#especially neurodivergent people and friends!

[lovelessrage]

A PSA for aspec teens [especially ones that are lonely]: do not, under any circumstances, disclose your age, your neurodivergences/symptoms, any identifying information, post selfies, or describe things like fantasies or experiences with attraction to strangers. All of the above puts you in danger of being exploited.

I understand how it can be very frustrating and isolating to be the only aspec you know in real life. I understand how much you may want community, a QPR, or other aspec friends. But you need to protect yourself. The aspec community is not free of predators or people who want to take advantage of you. Do not get intimate [this includes detailed venting, orientation descriptions, or giving info about your personal life] with people you don't know; "people you don't know" includes people you have talked to before. It includes people who are well-known in community spaces, or runners of well-respected blogs. You can't know someone's true intentions or what they are like when they log off.

This isn't to say you shouldn't trust anyone or shouldn't make connections. Far from it. What it is saying is to make safe connections, to keep yourself anonymous, and do not expose your deepest vulnerabilities in public spaces. Someone who knows you are lonely and depressed can use this to know how easily isolated you are. Someone who knows your orientation details can use this to blackmail you or exploit you. Someone who knows how young you are, how you have a hard time understanding cues, can use this to their advantage.

It doesn't matter what their orientation is. You aren't automatically safer in aspec spaces. You're still young, you're still vulnerable, and no matter how mature you may feel now, there is so much you don't know yet that you shouldn't be learning the hard way.

Please, please be safe and encourage other young people around you to do the same. Make the space safer for yourself and others. Don't give bad actors easy ins to your information.

As much as you may think otherwise, yes, it can happen to you.

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 4, Wave 1, Poll 8

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included.

Check out the other polls in this wave and round here.

Luz Noceda-The Owl House

Qualifications:

Canonically bisexual and shown in the show, never stated in the show but is also ADHD

She is bisexual and has ADHD.

Bisexual (canon) and neurodivergent (heavily coded)

bisexual adhd queen

Very cool character that shows children that it's okay to be disabled and in the LGBTQ community

Propaganda:

Has been through many of the troubles that I as an ADHD person have also been through, mainly regarding school. (Shown mainly in season 3)

She’s got a girlfriend, which is groundbreaking representation for a Disney cartoon (especially considering how she’s the main character). She’s also really determined and kind, having amassed a massive found family by the end of the show. Her ADHD causes her a number of problems throughout her journey, but it also makes her who she is.

I adore her and she had done nothing wrong in her life ever

SHES THE BEST EVER

People want to screw her for some reason so uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh yeah

Anything Else?:

Canon girlfriend she has a canon girlfriend. And has crushed on both she/hers and he/hims (Submitter 1)

Enchanted Grom Fight was absolute bangers (Submitter 5)

Frodo Baggins-The Lord of the Rings

Qualifications:

Frodo & Sam are very homoerotic. As JRRT knew and loved several openly gay authors, one of his closest friends was suspected of being gay, and with other historical events of the time, you can’t convince me it wasn’t at least a little bit subconsciously on purpose. Frodo, of course, has ptsd and probably some form of chronic illness due to the lingering effects of his nazgul wound.

Propaganda:

Frodo carried the weight of the world on his shoulders and was forever changed by it. The literal devil’s soul was constantly around his neck, always tempting him, growing stronger by the minute, twisting him and torturing him mentally. He didn’t know how his journey would end when he offered to take on the burden of destroying the most evil object in the world, but he chose to do it anyway. And he was forever ruined by it - so much that he never truly came home, not really. And once he was home, life was so thoroughly ruined for him that he could not stay. There is one other known account of this happening - Arwen’s mother, who was captured and tortured for years by orcs, and while her body was healed, her mind could not be, and she, too, sailed away. Do you understand that? Frodo’s journey was on the same level as *being captured and tortured for years on end.* He is probably the gayest non-canon confirmed character I have ever come across, queer-coded through and through, and his ptsd was enough that he could not come home, and had to sail to paradise to find peace. He deserves everything.

