#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

[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?)

[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.

[sodachalice]

I agree with you. I have a hard time with understanding “the point.” I’m sorry.

its ok my bad, i didn't mean to come off rude. my tone in generals a bit off the past few days bc ive been having a really bad pain flair up. my point is that autistic people experience trauma at higher rates than non autistic people due to how severely ableist society is as a whole, and DID itself is a demonized disorder that is literally caused by trauma and is demonized for the way it breaks social rules. People don't like DID because DID is connected to concepts like gender identity divergence, dehumanization (ie:furries, kinning, shifting, physically dressing weird), self identification, and weird behaviors. most people with DID are traumatized so young that they don't get the proper socialization or learn social skills which mimicks autistic people not understanding social cues or rules. people with autism are more likely to develop things like maladaptive daydreaming or escape into their mind to cope with the outside world, int he same way DID systems do. my point is that i think psychiatry and psychology has set up all these bars between "normal" and "not" when in reality nothing and no one is normal and everyone has some kind of disorder, and i think we need to explore autism being genuinely a neurotype and DID being a type of PTSD that is formed in that neurotype. but i'm also a 23 year old on the internet whos coming with "research" thats mostly been accumulated through personal experience being in the psychiatric system my entire life, so its not like i can say this is true or that the models we have right now are false. but the thing is when i talk to people who have autism and not DID, they tend to strongly relate to my DID traeits especially when it comes to the multiple-selves part, and when i talk to people who have DID but not autism, they relate to almost every aspect of my autism except for the fact that its a neurotype and not trauma caused. i think we're going to see a lot of changes to the way psychiatry is handled in the next few generations or so because of this, because the more i learn about autism it becomes clear that autism itself is a neurotype that comes with multiple physical differences than allistic people that cause them to be disabled, and then i think we're going to be exploring that disability aspect of autism a LOT more in the coming years.

basically the point is, i know that psychiatry is telling us that autism and DID are separate disorders, but psychiatry is also pushing people to avoid getting diagnosed with autism, pushing people to learn to mask, pushing people on antipsychotics and heavy medications to help a disorder that genuinely does not NEED all of that an in reality needs a society that is willing to help them through their expected milestones. and that if you ignore the needs of people, that leads them to get traumatized, and that if you have untreated long term trauma as a child you often end up developing DID. i believe you that allistic systems exist, i really do, ive met them. but every allistic system ive met is either so autistic presenting it wouldn't matter to define the two, or is such a nervous bundle of highwire nerves that i wonder if theyre SO fucked up because they havent learned its safe to unmask yet so people assume theyre allistic.

there is higher rates of both autism and DID than anyones ever expected, and i think if out of like seven years they couldn't figure out or come to a decision on whether i was autistic or just traumatized over multiple different psyches and therapists, i think they need to figure this shit out. if so many disorders are caused by trauma and specifically intertwined with autism and theyre still denying autism is a common thing but over diagnosing things like OCD and BPD and bipolar disorder which all ALSO have connections and overlaps with autism i think theres soemthing there that needs to be figured out. same thing with the physical disorders that are linked to autism. everyone has POTS and binocular vision dysfunction and GERD and EDS and we all KNOW theres an overlap with autism but for some reason its just like "yeah well many people who have it dont have autism. they just ACT like they have autism because of their disorders" in most peoples eyes. which i just dont think is acceptable and is holding people abck from researching this shit

[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?

[physalian]

Y'all ever heard of "IB"? I'll tell you my tale of woe

So we know the US education system is ass, right? The pressure to get good grades over actually learning anything is detrimental to both learning and the desire to seek knowledge and discover our world.

Well I have a little story, about this exact principle on acid. Idk if anyone on here will ever be in/or is already in something called the “International Baccalaureate” (IB) program. What it is, is an “intensely rigorous” allegedly-standardized method of schooling that’s supposed to be transferrable between countries. Like, if I went to an IB school in America, I could transfer to the equivalent education level in France and not be completely lost. That’s the point.

It's way harder than traditional high school, with zero focus on things like arts and physical education (you know, important shit) and a draconian dedication to STEM… and nothing else.

If it’s not clear, this shit did irreparable damage to my high school career, so this is a warning to anyone considering it: If you are not neurotypical and somebody who’s willing to get hospitalized over how stressed you are (which did happen to a friend of mine) maybe skip the snobbish high school? If you don’t plan on being a lawyer or a doctor, maybe skip this bullshit.

—

So, guess who did not know that they’re neurodivergent back then? Me. Somewhere in the realm of ADHD and Autism, possibly both, who knows? Either way, I’m “high functioning” and you’d never know, or so I’ve been told.

I went to this high school because I wanted to be with all my super smart friends, and bought into the classist bullshit of “traditional high school is for dumb kids” and the whole “honors program” hierarchy—in my middle school, your first year there, you were separated into four groups of students.

