#autistic dc weekend

[mae-kent]

the types of autistic batboys

bruce: ‘he’s a great kid, i only wish he would socialise more’ child

dick: ‘perhaps consider adderall?’ child

jason: ‘pleasure to have in class’ child

tim: ‘he was ever in my class?’ child

damian: ‘he’s certainly unique!’ child

[deven895]

In honor of my partner's event I present: Zoomies Impulse Emote

He does that thing where he's like constantly vibrating and I think that's adorable

Free to use, not for commercial use

Maybe I'll make him a gif one day

[emilyarmadillo]

I wrote three short fics for Autistic DC Weekend

Check them out ->

[skydrag0n]

AUTISTIC DC WEEKEND day 3 | special interest |

[iloveschiaparelli]

If you go with me to a museum be forewarned I only have 2 states of being:

[darkmaga-returns]

DC is about to experience something entirely new, something absolutely unprecedented in its experience. They think the barbarians are coming. And perhaps they are. But not the kinds of barbarians they suspect. Not this time.

The simple fact is that there exists a very small group of incredibly high-function, insanely productive people. It’s the dirty secret of the world. This tiny tribe conceives, invents, and builds basically everything novel. All of it. They are not normal people. They are the 0.1%.

Unless you have worked with them, around them, or been a part of what they do, you simply lack a reference for what they are like. It’s essentially inconceivable how much such people can get done when they set their minds to it, how many rules they will disprove, break, or ignore, and how many paradigms they will upend.

DC has never seen a mob of high-function autist builders and fin warriors coalesce before. They have no fricking idea what’s coming. They cannot possibly know. But I do.

I know A LOT of these people. This is what most of my friends are like. They learn for a living. They pull systems apart, see them as functional wholes, and work 16-hour days reading arcane 1,000-page descriptions until they understand. Then they pull the underwear of whoever thought they understood this material up over their heads in an atomic wedgie and take over a space. 

It’s just what you do if you’re a person like that. It’s compulsion. It’s like breathing. These are 3 and 4 and 5 standard deviation people who have focus and talent in quantities they do not even have maps of in Washington. I keep hearing about people I know a little getting tapped for transition teams and I’m like “Ooooooh, that guy can read 100 CDS prospectuses in a weekend and remember it all,” or “Yeah, that guy thinks in algorithms and sleeps once a month. He could code when he was 6.”

[faintingcouchguy]

10, 17, 23 for book asks!

10: This is cheating a bit but Greta and Valdin (Rebecca K. Reilly), because the USA release was new. Fun, authentic queer millennial neuroticism (it was dedicated, in part, to hot autistic people); ride-or-die sibling bond and complicated-but-net-positive family/relationship web. The family feels too good to be true and real enough to want to spend time with. Made me laugh a lot. I think I read it in one weekend or just barely over—“just ONE more chapter before bed” [me when I lie].

17: Starless (Jacqueline Carey). I had read two other books by her and thought they were kind of silly. This one I loved! Vibed a lot with the protagonist’s gender ambivalence, adored the deuteragonist and some supporting cast, and was compelled throughout the story as well. One of those things where I approached the end and didn’t want to be over, even though the length is pretty perfect.

23: Feels like I should disqualify books that are wicked short, though shoutout to the chapbook Dyke (geology) (Sabrina Imbler) that I read in 10-15 minutes in a DC bookstore during Roy’s birthday shopping spree. Keeping it to full-length novels, I just ripped through Some Desperate Glory (Emily Tesh) in two and a half days a couple weeks ago, which felt great to do.

[loststarssys]

Lost Stars System Introduction!

coll. name: jasper/star

coll. pronouns: he/they/xe + any neos

coll. gender + sexuality: transgender pansexual

bodily a minor

traumagenic DID system of 200+

fictive/Introject heavy

autistic (tone indicators highly appreciated ^^)

we have some alters from controversial sources such as DSMP! we promise we dont support the controversial creators anymore.

BIG LISTS BC WE LIKE A TON OF STUFF!! INTERESTS WE LIKE/INTERACT WITH MORE THAN THE OTHERS ARE IN BOLD

STUFF WE LIKE

CONTENT CREATORS: Markiplier, lordminion777, Garuku Bluemoon, Jpw03, jake doolittle, Laurenzside, Smajor, solidarity gaming, smallishbeans, LDShadowLady, funkyfrogbait, Eleanor Neal, Garrett Watts, FilmCooper, GMM, Jschlatt, Maxmoefoe, Anything4Views, philza, Quackity, ranboo, Tommyinnit, Technoblade, ted Nivison, tubbo, Wilbur soot, bbh, skeppy, dan Howell, phil lester

GAMES: overwatch, doki doki literature club, project sekai, minecraft, pokémon, yu-gi-oh, FNAF, dead by daylight, red dead redemption 2, DND, the forest, raft, galaxiga, bugsnax, yandere simulator

MUSIC: Lovejoy, lana del rey, mitski, laufey, mcr, james marriott, bo burnham, 6arelyhuman, abba, queen, ac/dc, arctic monkeys, black eyed peas, car seat headrest, carpetgarden, cigarettes after sex, clipping, coldplay, conan gray, def leppard, deftones, foo fighters, flyleaf, fleetwood mac, the front bottoms, ghost, infected mushroom, ICP, joji, the killers, lil peep, mac demarco, Melanie Martinez, MSI, the neighborhood, NIN, radiohead, rebzyyx, tv girl, tyler childers, the weekend, Weezer

