#how did anyone ever think I’m neurotypical

[swugflower]

Me: hey I’ll watch the pro shot of a musical I used to be obsessed with when I was 15 and that changed how I view musicals, story building and writing fundamentally in TV. Im sure nothing bad will happen

Me, about 12 hours later, soundtrack on repeat, three video Esseys about the musical deep and after a dream of having breakfast with fucking Máté Kamarás: ah, fuck

[feminist-mina-harker]

.

[impactrueno]

(From Twitter) I think ppl still have a right to be more comfortable with Musical BJ and or Toon BJ than with Movie BJ. No one is trying to say that either Beetlejuice is a good person. We know they’re all bad. Some ppl are just more comfortable with one than the other and that’s just their preference.

And while you said the green card thing didn’t originate in the musical it still rubs me the wrong way that movie BJ stalked and obsessed over Lydia all the way into her adulthood as she grew up when he maybe could have just found another ADULT woman to get the green card.

Most of us find more comfor in musical BJ and or Toon BJ because they both seem more relatable and we are able to see ourselves within them. Especially musical BJ. A lot of ppl relate to and find comfort musical BJ because he struggles with similar issues we do.

Those being mommy/daddy issues, depression, anxiety, being neurodivergent,

(it’s not necessarily canon explicitly within the musical but let’s be honest there is no neurotypical explanation for musical BJ’s mannerisms/behaviors/pos)

abandonment issues/extreme fear of abandonment and being alone, and just wanting to be/feel loved and desired by someone after feeling invisible, othered, ostracized, unloved, and unseen by everyone around you, including by the ppl who are supposed to love and care about you and accept you and your flaws. And I think the same could maybe even be said for toon BJ too tho I’m still in the process of watching the cartoon and i didn’t get to certain episodes yet tho I have seen clips.(not to mention him and Lydia being BFFs)

Most ppl agree that musical BJ SA’ing Adam and Barbara plus wanting to marry Lydia, and killing ppl cuz of things not going his way was not a good thing.

Ppl just feel more comfortable with the fact that musical BJ at least wasn’t attracted to Lydia in that way and viewed her as just a friend/pal. Again HE STILL SHOULDNT HAVE DONE IT EITHER WAY but I just hope you understand what I’m trying to say .

While it most likely wasn’t your intent, your most recent thread about you talking about ppl thinking that musical BJ was better than movie BJ kinda came off as you talking down to the ppl who find more comfort in/are more comfortable with musical BJ than they do with movie BJ.

Majority of us aren’t necessarily trying to say that musical BJ is a good person. We just think he’s misunderstood in some areas. Both things can be true. I rlly hope i wasn’t coming off as rude in this message. I just think you could maybe try and see it from another perspective, you know?

i responded on twitter but i'll do it here as well just to make sure (the posts this person is referring to are here and here)

i want to apologize for coming off like i was talking people down. it was not my intent but i can definitely see why it comes off that way.

frankly? i totally get you! cuz i'm the same. i find musical and cartoon bj very comforting and relatable, more so cartoon bj. i know it might not seem like it because i'm always giving him shit lol but beetlejuice (in general) is my absolute favorite character of anything ever.

if you see my replies to ppl when talking about musical bj you'll find that despite what i said in the thread, i completely understand WHY people are more comfortable with him. he's designed to be that way, you ARE supposed to sympathize with him, there's nothing wrong with that!

movie bj is absolutely supposed to rub you the wrong way, even when he's not doing anything. he's an unsettling presence. *this* bj is designed to make you feel creeped out, not sympathize with him like musical bj. this is undeniable

i guess i made that thread as a way to compare the two, how despite everything musical bj did fans are completely endeared to him and why that is. never meant to talk anyone down. hell, i would be talking MYSELF down if that were the case 😭

another thing i should add; i've been getting a lot...a LOOOT of comments recently on my beetlejuice comics so i've been getting a clear view of how people tend to look at one bj or the other, and i often comment on that because fandom sociology is interesting i guess? i'm a nerd

LASTLY (sorry this got long)

a lot of my tweets are my unfiltered stream of consciousness and me talking to myself 💀 and sometimes i don't realize how it might come off to other people. i just yap a lot when i'm doing character studies and i'm subjecting you guys (my twitter followers not here on tumblr) to it SORRY

[redditreceipts]

https://www.reddit.com/r/196/s/Qr3rxB9mw1

Jesus fucking CHRIST why do they always talk about their straw man as if it's so matter of fact??? WHICH radfems are they even talking to? God it's so hard to try and be open minded about how genderists think when they get literally everything wrong about radfems.

It's like all they do is watch Contrapoints or Lily Alexandre etc. talk about radfems instead of actually engaging with radfems and radfem theory.

Okay, so let’s go through this bit by bit: 

okay, what nuances are these? 

so this is the claim that radical feminists don’t understand intersectionality. Which is just not true. I also have never heard anyone say that??? I mean, maybe there are radical feminists who don’t believe that white women participate in a system of racism, but I haven’t met a single one yet?? Who is saying that white women don’t benefit from systems of racial oppression? (genuine question) 

Okay so this might be a hot take but I actually do think that a member of a marginalised demographic is allowed to not be as nuanced while talking about their oppressor. To stay with the racism analogy: If a person of colour said things like “I’m fucking done with white people and I don’t want to be friends with any of them because I don’t want to go through the tedious process of finding out who is racist and who isn’t”, I wouldn’t be offended or anything, because they are probably right. I as an autistic person personally also wouldn’t want to date a neurotypical person again, because in the past, there have been considerable difficulties in communication. And now imagine how a survivor of rape or abuse or sex trafficking would feel like! 

So is hating men a solid political theory? No. But is hating men a way of life that makes the life of many women safer and happier? Definitely. 

