#my autism has chosen

[howzaboutsomewaterysalt]

Rise hits home for me. On top of constantly longing to see my brother in person (which I can’t, I wish I could but it’s too much to ask my current caretaker) it’s just so interesting to see the characters relationship develop. Sad we won’t get more any time soon. I hope all of you guys know to appreciate your parasitesiblings. You don’t get to choose them, and you don’t get them replaced.

[ophernelia]

audio is almost finished for episode 19. we're about to be on episode 20 already. the way i don't want season 2 of lykaia to end just yet cause ima miss it. my break is gonna be so brief after episode 22 cause i wanna get right back into it lol. i'll probably drop the pilot episode of jackpot during that time though. the plan was to switch off and focus on jackpot butttttt my brain says no.

[yj-98]

:] <- just . very fond of tim

[vilelittlecritter]

Me: "I don't like people, I prefer being on my own and not talking"

People: "oh okay we'll leave you be then"

Me: "wait no PLEASE COME BACK I WANT LOVE-"

[tommybowefuneralattendee]

writing chosen's relationship with his mom is something that can be so personal

[ritzcrackee]

fuk it midnight sun playlist

[crystaltoa]

And now for something completely different.

This is the ADHD Teapot. I made it in a ceramics class a few years ago. I use it to explain executive dysfunction to people who haven’t come across the term before (and those who think of ADHD mostly as Hyperactive Eight Year Old Boy Syndrome).

So, most people’s brains are like a regular shaped teapot with a single spout. Let’s say that your time, energy, focus etc is the liquid you have in the teapot. Your executive function is the spout, that directs the tea into the specific cup you want to fill-aka the task that you’re meant to be doing. Spills happen occasionally, but generally most of the tea goes in the right cup.

If you have executive dysfunction, (a symptom of ADHD, trauma, autism, schizophrenia etc.) you have multiple spouts going in different directions. You can try pointing one of them at your chosen cup and you will probably get some liquid in there, perhaps you will even fill it right up (finish the task). But meanwhile, tea is also pouring out of several other places and not going where you want it. If you have another container nearby, perhaps some of it will end up in there. But quite a lot of it is going to end up on the floor and accomplish nothing.

And at the end of the day you’ll have filled one or two cups ( or sometimes not even one) compared to the five or six that somebody with the same sized teapot (but only one spout) has filled, and everyone wonders why you’re so bad at getting tea poured, and why you make such a mess in the process.

One day I’d like to spend more time learning pottery and create a really technically good fucked up little adhd teapot. But that’s a long way off since i currently live in the outback and the nearest pottery workshop is some 400km away. But I figure that for now, it might be a useful or interesting metaphor to somebody even in its rough draft form.

This post is the cup I filled instead of cleaning my house btw.

[pears-trinkets]

.

[outer-edges]

my roommate asked me to change my music so i turned on the last of us sound track and she listened for like two chords before tipping her head back and going "you're on the spectrum" so empathetically and i just-

[n3onwraith]

Got rly into CoD over the course of *checks watch* 6 DAYS and now I have 3 OCs with one in the works, over 900 edits saved to a folder, and am doodling in Ibis paint while I relearn how to draw on paper because my brain isn't braining rn.

Anyways, don't send in asks (or do!) about it cause I WILL ramble. I'm working on memorizing the MW2 lore, and then I'll do Ghosts since those two impacted me the most, especially Ghosts growing up. I MIGHT start the black ops 3 campaign when I get to Mom's since we have that disc, but I haven't started it yet. (I also had Ghosts growing up, but I can't find it. RIP. anywaysss)

[drchucktingle]

THE TEXAS LIBRARY ASSOCIATION HAVE ISSUED AN APOLOGY AND A RE-INVITATION. HERE IS MY STATEMENT

hello buckaroos. the TEXAS LIBRARY ASSOCIATION have issued a formal statement and apology which you can read at the attached link.