MOVIES/SHOWS: the Scream movie series, rick and morty, good omens, You, umbrella academy, izombie, i am jonas, texas chainsaw massacre, hilda, inside, the office, corpse bride, over the garden wall, gravity falls, adventure time, beetlejuice, criminal minds, cyrano de Bergerac, encanto, monster high, mlp, teen titans/teen titans go, the walking dead, une vie de chat

MUSICALS: Hamilton, spring awakening, heathers, vivo, 36 questions, mulan, coco, little shop of horrors, a new brain, Sweeney Todd, into the woods, nightmare Before Christmas

CHARACTERS: batman, the riddler, & the joker, hatsune miku, salad fingers, edward scissorhands, Michael Myers, ghostface

MANGA/ANIME: kaijuu no. 8, chainsaw man, alive, yu-gi-oh, jojo's, anything junji ito, tbhk, parasite, blood of zeus, orange, i want to eat your pancreas, a silent voice, shaman king, ibitsu, maus, the promised Neverland

DNI

basic dni criteria (racist, homophobic, etc.)

endo, demo, etc. "systems"

proshippers

fakeclaimers

21+ or under 13

INTERACT

same intrests

autistic and/or lgbtq+

other systems!!!

sourcemates <33

anyone who doesng match the dni!

[bluejaysandblackbats]

Titans Academy

Fandom: DC Comics, Titans, Arrowfam

Summary: Grant struggles to accept his new reality when Roy takes him in and enrolls him in Titans Academy. He must adjust to life at a boarding school and life with his new foster family (Roy and Lian). Can he learn to trust the people who claim to care about him? Or will he shut himself off from love altogether?

Chapters: 5/?

Characters: Grant Emerson, Roy Harper, Bart Allen, Toni Monetti, Cody Driscoll, Lian Harper, Jade Nguyen, Audrey Spears, Tommy Blake Jr.

Additional Tags: Father-Son Relationship, Boarding School AU, No Powers AU, Found Family, Second Chances, Roy Harper is a Legal Guardian, Roy Harper is a Father, POV First Person, Grant Emerson POV, Autistic Bart Allen

Chapter Five: Home Economics

No school has ever made Friday feel more like Friday than this one. You could feel the anxious energy in every room. Even the teachers had a childlike excitement for the end of the day. I met Bart after school at the pigpen, but I stopped at the stables afterward. A dark and white horse caught my eye, and I stopped to stare at him. The wild yellow-green eyes were what captured me, though. I wondered who the horse could've belonged to. He was the first horse I'd ever seen that close-up. Our English teacher assigned a personal essay that'd be due next Friday, and I broke away to go home and work on my homework. I figured there'd be tons of weekend activities, so it wouldn't be a big deal if I missed out on one Friday. I let myself in and sat at the coffee table in silence. The front door opened a few minutes after I started working, and I met eyes with a woman with dark hair and two small children. "You're Grant, right?" she asked as she set the little girl down.

"Uh-huh, does uhhh—." I cleared my throat. "Does Roy know you're here?" I asked. And yeah, she did make me nervous. She was gorgeous. The little girl joined me at the coffee table and opened the drawer to get a coloring book and crayons. "Mommy, is he a stranger?" the little girl questioned. "No, he's Grant. Grant, I'm Jade... And this is Roy and I's daughter Lian... And this is my son, Tommy. I usually don't sneak in like this, but it's Roy's birthday tomorrow... Can you watch the kids for two seconds while I run back to the car?" Jade asked. I nodded, and she passed Tommy to me. He didn't weigh much, but I'd never held a baby before. "Here, look. Support his head like this." She leaned over and fixed my arms. "I'll be a second. Lian, I'll be right back, sweetie." "Okay, Mommy," Lian whispered. When Jade left, Lian looked at me. "Are you friends with my daddy?" I nodded. "Kind of... I live here now," I replied. "Okay... Can we play a game when you're done?" Lian asked. I nodded. Tommy opened his eyes and stretched. He was so tiny that I didn't know what to do with him. It scared me. "Whatcha coloring?" I asked. "Kitties. Don't be scared of Tommy," Lian replied. I blinked hard. "Huh?" I asked. Roy came in, carrying a folded-up playpen and a duffel bag. "Why didn't you tell me you were going to D.C. a week early? I would've picked the kids—." "It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. I forgot Lian's green boots. I can bring them by tomorrow before my flight," Jade offered. Roy glanced at me, and his eyes went wide. "You left him with the baby?" Roy asked. "Grant, I'm so sorry." He took Tommy from me, and I relaxed. "It's no problem," I replied. Lian climbed on the couch and pressed a kiss to Roy's cheek. I returned to my homework while Roy and Jade argued in soft voices in the background. Jade set up the playpen, and Roy made faces at the baby. "It isn't going to kill Lian to wear her plain rainboots instead of the froggy ones," Roy whispered to Jade. "Don't be difficult. I know Lian has the yellow rainboots, but the froggy ones have the handles, so she can put them on herself," Jade explained. Roy stopped in his tracks and nodded. "You're trying to make it easier for me... Now I feel like a jerk," Roy replied as he rubbed the back of his neck. The way Roy held Tommy looked so natural and comfortable. He even managed to scoop Lian up and hold her on his hip. "Thanks, Jade. You can bring 'em by in the morning." Jade smiled at him and nodded. "Don't worry about it," Jade replied. Roy let Jade kiss the kids and promised they'd be fine. I don't think Jade was worried about his ability to parent, though. "See you tomorrow, Lian and Tommy. I love you very much." Jade waved goodbye to me, and I waved back. "Thanks for watching our kids for me," Roy smiled awkwardly. I smiled back.