Group A was the dumb kids, and everybody knew it. Groups B and C were the average-intelligence kids. Group D were the “honors” kids. First day in 6th grade, you were literally handed a themed t-shirt and compared to every other kid you know and don’t know and implicitly told “you’re not as smart as these kids and we want you to know it”. I was in the B-C group, which absolutely led to “well I’m not smart enough to be in D, but at least I’m not an idiot like A”.

Super healthy shit to teach children.

You did not have classes outside of your group. It wasn’t like elementary school where honors kids split off for a few hours but were still in your class. It was a complete social schism, and you only saw these people during lunch and maybe across the yard in P.E.

Fuck that school.

So anyway, with that damage done, I wanted to go to the fancy high school with all my smart friends, applied, and got in.

When I was younger, I had a massive procrastination problem. The usual stuff, like not starting a project until the night before it was due, forging my parents’ signatures on forms they were supposed to sign as the teacher was collecting them (got super good at that, bet school wishes they hadn’t encouraged it), doing homework in homeroom the morning of, and completely forgetting about readings and such.

Not the case now, but back then it was chronic.

In regular “dumb-dumb” school, one can get away with neglecting a little work.

In IB, if you fuck up in year one, that fuckup will haunt you through your entire high school experience. Everything in IB builds on itself, so if you have a shitty foundation, you are screwed without even realizing it, and there is little fixing it.

IB is also structured irregularly compared to traditional American high school. You only have four “blocks” of classes each day, and they switch off every other day. So I’d have Day 1 on M, W, F one week, and then T R the next week, yada yada, with those blocks lasting 90 minutes. As opposed to the 50-ish minute classes with the same schedule daily.

You would think that this would make it easier, as teachers had more time per period to really dive deep into subject matter without being rushed.

You would be wrong.

IB, like with all American schools, focuses on quantity over quality. Quantity in every facet of schooling. I needed a rolling backpack so I didn’t fuck up my spine hauling around my textbooks because the school didn’t have classroom copies/you needed them every goddamn night for homework and in class. The amount of homework, frequency of tests and quizzes, all that, is increased compared to traditional school.

But my very first class, my 1:1, was Algebra 2. Reader: I am awful at algebra. I cannot learn concepts without being able to ground them in realty. Geometry always came easy to me, because you can see and touch geometry. It has practical uses and follows logic. I can use a formula to measure the volume of a box, or I can bust out the tape measure by hand and get the exact same answer.

Algebra is fictitious, it’s not grounded in the tangibility of geometry, and once we hit stuff like quadratic equations, without being able to understand why I was learning what I was learning and how this all fits in to the greater concept of mathematics and why it matters, I not only checked out, but started to feel very, very stupid.

This was my very first class.

I almost failed Algebra 2. I had gone down to a 33%, because my teacher, for this super smart and super fancy high school, taught the same way every other teacher in that godforsaken place taught: Lecture.

If you do not learn through lecture, you’re fucked at an IB school. If you cannot process and retain information simply because someone tells it to you, you’re fucked. If staring at a 70-slide powerpoint presentation is understimulating, you’re fucked.

This teacher’s personality in particular was absolutely nasty. Haughty as the rest of the school, who made jokes at the idea of returning to the “trads” and the “dumb kids” at regular high school if you dropped out, and we had several who were way smarter than me who left by day 3, who were able to understand that this was not for them, while I stuck it out for 2 years.

I brought that 33% up to a 65% and got my first ever D.

But that first class, opening day of my high school career, left an impression that I carried with me for two whole years: Out of absolute terror of being thought of as “dumb” by leaving all my friends to go to traditional high school, I chose to be the dumbest of the “smart kids” instead of the “smartest” of the “dumb” kids.

And I paid for it.

I spent two whole years completely checked out and unwilling to learn because of this one math teacher on my first day of high school. Once I figured out that this man and this institution did not give a single fuck if I passed and would not change their teaching style at all to accommodate me, I could not be bothered.

I still got decent grades, and I did have classes, like geometry and my second year of English, in which I excelled. I had teachers who cared and loved their jobs, but by and large, I spent two whole years suffering because of the social pressure to pretend to be neurotypical, to learn the “normal” way, to pretend to be the only valid definition of “smart”. I had a Spanish teacher who gave me dresscode 3 days before the end of the school year, right after I failed an oral exam, in the back of the class where everyone could hear us. The entire foreign language department of conservative bitches stared at the girls wearing shorts with far more intensity than they should have.

We had this thing for “volunteer” hours that had three groups: community service, creative hours, and one other thing I can’t remember. I do remember desperately approaching my shit guidance councilor, the sole lady responsible for the entire school’s population of IB kids, asking if I could count my builds in Minecraft as part of my creative hours because I needed a certain number of hours to pass.

She I guess heard “video game” and thought I was slacking off killing mobs, when I played the game for the builds. But “creativity” only counts if it’s what they define as “creativity”.