FOR THE THOUSANDTH TIME: WE DON’T WANT TO BAN SEX WORK! WE WANT TO BAN PEOPLE BUYING THEIR WAY INTO NON-CONSENSUAL SEX!!! This can’t be true. How often has it been said that radfems want to criminalise prostitution or throw every prostituted person in jail 😭

Who the fuck thinks that men are inherently predatory 😭 I can’t anymore.

No, men are not inherently predatory. Men are socialised into being predatory, or at least to a large degree. Which is why we want to change that socialisation process. Have you ever listened to any feminist ever in your entire life? 

Also, saying that a movement is cultish and people are being manipulated into joining is not patronisation. By that logic, you also wouldn’t be able to criticise Jehova’s Witnesses because you saying that they manipulate people into joining would be patronising the people who did join. 

I mean it’s possible that some feminists agree with the takes presented here, but acting as if it was some sort of foundational belief to radical feminism is just stupid 

[fierceawakening]

So this post is going to be a bit rough and rambly but… I don’t know how we put this genie back in the box.

Do any of you remember when I’d freshly left the abusive relationship I was in and I read VORACIOUSLY, trying to figure out how I’d been taken in by such an awful person? (I vividly remember telling my dad about her saying I’m sure I’m gay because on my previous relationships with men I never thought I was in love, but this was so intense… well. I still wasn’t sure but I wondered if it might be.)

I read stuff like Why Does He Do That? and I Hate You, Don’t Leave Me. I also read things like The Sociopath Next Door and one of Hare’s books on psychopathy. I’m pretty sure my ex just had BPD, and I hasten to say even there that I have known many other people with BPD who I emphatically don’t think would treat me the way she did. I was trying to make sense of her, not trying to condemn anyone with a label I don’t have. (There are prosocial psychopaths, too.)

Mostly I was trying to make sense of her lack of remorse. She presented it as sexy and exciting—oh no, I don’t ever worry about taking kink too far, I don’t care what people think of me, I never give someone who wronged me a second chance.

I now see these as huge red flags and worried about them even then, but I tend to be someone who obsesses over whether I’m giving people a fair shake, so the idea of getting with her sounded like a fun vacation from scrupulosity.

It was actually “surely the leopard won’t eat MY face,” but I didn’t see it then.

Anyway. Around that time I got into a lot of arguments with people here who felt that putting too much stock into those books was inherently ableist.

The things the books said about lack of empathy, about how someone who lacks empathy treats even close loved ones as objects of use and not as full people, resonated with how I’d been treated by someone who professed to care about me. But it ruffled HARD the feathers of people for whom “lacking empathy” just means “beepy boopy, but not uncaring.” I have no solution to this—I think they’re two different phenomena that unfortunately have the same name (on tumblr. Not sure they do offline.)

Any double way. One thing I kept coming across in that research was the specter of the sociopathic leader. A charismatic public figure who charms a whole community or nation, and once they do that, rule with an iron fist.

The appeal was eerily similar to why I’d latched on to such a gross girlfriend. “Don’t you ever just want to go ape shitt,” basically. What if you don’t have to care? What if you get to put yourself, your family, your tribe, America First?

Doesn’t that take a load off your mind?

Those weird leftists who don’t understand God or gender or American exceptionalism… what if you don’t have to understand them anyway?

What if all you have to do is win?

My books said THAT is why we should continue to think of sociopathy as bad and people who have it as predators. Not because human rights stop mattering if someone isn’t neurotypical but because the attitude is infectious.

A person who thinks that way by default, if they’re charismatic (and many are), can EASILY get someone who doesn’t think that way to start wondering why they bother with perspective taking and empathy and remorse anyway.

Dehumanization is a virus, and people like that are carriers. The more power they have in a society, the more virulent the strain.

Do most people eventually snap out of it? I mean I’d better think so, my sister in law is German.

But how long does it take?

That I don’t know. And that’s what makes me think Trump might win.

And why I continue to think fighting ableism is important but ALSO to think acting like empathy is superfluous is playing with fire.

[redbreastedbird]

Hey Robin!

I’m an autistic writer like you and I have a question.

Do you think that being autistic made recovering feedback more difficult when you first became an author? I know that me and other autistic writers I know become very attached to our characters in a very personal way - not like neurotypical people don’t, but it seems to be a different sort - and that makes taking criticism very hard sometimes.

Was this something you found and if it was, how did you overcome it?

This is SUCH a great question! I’m honestly not sure, because I’ve only ever had experience of how it feels for me to get feedback, so I don’t know if I take criticism harder than a neurotypical writer would. But certainly, I’ve really struggled with it in the past.

I think to some extent it depends on the kind of criticism. I have an editor I’ve worked with for ten years, and these days I feel quite excited to get her feedback, because I know that she and I often see things in similar ways, and the things she picks up on are things that I do know deep down are problems. For example in the new book I sent her a message with the first draft saying ‘there are too many suspects and we don’t get to know them enough’ and in her notes to me she wrote back ‘as you know, there are too many suspects and we don’t get to know them enough’.

BUT when I get negative feedback about characters I really like, or editorial suggestions I don’t agree with, I really struggle. I also just get absolutely sick to my stomach when someone points out I’ve made a mistake or written something that could be hurtful. It feels like an attack on me (understanding Rejection Sensitivity Disorder has helped make sense of this). What I’ve learned to do over the years is take a day - read the criticism and then step away from it for 24 hours. Usually I’ll spend that time slowly coming to terms with what the other person has said, and realising that their comments have merit. Sometimes I don’t, and I think that’s fine - if, even after I’ve sat with it, I still don’t agree with it, I let myself remember I don’t have to make those changes.