I finished my homework while he put the baby down for a nap, and Lian came back around. Lian had her stickers with her and asked me to lie back on the couch. I figured out what the sticker game was the hard way. She placed the stickers on my cheeks and forehead, and eyelids. I felt saturated with gluey taped pictures. "You okay?" Roy asked. He chuckled, but I couldn't open my eyes to see his face. "Mhm," I answered with closed lips so I wouldn't laugh and upset the sticker placements. They made me feel like I belonged, and for a little while, I forgot I didn't. It felt nice in an unfamiliar way. I must've fallen asleep on the couch because I woke up to Lian pulling stickers off my face. They didn't hurt as bad as I thought they would. "Hey, hey, be gentle, Lian," Roy warned. "It's what I get for being a man of my word," I joked. "Daddy, Grant's not hurt. See," Lian reassured him. "Did you ask Grant how he felt?" Roy asked gently. Lian gasped. "Does it hurt, Grant?" Lian asked. "Not bad," I replied, "Some of 'em just sting a little." Lian patted my cheek with her palm. "Here, let me help take some of them off." I took the ones off my eyelids to see what was going on. I was relieved she didn't put them over my eyelids. "Hey, Roy? Who owns that big grey and white horse in the stables?" I asked. Roy's lips curved up into a half-smile. "The dapple grey Andalusian's mine. His name's Moonshine. He's a rescue from an old farmer that died down the way. He was just a colt when the old man died," Roy replied, "Maybe I'll teach you how to ride someday." I grinned, and Lian pulled a sticker off my neck. That one took a little bit of my hair with it. "Ouch," I mumbled as I rubbed the back of my neck. "I'm sorry," Lian apologized. "It's okay... Are you gonna learn how to ride a horse when you get big?" I asked her.

"Magic's in the stables," Lian replied. I looked at Roy, and he nodded. "I've been teaching her since her last birthday," Roy replied. A toddler on a horse... That, I'd have to see.

[mae-kent]

reblogging some autistic dc hc posts to celebrate the start of autistic dc weekend

I 100% subscribe to the idea that Tim and Damian are both autistic, just in the opposite direction which causes friction between them

They’re autistic in the way that pisses the other off

Tim messy room from executive dysfunction VS Damian neat room from need for order/cleanliness

Tim likes bland simple foods (to avoid being overwhelmed) VS Damian who needs lots of flavor or else feels like he’s eating cardboard (because he needs stimulation)

Tim is very sarcastic VS Damian who often doesn’t pick up on it and it flies over his head

Tim has never not masked a day in his life (which leads to his perpetual exhaustion) VS Damian who has very flat tone and facial expressions

Tim needs background noise to help him focus (music, rain, etc) VS Damian who needs complete silence to focus

Tim paces as a stim VS Damian who gets agitated by the distracting movements

Tim avoids animals because he can’t stand having drool/fur on him or his clothes VS Damian who adores animals and finds their presence comforting

They do have some similarities though

Both have special interests (although in different subjects)

Both are very particular about textures with clothing and bedsheets/blankets

Both favor dim lighting due to sensory issues

Both need alone time

Both hate other people being in their private space

Both touch starved and touch averse at the same time (and being very particular about what kind of touch is good vs bad, and what circumstances touch is allowed in, etc)

Both have Bruce as a father who is also autistic, and because of that diagnosis is delayed because they compare their “normalness” to him and other family members (who are also ND in someway)

Both can struggle to tell whether someone is joking/teasing or serious which leads to a lot of miscommunication between them (and the multiple past murder attempts do NOT help)

They do love and care about each other (though they will never admit it), but can only enjoy spending time together in small doses since a lot of their autistic traits are incompatible with the other’s. But they can also bond over their autism which is cute <3

[mae-kent]

tim thinking he is literally SO subtle about his autism. so extremely good at masking. legitimately thinks he has a solid like 85% chance at coming off as allistic in any given conversation.

someone makes a vague reference to tim being autistic and tim just. “..what made you think that???” because he thought he was being subtle about it

tim, carries around a comfort item (old batarang he caught as a kid) with him at all times, will go on infodumps about Robin at the drop of a hat, is regularly blatantly confused when someone informs them they were joking about something: no like actually what made you think i was autistic i thought it wasn’t obvious

[deven895]

Tim and Cass Stare emotes

In honor of Autistic DC Weekend!

Cass doesn't have shown eyes normally, so I had Steph draw on the face with a purple marker

Free to use, not for commercial use

[lindajenni]

week in review - headlines

"behold, I come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me." psa 40:7

‘Nonhuman’ remains recovered from UFO, whistleblower says WYFF News 4, David Grusch, who formerly served as a U.S. intelligence official, testified under oath concerning what he described as a “multi-decade” retrieval program for unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP). Grusch’s testimony even included information about the retrieval of “biologics” from a UFO crash.

Top 7 Ways the Democrats in D.C. plan on REDUCING the POPULATION Yes, the Vice President of the United States of America just said the “quiet part” out loud live on television for the whole world to hear, and try to digest…the Democrats in Washington DC to end all use of fossil fuels by investing in “clean energy and electric vehicles,” and also, wait for it… to reduce the population. You cannot make this stuff up,

UFOs are an ‘open secret’ in the military: Whistleblowers to tell Congress TOMORROW that pilots are seeing unidentified craft all the time and share near-miss encounter with ‘dark gray cube inside of a clear sphere’ Unidentified flying objects are being seen so often they are an ‘open secret’ among US fighter pilots, whistleblowers will tell Congress tomorrow.

