if he didn't respect the effects of your autism, what reason do you have to return the favour? Ghiaccio makes a point of not hurrying you along when you start to repeat yourself as a stimming technique, and it goes a long way with helping you be calm around him. The masking however, is a different matter. He's not going to be angry at you per say, since he knows from experience the pressure you must be facing to put on an act this way, but he very much prefers it when people are their authentic selves around him. After all, he has enough issues knowing their true intentions as it is. He won't get angry, but he will gently encourage you to open up about him, even if it's something as little as stating what you really want point-blank when you're nervous too. He is very understanding about how hard this is, however.

Risotto- Another autistic individual himself, Risotto is also perfectly empathetic to your behaviour. As an adult, he doesn't really stim, rather just faze out entirely, but at the end of the day that still gets him a lot of strange looks so he can appreciate the range of feelings you may have about your own stim. What's really great about Risotto is that he learns pretty quickly how to differentiate between your happy-stims and your stress-stims, to an extent nobody else on the team is able to. He always seems very content to see you happy-stim, warmed by the knowledge that you are feeling good right now. As for your stress-stims, he is quick to help you escape from the situation if at all possible, and hold your hand comfortingly if not. And the whole masking thing? He understands painfully well. Risotto's masking game on-point, but it irks him greatly to keep it up, not to mention that he hates the paralysing anxiety that hits him whenever he tries to unmask. Even when he wants to, he can't always be himself in front of the team. He may not have a solution for you, but he at least has his full empathy.

Sorbet and Gelato- While Sorbet is, as far as he's aware, neurotypical, Gelato is very much autistic as well. He's also got ADHD to boot, so he's well versed in the neurodivergent experience. His stim is quite similar to yours, in that he makes quiet, high-pitched, almost chirp-like noises, so he sees your echolalia as something he has in common with you. Gelato doesn't really bother with masking any more, the only exception being people who could quite literally kill him if he offended them. Though he encourages you to let go and be yourself, consequences be damned, he of course completely understands the pressure to keep masking. Sorbet, despite being neurotypical, is at this point more surrounded by autistics than not. He's been married to Gelato for the best part of the decade, his closest friend is Risotto, and he's practically Ghiaccio's dad at this point. Adding one more neurodivergent to the mix is hardly a big step, and he is very well-versed in your behaviours and how to interact with them.

[mnemo-li]

Okay, so I did a test I saw on Tumblr just for the funsies and frankly, because a part of me wondered if I have a mild case of ADHD or something because my nanny / part-time nurse used to say that I behaved like a เด็กสมาธิสั้น (literally translates to having a “a child with a short attention span”).

And uhhh the results of the test surprised me, to say the least.

The screenshots are a bit weirdly cropped on Tumblr but to summarize:

The RAADS–R is a self-report instrument, a reliable instrument to assist the diagnosis of autistic adults. According to this paper in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorder, no neurotypical who took the test scored above the autism threshold. The threshold is 65.0 and I scored a 78. I also redid the test a day after and my score was still in the 70s.

I’m just pondering some things that other people have observed about me.

1. In high school, I had been quietly dragged aside in class and privately told by my English teacher that “I speak too softly”. He means well: he just wants to help me communicate. I remembered being so upset by this but when I asked another friend if this is true, she said yes— I tended to speak so quietly sometimes she has to strain to hear me. Apparently, trouble modulating vocal volume is an autistic trait.

2. My nanny noted that I had a habit of taking the baby hair around my face, twirling it around my ear, untwirling it, and then repeating that again and again. I only recalled doing it because it felt good. I also did this other thing where I used to repeatedly pull my eye bags and snap it back for that satisfying snap because it felt good (I stopped doing it because I didn’t wanna have ugly eye bags). To this day though, I have a habit of rubbing thumb against the nail of the other thumb repeatedly, using the nail like a worry stone. Apparently, according to my grandpa, it’s a genetic thing cos my dad does it too! I also have my favorite pillow where I would put my hand inside the pillow and rub my hand against it for the satisfying feelings it gave me. Now, the pillow is thrown away cos it’s too old but I still do the same thing with other pillows in order to sleep. I think this is a form of stimming??

3. I would walk around in literal circles in my rooms for half an hour at a time, daydreaming. Sometimes, when reading a book and the action gets too vivid, I have to start moving around physically, standing up or swinging my legs or walking around as well. Not sure if this is an actual thing though but it seems weird enough.

4. My high school maths tutor used to say that my speech is very disjointed in the sense that I sometimes jump from topic to topic and he would have trouble keeping up (this is regardless of what topic was being discussed). He ended up advising me to slow down whist talking, and to explain my thoughts in steps. I recall telling him my mum speaks like this too.

5. I am easily startled by noises and easily overwhelmed by loud and busy places. I thought this was just my social anxiety thing though but idk. It’s been that way since high school at least. I remember someone once said hi to me on the stairs, surprising me from behind, and damn I almost fell lol. And yeah, to this day I get a sensory overload if I go somewhere too busy or loud (but then, doesn’t everyone to a degree?)

6. Oh: routines. I do get upset if my routine is messed up (but then again, doesn’t everyone to a degree????). Sometimes it’s more intense though. Like, recently, I had news that I can’t do what I planned to do next week and I spent the whole day today just being upset over it. It’s currently almost 8pm and I haven’t eaten anything aside from a sushi roll since I woke up— that’s how upset I am.

7. And of course, an ex-friend of mine said to my face that I’m “lazy”, that I have potential but I don’t work hard. I disagree with that statement but looking back, I am negligent when it comes to certain responsibilities but I am extremely hard working on the things I am passionate (dare I say, hyper fixated) about. Like okay, I know I still can’t finish that goddamn fanfic I worked so long on, but I do have a passion for writing and I objectively literally am a published short story and non-fiction author and a published poet. I literally just signed another contract with an American publishing company last Monday. When it comes to the stuff I truly care about and obsess over, I am not lazy.