Every step of the way, this education program demanded more. I got humiliated by multiple teachers in front of multiple classes because I did not understand something and got so upset that I cried, and they refused to explain it in any other way except repeating what they’d already said in lecture. I lived 45 minutes away from this school by bus and my parents couldn't come pick me up or drop me off to use office hours or study groups even if I wanted to, and I sure as hell didn't have a car.

So when I left, to go back to my regional high school for my junior and senior year (after getting gaslit and guilted by my parents for “failing to uphold my commitments”) turns out, I’m not an idiot.

Suddenly, I had teachers who gave a shit. I was turning in assignments on time. I was doing my homework the night it was given. I was starting projects in the very next class. I finally got straight-As. I liked learning again.

Turns out, not every “smart” kid I knew went to IB, they were instead very successfully running my regional high school’s SGA. They were doing just fine in getting into the colleges of their dreams and pursuing STEM. They didn’t need IB one bit.

The only good thing IB gave me was that by the time I got to college, it was a breeze.

All these years later, the thing that sticks with me the most was how much of a sham the whole thing is, and this insidious caste system of perceived intelligence. My super fancy IB school was inside of a larger high school built in a rural area, and put there to make that school look smarter.

So you had this institution not only giving these rural kids an enemy to hate, but reinforcing an idea that they’re not as smart as the special IB kids. And in turn, you’re telling the IB kids “you’re better than your peers, look at how dumb they are”.

While then sacrificing absolutely everything in the name of "quality education". Arts and music, physical exercise and sports, free time outside of school now spent doing homework, free time at all to have a mental break from it, and time to go to clubs and school events. You could take those extra classes, sure, but it cost you in time you needed to do all your other non-negotiable homework. You might graduate and get into Harvard Law, but you might get there with a heart condition from stress that you'll have for the rest of your life. Is that degree worth it?

But also how narrow and antiquated this idea of intelligence and learning is. I’m someone who, by and large, does not need to study, so long as I care about the subject matter.

One time in college, I took astronomy. I love astronomy. I ditched a class once and forgot all about a big unit test we had coming up. I walked into the next class to that test, having prepared nothing, and wrote a note on the top of my test before taking it apologizing to my astronomy professor for the F I was about to get.

I got the highest score in the class (a 92 I think), having only paid attention during lecture, because I cared and I wanted to learn and was able to retain everything only from hearing it, seeing it, and writing it down once. So long as something is grounded in the context of why it matters, one lecture is usually all I need, and I am consistently the fastest test-taker I know.

But back in high school, once the “you are not supposed to be here” baked in and solidified within the first week, that was detrimental for two long and stressful years, and, guess what? I’m not friends with any of those people anymore.

I probably could have done it, but the attitude of that pretentious, bullshit program ruined it. The people who stayed all four years? Some ended up at my college anyway, they just got better scholarships.

So to anyone who’s thinking about IB or knows anyone thinking about it or who is already struggling and suffering: Unless you plan on being a doctor or a lawyer, it’s not worth it, and you aren’t “smarter” just because you can learn one very specific way. I left after two years and never went back.

[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.

[dilutedapplejuice]

Hmm. I’m having trouble explaining this coherently so I’m just making a list. Here’s why mainstream autism content on tiktok is waaaaaay skewed.

*disclaimer this is not an attack on anyone, just informational.

1) TikTok’s algorithm promotes and prioritizes the voices of hyperverbal, conventionally attractive American/British AFAB women and non-binary people with low-mid support needs. There is also just a lot more content from people like that (This excludes anyone who talks slowly or quietly or with a lisp or not at all or with an AAC, has a genetic disorder that affects how they look, can’t look at the camera, can’t organize their words in a way that pleases the algorithm, have camera anxiety, are BIPOC, are fat/plus-sized, etc etc etc.

2) The neurodiversity movement as a whole is just exclusionary. People use “neurodivergent” as a blanket term for people with LSN ADHD or autism (even though the word is meant for anyone who isn’t neurotypical, like people with personality disorders, anxiety, depression, schizospec conditions, brain trauma/injuries, etc).

3) Bad takes. From the videos I had seen, autistic people were accepting autism as a disability, but only in the social sense (aka if society accommodated better autism wouldn’t be a disability)-which is fine because for many low-mid support needs people that might be true. But it ignores autistic people who are disabled on an individual level, and not just because of how society treats them. They might need caretakers to do their daily tasks or any other number of supports. There IS a reason autism is ranked in order of support needs. It’s not just accommodations.

The same goes for autistic people who reject the “disordered” psychological model of autism (basically, psychology does diagnosis and treatment of autism based on how many “deficits” an autistic person has in social communication and restrictive/repetitive behaviors). Again, that’s fine if you don’t see any part of your autism as “deficient,” but it is not up to you to tell other autistic people that they don’t have any deficits. It’s up to the individual and saying psychology should get rid of it altogether is a harmful ideal which doesn’t take into account HSN autistic experiences or opinions.