[thatoneluckybee]

Noticed a strange trend and wanting to test something…

Feel free to reblog for sample size—and feel free to explain further in tags, text reblogs, and replies if you vote! Also please say whether you found it helpful or not (if you read it) if you want; personally, I never do. Just curious about a trend.

(ALSO feel free to tag with any type of neurodivergence or tag or whatever! I cannot reasonably think of every tag or way to be neurodivergent so feel free to help with your tagging! And if a single one of you is ableist towards any form of neurodivergence on this post I will joyously smite you into the sun.)

[kiisuuumii]

to every woman and to every trans, queer, bipoc, and/or disabled person, i am holding your hand so tightly right now

[ouroboroscully]

being autistic is only having the spoons to try to make friends mmmm once every 5 years or so and then rinsing and repeating until you die

[ahalliance]

never in my life could i play a game like outer wilds live on stream with how fucking insane the chat gets when you don’t understand something in 1 second

[dwtdog]

i think its so fucking unfair how dream tries so hard for his friendships to not end over stupid shit bc he very openly shows he cares so much for them, and then there's them who dont give a shit ab anything and throw friendships like they never even cared in the first place holy fuck it makes me feel genuinely so bad for dream i need to give him infinite hugs and a million good friends that treat him with love and care

i think dream is the type of guy who likes to have a big mix of super close and more distant friends, but he feels very loyal to all of them- like he’s talked before about having friends he only talks to every few months, but he still sends them sweet thanksgiving messages and what not. a lot of people are very different- they only like to have a few close friends, or they have lots of looser friendships that they treat more like acquaintances, which is the disconnect that happens a lot between dream and his friends if i had to guess 😞

[josendlessmonolouge]

this is the only time I’ll share my face outside of self portraits but here’s the most autistic photo ever taken of me when we went to state for academic team

The noise canceling headphones, the awkward thumbs up, the fact if you look at my left thumb you can tell I’m forcing it to not bend back bc I have a hitchhiker thumb, the giant bug, the fact I begged my friend to take a picture of me in front of the giant bug in a children’s museum, the fact if you could see my tote bag it’s got a fish pattern all over it literally just my magnum opus. This image is more autistic than every meltdown I’ve had in Walmart combined. I hate Walmart but that’s a seperate topic

[essektheylyss]

Safety tools for games are very well and good and if you and your group need them you should absolutely use them, but sometimes the way people talk about them feels like they are using those tools as a straight-up substitute for, like, working to develop interpersonal skills and the capacity for talking openly with friends.

[bipunkharrington]

My friends keep recommending Hazbin Hotel to me and I don't have the energy to get into how the creator hates trans men/enbies and how as a transmasc enby I just... don't wanna watch it.

For now I'm just blaming it on being busy 😅😂

[ooc-miqojak]

People love to say they support neurodivergent people - but I've found that this is lip service, more often or not, because it requires a lot of patience - and the ability not to assume the worst about a person (especially in a digital space). Every ND person is unique, and has their quirks! But in an online space, I've found that people just tend to assume the worst about you, and kick you/block you/ghost you for your behavior or words, instead of taking the time to have an emotionally mature talk about what happened, and explain why this thing that happened/thing that was said was upsetting or problematic - you're never given the opportunity to explain that you meant no harm. Many of these people, in my case, I've spoken to at length when I was getting to know them about how important communication is - if I've said or done something upsetting, I can't read your mind! I have to know, before I can amend things, and adjust my behavior.

Sometimes I'm oblivious to what I've said/done, because my 'normal' is different. For instance, I love to debate - not argue - but debate. It's interesting to see others' POV! Variety is the spice of life after all, and if we all had the same beliefs and outlooks, that would be boring! But for some reason, most people seem to see a debate as an emotional argument? It's as though you can't disagree - not even respectfully - without people assuming you're angry or mad or attacking them. I don't understand people who get intensely emotionally invested in these debates (when they're not about typical hot button topics, as I don't do religious/political debates) - to me it's like a football player claiming someone on the opposing team was legitimately attacking them, not tackling them as a normal part of the game.