Pope Francis Says Alcoholics, Autistic and Disabled People Should Be Euthanized To ‘Fight Climate Change’ Pope Francis has thrown his weight behind the World Economics Forum’s campaign to euthanize people with autism, alcoholism and other minor illnesses and disabilities to help humanity fight so-called “climate change.”

Storm devastates Washington as Biden admin. plans for Israel to concede land One of the worst storms in decades ripped through Washington DC, over the weekend, leaving devastation in its path. The storm comes as the Biden administration announced negotiations with Saudi Arabia that would require Israel to make massive concessions in land to the Palestinians. While the two seem unconnected, students of history know that milestones in the “land for peace” process have always been accompanied by natural disasters.

Transhumanism: Globalists Promise To ‘Improve’ On God’s Design Of Man It sounds like bad science fiction, but it is rapidly becoming reality. Some of the most powerful people on the planet think they are going to “upgrade” human beings — or at least some human beings — through genetic engineering and technological schemes such as “brain implants.” Yes, really. In fact, they are publicly touting alleged benefits, supposedly including eternal life, and even evolving into “gods.” If that all sounds crazy or even diabolical — good, it should, because it is.

Dividing Israel into two? Author who fictionalized scenario years ago discusses movement to do exactly that Author Gila Green, whose 2013 novel was based on a fictional division of the State of Israel into two separate entities – one religous and one secular – discussed with World Israel News the uncanny situation now, in which some activists are promoting exactly that.

One in Three Human Trafficking Victims are Children in Italy: A report from Save the Children has found that one out of every three victims of human trafficking in Italy are children, with many being forced into the fields for gruelling farming work and others being sold into sexual slavery.

Contrary to the Natural Order: Scientists Successfully Genetically Engineer Invasive Female Fruit Flies to Reproduce Without Males Scientists have successfully genetically engineered invasive female fruit flies to reproduce without the need for males.

Japanese Man Who Identifies as a Dog, Takes First Public Stroll After $16,000 Transformation, Forms Bonds with Other Canines A Japanese man, who goes by his dog alter ego “Toco,” took his first public stroll since his $16,000 transformation into a rough collie.

Taxpayer Funded “Queer” Middle School Built On Shifting Sands Of Lies Have you ever watched a horror movie where the “bad people” prepared an innocent looking place that was meant to ensnare kids? Then as a group of kids were about to enter, you found yourself saying out loud, “don’t do it, don’t do it.” That scenario is about to take place in Arizona. Next month, using taxpayer funded vouchers, a “queer” middle school is about to open up for LGBTQ students.

Beattie: While Russia and China ban all transvestite activity, bloodthirsty US trans generals are leading us into war… As our country descends into a wasteland of twisted sexual perversion, mental illness, and child mutilation, countries like China and Russia are taking a completely different approach.

Twelve undeniable signs globalists are engineering the end of humanity It’s no longer taboo to publicly talk about depopulation. Even many who once dismissed the concept as a conspiracy theory are now publicly acknowledging the reality that global efforts are under way to drastically reduce the human population on planet Earth.

We Are Right On The Cusp Of Going Completely Cashless As Our Global Society Shifts Into Complete Dependence On Virtual Currency And Transactions We are the generation that will see a cashless society, the Pretribulation Rapture and the Mark of the Beast. It’s all coming, and Elon Musk is helping to bring it in.

Boy Scout Leaders Invited LGBTQ Advocates To Its National Jamboree Camp The Boy Scouts of America scouting organization invited “LGBTQ” advocacy to its national jamboree camp in West Virginia last month.

Euthanasia Clinics Are Being Inundated With Transgenders Who Regret Their Surgeries Euthanasia clinics are reporting a massive uptick in referrals for transgender patients who deeply regret undergoing their sex-change surgeries.

The Grotesque Experiments Scientists Are Conducting On Human Cells Are Absolutely Sickening …mad scientists all over the globe are running wild. In fact, some of them are now conducting extremely grotesque experiments on human cells that are absolutely sickening. For example, one team of scientists in Australia just received a giant pile of money so that they can continue to monkey around with ways of “merging human brain cells with artificial intelligence”…

Staggering Degree Of Biblical Illiteracy: Poll Finds Fewer and Fewer Americans Believe in Hell and the Devil It may not be surprising fewer and fewer people believe in God, angels, heaven, hell, and the devil. The recent poll finds they are down to new lows.

10 Signs That We Really Are Living In Apocalyptic Times Time is running out for humanity…On a very basic level, most people can feel that global events are starting to spiral out of control. Evil is growing all around us, and just about everything that our leaders do to solve our rapidly growing problems seems to make them even worse.

Police: Kentucky Mother Arrested After Toddler Dies of Sexual Abuse Authorities arrested a Kentucky mother after a 17-month-old toddler died of severe sexual abuse injuries.

Soon the USA will be under medical Marshal Law imposed by the WHO organization! ebola + small pox will run rampant through America In March of 2021, the new CDC Director stated that she had a feeling of impending doom. What did she mean? Everyone assumed that she was talking about CV-19.

[hibiscera]

Can you share some of your CrowMoth thoughts? It’s a ship I’ve never really heard of but your posts have given me brain worms

Okay I’ve been itching to answer this ALL WEEKEND and now I finally have a moment.

So as per usual, what I’m about to say applies particularly to the DC verse I write with my best friend, but I think it can still have potential regardless.

In simplest thoughts, it boils down to, like. I like Drury being a moth obsessed mad scientist who turns himself into a moth monster in a desperate bid to change himself and find a self where he’s happy. And obviously Jonathan is a mad chemist. And also bugs are creepy and that’s his whole thing. T4T weird boy mad scientist couple.