while i find the language used to discuss what was done a little unsatisfying, i would like to start by saying i appreciate anyone taking steps to prove love is real and make things right. the genuine feeling of ‘realizing you have made a mistake and hurt someone else’ is a terrible one, and i have so much empathy for this group as they reckon with their choices causing harm. i appreciate their apology.

i also think more good than bad has come from this situation. i am so thankful this happened to me (someone with a large social media presence) and not a smaller buckaroo author without the means to stand up for themselves. i think the next time someone comes to the TXLA with an accommodation need, they will hopefully be taken more seriously

lets trot down to business about specifics now. the TXLA has re-invited chuck to the original panel and even offered to take a moment at the top of the panel to talk about what happened. this is very kind of them and i will say THANK YOU. 

unfortunately i will also have to decline.

the fact that it took this much effort, social media backlash, and discussion to let me simply EXIST PHYSICALLY in a way that is authentic to myself is not a good sign. if this organization immediately questions an authors chosen presentation in this manner, i cannot imagine what my other accommodations would be met with.

sometimes i am at an event and i very quickly need extra space to breathe. sometimes i am at an event and i need special guides to help me along from place to place. these are not ‘big asks’ and every other conference has gladly provided them, but if the TXLA had this kind of initial reaction to my physical appearance, i cannot imagine them readily helping with my other needs without ‘proof’.

this is clearly not a safe place to trot for those who require additional accommodations. regardless of any apology, their ACTIONS have shown that people who appear unusual or unique are not welcome at this event on a subconscious level. i believe the TXLA have some serious inner work to do beyond this apology, and i believe this inner work will involve actions more than words.

but even more importantly i would like to make this very important point: IT DOES NOT MATTER IF MY MASK IS A DISABILITY AID OR NOT. i appreciate the way this discussion has allowed us to trot out some deep talks on autism and proved love in this way, but i think there is a much more important point at hand.

regardless of WHAT someone looks like, it is not the job of an event or conference to pick apart WHY. physical presentation can be a part of someones neurodivergence, or gender, or sexuality, but i can also just exist as a nebulous undefined part of their inner self. it can be a piece they are not ready to openly discuss yet. the guests at TXLA are authors (aka ARTISTS) and the idea that a conference dedicated to an ART is going to deny people with unique and unusual presentations for ANY reason is absurd. since when are we applying a ‘dress code’ to our artists?

without knowing it, i personally believe there is an element of the ‘good queer, bad queer’ phenomenon going on here. there is a push to say ‘LOOK we accept these marginalized groups and cultures’ but behind the scenes that means ‘we accept these marginalized groups and cultures who are quiet and speak in turn and wear the metaphorical suit and tie’. it is easy to show diversity when you only take on the voices that arent too ‘strange’.

to prove my point i ask you this: do you think orville peck would have FOR ONE SECOND been asked to perform at the texas library association event without his mask?

so with that i say ‘very sincerely, thank you, but i will have to decline the re-invitation. maybe next year’

[ipso-faculty]

Proposing new meanings for the Disability Pride Flag stripes

I love the design of the disability pride flag made by @capricorn-0mnikorn (in consultation with many disabled people!). It’s beautiful, elegant, and distinct. I love the symbolism of the diagonal stripes.

But the more I think about the meanings of the five diagonal stripes, the more uncomfortable I am with them. So I'll explain my discomfort and then give proposed alternative meanings.

For those unfamiliar, these are the meanings that capricorn-0mnikorn gives:

The White Stripe: Invisible and Undiagnosed Disabilities

The Red Stripe: Physical Disabilities

The Gold Stripe: Neurodivergence

The Blue Stripe: Psychiatric Disabilities

The Green Stripe: Sensory Disabilities

With additional and helpful context here! 💙 Like a lot of disabled people my disabilities don't all fit neatly into these boxes, but I recognize some disabled people see themselves in these categories. I do appreciate the symbolism of it being the most common flag colours / internationalism plus the intent of representing diversity amongst the disability community.