So yes. I think I live in my stories in a way some authors don’t, and I see my characters as real human beings in ways some authors don’t. But to be able to cope with the job I have, I’ve had to teach myself to remember that they all came from my head, and so I can change them if I want. The special thing is the fact I can make up stories, not every detail of the stories I make up. (But if anyone tells me they hate Daisy or Hazel I do think less of them as a result, because they are essentially me, and why would you tell me you don’t like me?)

[lesbian-honey-lemon]

Here is my problem with posts like these- the concept is sound. Autistic people *can* have all of these traits pictured. Autistic people can make eye contact, not be good at science, and understand emotions.

But all of these posts come off with the undertone that NOT having these pictured traits is the default, the standard, that autistics who don’t have these traits are talked about too much and that NOT having these traits is just stereotypical and bad. Those sentiments have been repeated far too often in the community for me to fully trust people who make posts like this one shown above. How can I know that they don’t REALLY mean to leave autistics who don’t have these traits, these “cute, good, more socially acceptable traits”, out of the conversation. How can I know they don’t think autistics who don’t fit this cutesy list are bad and stereotypical and should just shut up already so the cutesy autistics can look better to neurotypicals. Because it really does come off this way.

I didn’t read fiction at all until I was nine (I was forced to start reading it then) and didn’t enjoy it until I was twelve. I still only enjoy the few fandoms I know well and it is very hard to get into anything I’m not familiar with. My lifelong special interest is geology and has been since I was five. I have always been good at science, and although I have a vivid imagination and love art, I hate English class and can only make art for Big Hero 6 and the SCP Foundation because I know those fandoms well. I don’t make eye contact, and I have low empathy and struggle to read and understand the emotions of people I don’t know well. I have noise sensitivity so bad that I have almost given myself tinnitus playing music to cope. I couldn’t do dishes until I got myself rubber gloves, I can’t eat many “quick foods” such as instant and microwaveable foods because of texture issues.

I don’t fit most of those cutesy traits on the list. But, I barely ever see any positivity for MY traits, because the community sees me as the default, thinks I’m talked about enough and visible enough. There’s this undertone in all of these posts that us non-socially acceptable autistics are visible enough and we should just let high masking high empathy LSNs have the spotlight. And that would be fine if they didn’t also make the community completely inhospitable to us by shitting on people with low empathy, misusing the term nonverbal (which ABSOLUTELY pisses off actually nonverbal people and you’d know that if you actually listened to them), and refusing to talk about anyone who isn’t a cutesy high empathy high masking LSN. Apparently everyone else is accepted enough. Apparently people are aware of me already. If so, then where did my diagnosis run off to, huh?

[obscurefeather]

Not the birthday gift I was hoping for

Turns out, you may wholeheartedly know something to be true and somehow still hope it isn’t. So, two days ago, I learned I’m autistic.

(Disclaimer: English isn’t my native language; if I used some insensitive wording, let me know. I’ve never even known anyone with an ASD diagnosis, so all the nomenclature is pretty new to me, even in my native tongue.)

To make the matter even more confusing for myself, I got the diagnosis by a complete accident. I’m about to turn twenty-four, and after a second year of not being able to sit down and write my thesis to get a bachelor's degree and one year of therapy, I decided to get an ADHD diagnosis (which I also got yesterday). I’d like to note that the psychologist who diagnosed me is the most caring and compassionate professionalist I’ve ever encountered. It was she who, during our third out of four meetings, proposed the idea to do some further tests because she observed that aside from ADHD (which I think she knew I had from our first meeting; turns out I’m painfully obvious), I also show some autistic traits.

Hearing it from her was... difficult for me and a thing I know I’ll struggle with for a long time. For now, I’m mostly sad. The biggest part of it is that I really hoped to get “just” the ADHD diagnosis. It was something I’ve researched thoroughly, especially how it shows in women, and I had a personal account from a friend of mine who was diagnosed some two years prior. ASD has always been a topic I mostly avoided, especially after realising I might not be as neurotypical as I believed myself to be. I’ve managed to mostly accustom myself to the thought of having ADHD and haven’t been worrying about this particular diagnosis all that much.

Now that I think about it, it’s probably because when it comes to ADHD, there exists a form of medication. As a person who's been living with a chronic disease since turning eighteen, I got used to the thought of needing some form of medication to properly function. But there’s no medication for ASD. And this is how my dream of finally being able to feel like I’m a “normal” person was crushed. I call it a dream because it’s something I remember craving from a young age. I’m an only child and was raised mostly with my older cousins, and for many years of my childhood I had one close friend, my one-younger cousin. I don’t remember feeling like I was standing out from my cousins back then. Probably because, with this one exception, they were all at least three years older than me, and my younger cousin was a boy. So all the things I didn’t understand I passed as things I’ll get when I’m older or as “boys things”.

Then came the school. And from the age of six to about fifteen, when I went to high school and found a great group of friends, I’ve always felt that I’m standing out like a sore thumb. I didn’t understand the other children, why they acted the way they did; I could never tell if they were joking with me or at my expense. I had very few friends, mostly other kids who were also excluded for one or other reason. Of course I was trying to brush it off as just a difference in characters or interests. Most of my class was into sports; I was into books. They were going out to play; I preferred to stay at home and play video games. And so on, and so forth. When all my friendships from primary and secondary school fell apart, I explained it to myself as simply me having a difficult character and being not very likeable.

I was telling myself I’m ok with this, but secretly, deep down, I always craved to just be like the others, to feel like another normal person in the group, not always like an outsider who clearly doesn’t always understand what’s going on. The high school came, and there at least I found a group of a few people who seemed not to think me odd, and, seeing it all with hindsight, I think it was also the time I’ve finally learnt how to function in a group (at least a group of people I know fairly well and feel comfortable with). Still, I felt awkward interacting with other people in our class, but I simply blamed it on our class being clearly divided into groups that didn’t like each other very much, another great explanation for all my social shortcomings.