Going deeper into it… Drury, before he turned himself into a moth man, when he was just starting out as Killer Moth… he was very much repressing a lot about himself still. His life up to then was troubled, as it usually is for Gotham rogues, and his main thing was always like. He needs to CHANGE, in order to finally be respected and not treated like shit. When he’s starting out as Killer Moth though, he’s trying to hold back who he is in order to pursue a sense of normalcy in his life. Try to be a NORMAL man with a NORMAL wife living a NORMAL life. While. Occasionally dressing up as a moth in order to make money and be out of the house because he feels suffocated. Normal Man Stuff.

Meanwhile Jonathan is someone who has long accepted who he is and fully embraces that, in a sense. By dressing up as a Scarecrow and scaring people. And I think upon meeting each other, Jonathan is very like… i want to study him about Drury JDHDIDBJDGFJD about Drury is fascinated with Jonathan, and just. Scoots closer to him. I think being friends with him would make Drury start to come into himself more. And it’s slightly homoerotic.

It helps that Jonathan would actually be interested in his insect related infodumps because Hehe bugs creepy. (:

And then Drury turns himself into a moth monster through science and Jonathan WOULD think that’s hot and I know I’m right.

THERE’S MORE TO IT but my thoughts are a little scattered right now. But that kind of explains the bare bones of it?? Mostly I love trans autistic mad science couples. Also imagine Jonathan being like a step-dad to Kitten. She would rip him to shreds and I think that’s funny.

I WILL PROBABLY POST MORE ABOUT THEM INEVITABLY AND I AM ALWAYS HAPPY TO TALK ABOUT THEM THO

[autisticpeterparkerheadcanons]

They say if you can’t find content for something, then make it yourself, so here’s autistic!Peter Parker headcanons that literally no one asked for. I’ve seen some, but they all seem to be very similar, and I need MORE and also I have a different take on it, SO. (My brain that needs Categories for Things doesn’t know what to do with this exactly because it seems that a lot of people think the common labels are too ableist and I don’t disagree, so I’m calling this stealth!autism because it’s Not Obvious And Undiagnosed But Still Relevant, AKA me, lol.)

Under a cut because this monster weighs in at just over 2k words. Oops.

Also, ya know, a little bit AU because I hate that Tony sold the Tower. :P

Tony was the first to realize anything was different about the kid, after he started spending more time actively mentoring him after the Vulture fiasco.

It was small things at first. He didn’t think much about it. The first couple of months, most sarcasm went completely over the kid’s head (which, okay, Tony’s brand of humor isn’t really mainstream anymore, he thinks -- he doesn’t speak meme -- and maybe that was the problem because the kid does slowly catch on to it, and fewer and fewer awkward moments ensue as time passes). He stuttered and didn’t often make eye contact, but he wrote that off as more nerves than anything. He rambled about one topic non-stop sometimes, but he wrote it off as anxiety -- a need to fill the silence. His hands were always busy, if not with anything productive, then a constant fidgeting. Once again, probably just nerves.

But as time passed and Peter became decidedly more comfortable around him, none of those things disappeared. Maybe he stutters a little less, but nothing about his mannerisms changed. And the longer he knows Peter, the more little things come to his attention.

Peter has a hard time taking verbal instructions. It’s not that he’s not listening or focusing. It’s more like he just doesn’t...comprehend? process? It just doesn’t always stick. And that’s okay. Tony can work with that. He makes Peter repeat instructions to make sure he’s got it, or he writes it down if he can’t just show the kid himself. Everybody learns differently, after all. (Tony would know.)

Peter often stayed for dinner when he came to the Tower, and Tony noticed the things he liked to eat and the things he wouldn’t. “You don’t like mushrooms? Uncultured!” -- A shrug. “I don’t mind the taste, but I can’t stand the texture. Same goes for shrimp.”

(He files that information away for safe keeping. Do Not Make Shrimp.)

And, really that was just the start. The seemingly ‘little things’ piled up.

One night, after Peter had left, Tony was puzzling everything over. Trying to figure this oddly eccentric kid out. Pepper offered a listening ear.

“It sounds like he could be on the spectrum? It’s a lot of little things, but they add up. It fits.”

And, oh. That made sense actually. But... “Why would he not tell me that?”

“You’re still his hero. He probably doesn’t want you to think any differently of him.”

So Tony doesn’t say anything. There’s no tactful way to ask something like that, after all. Peter will tell him when he’s ready to -- if he ever is -- Tony figures. But until then, he’ll just keep adjusting. Life is probably hard enough to navigate, no need to make the workshop that way, too.

Peter doesn’t know. He’s always been aware that he’s different, sure, but he has Ned and -- more recently -- MJ as friends and (most of) the Decathlon team, so it’s okay. He doesn’t mind, not really.

(He didn’t present in the ‘normal’ ways when he was little, so, just like Tony, all the adults in his life wrote off the ‘little things’ as something else.)

And then everything happens and suddenly he’s spending a lot of time with the Tony Stark and getting to work in his lab with him, and if the Tony Stark does’t mind that he’s kind of weird and awkward, then he must not be that weird or awkward. Tony doesn’t interrupt his rambles or look annoyed by them. He doesn’t comment on the fidgeting or stuttering. Peter doesn’t know when the hero worship ended, but he thinks it probably had something to do with the sheer amount of patience the man has for him and his oddities.

(And, don’t get him wrong, Tony is still his hero, but it’s different now.)

Besides his aunt and Ned, he thinks Tony might just be the most comfortable person to be around.

