#elder speaks

[iz-the-egoni]

The Other Kind of Rainbow Pride – Part 2

TRIGGER AND CONTENT WARNINGS, and something of a disclaimer: This post contains language, such as "low" and "high" functioing autism/autistic, which is congruent with attitudes at the time. I do not fully condone this lingo but it has a place, especially since I've experienced sides and aspects of autism most modern auties haven't and never will. It also contains reference to institutionalization and allusion to experimentation on vulnerable children.

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Okay, I think it's time for another history lesson for all you ND youngsters out there...

As brought up before I was born in the early 90s in England during a bit of a transitional period for the country. Some parts of it were very up-and-coming and at least looked modern, whereas others stank of the bad-old victorian days. Hospitals and the medical industry were amongst those which very much had that institution-y feel to them. This is exacerbated if you just happened to be a medical minority like I was.

I don't really remember a time before "being aspergic". My mental VHS tape starts with the memory of walking with my family towards the children's hospital it all started in the building looming up over me, then after a bit of static and tracking it shifts to standing in one of those biiiiiiig white-walled pole-windowed rooms you've probably at least heard about. The ones with apparatus hanging from the ceiling and the creamy grey floors a dull shine after years of being scrubbed by janitors. Imagine having that as your very first memory. You probably can't. It's an impossible thing to empathize with unless you've been through anything like it.

So yeah, that was the start of it all for me and my parents. I was and still am an only child, the only bastion for my folks' projected hopes and fears. A lot of my memories consist of being subject to scrutiny in many *many* clinical rooms, getting castigated for not sitting still even though I was only there to be seen not heard. 'cos they don't care about what you think about your own condition when you're... 5, 6, 7, 8, 9... yanno that whole thing where you ask "when did your family/teachers/whoever start respecting you?" well they don't, 'cos no matter the age they can keep on infantalising you for their own sick pleasures. But when you do anything which could be considered disrespectful to THEM? Ho enby, you're in for a world of hurt. Rebel against the system at your own risk.

There were more kids, most usually boys, getting DXed with autism and aspergers back then. However there certainly weren't many special needs classes to deal with all of this. Actually the number exists somewhere between minus 1 and plus 1. The theory was, and to a degree still is, that your kid would go through playgroups, nurseries, pre-school, then be all ready to fully engage with their cohort by the first year in primary school. All those who think anything about such shit like ABA being useless know this is impossible. So it was that a mother and father ex-civil service team, parents of a child with what was then known as "high-functioning autism", put together plans for the very first designated autism-only class group in our borough of London.

It took about a year to get everything together, bolstered by support from other parents with autistic kids of similar ages; my folks were amongst these. Eventually a suitable school within the borough was found and one of the first ever Autism-Only class groups in the world was all ready to enroll for September 1997! Our name was the Rainbow Class, a name chosen to represent autism understood even back then as being a spectrum: low-functioning (LFA) all the way through middle-and-high (MFA and HFA) into Aspergers Syndrome (AS; what my DX is), and includes Educational Behavioural Difficulty (EBD), Oppositional Defiance (ODD), and all autie co-morbities such as ADHD and Dyslexia.

At first the class had 10 people in it. There was Dom (now Iz), making up the AS; Esmail, Jonathan, Matthew, William, and Charlie, making up the HFA; Tony, Rowan, and Oliver, making up the MFA. You may notice something: I'm the only one amongst them with an AS diagnosis. Yeah, it was weird as all samhill and mountain being this something-of-a-chimera, ostensibly normal on the one hand but being ineffably autistic (of my own kind, mind you) on the other footy claw.

The inaugural Rainbow Opportunity Base Class Group – 1997/1998

Top row – Left to Right: Julie(?), Tony, Es, Jonathan, Matthew, ???, Jackie Macey Bottom row – Left to Right: Alicia Rickman, Oliver, Rowan, Charlie, Dom (now Iz), ???, William

You might also notice a couple of things about the above. One: no men! That's because autism back in those days was primarily a maternal/matriarchal concern. Two: "omg! the racial intersectionality! half of y'all aren't even caucasian!" What, were y'all expecting all of us to be whities? It always makes me laugh when people go "oh, they NEVER diagnose PoCcy folks with this stuff". Actually if you think about it like this it starts to make sense: Given the places y'all grew up in were predominantly white then of COURSE you're not going to have very many autistic kids of colour in school if at all. We all grew up in a very ethnically mixed part of London, with Desi-run corner shops and everything. That's why so many of us had Bharatey or Afro-Caribbean ancestry. Heck even I'm of Italiana descent! We had a half-yank within our rank too, it was great! None of us cared about our wonderfully beautiful diverse skin colours and familial cultures, we were just happy to be in a class without meanies and jerks in it.

If there's anything to be said about autistics back then it's that we were a fantastically nonjudgmental lot. Sadly with the recent democratization of the condition that's changing for the worse. In my day we explained diagnoses with behavioral patterns, not behavior with diagnostic criteria. Shame. It rankles me quite as much as modernly autistic folks trying to teach me about my own history. I am that history. I was there when the arcane emblems were being hewn out of the primordial precipitous profile. Everyone I went to school with are your elders, in addition to all the other contemporaneous autie/aspie schoolers. Listen to them, that is if you ever get the chance. You might learn something!