It was at the university where I finally realised that the feeling of being different and as if something’s deeply wrong with me compared to others might not be just a phase I’ll grow out of. At first I thought what I was lacking was a romantic partner, which turned out to be obviously wrong and predictably ended in disaster. Then I thought I simply needed some therapy. This helped and is still helping me enormously; I don’t even want to consider how much worse my day-to-day life would have been without it. Yes, the feeling wasn’t going away. I started arguing with my parents more and more as they grew concerned for me as I couldn’t explain to them what’s wrong. They were saying that I’ve stopped talking to them and I’m hiding something while I didn’t know how to explain something I couldn’t understand myself. I avoided all contact with my acquaintances from the university. I barely kept in contact with my friends from high school. The only thing I wished for (and, honestly, I’m still wishing for) was to go to sleep for a few weeks and wake up “normal”.

And two days ago I learned that this feeling of oddness comes from ASD. Finally I’ve got a name for it, but can’t help to feel it’s a shallow victory. Something within me just keeps repeating that it’s all unfair. That the hand I’ve been dealt was not that bad, it was simply me who was too lazy/dumb/cowardly to play it right. Turns out maybe the hand wasn’t that good and up to this point I was playing it the best I could. Which, I think, is supposed to be a reassuring thought. Yet, somewhere in my twisted mind, it’s way easier for me to think about myself as something to be fixed than accepting myself with all my quirks and shortcomings.

I don’t wish to end this on a sad note, and I can’t say I don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. I have a dear friend who I know will support me; I have a therapist who’s already helped me enormously; and I still have more people who I know care about me. But for now, I feel a need to mourn. Mourn the little girl, who no-one told why she feels so odd and why other children aren’t making much sense. And mourn the dream she carried to her adulthood of one day getting fixed and finally, finally, being “normal”.

It seems that the road ahead of me is entirely different from what I imagined it to be. One thing that kept popping up in my therapy sessions was that maybe I should try to be more understanding to myself and treat myself with more compassion instead of trying to fix myself some more with every session. And as much sad, anxious, angry, and confused I feel right now, knowing that the things I’m struggling with are in huge part symptoms of ASD and ADHD might’ve helped me a bit already. Probably not in the healthiest way for now, as I more resigned myself to knowing I’m not fixable than accepted that maybe there’s nothing to fix and the dream of being “normal” might’ve not been the best one to follow.

This is a very personal post from me. I felt I had to finally get this off of my chest, and as almost no one in my life yet knows of this diagnosis and only one person knows anything about both ASD and ADHD, so I’m sharing it here. So please treat it more as a journal than anything else.

And if you know some resources (preferably books) that talk about having both ASD and ADHD, especially focusing on women, I’ll be grateful if you share them with me.

[faeriekit]

Okay, so I need you to listen to, “GuardHeart,” by Kyle Stibbs and tell me that’s not some fic fuel. It’s a queer filk song about two city guards falling in love during their shifts as war closes in. It cracks my heart open every time, it’s so messy and tender. ❤️😭❤️

I only have 2 problems with this man’s music:

1.) I can’t decide which DP x DC ships would work best for GuardHeart; too busy stimming as I try to think of All Of Them.

2.) I’m also busy Losing My Mind over several other songs. He’s working on a whole goddamn filk universe, and uh, I’m being very normal about it.

Sorry I'm late, I busted my legs (don't worry about it). Also I hand in all my 0 credit homework in late. It happens.

I am listening to it, and I think the most appropriately messed up person this could be about is Dick. With who? Anyone. But I think he's the only one who played in line enough to get a "soldier" line. I'm going to say "Dick x Jazz, who have never been casual about anyone they love ever" and call it a moment. Having a partner who also is the first to sacrifice themselves at any moment has got to be heartwrenching and physically painful AND point out your own hypocrisy of doing the same thing as they do and hating them for it

Don't be normal about anything. Latch onto it with your teeth if you're so inclined. Love something fully and completely. Irony or casual adoration is for neurotypicals and suckers.

I also think this song doesn't activate my brainrot enough. I need it to shred a little. Where is the electric guitar. Where is the growl in the voice. The artist sings too pretty. I need some sobs. I need some wailing. If this is going to be a guitar and some vocals, I need it to be less full of air and more full of chest voice. No I'm definitely not too picky about music in ways that mystify people 👀 I definitely never did music in a way that fundamentally changed how I feel about storytelling, art, and spirituality. Anyway I'm going to upload something and then fall asleep.

[theflannelwizard]

Oops, I lied about sending all my questions in one, I thought of an actually specific question and not just a super general one five seconds after sending the ask:

Do you have any neurodivergent hcs for Buster and Gob(or other characters if you hc anyone else as neurodivergent)?

This is such a good question!! Okay!! It got long so I'm putting it under the cut, but TLDR: undiagnosed comorbid autistm and ADHD for both of them plus ADHD Tony Wonder :) I forced myself not to get into it with the rest of the Bluths cause this post would be a mile long but i did put cursory thoughts about them in the tags. All of this is spitballing and I'm definitely open to hearing other opinions!

Whatever is going on with Buster’s brain is the same thing that’s going on with my brain, so most likely ADHD and/or autism but DEFINITELY undiagnosed. None of the Bluths have the diagnoses they need and if someone (Tobias) tries to so much as allude to them being neurodivergent in front of George Sr. and/or Lucille it gets shut down immediately.

Anyway Buster reads more autistic than ADHD to me but it could be either or both. He has trouble reading other people’s emotions and regulating his own, he’s “strange” and “childish” in ways that are direct responses to how he was raised but also just read as neurodivergent, he’s got safe foods and takes things literally and has no clue how to read social cues and stims and gestures vaguely at all of him is just so very ND. Also the thing with ADHD-havers being randomly struck with bouts of guilt or self loathing? I think that’s him. ADHD was recently reclassified as an anxiety disorder, too, which we know full well is Buster, and it would not surprise me if his panic and anxiety attacks were brought on by sensory overload and RSD and other ADHD things at least some of the time.