Also, autistic people are allowed to identify with the labels of low- or high-functioning. Or Asperger’s. Again, that’s their decision. I didn’t see anyone mention that on tiktok. There was just a slight lack of nuance.

And… about ABA. It’s good that ABA is getting pushback because it is harmful to a lot of autistic people. It needs work. But the stances on tiktok about it are, again, un-nuanced. Most people talking about it don’t actually have any experience with it. No one ever mentioned that ABA actually has helped autistic people, and many autistic people who went through ABA have mixed feelings about it because it both helped and hurt them. There was no talking about alternatives to ABA or efforts to improve it. It was just about how awful the practice and its history is (which it can be a LOT of the time), and I suppose why it should be abolished?

^ And to make it crystal clear here, I am NOT defending ABA in any way, shape, or form. I don’t have the solution for it here. I’m just saying tiktok isn’t doing a good job of representing people’s arguments.

4) Lack of information on HSN people. Did you know that up to 30% of autistic people are also deaf/HOH? Me neither until today. There is almost no information on comorbidities with autism (other than ADHD/anxiety/depression and maybe EDS/POTS) on tiktok, even though people with autism are more likely to have another physical/psychological disability co-occurring.

So in conclusion, tiktok is a HUGE echo chamber for LSN autistic people and while it has some useful information about autism outside of the psychological view, there needs to be a lot more work for inclusivity, both by tiktok and the people making the videos there.

I think this list can probably be applied to other social media as well, but it’s just tiktok that I’m familiar since I used to browse autism tiktok obsessively bc of my special interest.

*also another note: I realize the algorithm was also responding to my own inputs: how much I watched certain people’s videos over others etc. It WAS my fault that I got so minimally diverse autism content, to an extent. But I know that many HSN non/semiverbal autistic people said that their content was never getting as much attention as LSN content in general and I wholeheartedly believe that. If you think your feed should be more diverse, it’s up to you to look for it because the social media platform is not going to do it for you. As a starting point look up “high support autism” or “level 2 autism” or “level 3 autism.”

I am completely open to talking about this, especially with level 2/3 autistic people. As a level 1 I want to listen to your opinions and respect them to the best of my ability.

Sorry this is so long and unorganized, I’m not sure how to make this more readable.

TLDR: Most videos on tiktok show LSN white autistic people and their content is mostly limited to takes about the late diagnosed LSN community, and doesn’t account for HSN autistic people and their families/caretakers.

[fierceawakening]

Fair! I’ve definitely changed my views on multiples from reading their blogs, so… seconded. I’m still a little unsure whether I think alters are wholly distinct selves, but I don’t have to know that to think that taking people seriously when they say they have them is reasonable.

But this didn’t work for me about the tumblrs of people who claim to have npd and ASPD (I say claim because conventional wisdom is they don’t generally seek help because they tend to think everyone else has the problem, which leaves me a little confused about where lots of people talking about it as a disability identity would come from. The only person I’ve met that I’m pretty certain had an NPD diagnosis had this sort of attitude. “County mental health says I have NPD. Bullshit. I’m ACTUALLY a higher breed than the others. Can’t be a delusion if it’s true.”)

The reason it didn’t work for me is both what I noticed people saying and what I didn’t, which I’ll get into more detail about below:

Here are some things people with PDs have said that eventually led me to feel so uncomfortable I stopped actively reading their blogs. I’m doing my best here to be vague so as not to identify anyone, but I want to give examples to show you I’ve tried and it didn’t change my mind, so you can argue with knowledge about whether you think it would be wise for me to try again or not:

People who are not my partner are NPCs. It��s difficult to remind myself they are real.

I think it’s funny when animals get mildly hurt, because I lack empathy. I still love my pets though.

Why do neurotypicals cry at funerals? It’s so hard to mask!

I don’t know why my ex boyfriend was sad when his dad died. He dumped me over this. I want him back. How do I better understand so I can keep him?

I’m so afraid of abandonment that I manipulate people into not leaving me. I know you value consent, but you don’t understand. It’s too painful for me to let them leave me.

I’m tempted to behave cruelly all the time, but I don’t. I’m not going to give you anyone to double check “I don’t” with, though. Trust my blogging.

I mask all the time. If you saw what’s under my mask, you’d be afraid of me. But I’m good, because I mask.

I’m such a perfectionist that I’d rather believe everyone else is inferior than acknowledge I make mistakes. It’s too painful for me to do that. So I believe I’m superior.

Again, I’ve tried to keep these generic enough that they don’t identify individuals. If you can tell who any are, please DO NOT say so. I a, talking about my boundaries, not trying to arm hate mobs.

Are these things deal breakers for everyone everywhere ever? No.