Here’s what doesn’t sit well with me:

The yellow was chosen for the neurodiversity stripe because gold = Au = autism (and also as a fuck you to autism speaks, a sentiment I agree with 💯). 

So autism is used to represent all of neurodiversity. Even though the 2018 AutisticsUK campaign to associate gold with autism was explicitly motivated by the idea that neurodiversity is larger than just autism and autistic people should have our own colour/symbol distinct from the rainbow infinity used for general neurodiversity.

One specific disability is effectively being given a whole stripe (autism) while the other four stripes are based on abstract ideas: red is associated with body -> physical disability, blue is associated with the mind (and is “opposite” to red) so -> mental disability. This is reasonable but it’s inconsistent. (And I am very much the kind of autistic who gets bothered by internal inconsistency 😅)

The Deaf community has been using cyan blue for ages (since at least 1999, probably older) and they have been so vital in disability rights history. I feel if any single disability deserves to get an entire stripe to themselves it should be them.

I appreciate the honestly that assigning green to sensory disabilities was because “that was the color that was left over” but it still feels wrong given how vital blind & deaf people have been to disability history. 

Blue for mental/emotional disabilities also misses that the Mad Pride movement has been using purple as their colour since at least 2013. 

If all five stripes were disconnected from actual disability-specific pride flags I think I’d be okay with it. What sets me off is the inconsistency: autism gets the privilege of its own chosen colour but not other disabilities? (Also: autism isn’t the only disability that uses yellow!)

My proposal for new meanings

I propose each stripe represent a different cause of disability, and the associated model(s) of disability that go with that cause:

Red: disability due to injury / the debility model of disability - e.g. injury due to armed conflicts caused by colonialism, injury due to gun violence in a country which fails to regulate gun safety, preventable illness due to sociopolitical neglect 😡🩸

Yellow: disability due to natural differences / affirmative models of disability - e.g. autistic people who lead lives that take advantage of their autistic traits, DSPS folks who are able to work night shifts and take pride in doing so 😄🌟

Blue: situational disabilities / critical models like the social model, social construction model, political/relational model, and radical model - e.g. a Deaf person who feels their only disability is that people don’t speak their signed language and don’t provide captions/etc 🗣️♿️

Green: disability due to illness / biomedical models of disability - e.g. people with conditions like ME/CFS and Long Covid who actually do want to be treated/cured 🤢🦠

White: disability caused by unknown or other factors / other models such as the human rights model - e.g. somebody with a poorly-understood and/or undiagnosed illness who is fighting for access for accommodations and medical care 👀🤍

People may relate to multiple stripes! Whether it’s for the same disability or for having multiple disabilities. Like the old meanings, the intent is to showcase our internal diversity. 🌈

It’s been my experience of disability community that attitudes about disability tend (in general) to be linked more to when/how we were disabled rather than mental/physical/sensory/etc. For example, people like me who were disabled from a young age tend to understand our disabilities differently than people who acquire disability later in life.

Colour choice justifications:

Red as disabilities caused by injury: keeping with capricorn-0mnikorn’s association of red with the body plus the common associations of red with blood, violence, and anger. I want to explicitly include the debility model of disability because a lot of white disabled people tend to forget or gloss over how disability is used as a weapon against racialized & Global South folks.

Yellow is associated with optimism and pleasure as well as enlightenment (such as in the Deaf flag) and so I connect it to the affirmation model of disability (which is the opposite of the charity/tragedy model). From there I associated it to disability due to natural differences, such as congenital neurodivergence. I want yellow to still be something that fellow autistics could still see themselves in the flag for! 💛 And I want intersex people who see their intersex variation as a disability to be able to see themselves here too because being intersex is natural 💛 

Blue as disabilities that are social/situational in nature, like Deafness being a disability in situations where signed languages are unavailable. I wanted Deafness to actually be under blue this time. 💙 

Blue has also been used for disability writ large for a long time now and so this one being the one associated with the Social Model feels most historically connected to me. I’m also including newer critical/postmodern models like the social construction model and radical model which also posit that disability is a social category rather than a deficiency of individuals’ bodyminds.