As for GOB, I think he’s got the same deal but he reads more ADHD than autistic. I think they both have both but it presents differently in each of them. I’m fully on board with both magic and bees being special interests for that man, and he also just moves and talks and interacts with people in a very neurodivergent way. The stuttering when he’s overwhelmed is, to me, adjacent to (if not straight up being) him going nonverbal. He definitely has RSD too, look at how devastated he is when anyone rejects him ever. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he was bipolar, getting manic when he’s really into a project and then falling into depression for weeks or months at a time.

And, just as a bonus, I think Tony Wonder has ADHD. He recognizes it in GOB and helps him with learn to function in a healthier happier way and his siblings are so confused cause GOB just magically started getting more normal?? Except it’s not magic (and it’s not an illusion lmao) it’s just coping mechanisms. Tony’s been collecting them from various therapists for like 30 years. He has no clue how anyone in this family thinks they’re neurotypical.

[the-cat-and-the-birdie]

I vibe with hyperfixating w/ characters. To varying degrees I’ve fixated on: Armin from AOT for a while, 1D had a DEATH GRIP on me for a few years, (SEVEAL book characters through my teen years)I had an Alucard from castlevania fixation for maybe 3 ish years (‘ending’ only recently) and now Hobes lives in my head rent free ngl.

I get the “being sad cuz you can’t meet them” part, I’ve felt it. I try to not daydream TOO much cuz otherwise it takes over my life and I’m doing a considerable effort to live OUT of my own head, but BOI do I LOVE just daydreaming about my blorbos of choice.

I don’t speak too much about it (mostly the daydreaming) cuz to an extent it feels like a “me thing” (like something I don’t wanna share with anyone cuz it’s special to me), but if given the chance I DO info dump on my fixations.

I don’t think it’s cringe, not at all. These things are stuff that helps us process the world and our experiences with it. I believe everyone has sensitive weird shit that they don’t talk about, but if there’s something Ive learned is that we hardly ever have completely unique experiences. Most people just hide their oddness. Fandom being a prime example of how much our blorbos can mean to us. I think it’s okay and normal. (Until it goes overboard and people send idk violent messages to others because they headcanon something differently idk, the unreasonable stuff imo)

Can’t believe our of everything people would dare to make JOY and INTEREST the things with negative connotations. Being mean should be cringe, being a bully should be embarrassing. But unashamedly enjoying stuff?? That’s wonderful.

Anyone too embarrassed of their own vulnerability that they deal with it by making others feel bad about their interests are the most immature out if all of us.

Joy is everything that’s good with the world.

Even just seeing the letter 1D makes me wanna scream (in a good way!!) cause it takes me back to high school lol 1D was a bit older than me so my grade had Mindless Behaviour (does anyone remember them, where they even popular) but I remember the days where 1D was like the definition of summer songs

And I can totally understand the 'me thing'. Like I never really spoke about it but I felt like I knew my daydreams were more substantial or vivid than the 'average person' so to say.

Or when I spoke about characters to other people, I understood that neurotypicals likes characters, but they often didn't see them as fully formed 'persons' in the way I do - as to say, they didn't speculate or see emotional backstory, connections, or their behavior the way I did.

I never really shared any of my daydreams because like - I can't even get into it that's like asking someone to explain Star Wars to someone who doesn't even know space travel exists.

I grew up in a time on the internet where self-inserts and OC were seen as cringe, and someone would be very quick to call out 'Mary-Sue's (or flawless OCs) whenever they could.

It's not like that now - but in juxtaposition to canon x canon shipping, that bias is still there I feel like. Like it, as a work of fandom art has less 'value' that art or fics of canon only characters

It kinda bums me out still.

I think OC and daydreams and self-indulgent inserts are all the best part of fandom because it's the purest way of fans connecting with content on a personal level.

I'm happy that I see more people pushing back on that lately. Like after years of seeing people viciously hate furries when most of them seem like very nice, fun people, it's refreshing for people to be like 'nah, actually this thing is cool. and im gonna spend of time and/or money on this thing cause i makes me happy;

like you remember when the new Star Wars movie trailers came out and that dude reacted to it and he was moved to tears and people made fun of him??

yeah fuck everyone else that dude knows whats up.

Like yes, openly cry to your faves. Fantasize deep meaningful daydreams that help you process your feelings. Draw your OC with them, or learn every single thing their is to know about them.

That's why I wanted to talk about this. Because I've never heard it spoken about before. Maladaptive daydreaming, yes - and that can be harmful. But I hardly ever hear people talk about the basic mundane experience of it - or even how it can enrich our lives and help us emotionally develop of neurodivergent people.

When I think of it that way, it's something that makes me happy. I don't think I'll ever be able to describe it fully, and that's the point. Our stories are private to us, not because theyre embarrassing, but because they're so us that to even describe it would like describing a new world top to bottom

I love it. It's what makes humans humans.

[flyingbananasaur]

4, 9, 10, 24? :3

so many!! thank u :3

4) What moments make you think, “Well, I’m definitely ace”

hm... without going into graphic detail, i definitely was like "ok, this person is attractive, i should be able to imagine doing the thing with- augh oh gods why brain bleach brain bleach". several times. until i realized Oh Oops It's Sex Repulsion.

9) Who’s the first person you came out to, if any?

my sister! it was in college and distinctly remember it was after we got dinner together one night, we were standing outside the cafeteria and i told her that i was asexual. i cried about it but she was supportive (if confused at first) and then she asked questions and did research and stuff. she's the best i love her :3

10) Has anyone ever come out to you as ace-spec?

not sure if it counts as coming out really because it was casual, but i have two friends who have been like "oh same" after i've come out to them as ace, which is cool.