But they’re things it upsets and scares me to hear, so I stopped forcing myself to read them to try and make myself less ableist. These are things that would make me think someone’s an asshole that I have to try to pretzel myself into thinking don’t “because disability means you can’t change.”

But if these people can’t change these things I don’t want to be around them.

And then there’s the thing I notice by its absence:

These blogs claim over and over that they’re as compassionate as more neurotypical people, including that having a name and description of their PD helps them to know where tjr6 might mess up and correct it.

All of that’s great!

But I don’t see them ever say, “my partner was upset with me this week because I didn’t notice they were sad. Here’s how I realized things had gone south, here’s what I did to take responsibility and fix it, and here’s where things stand now.”

That is, from what I’ve seen, these bloggers tend to talk about how the pain in their lives is everyone else’s fault, but not about what they do wrong sometimes and how they fix it.

Which is suspicious to me precisely because not taking responsibility for having hurt others seems to be part of the symptomatology!

But that COULD be incorrect or off or misleading. (People who say PDs are inherently neutral tend to make comparisons to drapetomania, the pathologizing of enslaved persons who desired freedom. When freedom is a perfectly normal thing for someone somebody enslaved to want.)

Which is why I’m looking not for blogs but for hard data. What do I have wrong? If it’s true that psychiatry as a system views these people incorrectly or unfairly, where’s the body of evidence people are building up to prove this?

If they’re not… the whole thing strikes me as a grift. Using the word “ableism” to shut off people’s critical thinking because no one wants to be accused of isms and most of us will bend over backwards to prove we’re good leftists.

It’s super creepy to me especially as someone who HAS experienced blatant ableism of the “you’ll never deserve good grades in phys ed because part of gym is talent and you have none” “you’re a cripple, I can’t help cripples” etc. sort.

Ableism isn’t “expecting you to take responsibility for being hurtful even though your illness makes you want to blame them.” Ableism is “you described how you tried your best to do so and what was making it difficult, and instead of recognizing your efforts someone laughed in your face.”

The whole empathy thing reminds me of a lot of anti-gay or anti-trans posts. People say that gay or trans people won’t do certain things, and I look at gay or trans people IRL and they are doing those things. You say people without empathy won’t care for other people, and I look at people who don’t have empathy and they demonstrate care for other people. You can go the route of “these people are lying to themselves when they say they don’t have empathy,” but I think that’s as unfair as “these people are lying to themselves when they say they’re gay.”

Okay, can you answer some questions for me then?

Lack of empathy is often cited as a symptom of disorders that make healthy intimate relationships difficult for people who have it. This is most often described from what research I’ve done as leading to behavior that the other partner in the intimate relationship finds damaging—that they’re ignored, their partner insults or degrades them, their partner takes advantage of them for resources or support but doesn’t provide these things in turn, etc.

IF this is the type of behavior that lack of empathy leads to, THEN it would make sense that professionals would exhort people not to get into intimate relationships with them—to keep things at the acquaintance level, to “go gray rock,” etc.

You’re asserting that lack of empathy doesn’t lead to these sorts of behavior.

This is big! If you’re right, I’m wrong. Absolutely! Totally! Completely! If you’re right i’m not only a jerk but also an idiot.

So tell me, please, so we can settle this: what behaviors do people do as a result of lack of empathy? Which behaviors lead clinicians to note a lack of empathy?

Being gay, from what I can tell, leads to one or both of two main behaviors: having sex with someone of the same sex and/or gender, and entering an intimate relationship with someone of the same sex and/or gender.

These are neutral behaviors, and ones that suppressing can’t be done without harm. So homosexuality, the term for someone prone to these behaviors, is harmless.

Can you explain the behaviors that result from lack of empathy in a way that helps me see in detail that they’re also neutral?

That would be the best way to most clearly change my mind.

[feminist-mina-harker]

.

[sylvana-the-tsarina]

I’ve seen people in niche communities say, or have said to them, “You/I can’t make every character have this one trait you/I have; that’s unrealistic and you/I need more variety!” “You can’t make every main character an ace-spec” “You can’t make every character childless by choice” “Perhaps I should add a romance because everything’s just focusing on friendship” “I probably should write more ‘normal’ characters for diversity”

And, listen darling, please don’t. 

Write what you want to read, and nothing else. 

I’m certainly not going to write allo characters, or characters who’re crazy about having kids. For one thing, I sincerely don’t know how their brains work, but the other more important thing is that I simply don’t want to.  And the third thing is that it really doesn’t matter. 

The way I see it, there’s two kinds of diversity here. Diversity within your own books and diversity in the books out in the world as a whole. 

And get this, you can write every character an ace-spec or aro-spec or introverted or autistic or adhd or whatever you want to, and it won’t make a dent in the diversity of the books out there. It will never come close to overwhelming the amount of stories who only centre and spotlight straight, white, extroverted, neurotypical, amatonormative, normal characters. 