I don’t want to be one of those kids who diagnose themselves with every syndrome they read about on the internet, so I won’t conclude anything. However, I also do realize that I harbor some prejudice against autistic individuals that I am trying to unlearn, prejudices which influenced my unconscious desire to not want to be associated with people who society-at-large deem weird or annoying.

Idk. I just… I know I definitely have social anxiety (I once put off going to the supermarket for several weeks, to the point where I became hungry cos there wasn’t proper food left in my fridge, because I didn’t want to talk to the cashier or anyone I might bump into at Tescos) but the thought of me having ASD traits is just… idk what to think about it

idk what to say really.

I’m still in contact with my English teacher though. Lowkey wanna reach out to him and ask if he noticed any other “weird” traits about me.

IRL friends and online mutuals, feel free to share your thoughts if you wish, especially if you have experience with this ❤️🙏

[autistic-lalli]

I dont know how to properly frame my question, but autistic!lalli has always been a headcanon I readily claimed as canon in my heart because it MAKES PERFECT SENSE in my brain. But besides me, what I'd like to ask is what traits/habits/behaviors Lalli has that immediately clicked to you that he was autistic? Or showed that he was? Like, gush to me about them

(this is mainly so I can get better at writing him and also because I'm curious to know! Actually, SLAP me with EVERYTHING about Lalli, if you can 😂 I'd love to actually know everything)

This topic was also requested by @the-story-isnt-over-yet ! This post is for both y’all :)

I’m going to try to keep this organized, but we’ll see how successful I am. First up, I’ll talk through Lalli’s general traits, then the traits I picked out quickly and resonated with, and then I’ll touch on a couple other things that stand out to me!

Sensory Experience

Lalli repeatedly displays sensory-avoiding and sensory-seeking behaviors. He likes soft textures and sweets—he picks himself up a big ol’ fluffy cloak in Adventure 2, and his mind conjures him a nice and soft one in his dreamspace, and we all know how he feels about pastries. He’s always willing to eat sweets and breads, which suggests that Lalli has samefoods as well (samefoods are like a comfort food, but taken up to eleven; foods that always sound good, sometimes to the point that they’re the only thing an autistic person can eat.) It’s just a single line, but where Lalli tells Emil that he hates blueberries, it makes me think of a very specific picture (I’ll link it later if I can find it.) Blueberries, and other fruit, don’t taste the same every time! Some are sweet, some are sour, some are mushy, some are grainy, and some are juicy. When you don’t know what to expect from a food, this makes it hard to want to eat it, even if some aspect of the flavor is good.

But I digress! One thing that I resonated with right away with Lalli is that he clearly has sensitive proprioceptive awareness. That just means the sense of where your body is in space. When Lalli sleeps or hides under a bunk or table, he’s reducing his sensory input. Being in a small space is comforting because there’s less space to be aware of.

Lalli is also sensitive to touch, which is a fairly easy trait to spot. He doesn’t like the friendly punches the crew delivers, and even balks at Emil’s touch when he’s upset. There are exceptions, but those exceptions come at times when Lalli is calm and expecting the touch to occur.

And sound! Lalli doesn’t like loud sounds, in particular loud people (sorry, Sigrun.) This is a great place to talk about Lalli’s shutdowns. We don’t see Lalli experience meltdowns, but he does have a shutdown a couple times. Shutdowns are a response to stress and sensory overload. It looks different for everyone, and since it’s internal, it’s hard to tell how exactly Lalli’s shutdowns run. However, we see him cover his ears to block out sound and hum (“mrr!”) in order to calm himself down. He’s just trying to regulate his sensory experience. His humming is also an example of vocal stimming.

Social Difficulties

Lalli definitely has social difficulties, but it can be hard to tell which difficulties are due to the language barrier and which are due to his brain chemistry. But! Paying attention to the first part of the story, when he’s with all Finnish-speakers, as well as the dream sequences can really help us hone in on those traits.

Lalli, in general, doesn’t understand other people beyond what they say. He doesn’t understand body language or sarcasm—he doesn’t get why everyone’s punching him, he doesn’t know when Tuuri’s joking and when she’s serious, and he stares at Emil because he’s curious about him and doesn’t realize it’s impolite. He doesn’t notice when Emil is rude and doesn’t understand social scripts like saying “thank you” and “you’re welcome.” When he wants to express approval or comfort, he gives a soft pat to the other person. More touch than that might be too much for him, but he does want to express something, and pats are an excellent tool in that way.

Lalli’s inability and/or refusal to learn or use the crew member’s names also gives us insight to how Lalli faces social conundrums. To him, everyone else is more distinguishable by the epithets he gives them—their names don’t mean anything. It’s like naming someone “flower delivery guy” in your phone contacts instead of “Greg.”

Lalli also isn’t easily frightened. The only times we see him be really afraid is when someone he loves is in immediate mortal danger. The everyday stuff like trolls and omens don’t scare him, which is certainly in part just because he’s used to these things. Trolls and spirits are an everyday part of his life. But an unusual lack of fear is a common autistic experience as well, so I suspect it goes beyond Lalli’s accustomation.

Other Traits

A couple other things that didn’t fit into either of the former categories! First of all, the rubik's cube. That’s just autistic solidarity. Emil picked up a stim toy for his bf, we love to see it.

But also, Lalli relies a lot on his routine. That’s probably why the military, and scouting in particular, suited him. He has his own personal routine that is the same day in and day out. He tries to keep a routine on the expedition, but isn’t able to, which increases the amount of stress he’s under. Nothing is predictable, which automatically makes everything more stressful.

Relationships

I also think the dynamics of Lalli’s different relationships are super interesting and really highlight some things that aren’t often covered in media with autistic characters. It’s super heartbreaking the way Onni and Tuuri don’t seem to understand Lalli. Tuuri especially doesn’t understand why Lalli does the things he does, and doesn’t seem to make any effort to understand, which is sadly a common experience for many autistic people.

