#but overall just stop hiding I guess. i don't need to defend myself. I do need to find people to connect with

[faithfromanewperspective]

My name is Ariel. I'm the first ever person to be recognised to have a PDA profile (of autism) without autism. And I've realised recently how much the random stuff I do on here, is what I want to be doing for the rest of my life.

So much of my existence has been spent masking, hiding who I really am. And how could I not? When there is no representation of a neurotype anything like mine. When there is no category for it in people's heads either, and so the way they perceive me--and I see it in the way they communicate with me, in their language and behaviour--tends to be a facet, a side, a view of the real me that never shows the whole picture. It's exhausting, never really being known. Existing in fragments of myself to accommodate for people who genuinely do want to know me, but I don't have the language to explain the extent of who I am to them and as a result, the first thing they see becomes everything, in their mind. After that's happened it's hard to explain how it's always not been the case. How I didn't mean to deceive them. I didn't ask to be this way.

I relate to late-diagnosed autistics in this, the confusion of people around them as they unmask. But they often will say they get to fully be themselves in autistic spaces. I don't experience that relief. I feel the kinship of being neurodivergent, and I share the experience of hyperfixations and overload in the ways they present for me. But it's like communicating with neurotypicals, only different. I don't feel a sense of home. I'm like you in some ways. In other ways, not so much. Just different ways. And it's exhausting living in fragments. But this weird partial dual citizenship has superfinetuned my communication skills. My empathy. My ability to understand brains and experiences which are wildly different--and when I'm taking in all of this information all of the time, feeling all this empathy, shifting gears in my brain for every neurotype of every person I lose myself in the experiences of a little--it gets overwhelming. I get overloaded, yes, from the volume of it, and I wish I could relate to empaths more on these things, that I didn't have to expose myself to problematic takes to try. But I also see patterns and trends. I'm hyperaware of authority structures and power and hierarchies as a PDAer. And so some of these patterns concern me. But who can I debrief what I'm seeing, what I'm exposed to every day I interact with people (and I always am interacting with people) with? No one sees it from the vantage point I do. And it's exhausting to have to explain it.

But a silver lining, I guess, is the sense of purpose it brings. The sense that maybe little by little, I can be a part of putting some of the things I see right. There are many areas I'm passionate about, and I talk a lot about them on this blog. It's good to have the outlet. There are many ways of addressing them that I can see, and imagine playing out from my unique perspective, predict how every stakeholder will interact with them. See whether they work, or it's time to return to the drawing board. I'm a PDAer, I'm a natural problem solver. And every effort I make takes a weight off my chest. I'm processing things and doing what I can for them. I can rest knowing I've done my part. I'm not ignoring the injustice, the elephant in the room or in my vision, the thing that when I'm involved with gives me sensory overload (or the closest thing to it) and I'm so empathetic to the people involved with at all times, I can get overloaded from feeling how it must be for them.

I have to look after myself. Manage my energy. But it's hard, because the accounting formulas we're given don't work for me. Even common profiles of neurodivergence--I'm energised by novelty. By connection. By creativity, not by routine. I need each of the carefully constructed tasks in my routine to regulate me in order to be able to do the next, which will regulate me for the next and so on. It's a hard system to put together. I don't know anyone else who has to do the same. And I know a lot of people.

I think my neurotype only assists me with my biggest form of art, the main thing I want to do with my life. I like to joke that every urban planner/designer who graduated from my high school is a PDAer. I don't have a large sample space for that observation. But I'm usually right. We see the big picture. We care about justice and we're good at finding it among fake claims of it. We're natural problem solvers. We're empathetic artists. We're practical at our core. We hyperfocus. And perhaps most of all, we're communicators.

I've heard the main thing an urban designer is is a communicator. No wonder. I shuffle through information and perspectives like a deck of cards I'm trying to sort by colour, number, and shape. I match up people's opposing perspectives and I unpack their fears in front of me. And then I draw. I write. I compose melodies--anything to get this constant stream of ideas out of me and doing something productive. So of course I'm going to be standing up against power abuses in religion, unpacking every way this infiltrates into our lives and all of its impacts. Of course I'm going to dissect colonialism and present ways we can do better. Face and push through the fear that has us trying to lord over others without realising. Of course I'm going to reach out to anyone even vaguely like me that they might not have to be alone in it. I might not have to be alone in it as well. And of course I'm going to understand them perfectly.

Is it a skill? Sure. Is it a neurotype? Absolutely. It's myself, the 'me' I never understood how to be until I understood everyone else. Is it a disability? It disrupts any ability I have to do anything else I or anyone else might want me to do with my days. It tires me out. It overloads me in ways there aren't really any normalised ways to explain and I can't say no to it when I feel compelled to do something. It impacts my mental health. It limits me. But it's who I am. Why would I want to try to be anything else?