Which is why you should write more of what you want to read, and to bother with anything else that you feel obliged to add “for diversity”.

Your books will help diversity as a whole, even if it doesn’t have much inner diversity. You see?

Note that I said write what you want to read not write what you are. If you like reading stories with straight characters and children (even if you don’t really understand either) then by all means, go on ahead. If you want to write stories that fit the norm, then do it. If you want to write stories that don’t fit the norm, PLEASE do it. 

Make it your thing. Make your works the safe space that others who think like you are drawn to. Build a community from it. Bring in your own representation and taste and style, and don’t you ever dare apologise for being you. You get free rein to write whatever you want so long as it isn’t harmful to anyone.

“But Silva,” you say. “I’m still worried about my internal diversity. Won’t having one common trait through all of my characters make for boring repetition?”

Nope! I’d wager that most characters you’ve read were straight, but that didn’t make them seem repetitive, did it? There’s so much variety to be had even within the spectrum of aces and aros, and that’s not to mention other personality characteristics like intelligence that factor in to making every character unique. Your characters can still have that internal diversity while consistently sharing one trait, I assure you. 

So, be free! Write your own thing! Screw the norms! Tell your story! Share your point of view!  (And let me know if you’re writing ace characters and clean stories because boy I’m starved for those kinds of books ;-;) (I’ll let you know when I publish mine too, so we’re fair)

Those kinds of books are the best kinds of books, in my opinion, so please don’t force the norms into your books “for diversity”.

Anyway, have a good day!

[lurking-latinist]

My brain

I want to talk about my brain but it feels weird (to me; I don’t consider it weird in general) to just start rambling about it out of the blue in the tags on other people’s posts, also I love explaining how things work for me, and Tumblr is the place for (a) being neurodivergent and (b) explaining things at length regardless of whether anyone wants to hear about it or not.

Also I’m pretty sure I explicitly said at least once on here that I’m not autistic and it turns out I was probably mistaken.

So I have known I was not neurotypical ever since I found out I had prosopagnosia (faceblindness). This happened because I love participating in experiments and I signed up for a face perception experiment, assuming I would be part of the control group, and they administered the Cambridge Face Memory Test, and let’s just say I was not part of the control group. They very kindly explained what my results meant and I felt that a lot of my past experiences made sense. The sense was not so much that I had learned something about myself, but that I had learned something about other people.

Then one day a few months ago I was being driven in her car by beloved mutual and irl friend @januarydivide and we were talking about brains, and she told me that she had been surprised when I posted something where I mentioned “speaking as a non-autistic person” or something like that, because for the five years she had previously known me, she had fully thought I was autistic and knew it and just didn’t talk about it much. We laughed: what a hilarious misunderstanding! But I also wanted to know why she had thought that, and she pointed out my very obvious special interests, blunt affect, etc., and I was like hmmm and went home and took an autism screening quiz online, and got a score right on the border, and took another one and got solidly in the autistic range, and went hmmmmmmmm and did a lot of reading.

I’ve taken more quizzes and pretty consistently gotten scores just on the autistic side of wherever they draw the line. I haven’t ever pursued a formal diagnosis and I don’t feel I’ve really self-diagnosed, not properly; I would say that I know I have a significant number of autistic traits and the form of language I’ve been trying on is ‘I might be autistic.’

But this isn’t meant to be an Essay on How I Pursued Self-Knowledge, it’s meant to be me explaining things my brain does, because brains are interesting.

Besides prosopagnosia and some of the obvious autistic things, special interests, stimming, sensory sensitivities, systematizing information, etc., the most interesting thing I do is TICKER-TAPE SYNESTHESIA! Which I only learned very recently has a name. Basically what this is, is that whenever I hear words I ‘see’ them written out in my mind’s eye. I don’t have to try to make this happen, it just happens. I learned to read very young (I wasn’t taught, I just learned) so I can’t remember not being able to read, and I also can’t remember not having my ‘mental subtitles.’ I’ve only met two other people (one of them on here *waves*) who do this but it is a thing that has been studied! I love having it; I can’t imagine understanding spoken language without being able to read it in my head. It also means I always know how to spell things! (But it’s very confusing when I realize I’ve been spelling someone’s name wrong in my head. If your name is Christa and I thought it was Krista, I feel like I was getting it just as wrong as if it’s Christa and I thought it was Christine.)

I also have a little bit of color-idea synesthesia (numbers, days of the week, letters sometimes have colors) but much less than most people who have it.

I also have what I think is a kind of strange variation of echolalia. When I read or hear something I often type out the last word or phrase on an invisible keyboard. It’s not an obvious thing--I just tap my fingers on the pad of my thumb in the appropriate pattern--so I do it all the time and no one notices. It can be stress-relieving but it can also feel like I’m caught in a loop. Also I have a full system of correspondences between my fingers and my front teeth, so I can also do it by clicking my teeth.