24) Best part of being ace?

hm... probably like, how i can like, be chill around people who know without them assuming that there's that whole secret neurotypical code language for "let's bang". like, yeah i mentioned your boobs, that's just a statement it doesn't mean anything else.

at risk of maybe accidentally sounding weird i also think it lets people trust me to vent about their own sex lives (with permission) without thinking that they'll be making things weird. even though i can only kinda go "that's rough buddy" since i can't relate, i still love being able to help even a little bit.

[firethekitty]

(about the fic bingo) personally i count the “livio but no razlo” as a negative because i love razlo and people with DID, and i desperately want to know your hottest takes. please Please i’ll even share one of my own, there’s a few fics where Vash gets put into this weird white savior position where he’s The Good White Man and not like his brother who is apparently a big fan of slavery? which in turn ends up giving vashwood this gross slavemaster/slave vibes WHILE they’re making sure to explicitly write wolfwood with darker skin and it’s so. it tastes so bad

actually some of the bingo boxes are the exact same on the hater version! including “no razlo”!

so, on the non-hater version, i acknowledge that sometimes there isn’t enough livio screentime for razlo to make an appearance, or the author just doesn’t feel like they’re able/allowed to write a character with DID. i think this is perfectly understandable and i’d much rather someone say “i don’t know enough about this subject to feel confident writing about it” than someone just reinventing jekyll and hyde again

however, in a hater context, i can count the number of times i’ve seen razlo in a vashwood fic on one hand. i get not having the space to include him in shorter fics but i’ve also seen 40k+ word (WITH livio as a main character!!) fics that never even mention him and i think it’s lame as hell. don’t have DID? consider talking to people (who have given you permission to ask questions of course) or research from well-trusted studies or how people talk about their experience with DID. otherwise don’t just pretend it doesn’t exist?

i just hateee when aus get rid of characters’ disabilities and disorders and trauma. to me it’s kind of the same thing when people write aus and vash has both arms, or wolfwood is just like some random guy with no problems at all. i think these things are such intrinsic parts of characters, ALL characters, and it doesn’t make sense to leave them out or even get rid of them altogether. like, why would you do that? are you “healing” them? are they somehow “better” if they’re able-bodied and neurotypical? how interesting 🤔

anyway GOD that is horrible😭😭😭i can’t say i’ve ever seen Slavery Knives (mostly bc i don’t trust anyone to be normal about him and avoid most fics with him in it LOL) but i see a TON of weird fetishy wolfwood depictions, even more prevalent in fanart. any fic that has him speaking gratuitous spanish like that one tumblr post (si i recognize your señorita, she trabajo'd here) or goes out of its way to talk about how brown his skin is i’m immediately nope-ing out of

[some-random-lizard]

I should preface this with the fact that I’m not officially diagnosed with anything yet, but we are pursuing an ADHD diagnosis. I have a formally diagnosed parent, with a long family history indicating it went back a long way. The other side of my family has a lot of autistic markers, although I don’t think any of them have ever been diagnosed. I don’t know what combination of neurospicy I am, since again, I am currently undiagnosed.

I don’t think people talk enough about overstimulation. For me, it doesn’t happen so often, but usually when it does I get incredibly stressed. It’s not just something I can walk off.

For the 3, maybe 4 neurotypical people on this site, I’ve found a pretty good way to explain how it feels to be stuck in choice paralysis which in a twisted way causes overstimulation.

Sometimes, my brain finds the task at hand not mentally stimulating enough. It decides to make its own stimulation by making me hyperaware of everything going on around me. This seems cool, right? Like a spidey sense in real life? Nope. Sometimes actually, but in this case, nope.

I have a history of overstimulation, although I didn’t put together what it was until recently. My family always tends to go to caravan resorts on holiday, and typically we go and see the evening entertainment after the stuff aimed at younger kids wraps up. The microphones are always turned up far too loud, leading to a number of times when I was younger where I’d sit with mum with her hands over my ears and I’d be completely silent and detached because it was so loud it was too stressful to do anything but shut down, since I was very young and wasn’t exactly trusted to go outside on my own to get away from it, or because on one occasion I was performing in a talent show, but they only did the results after the adult’s section (pretty late at night for a 9 year old), but I wasn’t sure how long it would take so I couldn’t go anywhere else.

It’s like being in a room with the drip torture setup, where the slow tapping of water from a leaky pipe makes you willing to do anything to get away from the noise. Overstimulation is like having three, four, maybe a hundred leaky pipes all at different volumes and distances, all driving you insane at once, making functional existence extremely difficult.

It’s like the POV in The Telltale Heart being incredibly convincing to the police, but the old man’s heartbeat no one else can hear is deafening and he can’t tell anyone about it for fear of seeming insane.

One leaky tap or silent heartbeat might be a clock in the other room, another might be people talking upstairs, or the refrigerator buzzing, or yet another clock in the hallway that ticks out of time with the first, or the trickling noise of the fish tank, or the fabric of an item of clothing suddenly making you want to scream, or the taste of the last thing you ate constricting your throat, and all these things stack up. You can’t tell anyone or do anything about them because they don’t feel those things. Of course they hear and feel, but as background noise. For you, it’s all foreground all the time, and daily life gets lost in the midground as it’s covered by the things most other people store elsewhere.

Stacking a dishwasher is a mountain of overstimulation for me. Each fork to go in the cutlery compartment has to be carefully positioned and quickly dropped and moved away from. If old food (or new food (eating chicken wings is similarly torturous), or even water) stays on my hands and starts to dry on its own, it becomes extremely itchy, adding to the network of pipes dripping, the all-eclipsing heartbeat no one else seems hear.