Anyway yes... with the passage of time many passed through our group although our core stayed the same. We also oversaw a transfer to a different school after a year, along with our very own portakabin outbuilding separate from the rest of the school. No longer would we have lunch at different times to other kids, or use their classrooms when they weren't being occupied, sneaking around their schedules. On top of having a minibus come to pick us up from our homes each morning, and dropping us off every evening, we now had our OWN dinner room and playground! Life was pretty sweet, except when we were recessing during breaks and getting things like "SPAZ!" or "RETARD!" shouted at us through the chain-link fence segregating the mainstream kids' part of the back field with ours.

The Rainbow Opportunity Base Class Group – 1999-2001

1st Pic – Left to Right: Harry(?), Rowan, Dom (now Iz), Jonathan, William, Es, ??? 2nd Pic – Left to Right: Harry(?), William, Rebecca, Es, Dom (now Iz)

You might ask what this all has to do with the fisciality of toasted brioche? Well... a lot of my gender journey has been picking out all the werid af bits from my past and more importantly taking a fine-tined fork to myself and how I interact with all my historical experiences. Yanno when I mentioned that I was the only one in my class with AS? Well at some point a girl called Rebecca joined our lot. Her diagnosis was also Aspergers. She was definitively a bit of a tomboy and had some very masc-y mannerisms, in retrospect. Also liked to rat me out to the other teachers whenever we were masquerading in the normie parts of the school and I was being my hyper young self, as I was wont to do back then. Don't get me wrong she could also be a great support and something of a big sister figure in a time and at a place which was often brutal, but that's a double-bladed lightsabre of heterochromacity yanno?

So we finally had a boy and a girl with AS. "But..." I hear you begin "You're an enby!" Yes. That is quite honestly part of the biggest problem alive... It's taken me years and YEARS to get through all the reasoning to solve the null hypothecis in my cranial chasm. Turns out if you're autistic there's a 1 in 20 chance you're gonna be genderqueer in some way. Contending with the fact that there were maybe up to double-10 of us in all through the years it makes perfect sense that at least one of us would be. Yeah but I didn't know that 15 years ago when I started questioning things without any language or context to work from.

That's why I was all like "My bod was routinely Assigned Male At Birth, which is something that’ll bear much significance later so I’ll only bring it up when necessary" in Part The Onest, 'cos it weighs the fucking burden of proof down on you SO much. You couldn't possibly be an enby, 'cos you were the boy with AS. You were part of a sexed set at speshy school as a kid.

Eventually all good things come to an end and so it was no less than half a decade after it all begun everything came to a close. Most of us went to Special Educational Needs programs and bases in local schools, where the support ranged from mediocre at best to outright dreadful at worst. I'd been slowly intergrating into the mainstream classes, which saw near-total intergration during my last year, but it wasn't going well. So I went to a boarding school for secondary-years kids and teens with Aspergers and assorted co-morbidities. That sure was an experience and a double.

The Rainbow Opportunity Base Class Group – 2002/2003

First cluster (> shape): Dom (now Iz), William, Charlie, Es, Kyle Second cluster (< shape): Tony, Harry(?), Matthew, Michael, Rebecca, Rowan, Janet [MoSsie] (New joiners since 97/98 are in italics)

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There. That's the second installation of this ongoing occasional postfest. I can't promise anything like a regular display of Mentally Disabled History or nothing, 'cos living with psychological illnesses is HARD, enban. But yeah... I'll sure try, 'cos this is pretty fun and cathartically relaxing to tap out.

Next time maybe I'll go into the process for statementing whereby you're issued with a Statement for Special Educational Needs, and how that all tied into me getting sent to a boarding school in the muddle of nowhere...

[daggerfall]

Nirnroot cilantro real???

[elek-tavor]

i'm late but

[lady-iizsil]

I made a post a few days ago with my face portrait of Vilkas from Skyrim, and I wanted to follow up with Farkas's addition!

Idk I think he looks like a wet sopping puppy in game so I tried to enhance that

Him next to his brother:

I had a lot of fun doing these two, I've been doing face structure tutorials and these two were my subject.

Meme included with Farkas's own doodle. I remembered this picture of these pathetic little kittens and needed to recreate it.

Your honor they are men who meow

Anyways, thank you for taking the time to look ❤️

[r18-g]

LOST. MY SHIT?

[felassan]

What kind of spirit do you think Felassan waz?

Swag

[kuroananosanji]

One aspect of ZoSan that Westerners may not get the full nuance of is the concept of “うちの”, literally “of our/my household”. There’s a reason why the EA fandom (mainly Chinese from my POV) disproportionally ship ZS over other ships, to the point where even dudebros hop the joke.