I learned today that people with autism have larger than average heads (x) which cracked me up, because I have in fact had a giant head all my life (it was in the 99th percentile of newborn heads when I was born) and still can rarely find hats that fit me.

[asmallnerd-archive]

Autistic Shoto Todoroki

The analysis

First off, I would like to say that this is purely a passion project. I am not a professional, I am an autistic teenager and I’m just very interested in this character because I heavily relate to him. I’ve collected some scenes from the manga and two specific things from the third light novel.

If you could boost this (if you’re interested that’d be great because while I really enjoy doing this it does take a lot of time! With that being said let’s dive into this and I hope you find this interesting!

Could Shoto Todoroki be autistic? Here is why I think he absolutely could.

Emotional perception

Let’s start with one of the most obvious things about his character. The emotional factor.

Shoto doesn’t emote in the way his peers do. Now, of course this also plays into the brooding mysterious guy archetype, but that’s not what we’re talking about.

Shoto’s face is typically relatively neutral, this is apparent from the moment we first meet him and while he does tend to express his emotions more clearly later in the story, it doesn’t ever really change. Something that immediately comes to mind is how in chapter 202 Iida asks if Shoto is alright because Iida noticed his expression change (because he knows him very well by this point). Ojiro points out that he did not notice this, since Shoto’s face barely changes at all.

We see Shoto in a lot of situations where his peers show excitement while his expression remans completely flat. This lack of emoting is something extremely common in people with autism. It’s not that they don’t have emotions or don’t express them at all, they just do it in a way that is hard to understand for people outside the spectrum or those who don’t know the autistic individual very well. They often struggle to understand what emotion they’re feeling in the first place and of course it’s hard to express feelings if you don’t know what you’re feeling.

Shoto doesn’t only show difficulty expressing his emotions but also recognizing those of other people. One of the best examples of this is the final exam arc, where he gets paired up with Yaoyorozu. In chapter 63 specifically, he doesn’t realize that Yaoyorozu is upset about something even though to someone else it’d probably have been obvious. Only when Aizawa points out that he should listen to her does he notice that he’s been doing something wrong. Shoto didn’t notice she was upset, and he didn’t notice he was being rude.

Emotions and emotional responses are continuously shown to be difficult for Shoto to handle. What he has absolutely no issues with, on the other hand, are academics. Of course, we can naturally assume that he’s been drilled to study hard from a very young age, but he is also extremely intelligent outside of the classroom. During the sports festival he is the first person shown to figure out that the obstacle course poses a lot more disadvantages to the people in the lead, during the practical exam, he is able to come up with a solid strategy very quickly.

During the training camp arc, him and Deku are the ones to come up with a strategy to protect Bakugo on the spot. He also doesn’t seem to consider his intelligence anything special. A lot of autistic people tend to assume that other people’s experiences align with their own. This can be seen when he seems surprised about Denki worrying that he’ll fail the written final exam. He asks how he could possibly fail if he’s been attending class, like the concept is entirely foreign to him (also there’s about a 0% chance this was a joke because this is Shoto we’re talking about.) He is very good at logical problem solving but emotional issues seem to stump him.

Literacy and verbal filters

Moving on, another big factor that Shoto seems to struggle with is his tendency to be overly literal and very blunt. There are several instances where he says things that we as readers as well as other characters perceive as insensitive. Once again, his interaction with Denki about the final exams (chapter 60) can be an example. He didn’t seem to think it was inappropriate and because this is Shoto, he didn’t ask to tease him either. Denki even points out that this was insensitive to say. A more subtle example is his conversation with Izuku in chapter 73, when they talk about Kota. His overall phrasing is fine, but he remains very blunt and direct and essentially ends up telling Izuku that his tendency to cut to people’s hearts with his words is annoying.

My personal favorite for an example can be found in chapter 83, in the hospital after the training camp, when the class visits Izuku, Shoto points out that “Of course Bakugo isn’t here.” Needless to say, he couldn’t possibly have timed this statement any worse. It wasn’t necessary in the first place, but he didn’t register it as something inappropriate to say.

One example of not him being unintentionally rude but just showing a different approach to telling the truth is seen in the third light novel. The fifth chapter revolves around the class preparing a birthday party for Iida. At one point, Sato asks if Iida has food allergies out of nowhere. Iida naturally asks why he needs to know this, Shoto is immediately ready to answer the question honestly, which would have spoiled the surprise, had Izuku not stepped in.

Autistic people often have trouble seeing whether something is or isn’t appropriate to say. Neurotypical people’s brains have a filtering process, it helps them be aware of possible responses to a statement. This filtering process is not functional or only limited in autistic people.

Shoto is also overly literal. In chapter 57, he gets upset over his friends continuously getting their hands hurt and refers to himself as “the hand crusher”. He is very serious about this and does not understand how Iida and Izuku could possibly think he was joking.