The social model is generally contrasted with the medical model - viewing disability as a medical problem. A lot of disability activism is focused on de-medicalizing our bodyminds and challenging the idea that we want to be cured. 

But there are chronic illnesses like ME/CFS, long covid, and cancer where the people who are disabled by them do actively (and vocally) want to be cured! And they belong to the disability community too.  Green was picked for illness because green has been used to symbolize sickness (e.g. the 🤮 emoji). And biomedical models like the traditional medical model and the more recent biopsychosocal model are thematically connected to disability being due to illness.

For white, I want people who are undiagnosed and/or who feel the invisibility of their disability as important to again be able to see themselves in this stripe. 🩶White is also the catch-all “other models” because of white being the sum of all colours in an additive colour model. Models like the human rights model I see as being appealing to disabled people who are feeling invisibilized by society.

For each stripe I've included both a cause of disability and a model of disability. The causes are concrete, and easy to understand. The models of disability are more abstract and not everybody will know them (especially ableds). But a flag gives us an opportunity to teach others about us and I think it's a great opportunity to increase awareness of the different views/models of disability. 🖤

Overall, I tried to keep as much of capricorn-0mnikorn’s reasoning/associations alive in my new proposed meanings as I could. 💜 I hope people who see themselves in a given stripe of the original flag will see themselves in this scheme as well. I hope people who didn’t see themselves in the original scheme find these options more inclusive. ☮️

[icyg4l]

PAC: Is Your Circle Trustworthy?

Hello beautiful people! I am so sorry for the wait, I've been busy with just enjoying what life has to offer. I really hope that you all are doing good! Today's reading is inspired by the people that are/were in my life that I've considered friends. I think that we all go through a period of time where we're questioning the people in our circles. Maybe it's because we're going through a period of transition, experiencing successes, experiencing painful moments, etc. I think that there is nothing wrong with this because we're all human at the end of the day. What aligns with us will stay, what doesn't will go. Also, please check out my Five Dollar Friday sale. It would mean a lot to me! Thank you! So with that being said, please pick the quote that resonates with you, my dear!

Top Left-to-Bottom Right: (1-4)

Pile One: I think some of you work in an elderly home/nursing home. Maybe you’re working on getting your degree in nursing. I heard the line from Beyonce’s ‘Hold Up’ where she says “Something don’t feel right / ‘Cause it ain’t right”. I don’t think you guys have a good discernment. You don’t trust yourself so in return, you attract some questionable people. I get the feeling that you guys are like the friend that doesn’t know how to say no, so you end up getting taken advantage of. You guys remind me of a friend that I had once. I think that you need to start owning your power, realizing your worth. You can do this by spending more time by yourself. Once you start seeing how people interact with you as you step into your true self, you will see who stays and who will go. There is nothing wrong with a fresh start. You need to get real though. You need to clean house, babe. Nothing is permanent, so don’t force yourself to stick in a situation that you don’t need to be in.

Cards Used: 8 of Swords (RX), The Moon, The Devil, Queen of Discs, Strength, 4 of Swords, The Chariot.

extras: “the underdog”. independent not by choice. meditation. saturn in the 1st house. looking at the moon. empire (2015). solar system. planetarium. “they don’t wanna see me smile”. oh happy day.

Pile Two: I feel like you guys are going to a concert soon. You could have made up with a friend that you fell out with and now you’re wondering if they have good intentions this time. They have changed for the better, I see. It takes two to tango is the energy that I am getting from this. There’s no fingers to point here. You both did your dirt but after some time apart, you’ve come to acknowledge your part in the ending of the friendship. I think that you guys have a good circle around you within this friendship and outside of your friendship. But you guys do not need to befriend your co-workers. Keep that to a minimum. This goes for any classmates that you think are cool too, lol. I see that you’ll be turned off by their behavior very quickly. But you have a good circle overall, just don’t let your ego ruin your friendships. Check yourself before you wreck yourself.