On the other hand, Emil’s reactions are the complete opposite. As I put it to a friend once, Emil often makes mistakes with Lalli, but he never crosses the same boundary twice. He lets Lalli have agency in their relationship. If Lalli has a boundary that inconveniences Emil, he doesn’t complain about it, he simply adapts. Lalli has very specific needs in his relationships, needs that are both unusual and difficult for him to communicate, so it’s far easier for him to just default to being a loner.

Me & Lalli

On a personal level, I have a whole lot of these traits. I stim with soft things, I’m sensitive to sound, I tend to be hypersensitive with my proprioceptive sense, I had to intentionally teach myself to read body language (I work as a theatre artist, which helped a lot,) I’m not easily frightened, I’m sensitive to touch and sound, and I certainly struggle socially. Furthermore, I actually had an untreated sleep disorder until about a year and a half ago, so I deeply resonated with Lalli’s chronic exhaustion.

Truth be told, I headcanoned Lalli as autistic from his introductory card, and I knew he was autistic within ten pages. Chronically exhausted and doesn’t know what’s going on? Mine now.

The Autism Metaphor

I talk about this some in my autism and superpowers post, but I really love that Lalli is both autistic and is living an autistic metaphor. It’s not uncommon for characters who can see or sense other things (ghosts, spirits, emotions, danger, etc.) to read as autistic, because that’s what autism often feels like. Our sensory experience is so distinct and we are so aware of it that it can feel like a superpower at times--in a good way and in a bad way. We’re living in a sensory world that a lot of neurotypical people don’t understand. Furthermore, these kinds of powers or sensitivities usually come with an isolating social impact in these stories, which only strengthens the metaphor for autism.

But Lalli has both actual autism and is a mage. He sees spirits and omens and can sense when trolls are near, and also is sensitive to sounds and doesn’t like to be touched. These things aren’t related to one another, but they all read as being in the same category, which both deepens the metaphor and makes him really interesting as an autistic character.

This is also why Onni readily reads as autistic as well. We don’t have as much direct evidence for him, and in many ways his trauma seems to run much deeper than it does in Lalli and Tuuri, so it’s hard to separate out what’s a trauma response and what’s an autistic response. Overall, I’m quite a fan of “no Hatakoinen is neurotypical,” but that’s a post for another day ;)

I’ll also be posting a panel or two of an instance where Lalli is displaying an autistic trait each day for the month of April!

[zosonils]

surely post some autistic ferb things for us all,,,,,,

hell yeah anon!! here’s an absolute hell dump of Ferb Autism Indulgence Things because i have really been wanting to get my grubby little autistic hands all over him lately

his special interests are engineering and tetris [which is the game he’s internationally ranked in!]

he stims vocally by humming or repeating other vocalisations, but rarely with actual words

if he’s too nervous to vocalise/just not in the mood he goes for small hand movements to stim like clicking pens or tapping his fingers

he does flappy hands/arms when he has a lot of excitement to release! otherwise he prefers to stick to smaller/more subtle motions for a variety of reasons

he only repeats actual words as echolalia, almost always off of either phineas or perry! that thing they do where perry chatters and the boys mimic it and they all just loop off each other for a while is absolutely an echolalia loop for all of them [yes even the platypus]

a very epic headcanon i have is that owca agents are typically labelled as having therapy animal training to give them some more wiggle room with showing intelligence, so perry is officially a therapy platypus for the flynn-fletcher kids, especially the boys. ferb does the aforementioned echolalia chatter thing with perry and also just generally finds him extremely comforting to hold. of course perry’s figured out all of ferb and his siblings’ needs by observation and makes sure to subtly be as comforting as possible for his kids, especially if they’re having a meltdown and need to hold someone who won’t try to talk to them

ferb genuinely dislikes communicating verbally, due to a combination of general social anxiety, struggling to translate his thoughts into words, and finding it physically uncomfortable to talk. it’s not serious enough to prevent him from cracking a joke or vocalising his thoughts every once in a while, but he prefers to be nonverbal as much as possible and communicate through gestures and body language

throughout the series he only ever speaks on his own terms and as much as he’s comfortable with, so it comes out without issue, but if he’s forced to talk when he doesn’t want to or while he’s under stress he struggles to string sentences together and stutters really badly. fortunately he’s got nice friends and a great family so this issue rarely presents itself, although it comes up sometimes during the school year in battles with pissy neurotypical teachers over oral presentations

over time he starts to work past the discomfort [genuinely, it’s on his own terms as opposed to masking to get allistics off his back] so that by the time he’s an adult he can hold an entirely verbal conversation for a decent while before it drains him, but he still tends to avoid speaking if he can

phineas instinctively understands ferb’s silent emotional cues, a lot better than he understands most people’s [but that’s a whole other infodump lmao], and unless ferb actively indicates that he wants to talk for himself phineas usually speaks for both of them and translates any of ferb’s less neurotypically obvious signals

phineas and ferb made The Ultimate Fidget Cube as one of their daily projects [they were being mass produced for an hour or two and then something or other happened, there was a mobile phone and an avalanche of instant noodles, long story short only the handful they made for themselves and their friends are left now] and neither of them go anywhere without it

ferb doesn’t have any specific comfort/security objects but he feels significantly more at ease if he’s got some kind of tool in his hand or within reach [or, failing an actual building-stuff tool, anything he can hold and Do Something with, like a pen or his fidget cube or a video game controller], and is a lot more stimmy with his hands and generally anxious if he isn’t holding something

perry performs the task of comfort item better than any inanimate objects but platypi aren’t allowed to come to school even if they’re very polite :(

believe me the brothers have tested this numerous times

school is stressful for ferb because it fires up his sensory overload and is usually where he’s forced to do some neurotypical shit that upsets him, but his friends always have his back and linda and lawrence are definitely super involved in making sure their kids’ needs are met and respected by their teachers, so he manages pretty well unless something really bad happens to set him off

