#Autistic Interviews

[neuropoppins]

Gender Critical Autistics

"I am an autistic women who grew up as an autistic girl, I just wasn’t aware of it. At 13 I had my first suicidal thoughts, which persisted on and off, until I was in my late twenties. I had no idea why I felt so disconnected from the world. I felt as though there was another planet that I was supposed to be on; that this one was just too small, too impossible, too wrong. Nothing made sense and I longed for something or somewhere else, where I could exist in a way that made sense. I couldn’t understand why everyone around me seemed to know exactly what to do.

If my school had told me, or taught me, that I might have a different identity, a reason why I felt so utterly different to everyone else, a way of making sense of some of the pain and utter self-loathing and suicidality that I felt, I would have grabbed at it with both hands.

Meanwhile, back in 1986, I was stuck, with no internal sense of gender, no coherent feeling of being male or female but a crashing feeling of suicidality. If I had been told that this meant something, and I belonged somewhere because of it, I’d have grabbed at it with both hands. If it meant taking medication, no matter the side effects, even better, because with my damaged sense of the world, medication meant that whatever I was experiencing was real.

I would know that the cacophony in my head was so important, so relevant, that a doctor somewhere had given me something to take to make it all better. It would give it meaning and leave no room for doubt; there was something wrong with me. It would have provided a sense of validation for my internal torment, and dare I say it, to my adolescent mind, a certain glamour. (‘I’m on drugs. This is serious’).

It wouldn’t have been real though. The feelings were real, but It would have been ASD and ADHD; all the stuff in my brain that I didn’t know about yet, because back in the 1980’s, far too many neurodiverse girls weren’t diagnosed.

But we know now that we can be and are neurodiverse and we know that at the moment, these girls are vastly over-represented at GIDS. And no one is saying ‘slow down’."

[nocontextlestat]

[weast-of-eden]

if we do get 1970s/80s devil's minion in s3 then we need a movie theater scene like in s1. daniel takes armand to a slasher movie (a la nightmare on elm street or the like) and while everyone else is freaking out and terrified the camera pans to the back of the theater where those two are making out to the sight of blood and gore like the freaks they are. does anyone see the comedic vision

[bixels]

The Ryoko Kui interview's reception is such a disaster over a pretty normal (yet still flawed) interview between a non-Japanese fan and Japanese artistic. This is discourse for discourse's sake, and it's no surprise that almost every Twitter user I've looked at who's using this interview to parade Kui around as a goated mangaka standing strong against Western ideology is anti-trans.

Like, I do think the interview was kinda wonky with its focus on fandom culture, which Kui clearly didn't have much interest in. But sometimes that happens. Sometimes interactions between two people, especially a fan and a creator, two people who view and interact with a piece of media in completely opposite perspectives, don't click. Does this really need to get blown up into a "West vs. East culture war" issue.

Anyways, Kui saying "I don't consider my audience's interpretations when writing. I leave it to their imaginations, but I have my own read on things too" is the healthiest, most normal thing an artist/writer who wants a non-parasocial audience could say. Artists and writers use this line all the time. If Kui didn't enjoy autistic Laius or Farcille headcanons, she would have probably voiced/signalled her discomfort, like she did on the topic of Senshi fanservice. Overall, Kui handled the interview really well. Props to her to sticking to her guns and keeping a healthy disconnect from the fandom. While I think the interviewer could've/should've been more tactful and restrained, the flaws in their questions is not a symptom of the woke mind virus trying to wriggle its way into the pure Japanese psyche. It's the sign of an over-eager fan who sees a piece of fiction differently than its creator.

[enbylesbianism]

i need to see armand be batshit insane. yes, MORE. i want to see him screaming and crying and throwing up, i want to see him tired of masking and stimming like CRAZY, i want to see him angry and sad and grieving over everything that’s happened to him. bc i like to see him suffering? partially! but also because it would represent a moment in his journey where he feels like he’s safe to do so, where he feels, at that point, like he doesn’t have to hide. would it ideally be a devils minion moment? perhaps (yes) but i’ll take that at any given time tbh

[hasellia]

[autistically-zoinked]

Real talk though, do you think Assad is aware that he is giving us one of the best autistic characters of all time?

[apollodreams]

Never thought about Armand getting really into sex toys the way he gets really into blenders and microwaves and garbage disposals before but I sure am thinking about it now

[mossycakes]

hope this clears it up

[once-delight]

✨Bonus✨

POV you trash talk brine shrimp and/or Daniel Molloy

[neuropoppins]

Have you heard the commonly said statement 'Autistic people are more likely to be trans' ?

What do you think about it?