But I also don't engage in 'sub-text' as many neurotypicals do, either - to me, it's not only a waste of time, but a quick way to end up tangled in miscommunication. I say what I mean, and I tell people this... and they'll still apply some hidden meaning to it that is entirely fabricated... then get angry at me for sub-text that isn't really there. (When I was reprimanded in an online space earlier this year, I kept asking what I did wrong... and got told that I was arguing by asking what I was being scolded for/why I was being condescended to.)

ADHD people are regularly called 'passionate' - so much so that I almost want to roll my eyes when I hear it, now... but it remains a decent word to explain, for neurotypical people, our seemingly 'over the top' behaviors - be they positive or negative. And I've had people online assume I'm mad, or attacking them... when I'm just excited... or "passionate." Emotional dysregulation can be hell - some compare it to a car with no brakes. Normal people apply the brakes before the words come out - ADHDers lack those brakes. It means I try to be hyper aware, instead, and apply the Fred Flinstone brakes. I don't always catch myself, either - and in-person/on voice chat, this can result in things that seem rude - like interrupting others; but this isn't meant to be rude, and I don't realize I've done it! I'm excitable, and with the way ADHD works, I feel as though I have to get this comment out before I forget it! If I have to hold onto this thought, I'll either forget it, or spend the entire time the other person is talking trying to hold onto that thought, and miss what's said. But other people just tend to assume I'm being rude by interrupting - so I told a friend I upset this way that he's allowed to notify me in some manner when I've done this - because I don't want to be rude! I don't want to steamroll a conversation - and sometimes I need a gentle reminder that I've done so. I often jokingly compare myself to a jumpy golden retriever - I love people! But no one really wants a big dog jumping all over them, even if the dog means well - sometimes you have to say 'down', and the dog will stop jumping! They just forgot not to do this unwanted behavior because they were so excited!

Emotional dysregulation to me is like my emotions are a volume dial on a radio that was cranked way too high, and the dial broke off. The volume is permanently too loud - which is great when I'm happy, and devastating when I'm sad. But I don't get to turn them down, either way - the volume is stuck at max.

So yeah, sometimes people online need a little grace - a little patience, and for others not to jump to the worst possible assumption. Your normal isn't the same as everyone else's normal, and you might have to take extra time to understand where someone is coming from, and what they meant. Sometimes you might need to explain something that seems obvious to you, but it isn't to someone else. Sometimes that 'rude' thing that happened wasn't at all intended to be upsetting/rude, and talking to the person who said/did that thing can clear the air, and they can apologize and note that this is something they should not do or say, or that they should be more aware of.

Sometimes, the dog is just jumpy and excitable - not aggressive.

[wachi-delectrico]

Gonna get spicy for a second and say that everyone loves spewing hate about narcissistic (NPD) parents and how awful parents with personality disorders are, but if someone were to make a post with the exact same cadence about ADHD parents they'd get shot in public at first sight

[fragglerockopinions]

I am jealous to no end of people who have wild D&D campaigns that span multiple years. I can't even get people to play with me once. I am tearing my hair out trying to convince people that the hardest math you will do while playing this game is like adding 2+3.

[honestlyvan]

Also Earthspark team I am begging on my knees pls gieb Bulkhead and have Bulkhead and Jawbreaker have an intergenerational autie friendship. Pls pls pls pls, it would be so perfect

[wanderingmausoleum]

i grow weary of people who are proud of being Haters

[nightgnome]

this is a really refreshing to hear bc the feeling is mutual, but im 41, and I don’t hear enough 20-somethings talk about being comfortable with friendships with older people

after like 24/25 everyone is the same age to me like i have way more in common with my 46 year old colleague than i do with any 17 year old