Cards Used: 5 of Swords, 6 of Swords, Ace of Cups, 9 of Cups, Temperance, The Sun.

extras: childhood best friends. autism. “stand back!” thumbs down. 2009. new boyz.

Pile Three: For this pile, I heard “divinely orchestrated”. I think your circle is perfect just the way it is. You are spiritually bonded to the people that are your friends right now. They have pure intentions. This could be your chosen family. You’ve chosen correctly. For some of you, your circle consists of mostly your biological family. Your guides approve of the people around you so much. I think that you will be lifelong friends with these people. I am seeing some distance between you and these people though, physical distance to be exact. Did you move or are you planning to move? I feel like your circle wants you to make the move if you haven’t. They see that you are bored and fed up with your current environment. They will always be there for you. You’re right where you need to be and you have the support around you, just do it!

Cards Used: Temperance, 10 of Pentacles, 7 of Discs, King of Cups, The Hierophant, Ace of Discs.

extras: polaroid cameras. divinity. todrick hall. twitter memes. “fall flat”. chasing fame. smalltown girl.

Pile Four: At one point, your circle was perfect for you. But I think that you have outgrown it. I feel like at the beginning of this friendship, you were insecure. Perhaps, you and these other people bonded over traumas or a common enemy/disdain for something. Maybe you were both impulsive teenagers who hated the world. Now, you don’t want this friendship in your life anymore. You’ve done some soul searching. This person is still on the same shit. Now there is some tension that has risen between the two of you. You want more for yourself, but this person doesn’t. If you don’t cut this person/these people off, they will take you down with them. I feel like this person is immature. They lack the emotional maturity to see how their lack of growth is detrimental to this friendship. They don’t really appreciate it like they should. I feel like this person has ego trips that you’re just now noticing. I heard, “Don’t save her / She don’t wanna be saved”. This person is judgmental and it’s best that you get away from them for your own good. I am channeling the energy of Nancy from The Craft. This person could be doing witchcraft on you if you know they engage in that stuff. Be careful, Pile Four.

Cards Used: Judgment, The Empress (RX), Justice, 2 of Discs, The Moon, The Hierophant (RX), 10 of Discs, The Hermit.

extras: beignets. spiritual/religious awakening. take me to church by hozier. army-bound. powerful.

[tommybowefuneralattendee]

me vs the nintendogs fic where they both have animalian traits (dogboy chosen/catboy augustus) that wants to eat my frontal lobe

[plutonicbees]

okay I literally had a dream last week that I had a bart plushie

and it looked like this??

op why do you know what it looks like in my head

Take this on your journey

[alexisntedgy]

in a similar vein to one of my previous posts, it’s truly fascinating how the fanbase wholeheartedly accepts the captain as autistic (and I am absolutely not saying that he isn’t, he quite literally checks every box and it is very possible to accidentally write an autistic character) yet Mary, who stood out a huge amount in her own time, who isn’t what most would consider “fully” verbal, who relied on echoalia a lot, who stimmed in a way that was very typical and natural for AFAB autistics, who was chosen to be burnt as a witch and take the blame for something she didn’t do because she was “strange” and “talked to herself”… is never mentioned in the same vein.

this wouldn’t bother me so much if it weren’t for the fact that katy wix is autistic. Mary’s autistic body language is real autistic body language. I’ve never seen a character who moves like me, who hums and sways like me, who rarely fully knows what’s going on, who needs it to be explained to her when somebody has done something wrong to her- an afab person with moderate support needs autism.

it’s interesting how much focus is on a white cis male character played by a neurotypical being autistic and not on a clearly neurodivergent female character who is often written off as “just weird” when she’s played by an autistic woman. I rarely see people talking about this, certainly nowhere near as much as they talk about the captain’s neurodivergency.

it’s just very interesting and also something that reflects in real life