Second semester starts, and he finds out he needs to take an elective instead of a free period in order to stay on track to graduate. Unfortunately there’s only one class that’ll fit in his schedule as is and he doesn’t really want to mess around with the placements of his other classes, so he ends up taking some sort of health class, but not the fun home-ec ones where you get to cook and eat the stuff you make. He’s not exactly dreading it, but he’s not looking forward to it either.

Instead of having an exam for midterms, they have a project, the topics assigned at random, things like depression and anxiety and ADHD. Peter’s topic is Autism Spectrum Disorder. Like most people his age, he has a vague idea of what that is, but he thinks it’ll be interesting to learn more about, so he’s at least not dreading doing research.

He starts with the basics, what it is and how it works and the ‘markers’ of how you can tell if someone is. Which leaves him vaguely confused. Because some of these things sound like him? But he’s not, so.

He ends up in forums, because he knows that the strictly medical side of things often doesn’t actually do it justice with how it is to actually live with something. On every forum he slogs though there’s always at least one thread about not being formally diagnosed at all or not until adulthood. And he always reads those because how could something like that get missed? But he quickly finds out it’s really pretty common (or, at least, more common than he thinks it should be).

He goes to blogs, too. Between the two, he finds a million and one things that people on the spectrum deal with that ‘official’ sites don’t tell you. Actual people relate what it’s actually like, and suddenly there’s this seed planted in his mind because holy crap does he identify with this and suddenly a lot of things make more sense.

He’s not sure how he gets there, but he ends up on an online AQ test and he takes it. He doesn’t technically score high enough, but he’s borderline (and the higher end of that, even, barely missing the lowest number, and if he’s honest, a couple questions he wasn’t entirely sure how to answer and that may have made a difference), and the site itself says, “89% of those who fall in the borderline category are diagnosed” and...

He doesn’t really know what to do with this information. He’s almost 16 and he’s old enough to understand this kind of stuff so surely if May knew she would have told him. But how the heck do you even ask about something like this? “Hey, May, am I autistic?” just wasn’t going to cut it. And if she didn’t know, that would be even more awkward. So he doesn’t. He buries the thought and ignores it the best he can.

But Tony notices because of course he does. He asks if Peter is alright and spends an awful lot of time staring at him with that expression no matter how many times he says he’s fine. Eventually, Tony does drop it with a quick “I’m always here to listen if you need to talk -- no judgment” and Peter appreciates that more than he’d like to admit, but just like with May, how the heck do you start a conversation like this one? So he still doesn’t.

For a while after, everything is fine. He turns in his project, gets an A on it, and he puts it out of his mind.

Finals pass, and summer vacation starts, which means he has more time to swing around Queens and more time to spend with Tony in the lab. This is going to be the best summer ever he’s pretty darn sure.

It’s late June, and Peter is staying the weekend because May is out of town and any excuse is a good one. AC/DC is playing over the lab’s speakers, just like normal, and he’s rambling about something when he suddenly becomes very aware that that’s what he’s doing, that he’s actually info-dumping, and -- he cuts off mid-sentence. Because he hasn’t thought about this in months, but it’s back again. What if...?

He zones out, he’s not sure for how long, but the music clicks off and suddenly Tony is sitting directly in front him, obviously concerned. Very concerned, because he’s not even trying to hide it. “Peter? What’s wrong?” No nickname? Tony is definitely on to him, and he’s not going to get away with saying ‘nothing’ this time. He stares down at his hands, and he can’t help but rub his fingers together (he doesn’t really have anything else to fidget with at the current moment so).

He’s very aware of the silence and that Tony is still waiting for an answer. But he doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t say anything.

(To Tony’s credit, he doesn’t so much as shift or sigh. He just...sits and waits. He’s not usually such a patient man, but Peter is different. He can be endlessly patient with Peter. Pepper says it’s because Peter is practically his kid, and he’s not so sure about that, but whatever.)

The silence is uncomfortable and he can feel himself starting to panic, but he forces himself to breathe and try to unscramble his thoughts. Because whatever he says, he’s determined to not say it bluntly. There has to be a subtle way of asking...maybe...right? He’s determined to try, anyway.

In the end, he settles on a mumbled, “Mr Stark? Do you think I’m... different?”

(And Tony has to steel himself because he’s known for more than six months at this point and he’s just been waiting for this conversation so you’d better not mess this up, Stark.) “Maybe. But that’s not a bad thing. Normal people don’t accomplish things worth remembering.”

“You don’t think I’m...weird? or awkward?”

“You’re a teenager. ‘Weird’ and ‘awkward’ are kinda part of the job description.”

Peter almost smiles. He knows Tony is joking with him, but... “No, I mean....” He cuts off. He doesn’t know what he means, really, and trying to figure it out is exhausting. “I don’t know. Never mind. It’s not important.”

“If something is bothering you, that makes it important to me.”

Peter isn’t sure what to think of that, and silence drags on again.

For a hot minute, Tony thinks he blew it. But then Peter speaks up again, and when he finally starts, he rambles it all out and doesn’t even try to sort it out. He just...wants it out. “I just... I don’t fit in, Mr Stark, and I’ve always known that and I’ve been okay with that because I’m just me, ya know? And if other people don’t like me, that’s on them not me, or at least that’s what I’ve always been taught and everything, it’s just I’m weird and I know it, and I’m just...” There’s a pause, and he’s not sure Tony even hears what he ends with, “I think there’s something wrong with me.”

(At this point, Tony realizes that Peter probably didn’t have any idea until a couple of months ago. Oh. Well.)

When Tony replies, it’s not how Peter thinks he will. “Does this have something to do with that mid-term project you had to do?” He finally meets Tony’s gaze again, and Tony adds with a smile, “You were acting kinda like this then, too, kid.”