he’s susceptible to sensory overload, mostly with bright lights, sudden noises, and being touched. the light and sound involved in many of his and phineas’ projects is alright because he usually designed them and knows exactly when they’ll come on and what it’ll be like, but if he doesn’t have that prediction available he freaks out easily. being touched [especially without warning] is the absolute fucking worst and he almost invariably flips out if someone unfamiliar tries to touch him or he’s hit with an unexpected sensation he doesn’t like

he only rarely has meltdowns because he’s good at self-regulating when he needs to and his friends and family know what does and doesn’t fly with him, but when he does they’re often triggered by either sensory overload or being forced to talk

when ferb starts entering meltdown territory his verbal skills are the first thing to shut off, and if it gets worse he usually stops communicating altogether and enters a really bad dissociative state that he won’t come out of until he feels safe again and can be carefully brought back to his senses

standard procedure for ferb meltdowns is to get him a weighted blanket and some tea and a perry if you can find the slippery little bugger, let him snap back to reality at his own pace, and once he can communicate his needs again pay extra close attention to them until he calms down enough that he can properly self-regulate again

his favourite sensations are weight/pressure, the funky bumpy shit perry’s tail has going on, and anything soft!

most of his clothes [including his usual outfit in the show] are tight-fitting but made out of soft fabric for maximum comfy

the blanket on his bed is a weighted one, but if he’s too far from his room or it’s too hot to be comfortable under a blanket sometimes he’ll just find the tightest spot he can wedge himself into without getting hurt or stuck and squish himself in there to calm down a bit

his favourite food texture is crunchy stuff, and he samefoods with particular cereals and sandwich combos that rotate every few months when he finally gets tired of the exact same breakfast and lunch every day and wants slightly different identical meals

while he’s fine with variation from day to day, he’s very firmly attached to the summer/weekend formula of wake up > cereal > big idea > where’s perry > [building montage] > mom holy fuck > sandwich > [having fun montage] > our fuckoff massive contraption has vanished somehow > oh there you are perry > snacks > nondescript vibing > dinner > bed time, and if this schedule gets significantly thrown off it really bothers him

ferb shows his emotions more subtly than neurotypicals, which can make him seem hard to read, but his external emotional range is still extremely distinct - he just expresses it in atypical ways sometimes!

one of his most notable atypical emotional cues is that thing he does when he’s startled and he pulls his hands up - he does this in we call it maze when candace falls over on her skates in the beginning, split personality when busting candace scares him, lost in danville when he’s worried another capsule might fall on him or phineas, and the phineas and ferb effect during how do i do it when milo’s exercise bike crashes, just to name a few instances! this boy has Unique Emotional Cues and i love him for it so much

he’s better at reading emotions than phineas [as low as that bar is], but sometimes misses more subtle cues and doesn’t quite trust his ability to read anyone aside from phineas, candace, and his closest friends

he’s been aware that he’s neurodivergent ever since he was diagnosed as a little kid [he was first diagnosed with autism when he was extremely baby, not even three years old, and had it continually reconfirmed as he got older] and he’s been entirely happy with being autistic for as long as he’s known what that even means, with this only being reinforced as he found siblings and made friends with other autistic kids :)

good lord this is such an infodump i’m sorry i just love my son so very much and have been feeling particularly self indulgent today ;<;

[steal-this-album]

all the odd numbers for the ask game!!

1. How old were you when you found out you were autistic?

i was 15 years old, as in this year :'D i am self dx but my counselor is Suspecting Something untreated lol

3. Do you have any comorbidities? Or just autism?

i do!! i have adhd and psychosis (both prof. dx)

5. What do you wish more people knew about autism?

that YES allistics, it DOES suck always being the sexiest and coolest person in the room 😔 /j

7. Do you find it hard to make friends?

most of the time nope! especially with other nd people!! i'm a huge extrovert and i love to drag ppl around if given the right opportunity lol <3 BUT if someone new (usually neurotypicals jdgshsj) gives me a Single Red Flag i will just. instantly lose all interest lmao

9. What was your first special interest?

FUN FACTS!!! <3<3 literally had it ever since i could read lmao

11. If you could give any advice to your younger self, what would it be?

question your gender. then do it again. then question your sexuality. then question your ge- (basically. embrace who you are n what you like!! it's good and natural to have "phases"!!! do whatever makes you happy!!!!)

13. Tell us an autistic person that you really look up to.

uhh um uh *points at my mutual* hi @autistic--cryptid i rly like ur stim blogs and ur super nice <3<3

15. Have you ever received any accommodations for your autism in either school or work?

yep! i haven't had an official job yet, but for school i did have an IEP and then a 504 plan for a few years. recently they discontinued it (and set up a more informal plan) because i've been doing good in schoolwork (mostly /pos). atm it's mostly getting alternatives for public speaking, being able to step out of class if it's overwhelming, extensions on deadlines, etc

17. Do you own any stim toys? Which is your favorite?

yes!! and I LOST MY FAVORITE ONEEE idk where it is :[ i have these (first one is my fav i lost, all the colors shown are the same ones i have)

ID: three fidget toys. They are an orange chain key ring, a yellow fidget cube, and blue and pink liquid motion timer. / End ID

i also have a fidget pen but it broke :[

19. What kinds of things are sensory hell for you?

fabrics are a Big Deal to me :'] i absolutely hate fleece sherpa and faux fur. a lot of blankets are just Bad Feeling to me so i like to use bath towels (which also have to be a certain texture lol). also MY CIELING FAN AAGHH when it's on, the blades get in the way of the light and it makes things flash slightly so i can't look up. idk if that makes sense but yea

21. How open are you usually when it comes to being autistic?

somewhat open ig, esp since i don't have a formal diagnosis. i still talk a lot about my Symptoms lol

23. What's the longest you've ever had a special interest for?

uhhh idk how to tell?? for me it's like i've always had them, i just primarily fixate on different ones at different times. but again i've had fun facts pretty much since i could read lol

