#it is Autism!

[indigopoptart]

How do you have time to do an entire chapter every week!?!?! I live in the void and I still don't have the ability to form that many related sentences into paragraphs into art?!?!?! Do you have a secret superpower you're hiding from us because you're going to use it to save the world from destruction?!?!!?

OHOHO! Hello there!

dude i get it so much. before stumbling upon Welcome Home i was in SERIOUS writers burnout but somehow seeing those silly little guys yoinked me out of that and now i am here!

this is gonna be a bit of a long-winded explanation, so i’ll provide it here under the cut!

when i had first started writing stamps, i had published three chapters back-to-back, writing one a day. which i know was because of my hyperfixation kicking into high gear and making my brain go go go! until i realized i was running low on Juice!

So that was when I had decided to start posting every sunday, that way i could take my time on producing things and build a buffer.

as of right now, i’m about a week ahead of what’s posted. that means that, i am currently working on chapter ten while chapter nine is being proofread and readied for publishing! having this sort of “buffer” allows me to feel less stressed about getting chapters done, which means i have the potential to write better!

ive always been a fast writer, even in my early days of starting out and even in my first and only other long fanfic (We Don’t Talk about That One!). but one thing i Majorly remember from that one is that i felt very stressed to get the next one out on time, to reach that word count minimum that i had set for myself. and im taking the time to make sure i dont do that with stamps. if a chapter must be 3,000 words, then it will be 3,000 words! if it must be 1,000, then it must be 1,000! Anything more or anything less will take away from that solid craftsmanship that me (and others) have been working on bringing to the table.

i know this answer may not Make Sense for your question, but i did want to explain my thought process behind it! the main things fueling my writing at the moment are my adhd and my asd. to be honest, without them, i never would have even started stamps! being neurodiverse is a Very wonderful Experience sometimes!

i write in the Notes app on my phone and ipad (evil, i know)! for some reason, doing so really helps me get the creative juices flowing. and it means i can work on it whenever! whether it be in the car on my phone, or in between classes on my ipad, or anywhere else, i write! and when i am Writers Blocked, i usually write on-stream with one of my buddies! body-doubling (even if not physically) really helps me focus.

but there we go! long winded explanation over! i hope you enjoyed this smidgen of information on my writing process!

btw, here is a link to STAMPS for those who are interested in reading!

[macdenlover]

it came to my realization that 99% of my fandom related headaches would be cured if everyone understood this

[callmemanatee]

The way most autism literature describes "literal interpretation" is often not at all similar to how I experience it. Teenage me even thought I couldn't be autistic because I've always been able to learn metaphors easily.

In fact, I love wordplay of all kinds. Teenage me was fascinated to learn all the types of figurative language there are in poetry and literature.

But paperwork and questionnaires are hard, because there's so much they don't state clearly. Or they don't leave room for enough nuance.

"List all the jobs you've had, with start and end dates." What if I don't remember the exact day or month? Is the year enough?

"Have you been suffering from blurred vision?" Well, if I take off my glasses the whole world is blurred, but I'm fairly sure that's not what the intake form at the optometrist is asking.

Or the infamous (and infuriatingly stereotypical) "Would you rather go to a library or a party?" What sort of party? Where? Who's there? I work at a library. Am I currently at the library for work or pleasure? Does it have a good collection?

It's not common figures of speech that confound me. It's ambiguity, in situations that aren't supposed to be ambiguous.

[youmegravity]

I need people to understand that sometimes autism is just this

[gabrielora]

When I was younger and researching the autism diagnosis criteria and symptoms, I thought “oh I couldn’t POSSIBLY be autistic.” Because when I read “takes everything literally” I thought it literally meant EVERYTHING and I was like “I don’t take EVERYTHING literally, just most things!” And I just realized the other day that it didn’t actually mean EVERYTHING and that was an overstatement.

[thund3randrain]

when the autism is being an actual mental health problem instead of making me obsess over fictional characters again:

[runawaycarouselhorse]

Please help the family of a non-verbal autistic child (who has been losing weight because he only eats certain kinds of food, largely unavailable during this time) leave Gaza!

[anexperimentallife]

[magentasnail]

served my duty as an autistic artist and made a bunch of autism creature reaction images

[panvatar]

As an autistic monster fucker and a furry (stay with me) I feel confident in saying Laios is not a monster fucker. Laios hyperfixates on monsters like irl people hyperfixate on dinosaurs. Not once have I seen him interested in a monster sexually. He is all about fun facts and recipes.

He is, however, definitely a furry and I'd bet money he's got a fursona and a monstersona.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[snakeautistic]

People underestimate how much it fucks you up to be subtly excluded as a kid. I would try to talk to my classmates and be met with disinterest or annoyance. The one friend I had, who I clung to and nodded along to his every word, had other friends he liked just as much or more. And his other friends didn’t care for me at all.

I look back at pictures from the time and see how separated I was from them. I remember knowing I was different. I remember posing questions about the world to the girls playing next to me and realizing that they had never asked the same ones to themselves. That the ways we thought couldn’t be more different.

I kept myself amused with my own fanatical stories and musings in my head. I would wander the playground on a circular path, imagining a friend and being sorely disappointed when it didn’t feel as real as I’d hoped.

There was a bubble separating me from everyone else, thin, and nearly invisible, but with a pearly sheen you could catch under the right conditions. I knew it was there, they knew it was there, and it changed me

[kleefkruid]

I was typing an entire post about food issues and why I don't like wet food, until I remembered that unlike in Dutch, 'wet food' has a specific meaning in English. Just straight up deleted everything bc all I could see myself as was

[starridge]

from the same six hour drawing session where i devolved into hyperfixation-based madness

[deiim]

rejection sensitivity is so fucking lame. like boo hoo look at me i felt mildly ignored for 30 seconds and already started planning my own funeral liKE BITCH CHILL it was never that serious

[minart-was-taken]

Autism be upon ye

[itsaspectrumcomic]

Sometimes it feels like everyone around me is speaking in a secret language and I'm the only one who doesn't know it.