[lololollywrites]

So I’m honestly looking for help or advice here. I’ve gone my entire life believing that I’m neurotypical, despite never quite feeling like anyone else or fitting in. I just always thought I was... I don’t know. Quirky, weird. It’s mostly been internalized. I doubt my family would agree, for example, despite any one of them being the first to say that I’m a loner with special interests (they don’t know the half of it - not about tumblr or fanfiction, for example) who has carved out my own little niche of the world in which I can feel most comfortable (academia and travel, amongst other things). “Oh, Lauren’s the smart one who corrects our grammar and doesn’t want a typical life and doesn’t notice when men hit on her and can talk for hours about anything and remembers every detail of her childhood! She was reading novels at 6 years old, isn’t that funny?!”

But recently I’ve come across online content about ASD in adult women and how it looks different than we have long been told (and therefore how it gets overlooked and undiagnosed) and, well. It’s been resonating with me. Hard. I’m not necessarily struggling with life, but I’m also lacking a long-term relationship, a core friend group (it’s hard to fully connect with people or reveal my full personality, though part of that is also because I move a lot), and am finding myself more and more alone. Which is okay for the most part. It is. Honestly, the idea of sharing my apartment and giving up decision-making autonomy and even decorative control stresses me out. I’ve tried to work on myself by expanding my comfort zone - I’ve worked at it my entire life, which is why I traveled - but also... what if I could understand myself better? What if there’s more to it? (I did discover that there might be more but it got long, so... sorry in advance. But if you can relate, I would LOVE it if you did read and could help me!)

I just took the RAADS-R assessment (a bit frustrating, as many of my answers would generally depend on the situation and there was no option for that); I tried my best to be conservative and practical with my selections. I still scored a 104. Scores range from 0-227, and a score of 65 is when ASD is considered (and even likely), though obviously one online test is not enough for a diagnosis. Non-autistic people can score as high as 90, apparently (and autistic people can score as low as 44), so 104 is not conclusive, but it’s made me think.

It’s sort of a relief in a way, but it’s also something I don’t think my family would ever be on board with or understand since I’m the “normal”, stable, level-headed, successful one. Which obviously doesn’t preclude autism (honestly many of these traits have helped me tremendously), but there are so many misconceptions out there. And they love me and mean well, but I know they’d also ask why it matters, since I’m 33 years old and have done fine until now. But they don’t know what it feels like to scratch at your skin and never truly feel like you’ve figured yourself out. Why you’re different and why nothing has ever made sense. Why other people are so infuriating.

My traits? Well, they don’t all fit. Or at least I didn’t think so until I started typing them out.

I am easily overwhelmed by social situations (I can’t stand nightclubs and had an anxiety attack before I first went out in college), but I’ve gotten better. I’ve practiced. Interrupting can be a problem for me because I get excited when people say things that interest me. I don’t find sarcasm or jokes or social cues difficult to understand, but I’ve also... practiced. I’m very, very aware of what I say, how I act, and how others perceive me, though this has become more natural with age. I was always so gullible as a kid that it was a joke in my family. I’m compassionate and empathetic to a fault; I believe the best in people, which has hurt me. Textures and noises don’t particularly bother or overwhelm me, but I did once burst into tears in a Shanghai bar because it was too much. Just... too much. I never once believed in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy and grilled my parents with very specific questions regarding why I should be expected to (though only when my little sister wasn’t around). Despite this, between the ages of 5-7, I slept at the very edge of my pillow so as so leave plenty of room for my parents to take my tooth in the middle of the night and not accidentally wake me, as I knew it would be embarrassing for them and potentially also wake up my sister.

I once slept in an inflatable raft for an entire summer as a kid because I felt like it was a safe cradle. I used to be such a perfectionist that my parents considered homeschooling me. I got in trouble for reading too quickly because teachers thought it was impossible to complete the assignments at the rate I did. I always completed all the group work at school - not because my group mates took advantage of me (though there was a little of that), but because I couldn’t stand what they turned in to me and wanted to do it myself. Travel was my way of proving to myself that I didn’t need the same daily routine; I learned to create my safe space wherever I was in the world. I didn’t want my worries and anxiety to limit my experiences, so I didn’t let it. Then travel just became a new part of my comfort zone. I would self-soothe and reassure myself it would be okay by imagining my new safe space, which would always involve my computer, my Kindle, an internet connection, and being alone. With those things, I’d be okay.

I used to talk so fast as a kid that my mom joked I should be the person who spoke at the end of radio commercials (when they share all the legal disclaimers at high speed). I’ve practiced that too and gotten better, but I always need to be aware of my rate of speech. I went into teaching to sort of... practice public speaking, eye contact, and increasing my confidence (as well as to try to build that natural cadence). And it’s helped. This has always led me to the assumption that yes, see, I’m neurotypical. Everyone has these thoughts and foibles. When I discovered fanfiction in high school I told everyone about it, mind-blown at how miraculous it was, before I realized that people were looking at me funny and thought I was weird. So I stopped. And then discovered online communities.

Even as a 24 year-old, on a Fulbright orientation in an Indonesian hotel, sitting in a circle on the floor in a group of 30 fellow Fulbrighters about to embark on a year-long placement around the country, I apparently talked too much. I had no idea. I was two-months fresh off a year in China and we were participating in ice breakers, sharing advice and travel stories, and I thought I was being helpful. I felt free - finally I was in a community of fellow travelers, and I guess I let my guard down. My family couldn’t relate to all of my China stories and eventually got bored, and I was still processing my experience. I thought that these fellow travelers cared what I had to say. That it was safe. One of the girls I liked (and we did later become friends when she apologized months later) came up to me after one of these sessions and said “As much as I like your stories, Lauren, don’t you think you talked too much?” I was mortified. I totally shut down. I felt pushed to the side in that group - my only real friends, looking back, were the few other loners, including one girl who openly discussed her ASD. We were in contact for years after that and we naturally understood each other. She asked me to talk *more* about China with genuine interest. Maybe that says something.