25. Do you have shutdowns?

yea, more often than meltdowns

27. Do you have any vocal stims or echolalia?

yes a lot!! i vocal stim a lot more with both noises, phrases, and songs, but my echolalia is mostly of noises or single words ^^

29. Are your friends and/or family accepting of your autism?

they're very accepting of my other neurodivergence + disability stuff, so it won't be a big deal lol

31. Do you have a comfort item? If you feel comfortable with it, then show it to us.

YESS THESE MY BELOVEDS!! the coraline doll was made by someone my mom knew and given to me as a christmas/birthday gift, since coraline is a spin of mine ^^ i've had the dog since i was a baby lol, and it makes a lot of Good Noises like rattling (in the paws) and crinkling (on the ears) :D

ID: two stuffed toys against the lap of OP, who is wearing a blue shirt and yellow pants. The first is a hand-crocheted doll of Coraline (from the movie Coraline). The second is a multicolored dog, which is mostly red, and each of its paws are a different color. The bottoms of its paws are reflective. / End ID

33. Foods you are sensitive to (maybe because of bad texture for instance)?

fatty meats :[ which unfortunately comes up a lot bc i'm mexican lol. also tomatoes 😔

35. Have you ever used a weighted blanket?

i have one!! i don't use it that often because my bed is small and i can't move around a lot on it lol, so it gets a bit frustrating to readjust :P

37. Do you enjoy holidays or are they sensory hell to you?

OK WELL. i love the holidays bc yayy fun giving gifts to friends or whatever but i CANNOT STAND the ""holiday"" themed scents. At All. the thanksgiving/christmas Sugar Cinnamon Roll Gingerbread Party Explosion shit is so fucking overwhelming and I Hate It. and my english teacher puts on a wax burner in her room w that stuff :[

39. What's the most comfortable/sensory friendly outfit you own?

actually the one i have on rn is pretty cool lol. the shirt is a very loose and soft button up, and also yellow sweatpants bc yellow is my favorite color and Sweatpants Are Comfy. also shirts that feel crocheted/knitted are very nice <3

41. If you date people then would you prefer to date other autistic people?

i do prioritize all relationships with neurodivergent people lol, so yeah it would be nice :]

43. If you could have any item related to your special interest what would it be?

uhh UHHH hm. if it counts then i want moshi monsters back 😔😔

45. Favorite autistic celebrity?

i see @jupitrr in posts in the wild so fle is a celebrity in my mind <3

47. Do you happy flap?

yeap!!! with my hands and my wings lmao :D i also do i ton of other happy stims, like snapping my fingers, shaking my fists, jumping, groaning, shaking my arms, clapping, and hitting my head lol

49. What's something you find hard to do because of autism?

EYE CONTACT.... also wording my thoughts + feelings :[ a bunch of other things too but mostly those

ask game link

[redandfranticfeelings]

an autistic analysis, lyric by lyric, of ‘i love play rehearsal’

ive been hyperfixating over bmc for the last month and i keep thinking about how autistic the main characters are and christine is so very very very autistic coded to me. so i decided im just going to straight up deconstruct the lyrics of her signature song in the context of her being autistic (and also having adhd, but my experience is mostly in autism)

this is very very rambley and based more on personal experience than research, so i doubt itll be interesting to anybody but me, but i just want to talk about christine, the autistic queen

I love play rehearsal Because its the best! Because it is fun. I love play rehearsal and I get depressed as soon as its done.

it goes without saying that chrstine’s special interest is theater right? the way she treats it as the “highlight of [her] life” and then switches into this song after acting completely awkward and disinterested in jeremy outside of the context of him being engaged in her special interest.

But not depressed as in like kill yourself depressed No, im not into self-harm Dude, I swear, here check my arm!

overexplaining in a way that reads very much like speaking before she thinks, even though bringing up self harm in casual conversation with someone you barely talk to is not exactly proper etiquette. i think this is also an adhd trait? going faster than your own brain. that’s basically this whole song.

See, I just use the word to emphasise a point, Show the passion I have got I am passionate a lot. I have mad, gigantic feelings, Red and frantic feelings, About most everything Like gun control, like spring,

a lot of people assume autistic people are typically emotionless but it’s also very easy for us to get caught up in emotional issues especially when it comes to stuff we love, and it catches us off guard. christine being hyperempathetic is implied later in the show when she has that awful survivors’ guilt over making fun of rich and jake, and it also plays into her being so socially conscious as well.

Like if I’m living up to all I’m meant to be.

being an high school junior is really rough bc of all the decisions that have to be made regarding college and your future as an independent adult, and being autistic just makes it worse bc it can easily lead to burnout to deal with so much at once, if you even can comprehend these things much at all (i had no idea what to do, lol). i doubted my ability to grow up and succeed constantly because i had no idea who to talk to and what questions to ask and how to present myself. that’s something that a lot of people worry about, but having social delays makes it way more of a pressing issue than it is for neurotypicals, i feel.

I also have a touch of ADD. Where was I? Oh, right!

self explanatory and very canon. adhd and autism can be diagnosed simultaneously nowadays and the symptoms overlap a lot, btw.

I love play rehearsal, Cause’ you are equiped with direction and text, Life is easy in rehearsal, You follow a script so you know what comes next. Anywho the point that I’m getting to is sometimes life can’t work out in the way It works out in the play

this part screams autistic culture to me. unpredictability is scary because social situations don’t always go smoothly like in fiction! this is why social scripting is a popular therapy tactic for autistic children- you have to manually study social situations like a script. theater is something meant to be memorized and recited until you’re able to process it and manufacture emotion, but honestly for autistic kids, life feels a lot like that sometimes. remember how miserable she got when one of her favorite plays had the script changed without her permission to make a whole new story she doesn’t know? of course that’s just upsetting on its own, but in the context of her knowing theater so well and being fully prepared for one story only to be forced to learn a new one? ouch.

christine is never shown as comfortable outside her element- she hides in a book during “more than survive” and shrinks into nothing at the party. it’s a recurring theme that she has no idea exactly who she is, struggles with her identity outside of theater, and despite not really caring about how people see her, she does care about her own ability. socializing makes her feel awkward, especially when something totally unexpected happens like jake or jeremy asking her out. if she doesn’t have a plan or routine or, well, a script, then she can’t trust herself to go forward.