[ephemerasnape]

Hello! We don't know each other at all but you appeared in my feed, and I am sorry but I can't let you say people "conflate" a child and a minor.

Please take into consideration I didn't turn on the anonymous setting, because I won't hide my position just like you won't hide yours (And it's always better to know who you're actually talking to). Also english isn't my first language so I hope you will understand what I'm saying.

A minor is a child for a reason. The law created the notion of minor because even if you're a teen, like 16-17 yo, you can get influenced. You can get manipulated. And you can not realise it. At 17yo you don't have the ability to properly defend yourself against adults.

What I mean is : Adults are socially superior. We're all taught as kids to respect them. Going against them is difficult for some teens. And they know that, which is why preserving kids' innocence and teaching them about the possible adults taking advantage of their youth is important. With an adult, in an intimate relationship, their consent will be biased.

Cause no adult should be attracted to a 15 yo. No adult should have a relationship with a minor, who's a child thank you very much, because their relationship will never be equal.

Picturing a 15yo with a 30yo man is sick. That's what it is. She didn't even finish to grow up, she doesn't even have a mind of her own. Did I also specify that the human brain ends developing at 25yo ?

That you have traumas you need to deal with, fine. This could be your way to interiorise what happened to you, to feel less lonely about it and I understand it. Or maybe you're still young, picturing yourself with Rookwood because you like his face and don't realise how wrong this is. You could still write age gap with another adult, some BDSM child play for example.

but a real 15yo???? with a 30yo man???? This is clearly hidden patriarchy, teaching you that the younger women are the more attractive they get, that youth is purity and men should own it and corrupt it. It's completely and utterly toxic.

Do you realise this really happened to people and that they struggle with it now that they are adults ? There is no romance in it. Only sickness.

This is the internet. I guess no one will stop you from ever writing what you write but you have to hear it isn't right.

Hello @mianeryh!

First I'd like to thank you for your very decent message, and for coming to me directly instead of hiding behind anonymous sniping.

A minor is a person under the age of 18. Child has a different connotation to most people.

As you can see there are multiple definitions of "child." In this context I am using the first one.

I'm not saying an adolescent is an adult - far from it! I'm just saying they are not a child in the way that people are using the term.

Sixteen is a common age to legally give sexual consent, drive a car, and in some places they even want to give sixteen-year-olds the vote.

Obviously, a sixteen year old is not a child. But that doesn't mean they are an adult either. They're in a weird in-between state called an adolescent or a teenager.

Then again, I don't think an eighteen year old is really an adult. Hell, I still don't feel like an adult!

Regardless, in no way do I condone sexual activity or a relationships between an actual adult and an actual minor with more than a couple years between them. I am not young, but I myself was involved with a man who was 28 when I was 14, I met him in person when I was 16 and he was 30, and we had sex. I didn't feel like a victim at the time, but in retrospect I know I was.

I assume overall you are talking about my Victor Rookwood x MC fics and my Rookwood x Anne Sallow fic, but it seems you've made a lot of presumptions about them without reading them. In neither scenario have I presented the interactions as morally correct, wholesome, or even desirable. In the first scenario, the reader is MC, so you can be whatever age you want. No, I don't "age up" anything. If people want to age themselves up when imagining the scenario that's fine, but since it's fiction I don't see a problem. Nothing is presented in a positive light here.

If you'd read Devoutly, you'd know that romanticizing the relationship between Rookwood and Anne is the last thing I'm doing. I am presenting it as the nuanced, fucked up thing that it is. There is nothing glamourized there. Really. Please read it, because it's a very important fic to me.

There are two major points to be made here, and the fact that rarely are people actually glamourizing such relationships in their works is one of them. But even if you find a "Happily Ever After" scenario that involves rape or statutory rape or whatever, the important point is it's fiction.

What people write in a fictional context should not be presumed to represent what they want to happen, or what they support happening in real life. In the Harry Potter fandom, which I come from, fiction featuring underage characters involved with significantly older adults is common and rarely met with this kind of reaction. I am not sure when people became so moralistic about fiction.

Fiction is a place to explore our deepest, darkest fears and fantasies, and also to make things happen solely to be shocking or provocative (guilty as charged). We don't need an excuse more than "because I wanted to."

In the real world, I am (of course) very much against rape. I'm very much against sexually-exploitative relationships involving real people. I am even against eighteen-year-olds participating in pornography, the pornography industry in general. I could go on. In fact, I have spent much of my life being way too upset about these things, which is probably why I write a lot of fucked up stuff.