He looks back down at his hands and mumbles. “Autism. That’s what my project was on.”

“And you think you are?”

Peter can’t even find it in him to nod. He just...keeps staring at his hands and waits for the other shoe to drop because surely this is it, this’ll be the thing that’s too much on top of everything else, and Tony will boot him out because he doesn’t want to deal with it.

It’s only quiet for a moment before Tony says casually, “You wanna know who else is on the spectrum? Einstein. Or, I guess I should say was, but that’s irrelevant.”

Peter is looking at him again, because What???

Tony smiles at the look on Peter’s face. “I’m serious. People who know far more about it than I do say he probably was.” He shrugs. “So your brain works a little differently. So what? It just means that you’ll see answers no one else will. So the way I see it, that just means you’re gonna change the world, kid.”

Peter decides maybe he can live with this after all.

(They go back to work, the music clicks back on, and it’s a solid ten minutes before it dawns on Peter. His head snaps up and over to where Tony is working a few feet away, and says, “You already knew, didn’t you?”

Tony just laughs and says, “Pep guessed before I did really, but I guess you could say that. I’ve had a hunch since around Christmastime.”

And that puts him more at ease than anything yet. Tony knew and still treated him exactly the same as before. He decides maybe this is okay.)

(Not a week later, when Peter shows up at the Tower to work on stuff, he finds a box on his workbench. Inside are various fidget toys. All he can do is stare as Tony comes up beside him.

“Try ‘em out. Let me know what you like. That way I can have a stash because God knows you lose things like no one I’ve ever known.” It’s all said with a fond smile, and Peter knows it’s true -- he does lose things like crazy.

Peter decides he likes the cubes, and Tony is true to his word. “This one stays here, on your table. Here’s another one that stays on your desk at home. This one is a spare for your backpack, and this one is to carry around wherever. I also have three more in the drawer over there for when you inevitably lose one.”

They’re all superhero-themed, and he’s pretty sure Tony commissioned the designs especially for him, though he can’t prove it.

At some point a weighted blanket appears in his room in the Tower after a movie night where Tony pulls out his and Peter comments how AMAZING it is. He gets another one for home for his birthday. Both are also custom-made superhero-themed colors.)

[mszegedy]

30 Days of Autism Acceptance 2020: Days 1-10

This is a list of questions by @autie-jake (full list here), where you’re supposed to answer one per day for every day of April. I learned about it a few days into April and intended to start doing it but I forgot, I guess, or maybe decided against it. But I wanna do it now, so here’s the first ten days really quick.

April 1: Introduce yourself. Talk about who you are as a person.

This is kind of a hard question for me. I think my younger sister (by 3¾ years) would say this, if she just made a new friend the same age as her and she asked about me:

“Well, she goes to college, but she’s graduating this semester. She does something with proteins, but honestly she should really be a linguist. I actually really hate discussing linguistics with her, because she gets so annoying and overbearing about it. I don’t understand why she’s doing whatever she is. She’s a pretty weird person. She has all sorts of problems with, like, depression and amnesia and stuff. Oh, but, she’s trans, so, like, that’s a thing, yeah. I don’t like talking about most things with her because she thinks she’s always right. And also, she’s kind of mean to our mom. I don’t know why she does that. But at the same time she’s, like, really sensitive, and will be offended by the stupidest things. Okay, this is making it sound like I don’t like her, but I do, okay? She’s my sister, of course I love her. We’ve bonded a lot. She’s moving to DC in October, so we’ll be able to hang out during the school year, and that’ll be really fun. I think I’m just a little fed up with her right now from having to live with her for a whole month.“

April 2: Post your red instead selfie today! Alternatively, you could talk about why you choose to go redinstead and what it means to you.

I don’t know what “redinstead” is. I googled it and it sounds like you wear differently-themed stuff from what’s recommended by Autism Speaks, to dunk on them. Like a lot of people, I’m stuck inside this April, so there’s no point in me wearing pride clothing, because nobody will see it. But I do disapprove of Autism Speaks, because they don’t treat autistic people like people, and they try to spread that ideology. If you trick them into thinking you’re a person first, they won’t change their mind; instead, they’ll say you’re not autistic. People defend them by recounting the problems that nonverbal autistic people face, as though nonverbal autistic people have an inherently worse neurotype than everyone else, and not just one that’s more difficult to accomodate for society, and as though that justifies the abuses levied against them by Autism Speaks. I could go into details, but I won’t, because it would be emotionally draining for me as a writer, and you as a reader.

Suffice to say, I love being autistic. It has inspired a lot of people to treat me very badly, and probably led to a degree of abuse and neglect in my childhood that resulted in dissociative identity disorder. But all of my autistic traits are things that I love about myself. I like how emotionally expressive my stims make me. I like how I’ve learned to dissect a lot of social stuff and I can explain it. I like how I can just dispense with all of that social stuff around autistic people. Hell, I think it gives the neurotypical people I hang out with some relief, too, when I’m straightforward and explicit all the time. I like how good I am at linguistics, and how I can use it as a way to relate to the world.

April 3: Talk about special interests. Do you have any? What are they? How long have you had them? What does it feel like to have special interests? What does having special interests mean to you? Talk about your past special interests

My special interests are unusually slow burns. I’ve had linguistics-related special interests for the past ten years. They’re peripherally useful for language learning, but mostly I’ve just accumulated academic knowledge. They’ve, however, also led me to reconnect with my Ugric heritage culture, which is very important to me. (It wouldn’t be important to me if language weren’t my primary way of relating to the world; paradox?)