Like the only time I get to be the center of attention, Is when I’m Juliet or Blanche DuBois

as an autistic theater kid, i just really do relate to being clueless and dumb in real life but being able to totally thrive on the stage, because you can channel the energy that is usually misplaced in real life social interactions, and transfer it through dialogue and song and dance that someone else laid out nicely for you.

and can I mention? That was really one of my best roles, Did you see that?

an epic combination of letting your mind wander easily without caring about making sense to the person you’re speaking to, and taking every opportunity to infodump. in a lot of productions she even mimics her blanche voice just for fun. jeremy tries to respond here but she doesn’t care because she’s in her own brain where everything only really seems to make sense to her.

And no matter how hard I try, It’s impossible to narrow down the many reasons why, I love play rehearsal. I happiness cry whenever it starts!

if she isn’t being hyperbolic then this plays into my ‘so much emotion it’s hard to control’ thing detailed a bit above. either way, big special interest mood.

It’s just so universal Getting to try playing so many parts. Most humans do one thing for all of their lives, The thought of that gives me hives! I’ve got so many interests I wanna pursue,

it’s a lot easier to lose yourself and connect to your special interest than focus on your very complex, very overwhelming real life issues. escaping into fiction and being able to play in a variety of social situations as a totally different person, yay theater!

in general i just like the idea of christine struggling to visualize who she is and thinking about a lot of hypothetical but being unable to choose which one is most desirable or plausible. idk if that’s autistic or just a fun character trait lol. i know jumping from interest to interest is an adhd thing though.

this little passage is good for at least showing that christine distinguishes herself from ‘most humans’ in a way that isn’t so much ‘not like other girls’ but like ‘life is so much more confusing to me than it seems to be to others’ (which the show proposes isn’t exactly true and is the same closed-mindedness that jeremy has, though christine realizes it sooner; however; the sentiment rings true in that christine, as a neurodiverse young woman, has a lot more hoops to jump through than a neurotypical classmate.)

And why am I telling this to you? Guess there’s a part of me that wants to.

jeremy is also very autistic coded in my eyes, but that’s a separate post. i just like them being drawn to each other through that sort of kinship. also if you interpret her as having an unrealized requited crush on him…well, i think for a lot of us, romantic love is easy to confuse with friend love, if even that, because the specifics of emotions are a mess to unravel. (which also explains her confusion on her relationship with jake)

oh and right after this, she starts squawking just because she had the impulse to do so. vocal stimming, much?

Back to play rehearsal, My brain is like ‘bzzz’ My heart is like 'wow’

my brain is always like bzzz honestly lol. this is generally a pretty good way to describe being hyperfocused.

Because we’re here at play rehearsal, and it’s starting, We’re starting, It’s starting, Sooo-ooon.

it’s been confirmed as a deliberate decision that christine’s songs never end on a rhyme, except when she’s squipped and it isn’t ‘really’ her, because she subverts everyone’s expectations, including jeremy’s. i feel that could make for a nice simplified metaphor for autism, right?

[toralyzer]

apparently there was this series of personal writing prompts for autism acceptance month that i missed, but i decided to do them all now cause i like talking about myself. http://doingcollegedisabled.tumblr.com/post/159842938764/30-days-of-autism-acceptance

Day 1.     Make yourself known.

I’m Amanda I’m 19! I was professionally diagnosed at a young age but by the time they told me I already long since knew I was weird.

Day 2.     Talk about passing and/or being out.

I’d be open about it I think but it hasn’t come up many times. I guess I did work really hard growing up to be able to pass as allistic though. Oh... I’m not sure if that’s ever caused burnout!

Day 3.     Talk about relationships, both platonic and romantic. 

Yeah as a kid I had a hard time making friends but now I’m a lot better at being sociable - in the allistic way I guess. But now lots of my friends are proudly autistic anyway!

Day 4.     Talk about your family and support. 

I think my family was fine about it. Unless in fact my trauma comes from them dealing with my autism badly. It’s unknown.

Day 5.     Talk about employment and your career. 

Yeah I gotta get one of those...

Day 6.     Talk about music, art, writing, and other forms of creativity. 

Yeah I do that stuff! I’m really creative. Sometimes I think about autistic themes but I don’t think I know what they would be, I think I have too many bad depictions internalized. Sometime I wanna do something with the changeling comparison though...

Day 7.     Talk about community. 

I guess I’m really not out as autistic anywhere ‘cause I pass well. So idk. And I’m not in any communities of autistic people.

Day 8.     Talk about traditional media. 

I think as a kid, media depictions gave me this horrible sense of condescending superiority toward myself and added to my complexes of not listening to my feelings. It’s like, you get these books that put you outside the autistic kid to laugh at his misunderstanding things, and I think then I felt like any sincere expression of my own feelings and thoughts was an immature misunderstanding and worthy of shame.

Day 9.     Talk about Autism Speaks.

Ya, fuck them.

And/or  Talk about special interests.

Damn I’m not sure if I’ve had a special interest lately? I guess some things I’ve been constantly thinking about lately are, um, Sports Anime RPG and my Zimmy fanfic. Okay so Sports Anime RPG is a roleplaying game I’m making based on sports animes even though I haven’t actually seen many but I thought it was a cool idea. It’s split into two sections, one is for the sports games and you can swap out different rulesets for different sports, and in general it’s focused on strategy and mechanics, similar to traditional RPG battles. The other is more freeform roleplay for the story outside sports matches, with light skill checks that are mostly social-based. And there are friendship mechanics where you can build friendships with other characters and get friendship abilities that you can use in either mode! And then the Zimmy story is this fanfiction idea that I always come back to when I feel really fucked up in my head - the premise is basically to throw together all the most viscerally upsetting surreal gore and horror set pieces I can think of, in the context of Zimmy from Gunnerkrigg Court’s reality warping getting set off bad. I’m a little frustrated because I can’t figure out how to express how much I love Zimmy and want to save her but also address how abusive she is.