But even if you write fucked up stuff just because you enjoy doing so, it's not wrong. It doesn't make you a bad person. It's fiction.

The onus is on you, as a sensitive person, to avoid media that upsets you - it is not mine to avoid creating such media or to hide it from you, and I will not accept that responsibility.

As far as the patriarchy assertion goes - like it or not, I do believe that 95%+ of adult men would have sex with a sixteen year old girl if they wouldn't get in trouble for it. This is just my experience with men. Is it right? OF COURSE NOT! I hate that. Is it realistic though? Am I only allowed to write things that are aligned with my own values and the law as determined by any such government? There we disagree.

These are pixels on a screen - words on a page. No humans are involved. Even in its most gratuitous form, fiction is fiction. You can like it or dislike it - you do not have to embrace everything out there, but I do believe you should support my right to create it, and you should definitely not be assuming that someone's creative writing reflects their own values.

I hope this helps clear things up.

[bao3bei4]

thanks for clearing up the translation thing with mxtx, I see now that I agree with her stance on non-romantic yet intriguing dynamics. but asking this in good faith (you don't have to answer if you feel like I'm starting a fight): what do you think of the hostility that comes from the more serious issues in her books, like the questionable 'main couple meets when one of them was a child', the lack of consent etc? as a poc myself I find it hard to sympathize with all that.

so this is an interesting question, and something that i tried to allude to in that essay. i think there are legitimate criticisms of mxtx. i’ve (obviously) been able to make my peace with them, since i (unfortunately) post so gd much about these posts, but uh. i don’t blame other people if they don’t or can’t.

cw for discussions of fictional sexual violence and exploitation, scum villain’s self-saving system spoilers

scum villain gets most criticism for its premise, which uh. makes sense. it’s about an online hater bro-type who ends up transmigrating into the character he hated most, and has to try to survive the protagonist’s wrath in a shitty trope-y gary stu-esque wish fulfillment harem novel.

so the elephant in the room is that ofc, this is ultimately a teacher-student romance. what i will say in mxtx’s defense is that she does her level best to mitigate this. the protagonist is really fucking stupid. he in no way grooms his student. he actively hates the character he transmigrated into for possibly being inappropriate towards one of his (female) disciples. he remains unaware of his disciple’s affections for comically implausible lengths. he repeatedly gets fridged for years at a time to narrow the age gap. the disciple ends up becoming wildly more powerful than the protagonist.

a friend of mine commented that scum villain’s teacher/student relationship was at the edge of her comfort zone, not the start, and that’s basically how i feel. it doesn’t really read as a teacher-student romance, as much as it does... farce. i don’t blame people for uh, blanket not wanting to read a teacher/student romance. but i will say--i do genuinely think that mxtx took pains to be as unambiguous as possible that this was parody first and grooming never.

i joke--tongue in cheek--that mxtx will introduce two contradictory iffy power dynamics at once and hope they cancel out. luo binghe is shen qingqiu’s student, but shen qingqiu is dumb. also luo binghe is an all-powerful demon lord. hua cheng met xie lian as a child meeting his ruler, but xie lian forgot about him. also hua cheng is an all-powerful demon lord. ymmv on whether you can enjoy this.

the second elephant (it was hiding behind the first one) is the sexual violence, whether consensual or nonconsensual, which is a major plot point in the story. her other novels, modao zushi and tian guan ci fu, have similar criticisms leveled at them.

scum villain has a climatic scene where the male lead, who is not in control of his actions, has sex with the protagonist. the protagonist finds it painful and coercive. it is difficult to read as consensual for anybody involved. modao zushi has multiple sex scenes with consensual nonconsent and also umm general BL tropes. (this is exacerbated by the lack of content warnings for chapters like the incense burner extra, which desperately needs one.) tian guan ci fu has a scene where the young male lead is aware--and can hear--the protagonist being aroused by um i guess what we’ll colloquially call sex pollen.

they aren’t like. fun or sexy to me as a reader, and i think they’re something that have been stopping points for many people. and um yeah. i think it’s pretty obvious why people may not want to read it. i think it’s definitely possible to skip or skim the scenes if they make you uncomfortable. that said, i don’t think they’re exceptional for the genre.

my overall stance is that her novels don’t activate any of my personal hangups too badly, and i enjoy reading them so i do. i don’t find them like, societally harmful, so i don’t discourage other people from reading them. however, i understand that other people may find them uncomfortable for whatever reason, and i won’t try to convince them otherwise.

i want to defend mxtx from random vitriol from people who don’t cite legitimate critiques, while holding space for people whose experiences with sexual violence and exploitation leave them troubled by her books. all in all, i just don’t think she’s a bad person, even if her books sometimes have content that can be triggering and uncomfortable.