And why are so many detransitioners autistic?

[lafamilledelioncourt]

them: he manipulated them, killed their daughter, and fucked their heads. he's the villain! he's a sick twisted villain!

me: the 500+ year old vampire? with severe trauma? and zero support for his very obvious neurodivergence? the child sex slave? the dogmatically groomed prized possession? the cult victim? the 'has to figure out how to please people and blend in to survive and avoid further abuse' character? the 'regimented and desperate for order and sense of purpose so yeah he tries to do the job he is forced into to the letter' coven leader? the 'frequently abandoned, misused, and neglected so clearly he's developed frantic control issues to not lose his only sense of stability and comfort' one?

next day edit: hold on, i'm not done. i'm sitting here at lunch the next day and i really can not shake that some people do not get the point.

it's not that i'm gonna excuse villainous behavior. the tiny gremlin did all that shit, and his ass is gonna go in time out, but TO ME, the whole fucking point of the show is that no one is really the villain.

that's because they are ALL FUCKING AWFUL. all differently bad, all differently broken. the closest thing to a saint we got is madeline, so sure go off calling her the only good one im in agreement, but they are ALL A GODDAMN NIGHTMARE.

the beauty of this entire series, particularly the books for me but i do love the show, is that the nuance and wiggle room between monstrosities and man is the poetry of the story. it is beautiful that these creatures have this tiny gasps of heart and happiness and hope despite who and what they are.

i can scream into the void all week about armand and claudia and daniel bc those are the characters i most identify with bc of my own personal trauma. HOWEVER, that does not take away my ability to see that EVERYONE needs therapy.

put their asses on a vampiric SSRI, tell them to all fuck eachother and get the orgy over with, and then have an honest to god conversation about their feelings.

DAMN.

okay anyway, going back to work.

[toscrollperchancetomeme]

[yardsards]

i needed to express a sentiment in the creative stylings of @dunmeshiminimumwage

[pippin-katz]

“We knew that if Taylor and Nick didn’t feel safe, we would never have gotten that scene out of them.”

I've reread this interview a couple times, and the last sentence hit me differently. My entire chest expanded. I’ve been blabbering on and on about Taylor and Nicholas having to do intimate choreography, and it still blows me away that they did, but that comment is so sweet.

They felt safe. They felt safe with each other. They felt safe with Matthew and Robbie. They were able to perform the most beautiful and romantic sex scene I’ve ever witnessed because they felt safe.

I can't stress the use of the word "safe" enough.

It's impossible to know what they were thinking while filming, but I can imagine that they occasionally got those instinctive nerves, but they were able to keep filming because they trusted each other that much. They could think to themselves: "he's got me".

That is the sweetest, most wholesome thing ever.

Nicholas and Taylor are such close friends and care so much about each other that they're able to do this kind of scene. They know the other would never do anything to make them uncomfortable. They have to be completely vulnerable, but they're okay with that because they trust each other that much. That is such an incredible friendship, and a truly special bond.

It also occurred to me that that trust and safety they felt is probably part of why it feels as intimate as it does. The point of the scene is to show how far Alex and Henry have come in their relationship that they trust each other to do that.

Henry’s unable to “belong to someone else” except for a moment, and he has fallen so in love and trusts Alex so much to give himself to him in literally the most intimate way possible, even if it’s temporary. Alex has never done any of this before, considering he hadn’t truly considered his bisexuality before Henry, and obviously hasn’t had this kind of sex, but he feels comfortable enough with Henry to tell him that he’s nervous and trusts Henry will make sure everything goes right. I mean Henry literally says “trust me, you’re in good hands”, and Alex does.

Trust and safety is literally part of the characters' journeys in that scene. Nick and Taylor's real life trust in each other can provide a genuine base to build off of for Alex and Henry's.

God I wish they could do interviews, I want to hear them talk about it more (if they’re willing). They talked about it somewhat in the pre-conducted interviews, but not to the extent Matthew is in this. Obviously they don’t have to if they’re not comfortable sharing though.

I think this makes me feel so much because I'm personally demisexual and demiromantic, so emotional bonds are very important to me, in general. It's my heart's desire to find someone to love and trust that much, platonically and/or romantically.

PS: Just to be absolutely clear, this is not about shipping Nick and Taylor!! I'm just gushing about their bond with each other! I'm not trying to imply they are romantically involved in any way!

Thanks for reading!! If you enjoyed this essay & would like to support me, you can give me a tip on my Ko-Fi! ☺️

[itskneeshaw]

tonight’s iwtv brainrot has me considering the concept of armand creating a portrait of daniel out of human organs and other body parts as a hashtag romantic surprise