#sincerely: a fellow autistic

[teatitty]

The only thing missing from this episode for me was when Laios says "rice was Shuro's favourite food" and in the manga version of that Toshiro's face pops up in the corner to say "no... it wasn't..." further cementing that Laios is ignorant of asian culture and just made a very bad assumption based on where Toshiro is from

[winndycakes]

Winndy Rambles And Gushes About Chuck Tingle

Wanted to ramble a little about one of my favorite authors, creators and overall just super rad people; Chuck Tingle.

Like many people, when I first heard of Chuck, I took him as some sort of meme. A troll, a joke, someone not to be taken seriously. After all, the majority of his works are "silly short erotica stories around dinosaurs, cryptids and even living concepts and items". How COULD this be serious? It's a question I asked before, years ago, and one that many still do to this day.

One holiday season, a friend had made a post on FaceBook saying "first five people to comment I'll gift you a book". So I did. The book I got was a physical copy of the "Space Raptor Butt Invasion Trilogy" by Chuck Tingle. Since I had a book of Tingle's now, I really had no excuse to not read it for myself.

Erotica normally isn't my thing (I'm pretty ace and grey aro too), but very quickly, I was charmed by the prose. As you read Chuck's stories, there's a fact that becomes very apparent. Chuck Tingle is a great writer, a really great writer. How he writes, how the words flow together, one sentence going into the next. The characters, the plot, the little bits of lore, dialogue and all he puts in... You quickly begin to see; this is NOT a joke.

It is not a meme. He is not trolling you. It is art. Passionate, sincere, genuine art. And it's beautiful. The more you read, the more definitive it gets.

I will admit, I have read aloud many a Tingler for friends and others in Discord servers, both to share my joy of Tingle with others, but also, it is fun to look at how different his works are. It's fine to laugh along with them even.

The moment that really was like... angels singing, light shining down and there's bishi sparkles and a heavenly soft pink background appearing for me though was the summer Chuck Tingle released on of his first full novella's; "Trans Wizard Harriet Porber and the Bad Boy Parasaurolophus". Like many, I was crushed and gutted at JKR's extreme turn to committing to transphobia (and of course the hindsight of realizing... the HP books and universe were not as kind and welcoming as I remembered growing up). So when Chuck Tingle (in one weekend mind you) came out with a 50k novel affirming trans people and their belonging in not just queer spaces, but being on this Earth, as fellow human beings, it was... affirming. It was the welcoming feeling I had gotten with the original HP books all those years ago, but it was real. (Also please read both Trans Wizard Harriet Porber books. They're delightful, fun and the magic system Tingle creates is so, so cool and interesting).

The next thing that got me just mega hype for Tingle was his first foray into horror; "Straight". "Straight" is Tingle's answer to the ever popular trope and genre of zombies and the apocalypse that comes with them, and what a fun turn of tables he takes on them. Zombies in the Tingleverse are not undead beings, they're not humans afflicted by a virus, instead a strange cosmic event happens once a year, when one night, all cishet people on Earth get this animalistic, violent urge to brutally harm and even kill all queer people. I won't get too spoilery about it but it is a very fun romp, and as someone who has been fatigued by zombies, it is a welcome new perspective.

Not long after this, Chuck came out with two full, traditionally published horror novels; "Camp Damascus" and "Bury Your Gays". Both are very different experiences in horror, both a joyful celebration of being queer and your authentic self even in the face of those looking to silence you, permanently if they must. I had the pleasure of meeting Chuck (twice!) while he was on tour for both of these books, getting my copies signed (along with my copies of the Trans Wizard duology and my beloved copy of the Space Raptor trilogy) and was able to tell Tingle myself just how important he is to someone like me; another queer autistic creator. (I was also one of the few people to win the little mini games he gave, twice, but that's a different story).

Ultimately that is what I am trying to get at. Growing up, and even for all of my 20s, there wasn't really someone like Tingle. Someone unabashedly authentic, themselves, queer, open and imo most importantly, joyously so. One is often told "just be yourself" but that can be hard to do when it seems like the world is against you for one reason or another.

Seeing a creator like Chuck shows how important it is to have such a presence in the world, and I was glad I got to tell him myself. I've had a lot of hardships in life, a lot of losses, a lot of grief, but someone like Chuck is there to tell you to keep trotting and remind you; Love Is Real.

And that's truly the ending message:

Love Is Real.