I have a wide variety of other interests, but few of them are really “special”. As a kid, my special interest was marine life. Unfortunately, I haven’t retained much of that, although I do have the privilege of having a diver’s license, which I’ll use again someday when I pass better naked. I also briefly had a special interest in… building computers, or something. I didn’t have the money to make anything particularly powerful (not that I had anything at the time to use computational power for), but I did run some workshops for middle-schoolers.

I think maybe my interest as a kid in Homestuck was special? It ran pretty deep, anyway. It’s hard to say, when you can’t remember most of your life.

April 4: Do you consider your autism to be an important part of your identity?

Because we have DID (or something like it), we don’t have an identity in the traditional sense. We do have a system identity, but that’s built around our mutual goals and guidelines. However, we’d be very sad to lose our autistic traits. Also, it might mess with the standard of consistency we’ve established for ourselves; we might not be able to predict our future actions, because losing our autistic traits may interfere with our ability to follow the aforementioned goals and guidelines, which are what help keep us focused and consistent.

April 5: Talk about your living situation. Do you live with your parents? Do you live on your own? Have roommates? Etc. If you live on your own how hard was it to get used to?

Right now, I’m quarantining with my mom, my sister, and my brother (who is actually my sister’s boyfriend), at my mom’s house. The mess that’s accumulating in the house is slowly causing my mom more and more stress, I think. I’ve never really lived on my own. For a lot of college, I lived with roommates or housemates, but I don’t think I was very good at that. Also, my mom lived nearby, and I stayed at her place on the weekends. The closest I’ve come to living on my own is watching my mom’s house for up to a few weeks at a time, and that wasn’t sustainable. (To be fair, what kind of house has a lawn? When I get a house with a lawn in the future, I will make sure that it’s a wild lawn that I don’t have to mow.)

The third to last time that I house-sitted for my mom, I ended up getting hospitalized for self-harm. It took her a while to let me do it again after that. Although, not a very long while, I guess. That was at the end of last September.

April 6: Are you able to drive? If you can, was it hard for you to learn? If not, what alternatives do you use, if any

I’m not able to drive. Driving is scary and difficult for me. I went through the motions of learning it in high school, but my track was interrupted by a move across state lines (I lived in the US at the time), and I never recovered. I’ve failed the NJ written driver’s exam, which grants you a one-year permit with restrictions, a total of roughly ten times. I’ve never been this bad at a subject; it’s like I have the opposite of a special interest in driving. A special lack-of-interest. My brain won’t retain any information about NJ driving laws whatsoever. It doesn’t help that I had a traumatic car crash when I was very young.

So far, I’ve just gotten my mom and coworkers to drive me places, or taken Ubers or trains. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that if I leave NJ, I’ll probably have to get a driver’s license. Although, I’ve already got a carpool set up at my next job in October.

April 7: Talk about autism in the media. Do you think that autism is typically portayed well? Badly? Is there anything you’d like to see more of when it comes to autistic representation? Who are your favorite autistic characters? Do you have any headcanons?

The media that I consume doesn’t really have autistic characters, so I can’t comment on how autistic people are portrayed, except that I’d like us to be portrayed more, period. I’ve only really seen us in teen dramas. To be fair, one of my favorite webcomics, El Goonish Shive, is a teen drama, and has a great autistic character (Susan). I’d say I identify with her, but not really. It’s very hard for me to identify with people, fictional or nonfictional, because my neurotype is greatly influenced by autism, DID, chronic depression, and gender dysphoria, and you don’t see combinations of traits in media that come even close to that.

Speaking of another teen drama, I wish I were half as cool as Matilda from Everything’s Gonna Be Okay. I guess that makes her my favorite canon autistic character, but that’s pretty easy, because I don’t know any other ones. I can’t say that I wanna hug her, because she doesn’t like that, but her general substitute for hugs is dancing, and I can’t dance. I guess I’d learn how, to show my appreciation for her.

Archer from Archer is probably autistic. I like him a lot.

April 8: What are some misconceptions/stereotypes about autism that you hate?

“Hating” is not something I can really do, even when it’s recommended to do it. I haven’t been open about my autism, so I haven’t been exposed to too many misconceptions or stereotypes about it firsthand, anyway. I guess if I had to pick, it would be whatever made my dad call me autistic as an insult and use a bunch of ableist slurs at me a whole lot. I don’t know how he understands autism, however. He doesn’t seem to realize that he has it himself. (It’s not usually one’s place to diagnose other people like that, but one of the most degrading things that my mom says to me very often is that I’m exactly like my father. He even has some traits that I don’t, like touch-aversion and samefoods.)

April 9: How sensitive are you when it comes to touch? Are you pro hug or anti hug?

I’m hyposensitive. I’m really losing it here under this quarantine. I had a girlfriend who always made me feel so respected whenever she responded to my touch-based needs, by squeezing me, hugging me, or otherwise cuddling me very tight, but then she broke up with me because of my mental health issues, and because her parents hated me and her friends were made very uncomfortable by me.

April 10: Do you have trouble understanding when someone is being sarcastic or joking?

It depends. I think I’m as good at it as I’ll ever be, and my false negative rate is under 0.5 (and my false positive rate is very low, but not 0). But I don’t think the same thing goes on in my head as in neurotypical people’s heads when I determine something to be a joke. I almost explicitly do a Bayesian calculation; “Based on what I know about this person and this context, how well can I imagine them meaning this statement unironically in this context? How well can I imagine them meaning this statement ironically in this context?” It’s pretty automatic now, but sometimes it doesn’t work very well, when I’m not so familiar with the person and/or the context, and occasionally the intended interpretation of the statement.