Day 10. Talk about a cure. 

It’s a divergence not an illness so it wouldn’t be a cure so much as just mental modification. And no that would be really evil for other people to be able to make us allistic

And/Or  Talk about stimming. 

Yeah I like stim toys sometimes. I have a bracelet of rainbow stars and a thing of rainbow blocks you can put in different shapes and a fidget cube. I think a bigger thing for me though is that if I’m listening to a podcast or so I need to play a video game that uses my hands but not my listening brain. When I do that it can be the most fulfilling and engaging activity ever. Watching video fills my attention too much to do a simultaneous activity but not enough to keep me from being distracted so it’s not as easy for me.

Day 11. Talk about sensory issues. 

When I was a kid I only wore shorts all the time. Now I’m hugely self-conscious about it and I’ll never wear male shorts again. Yeah, I guess there are various sensory things I have a problem with... It’s not too intrusive to my life though.

Day 12. Talk about ableism. 

I don’t think I’ve got any stories here. I’ve never been targeted directly.

Day 13. Talk about something funny. 

“Has anything humorous or ironic ever happened to you because you were autistic?“ Haha probably not anything I’d want to joke about!

Day 14. Talk about role models. 

Uhhhh I’m not sure I know any autistic role models. Sometimes there are tumblr users who are vocally autistic who seem cool. Role models in general? I was saying the other day, I used to have a list of people I wanted to be like, but several of them have since become my enemies, so. Yeah, I think every celebrity disappoints you eventually. The last person about whom I thought “well, at least so far, this person seems really good and kind and a cool artistic inspiration” was... Rebecca Sugar.

Day 15. Talk about identity. 

I was diagnosed with aspergers but later I learned that’s just a subset of autism now. I like autistic better.

Day 16. Talk about treatment. 

I haven’t done any that I can really remember. I should go to therapy though. Like in general.

Day 17. Talk about empathy. 

I guess usually I have more sympathy than empathy for people? But sometimes when my girlfriend does a kind of cutesy sad voice as a joke I get some kind of weird hyper empathy and get really sad.

Day 18. Talk about functioning labels. 

I hear those are bad. I would probably be on the higher functioning side but yeah, those seem like a bad idea because they describe how well society is ready to engage with us as if it was our own success or failure.

Day 19. Talk about your struggles and strengths. 

I don’t really know which of those are because of autism or not and I’m self-conscious about finding out because I spent so long trying to learn to be “normal”. On the other hand sometimes it feels like it’ll turn out that autistic traits just account for my whole personality.

Day 20. Talk about communication. 

I’m verbal, sometimes I like when I can communicate in other ways though, like when I can get something across with quick hand signs.

Day 21. Talk about comorbid conditions.

Well I’m not sure about any of those and I don’t think I’ll speculate here to make sure I don’t appropriate anything.

Day 22. Talk about autism parents. 

Wow fuck them! Yeah I was just reading about #BoycottToSiri. People who abuse their kids because they can’t fathom trying to interact and listen to them to understand what they really need and instead go to great lengths to train them like animals into simulating “normality” should die.

Day 23. Talk about your living situation. 

I have a roommate who I know enjoys being able to stay in their room without ever encountering a single allistic or cis person. ^u^

Day 24. Talk about the stereotypes and misconceptions that neurotypicals and allistics have. 

Luckily I haven’t encountered it much in person but I know people see us as a young boy with a slightly distant expression with a single savant skill but also enough tragic disconnection from the rest of humanity that they can safely feel intellectually superior. Wow now that I think about this it’s actually this really unique way of viewing a person where they feel that the stereotypical expression shows that this child doesn’t really exist outside of his mysterious, unknowable brain and therefore all of his personal space and bodily autonomy is up for grabs. It’s really unsettling how autistic bodies in media are dehumanized into dolls because the portrayer is so obsessed with emphasizing this perceived unbreachable distance between the subject and the human observers.

Day 25. Talk about meltdowns/shutdowns. 

Kinda had one earlier because academic research is so frustrating. I think work pressure like that is the usual cause, other than social overload.

Day 26. Talk about echolalia and scripting. 

Yeah I don’t use really specific scripts for most things now, but when it comes to formal things like phone calls I do really need to work out my full sentence before I start.

Day 27. Talk about eye-contact. 

I think I’m pretty okay with eye contact? I don’t think I give people the wrong signals? This always makes me self-conscious X(

Day 28. Talk about autism as a disability.

It’s not a disability ‘cause it’s just different, right? Or are there aspects that strictly make things harder? I don’t really know...

Day 29. Talk about executive functioning.

IT’S DEFINITELY AN ISSUE.

Day 30. Talk with pride. 

“Are you proud to be autistic?” Yeah definitely!!! “How do you show the world your pride?” Oh. Hm...

[theramseyloft]

Please don't compare autistic people to animals. It's super not cool.

I’m assuming you’re referring to this quote from the ask about pigeons and parrots.

“And if your mom is prepared for that and able to deal with what amounts to an autistic 5 year old with wings who can scream literally as loud as a jet taking off and bite through a broom handle for the next 60-80 years, then awesome!More parrots deserve a home that’s actually prepared for them!”

And I am sorry if that was offensive to any one. Another friend pointed out that it might be, so I went back and made the following edit to the post, immediately following the paragraph above.

“(Before any one gets concerned, I am autistic! I do not describe parrots this way as an insult. The similarities are just glaring to me, and if the thought of living with an autistic human child is upsetting, you should really rethink getting a parrot.)”

I stated at the beginning of the post that I’m not good with words either. 

Writing is the way I communicate most eloquently. I literally can’t talk like this vocally, unless I’ve spent HOURS practicing.