[warframe1999]

hello fellow amir beckett warframe 1999 enjoyers

i am so happy to see so many people like him, i saw that poll going around asking who everyone plans to romance and its an amir SWEEP. i’m super excited to have more auDHD representation in this game, but therein the problem lies.

i come to you with a humble request (especially to the neurotypicals/allistics out there) to be a bit more mindful of how yall go about talking about him.

some of the things i see being said about him veer dangerously into the infantilization territory that is ALL too common with autistic characters in media, and its kinda disheartening to see. i wouldnt be saying this if it was a throughline for all the male characters (or any of them for that matter), but im hard pressed to find any of these kinds of comments about arthur, quincy, or even aoi. things like “oooh my little baby boy i want to squish his cheeks hes so adorkable hes my little blorbo my poor mentally ill baby” ring way way different when it’s pointed at the one (canonically) autistic character that got released.

like i said i’m super pumped that people like him!! i love him and can’t wait to get to see more of his character development in the coming updates. all i ask is people try and be a bit more mindful of the way that they talk about this. as eleanor said: “He’s not a beautiful, broken marionette, and he’s nobody’s project. He’s one of us.”

let’s talk about him like an equal.

sincerely a fellow grown adult w auDHD

[meowmeowriley]

Hi MeowMeow Costume anon here sorry it’s taken a couple days for me to reply life got busy finding one’s honour is harder then I thought!

You want my autistic head canons for Zuko? Strap in for some unhinged rambling because I have ✨thoughts✨ this will be long

(CW: implied child abuse (Fuck Ozai))

Zuko likes music (Iroh mentiones he’s talented with the Tsungi horn) and his swords I also think he would have picked up dancing at some point with how he moved during dance of the dragons.

When he’s around people he trusts he emotes more with his face and masks less in general and I’d say if he felt safe enough he’d do more overt (for him) stimms like humming, minor rocking or tugging on his hair Iroh would be one of his safe people and eventually the gaang would be too

*I don’t think he’d have very obvious stimms in general being raised royal he’d be expected to act a certain way and hand flaps are not it. Also flaming 💩lord Ozai would have seen any aberrations as weakness and stamped that shit out fast

*I honestly think it could be one of the reasons the flaming 💩lord despises Zuko being inherently different would be a weakness in his eyes and reflect badly on him

I think he and May get along well because they’re both autistic and are a safe space for each other. she has trouble processing her emotions he has trouble controlling his they make good emotional counter balances

He cares so much about the people and animals around him even his enemies a strong sense of justice is a common sign of autism and speaking out of turn was the initial reason for his banishment.

He’s so socially awkward he doesn’t know how to talk with people instead of at them his entire pep talk to himself and subsequent introduction to the gaang when he tries to join them is peak “how do you do fellow kids” and his “that’s rough buddy” is as iconic as it is socially inept.

The guy totally hyper fixated on hunting the Avatar and when he could no longer find his purpose in it and realised he was wrong he did not cope

He has no tackt. none. and he takes things at face value and he hates lying his humour is also a little left leaning and he tries to relate to others and their experiences as a way of bonding.

While he’s not a prodigy fire bender like his sister he found ways around his limitations that helped accentuate his natural talents like his sword fighting (dancing would help with sword work) being incorporated into his bending (I don’t remember any other character bending with weapons).

He’d know a lot about tea from Iroh and I think he enjoyed working in the tea shop

Thank you for coming to my Ted talk!

I hope these make sense it’s kinda late now but this was fun to write thanks for reading my insane rambles :D

Also in response to the (non gendered) Prince! line you gave me so much surprise gender euphoria I cried 😭🫠🥹 sincerely thank you. I’m going with he/him pronouns atm but he/they is something I want to look into.

if you don’t mind me asking what are your pronouns?

I’ll probably send another ask in the next couple of days to annoy you with lol but in the meantime have a great day!

Sorry I took so long to get back to this, but damn I needed it today so I guess it's good I kept this in reserve. ❤

Holy shit, I can't unsee Zuko as autistic now. Like it's impossible. He's so perfectly coded to be on the spectrum. He's generally monotone, until he's not, and that's always when he's dealing with big emotions. He'd be a lip biter for sure.

Zuko doing dance as a stim 😍 the first time the Gaang sees him dancing when he thinks he's alone, they'd be so supportive, and have no idea what that would mean to him.

Fire lord Zuko infodumping about tea to some random person who tried to ask if he'd like them to make him some, as he heats the tea himself with his bending, and damn if that isn't the best tea that servant has ever had in their life.

Until next time my non gendered Prince Zuko! (Which will be in like, a few minutes, when I get to your other ask. Again sorry for the wait 😭 I'm bad at this)

[orcboxer]

What do you think about autistic people who use assistive communication devices full time asking people who only experience temporary speech loss to stop using the term nonverbal to refer to those episodes?

You misunderstand, I don't refer to speech loss (i.e. mutism / voice loss) episodes as nonverbal. Using words to communicate through any medium is also, definitionally, verbal communication. When I say "nonverbal" I mean it literally, as in, no language, no words. So if someone cannot use any words, written or signed or spoken or typed, that is, by definition, nonverbal. It is an episode of total wordlessness, not voicelessness. To call it mutism or speech loss would be inaccurate. During speech loss episodes, I can use words through typing or signing. During nonverbal episodes, I cannot.