So there’s this Chinese saying that means “be strict to yourself but lenient towards others” which is seen as model behaviour for respected individuals. I don’t know if there’s an equivalent idiom in Japanese but both Koreans and Japanese hold similar attitudes towards treatment of self vs treatment of others in society. Here’s the fun part: thanks to collectivist culture, one’s “self” extends to your immediate family too. Since you’re seen in conjunction with your family, if you’re head of the house and your “inferiors” misbehave in public, it reflects badly on you as a person. That’s why strict parenting is more normalised in EA culture, because controlling how your kids behave is more or less the same as controlling how you yourself behave. This is also related to how tough love is a more common form of affection in EA families, there’s a sentiment of “being able to be mean to you means we’re close, being too nice means I see you as a stranger.”

You might now see how this relates to the Strawhats in general (see: Nami beating up members for acting out of line). Sanji is a funny one coz he was sort of a maternal figure secondary to Nami early on in the series. Women aside, there’s a difference in how he treats men on his crew and “outsiders” (e.g. Ace). He’s actually not rude towards men, it’s just that we predominantly see his interactions with the crew! Since his crew is his family, he can be strict with them like how he’s strict with himself.

How does this relate to ZS in particular? Well, it’s because Zoro is closest to him on the self—others sphere. Luffy is his captain so despite the usual bickering he has to obey him to some degree. Usopp and Chopper are younger and weaker, so Sanji has a responsibility to take care of them and show generosity as an “elder”. Franky, Brook and Jinbe are way older than him so there has to be some degree of respect when interacting with them. Nami and Robin are Women. This only leaves Zoro, who is his equal in both age, power and hierarchical position on the crew. Essentially, Sanji has every right to hold Zoro to the exact same standard as he would himself. And given that Sanji is extremely harsh to himself, he’s harsh to Zoro too.

This is why there was virtually no discourse over the “Sanji calls Zoro a liability” moment in the EA fandom. The unspoken context was that Sanji was apologising to Jinbe for Zoro, who wasn’t performing his best. And since Jinbe is relatively new to the crew and also much older than Sanji, it feels like a mother/wife apologising for her son/husband?? It’s giving “I’m sorry my Zoro embarrassed us”?? It’s giving “Zoro is my responsibility”?? On the flip side Zoro absolutely does this to Sanji too. I can’t name a specific anime moment but in one of the mobile game collabs he said something like “sorry our cook caused trouble for you”. The specific wording was うちのコック. (They both think they’re managing the other lmao I hate them)

Tldr: Zoro and Sanji see themselves as one household unit 😭 hence the bickering and bluntness and lack of pretences in general.

[omiramotakiart]

Sketch I made a while ago and randomly remember from time to time

[thelurkershideout]

Historians always talk about how impressive Martin Septim's translation of the Mysterium Xarxes is. And like yeah, translating a daedric artifact in record time with minimal effects to your sanity and well-being is impressive. BUT I think everyone forgets the fact that he did it while also getting his dick sucked clean off by the Hero of Kvatch which only makes it even more impressive.

The man was a truly gifted scholar.

[unknownhomosapien]

had an idea, drew the idea

[on-repeat-again]

Something about the parallels between Dan Heng and Sunday are really getting to me rn

Like, they both have a past self they are trying to run away from, and an image they want to leave behind

They've both spent time in prison and are currently avoiding the law from their respective planets (mostly bc it's awkward for them more than that they'd be arrested)

They have had expectations of leadership following them for their whole lives, and because of that are naturally very serious and responsible

But despite their histories weighing them down they're both determined to improve themselves, make up for the harm they've done to the people they love, and also expand their horizons by exploring new worlds!

Their only real divergence is their philosophy around their introspection

Sunday was groomed into choosing his path and following the Order and now has to unlearn all the things he thinks he knows. Whereas Dan Heng has no memories of his past life so he has to do his best to learn more about himself in order to confront the parts of himself that made the mistakes.

One in the pursuit of complete reconstruction of himself and the other in pursuit of complete deconstruction, but with the same ultimate end goal

[moonshynecybin]

it does rule that because of valentino rossi now every person who wins the title and succeeds at the very pinnacle of motorcycle racing needs to immediately do bit theater. like congrats you won but wait☝️you cannot chug champagne or hug your mom until you do a lengthy costume change and we turn on the smoke machine for the cameras

[daggerfall]

They turned King Narilmor into a horse...

[brittle-doughie]

The reason why I probably won’t make many relationship charts would be the levels of simping these 4 would have towards Y/N Cookie in the chart. Not just these four, but any cookie with a chart for Y/N Cookie, which is a majority of them.

White Lily Cookie >>> Y/N Cookie: “A very, very, VERY cherished friend. I’ve..never felt this way towards a cookie until I had met them...”

Mercurial Knight Cookie >>> Y/N Cookie: “I feel at ease when I’m around them.”

Sliverbell Cookie >>> Y/N Cookie: “The warmest heart I’ve ever felt..”

Elder Faerie Cookie >>> Y/N Cookie: “You are the soul made for me and this land..and its bright future.”

[nerevar-quote-and-star]

In English, we say, "Flirting."

In TES, we say, "Sorry lass . . . I've got important things to do. We'll speak another time."

[brewerssupplies]

Well, here's Scrolls! A short little rpg I've been working on a for a bit that's somewhat inspired by Elder Scrolls, specifically the more absurd parts of their physics and gameplay. I really hope you enjoy!

[PDF]