If I don’t mean any harm by it, I often can’t see how it could be hurtful, and I depend on more socially adept followers and friends to take me aside and point things out when I miss them.

I did not make the comparison for shock value or to degrade any one.

I am autistic. 

The similarities are genuinely glaring, to me.

I see myself and other people like me in every complaint I have ever heard some one make when they got rid of a parrot.

“It’s too loud!” “It destroys EVERYTHING!” “It won’t let me cuddle when *I* want to!” “It won’t stop plucking!” “I’m scared of it.” “It’s food/toys/housing/care/ is too expensive!”

All leads to:

“I don’t want it anymore!”

Parrots are BRILLIANT! 

Not only are they incredible mimics, but they are amazingly mechanically adept! They LOVE puzzles and climbing and they need TONS of time and mental stimulation! Space to play and forage! Toys they can destroy with out getting hurt. The company of some one that understands their needs and their behaviors.

They are adapted to live in HUGE flocks! Screeching that carries for miles keeps them in contact with each other.

Screeching is not bad behavior for a parrot. It’s just calling out to see if some one will answer. Cockatoos especially genuinely NEED loud, excited time!

Humans that vocally stim are not misbehaving. They NEED to make noise to express emotion.

Expecting a parrot or the humans who need to vocally stim to keep silent all the time is TERRIBLE for their mental health! It stresses both unspeakably to bottle that up, especially if they are loud because they’re happy or excited!

Loud time is necessary, and people who think they want a parrot have to be ok with and prepared for that. 

Parrot’s thick, powerful beaks are designed to cut, crush, and splinter.They eat hard nuts, tough fruits, and many species chew through wood to make nest holes. They even use their beaks as an extra hand to climb.

They are not being bad when they bite.

They don’t usually mean to bite hard. But human hands are fragile, and biting hard enough to hurt is really easy to do by accident.

I accidentally put one of my elementary school teachers in the hospital by running up and hugging her as tight as I could. 

I didn’t mean to hurt her. I was just SO overwhelmingly happy to see her, and it didn’t dawn on me that I even could have.

People who think they want a parrot need to be prepared for the fact that they don’t innately know how hard is too hard, or that they can hurt their handler without meaning to.

Scared, cornered parrots can inflict a LOT of damage attempting to defend themselves or their eggs from The Scary Thing!

They aren’t being bad when they do that either.

It’s usually a misunderstanding. 

Bird warning signs are just not intuitive to humans, and when we want to touch a pet, we tend to insist the pet be ok with that when ever we want them to be with little to no regard for its comfort.

You guys have NO idea how afraid I was of the neurotypical kids who seemed to go out of their way to harass me, bully me, and kill or destroy things I liked because my behavior was not normal.

They’d be friendly one second and hateful the next, from my perspective, and not knowing what to expect made me skittish and defensive and withdrawn.

People that think they want a parrot need to be prepared to learn to understand enough of its behavior to know when it’s receptive to interaction and when it’s overstimulated pr afraid and needs its boundaries to be respected.

You also need to understand that all parrots tamed by imprinting are at least some degree of mentally ill.

Mental illness and neurotype are not the same thing.

There is nothing wrong with an autistic person. We are healthy people whose brains process and store and retrieve information differently from what is more common and thus considered typical.

Mental illness is usually caused by physical or emotional trauma or neglect.

Let’s start with the fact that the vast majority of parrots do not get to live their lives as parrots.

They are removed from their parents and raised by humans, which is, let me remind you, genuinely necessary for them to be safe to handle in captivity.

Imprinting, as stated in the post, does not just make an animal think you are its mother. 

A birds entire species identity is conveyed through imprinting. “This is what you are, this is your social structure, these are your normal behaviors, this is what you eat, how you live, what you should be sexually attracted to.”

Parrots raised by humans think that they are human because that’s what imprinting does.But all of its instinctual urges will be parrot, and they will not match the thing it has imprinted on, which leads to a LOT of the miscomunication that stresses the bird and overwhelms the owner.

Humans don’t imprint, but I can tell you from experience that there is a disconnect between the way neurotypical and autistic humans think and process and interact with the world just drastic enough that it makes it hard to communicate effectively, despite being the same species and speaking the same language.

It’s incredibly frustrating, and with out any indication that the other can understand you, you just... give up and withdraw. 

People who think they want a parrot need to understand that a withdrawn bird doesn’t hate them and isn’t being bad. Its attempts to communicate have failed and it has given up.

An understanding of psitticine body language will go a LONG way to prevent this issue.

Most pet parrots live functionally alone and spend most of their time confined to their cage. They may never see another bird of their species, or even another bird, period, in their lives.

Look at most parrot cages on the market and the species they are marketed as suitable for.Most parrot cages are just display stands, barely large enough for the bird to stretch its wings out all the way, never mind flying or climbing or engaging in any natural behaviours!

And keep in mind that these are wild animals, less than ten generations into domestication.

Adapting to confinement takes GENERATIONS of selective breeding, and all ethics aside, parrots just haven’t had the TIME!

An intelligent, intensely social animal used to traveling great distances, spending a lot of time foraging and relying on chewing to get almost every comfort met from food to nests will hallucinate, pace, tear up its enclosure, lash out at its handlers, and eventually self mutilate when deprived of all social interaction, mental stimulation, physical activity, and behavioral outlets necessary to reduce stress.

Sound familiar?

Parrots don’t get to choose who they live with. Autistic humans don't get to choose who they are born to or who becomes their care taker. And the consequances of willingly or accidentally failing to meet their needs are STRIKINGKLY similar.

I am sorry if that is offensive.

I was not drawing attention to these parallels to say “Parrots are terrible because they are like autistic people!” 

I am pointing them out as food for thought to remind people to respect that their needs are complex, not especially intuitive to the typical joe, and if you want one, you need to be prepared to spend the next 60-80 years doing your best to keep the commitment you made to meet them all.