In chapter 164, he answers Gang Orca’s metaphoric question entirely seriously. During the interview training in chapter 241 he first seems confused by the made-up mission in the first place. He then proceeds to ask Mt Lady if she has a heart condition when she uses the phrase “My heart would burst out of my chest”. Finally, he appears genuinely horrified when she calls him a “lady killer” (“My smile will kill women..?!”)

In chapter 257, when Mineta claims school talk will “ruin the taste of the food”, Shoto simply says it tastes the same to him, to which Mineta proceeds to call him out for being overly literal.

Autistic people typically struggle to understand jokes and sarcasm, in fact, it’s often one of the main characteristics in people with an ASD diagnosis.

Overfamiliarity and Oversharing

Shoto’s tendency to overshare is another thing that is very typical foe ASD.

He doesn’t seem to understand that telling his life story to a classmate he’s barely interacted with prior is not exactly an appropriate thing to do. He repeats this later with All Might and, most notably, in chapter 165, when talking to the preschoolers during his provisional licensing course.

He also seems to have a slightly different perception of what makes someone friends than his classmates. As shown in chapter 241, to him, spending time with Bakugo during the licensing course is enough to deem them friends. Even when Bakugo points out that there is no correlation between the time spent together and friendship, he still doesn’t seem to understand.

Autistic people tend to become overly familiar and are easily attached to people if they perceive just one of their interactions as positive.

Attachment to inanimate things

This is something not really shown in the manga, but noteworthy, nonetheless. We know that Shoto, upon moving into the dorm building, remodeled his entire room from a modern, more western style room, into a traditional Japanese style one. The second chapter of the third novels goes into depth about why he did this. Shoto was entirely dumbstruck and thrown off by how different the room is from what he was used to. He knew the traditional Japanese rooms from home and his brain assumed that the dorms would be the same. He felt like the different style was wrong. He doesn’t like the unfamiliar flooring and even a small thing like the positioning of the light switch bother him.

He’s not comfortable in the unfamiliar environment, so he decides to change it.

Autistic people often struggle to adjust to changes. In environment and routine. They feel most comfortable in a well established and familiar routine, that includes the feel of their living space. A change of environment this drastic would be extremely stressful for someone on the spectrum.

Another thing that isn’t particularly obvious but does make sense when considered is that Shoto seems to have a comfort food (cold soba). While he’s never shown or stated to be a picky eater he does seem to opt for the same food whenever he gets the chance. Autistic people often have a very restricted diet due to sensory processing issues that apply to food textures, smells and taste.

Additional points

Shoto seems to be a little face blind. He doesn’t know who Kota is when Izuku mentions him, which seems to genuinely surprise Izuku. He also didn’t remember Inasa at all despite them having been at the same entrance exam.

In chapter 202 he’s shown completely zoning out. Of course, this can happen to anyone, I just found it interesting because it was shown so clearly, making it obvious that it was something we should pay attention to.

In the novel chapter in which he remodels his room it is also mentioned that the feeling of synthetic floor against his feet upsets him.

Shoto also seems relatively indifferent to temperature. Of course, that would correlate to his quirk as well, but it is also common for autistic people to struggle with temperature perception as well as other things that neurotypical people don’t struggle to recognize like hunger or thirst. This specifically applies to situations where you would typically end up in pain like, for example, frostbite. Shoto would obviously be used tot his but him showing no reaction at all to his body halfway freezing over was a little unnerving.

He also is shown to be relatively uninterested in certain social events like for example the room competition after the class moves into the dorms. He doesn’t want to be there; he’d rather go to sleep. In the beginning he also shows clear disinterest in making friends with his classmates. Both very typical things for people on the spectrum.

In chapter 244, Hawks asks Shoto a question in a way that seems to confuse him so much he can’t even form a coherent response. [Hawks: “Seemed like you were in trouble, Endeavor.” Endeavor: “Me? Not a chance.” Hawks: “But it seemed that way, didn’t it, Shoto?” Shoto: “Um..I…uh…”]

He probably didn’t register if Hawks actually wanted him to answer or not.

In chapter 64 he mistakes Yaoyorozu crying for her feeling sick, horribly misreading her expressions.

This last point is more personal than the rest, watching his reactions to Endeavor’s fight with the Nomu in chapter 190 made me think of the stress progression that often causes autistic shutdowns. Shoto was clearly becoming more and more stressed as he was watching and once it was over simply seemed to shut down. That is a very typical response to emotional distress or overstimulation in autistic people.

Final disclaimer

This is purely for my own entertainment; it is not meant to be offensive to anyone and I am not saying that this is absolutely what is going on. I’m simply elaborating on a theory/headcanon that I have. That being said, if you have questions feel free to drop them in the ask box, I’d be thrilled!