Anyway. I’m having a bit of an emotional moment right now. I guess this could all be nothing. Or something. I know maybe I should pursue an official diagnosis, but I don’t know if that’s worth it or not. I trust people here. Has anyone else had a similar experience? Or have you self-diagnosed at any point? Does the truth of that label impact your life, and in what ways? Thank you. And sorry for the very, very long ramble. (And that’s something I’ve become accustomed to doing - apologizing!) And I truly hope I haven’t offended anyone or made it seem as though I’m acting like this is a confirmed diagnosis. That’s not it at all - I am very unsure. I just truly would appreciate some guidance. ❤️

[midnightt-vice]

I know I haven’t been on tumblr in a month but I’m here to yap about the experience of being an autistic woman. Or better named “the weird/shy/quiet girl to autistic woman pipeline but it went unnoticed/undiagnosed/dismissed for decades”!

It’s very isolating and I’m not saying this to make others feel bad or anything. It’s literally just lonely and boring. It’s more than “not fitting in” with other girls because the neurotypical, conventionally attractive, and stereotypical mean girl type can spot “weird girls” a fucking mile away and clock you as different. And the thing is, you don’t do anything to these girls ever. You sit by yourself or with your “weird girl” friend group but once you’re alone, they’ll come over and tease you with things like “we’re friends, right?” or bully you for wearing all black or being into “demonic metal” or for wearing “raccoon makeup”. And it’s like… I have done nothing to these girls, never talked to them in my life, but somehow I’m a target of relentless bullying and their mocking attitudes, as if my existence is a personal attack on them simply because I’m different. And the thing is we’re not too different, we have a lot more in common. They just pushed their idea of what/who I am onto me and then got mad at me for it.

But whenever you do find your girl friend group, it’s all fine and dandy for a while. But things start to fall apart or everyone goes their own way, and no matter how hard you try there is absolutely no rekindling those connections. Whether it’s because you outgrew one another or you’re all so different than you were 10+ years ago. And that’s fine, but after being away from them for so long you start to realize that they were merely tolerating you and felt bad for you. Because you were still too loud, too weird, too happy or excited for them and you always had to dial it back and mask your feelings and interests.

I never really knew why I felt like this my whole life, even with a lot of really close friends (mostly girls). Like I thought we both liked this thing? And now my interest in it is weird or boring or lame? Am I not doing this girl existence properly or… what? Did I not get the memo?

It’s less of “I’m not like other girls 💕✨” and more like “I’m not like other girls :(“ because I’ve been relentlessly bullied by the majority of girls, even friends, throughout my life. And it’s made me want nothing more than a genuine female friendship, just once, that doesn’t feel like I’m too excitable or “too much like a dude” or whatever else.

“But you’re being a pickme for preferring male friends/not having any female friends!” I cannot emphasize enough how much more accepting of my bullshit the boys were than neurotypical girls were. I’ve always had girl friends and had very deep, meaningful connections with them even if they weren’t always nice to me. If anything, I’ve hardly ever formed any crushes on my guy friends and it was ALWAYS THEM forming a crush on me just because I “wasn’t like other girls,” but in a way that put other women down. And I never fell for that shit.

“But everyone gets bullied a bit in school, it’s normal. Your experiences are something everyone goes through.” Really? Is it really? Because I don’t think being threatened, hit/beaten, and stalked by your classmates and “friends” is normal. I didn’t see it happening to anyone else who shared the same friends as me. Why does every single autistic woman share very similar experiences that are associated with their childhood, school, and upbringing? Why were we all diagnosed with anxiety and/or depression at 14/15 and told we were over emotional/sensitive? Why have so many of us had undiagnosed eating disorders and other mental health issues? “Autism is a spectrum though.” Great observation. I’m pretty damn lucky I’d say but not everyone else is, and even though I’d consider myself “lucky” that doesn’t excuse the shit that happened to me. Also if you think it’s normal to experience these things, you’re either stupid or in deep denial about your own experiences. I was in denial for years until everything hit me at once.

You wanna know why women who are in their late 20s to their early 40s are being diagnosed with autism and ADHD in droves now? Because when we were kids, girls “didn’t have” those things because they were “boy disorders”. Boys are diagnosed at 3 fucking years old meanwhile girls have to go through a large part of their life isolated, being bullied, clinging onto whatever “weird” personality they have because it’s their fucking lifeline, the trope of who they are, because we had NOTHING. We had dads who thought it was cool we were tomboys and moms who thought we were just moody. We. Had. Nothing.

“But you’re undiagnosed.” People still have autism whether they are diagnosed or not. A diagnosis is nothing more than an answer to what most of us already know. It’s basically just “yep, you have Thing, good luck!” But that’s if you’re lucky enough to find a doctor that listens and doesn’t mark your female ass down as hysterical and in need of birth control. We can all have similar experiences but every autistic girl/woman has very hyper specific ones that we can all relate to on some level.

I hate that I relate heavily and on an emotional level with the autistic woman experience because it’s made me genuinely sad for my younger self and how it was so obvious but disregarded to be something “poetic” like, “she’s different, quiet, shy, sensitive, emotional.” But the moment I came out of my shell and the autistic traits showed, it’s “weird, creepy, too much, raise your daughter to be a girl and not a tomboy.”

But now it’s like being weird is celebrated so it’s totally fine and I genuinely don’t give a fuck anymore if people think I’m weird. Like I’ve been bullied for it my whole life and it’s inadvertently helped me build a wall around myself but only for assholes. I have good, cool friends now who are just as silly as I am whether they have autism, ADHD, or something else entirely. And they don’t make me feel ashamed for having interests or like I’m too much.