#hard to explain!

[jazzzzzzhands]

hmmmm just messing with color paletes and brushes it's just what i do when i feel like im getting too comfortable in art other ppl like consistency and i just... dont i get so fussy and overthink! this kinda raw messing around helps to sooth the brain worms

[bamsara]

I love blocking people I've never interacted with based off their replies on some random popular post. Wow random user on a post with 50k notes with the worst take ever, I hope I never meet you and will make sure we never do

[atissi]

i don't really like when people say dungeon meshi is accidentally good autistic representation, because while i understand not wanting to make conclusions without explicit confirmation from the author, there's always the weird assumption that non-western authors somehow don't know about things like neurodivergency/queerness/etc. (on top of the assumptions that east asian authors are somehow more naive or oblivious to "western" social issues).

given that dungeon meshi started being published in 2014, it's not really a "work belonging to its times"—it's as contemporary as any other media we discuss on this site, which means it should be fair to assume it engages with contemporary topics (and at the very least, you shouldn't say that the representation is accidental with so much confidence)

but anyways, the chapter "perfect communication" in ryoko kui's "terrarium in a drawer" is some of the most straightforward autistic representation I've seen, and from now on I'm going to assume that laios's character writing is absolutely intentional in that regard:

[tremendously-crazy]

"Do you want a boyfriend/girlfriend?" no i want a best friend/roommate/soulmate that I can go on silly adventures with and hang out with and have deep intellectual discussions with and we can be life partners without any of the romance stuff

[buddieinmybeddie]

LGBTQ+ folk what was your gender/sexuality pipeline?

[watch-out-it-bites]

Made so mucb preogress with the picrew...

[qoldenskies]

i think its so funny when people take the way donnie acts at face value even though its a horrible lie because he's a horrible liar, while understanding leo is bullshitting very well despite him actually being GOOD at bullshitting. many such cases

[rapidhighway]

here's my unfinished comic that i'm probably never going to finish that's been bothering me for almost a YEAR now... This was part of my metal sonic au that I still delude myself i will return to posting about some day. Idk, maybe, but this is the very beginning of the story, in which Metal accidentally becomes somewhat organic (which was supposed to happen at the end of this comic which was supposed to be like 30 pages but i turned out to be weak)

WHEW! well you can look at my old ass drawings of organic metal sonic in the tag under this very name and maybe I will draw something more for this one day, cause I still think about this story sometimes. For now I hope you freaking enjoyed this comic that almost killed me last february, i almost gave myself carpal!

and thank you @mysticruinedme for being so enhusiastic about it that it made me want to post this sooooo bad :3c

[inkskinned]

even 2 years ago people still said autism with a whisper. it was also how people sometimes whisper lesbian, like they're afraid of uttering a slur. autistic was either an insult or it was something terrible, a horrible burden only select people endure. "select people" were usually 9 year old boys and skinny white men.

they are not hispanic young adults with a dog and a life and friends. i can make (sustained, calculated, painful) eye contact. with certain people, i don't even have to count how many seconds i am holding their vision - i can just look at them. i can wear clothes that bother me, i will just have a worse day than usual. i might cry about any changes to my schedule - but change is scary! this is normal!

when i was 16 it was OCD. i mean that was the thing everyone said. i totally have ocd. they would arrange 6 colors of gel pen in rainbow order (no worry for indigo feeling left out) and they'd be "so ocd" about it.

if you struggle with intrusive thoughts, be careful at this next paragraph, but. at 16 i developed a compulsion that involved self-harm. my ocd was convinced i was simply forgetting that i'd hurt someone terribly - a thought that persisted for no clear or delineated reason.

at some point i will probably write about how the idea of "morally pure thoughts" was hell for me and others with ocd, but this was the odd dichotomy for many of us: they liked our "aesthetic", but were genuinely repulsed by our lived experience. "intrusive thoughts" now means "cutting your hair in the sink" instead of talking yourself down from believing horrible things. "so ocd" is a label without any true understanding.

it's something i've talked about before - in multiplicity - but i firmly believe in the veracity and necessity of self-diagnosis. i think it saves lives and it saves tragedies from occurring. as someone raised in a house that wasn't safe, self-diagnosis was, for many years, the only viable option. 15 and honestly googling: am i depressed or are there demons affecting my behavior.

but it is not genuine self-diagnosis anymore, most of the time. it is a strange, blanched version of that whispered word autism. now certain traits are constantly seen as "autistic" - any passing intense interest. any flubbed social interaction. people say it while laughing - a touch of the 'tism.

and i like the acceptance! i do. i like that people are talking about it. i like that if i self-identify, more people speak up and say me too, bitch. but there is something-else quietly happening, the way it happened to OCD. the quirky, "fun" parts have been washed and sanitized and removed of all suffering. now it is just something that makes you "a little bit silly."

it took me 27 years on this planet before i learned to make friends. something about me just seems incredibly odd, i guess, some kind of radiation monitoring. someone once (in a way that was almost friendly) told me i am doing the right things, but in a way that's off-putting. i have scoured myself raw attempting to be charming.

someone on tiktok does a deep dive into their particular passion. the top comment says "what kind of autism is this lol". like we are a breed of animal. like it has no influence on our experience. like our life is a fresh breeze, an open meadow.

more often for me, life was a drowning.

[yet-another-haven-of-dollya]

So... uh...... yeah I kinda like them and their chemistry a lil bit too much *cough* and uh I think it would be cool if the sassier is uh- shorter *cough cough* and the "more spacious in the head" is taller

[lilybug-02]

In short- the bugs of Hallownest did not take it well. Lots of screaming about "The end of the world" and "past sins coming back to haunt them". Elderbug almost had his second heart attack and basically every bug, other than the Pale King children and Quirrel, hid for several hours. (Zote likes to claim he was the first to make contact)

As for why Dewi's Dad is in Dirtmouth? Well, he wasn't very happy when his 11 year old son told him about going into a 'mysterious cave' to see his bug friends. Adult supervision and all that.

[ferncloud]

puppy kitty

[kinerxy]

Honrses

[cryptidmickle]

a little late to deny the kiss pv

[heavyheavycream]

feedist kinktober 23 : bonfire bash

[foolnamedjoey]

Cheesy but I do not care