But if what you meant is that even those episodes shouldn't be referred to as nonverbal, because it isn't full-time, then I would suggest (not with decisive finality but as sincere ongoing discussion with intent to continue to listen) that we consider following the example of other disabilities in regard to part-time vs full-time disability.

If a fully mute person asks me to stop using the word "mutism" or "mute" to describe my selective mutism, on the grounds that it's only episodic and not full-time, should I?

I interact with fully mute people fairly regularly, and the general consensus between us has always been that we all share similar struggles, and that even if the severity of our mutism differs, we are still experiencing mutism. I've never been asked to stop referring to myself as mute, but if I was, I don't feel that it would be a reasonable demand. I would challenge that. (again, not with finality, but with intent to engage in honest discussion).

Similarly, if someone asks that I not refer to myself as autistic on the grounds that some autistic people have more severe symptoms than me, that wouldn't exactly be reasonable either. A "part-time" disability is still a disability.

I feel that, if anything, we should be focused on solidarity across the spectrum of severity of nonverbality, rather than on arguing over who has it worse. It's certainly not my intention to trivialize, just to describe my experiences as accurately as I can and to encourage solidarity between fellow disabled folks.

[invinciblerodent]

I know this is a hardish question bc probably depends on game factors, but as it is rn you the brain sauce

Do you think Emmerich notices right away that Tristan isn’t alive in the same sense as pm everyone else? Or is he like quicker than others to notice? I assume Tristan isn’t quick to explain the full truth of his… condition.

(Sorry if I seem obsessed, bc I kinda am. I blame my adhd for the hyperfixation. Love the whole idea! )

Oh absolutely no worries babe lol, I'm just happy that you find the big fellow interesting! ❤️❤️

Have a song I've been listening to a lot over the past few days and have kinda started associating it with him-

(this, as well as "Ghost" by the same guy, very Tristan-coded to me, only this one also has that soft, deep-voiced crooning in "Orlesian" in the middle there that's. Very A+.)

I honestly feel a bit more "free" headcanoning and rambling on about this guy and this story than about anyone else, specifically because the base idea is kind of on the sillier side? Like, I feel fairly confident ~~hazarding a guess~~ that there's not going to be a subplot in the actual game about the main character needing to hide that actually, they're kind of, sort of a zombie, lol.

So while I'm intentionally keeping my girls vague (beyond "very autistic bisexual elf rights activist", "viking pirate lesbian(?) dwarf", and "tiny dommy mommy"), I'm like, fairly sure that I was gonna need to do extensive rewrites and annotations to the game to make this one work anyway, so I'm not super concerned if I end up needing to "retcon" something I think about now.

What I was thinking so far is that Tristan, as of the beginning, could count on one hand the number of people he's told about his "condition" over the past two decades, and of those people, he's not sure if there's even one still left alive. (Maybe a fellow Warden healer, someone who's patched him up enough times to catch on that something is fishy? Maybe the longest and most serious relationship of his adult life that ended tragically one way or another? I'll have to brainstorm that one)

So as a Grey Warden, Tristan spends a lot of his life traveling alone (which suits him just fine), and quite often, the preternatural survivability and even the unusually thick blood can be reasoned away with "it's a Warden thing, don't worry about it, we're all like this". Most people will believe it, and aren't very quick to jump to conclusions that shouldn't be possible.

Except maybe those who are intimately familiar with death, spirits, and the undead. And are, yknow, actual professors of the occult.

So I think it's not exactly a closely guarded secret, but one Tristan wouldn't reveal unless absolutely necessary- and for as long as possible, none of the companions would know, but Emmrich would absolutely suss him out on his own.

Regardless of whether there's been any light flirting before then, I like to kind of imagine there being a singular moment --perhaps after a hit taken too close, maybe in defense of him, when the odd, stale, almost slightly mildewy scent of Tristan's blood hits Emmrich's nose the first time-- when their eyes meet, and there's this Moment of mutual recognition. This "oh shit, I know what you are."- "oh shit, he knows what I am.".

I of course don't know, like, the particulars of his character, but from his tone in the blurbs and the short stories, I assume that if pulled aside afterwards and asked sincerely, Emmrich would be willing to keep it a secret- and that he would immediately feel intense scholarly interest.

I mean, Tristan is an anomaly: by all means, he should not exist. The undead of Thedas are created via possession, and his body has not been possessed by any spirit, and isn't being controlled by anything. He seems whole, hale, and himself (not a darkspawn, either), he breathes, eats, sleeps, heals and bleeds pretty much as normal, and the things that aren't quite normal, are still not outside of the realm of possibility: many completely normal people breathe and blink slower than average, many people prefer their meat on the rarer side, many people have troubles falling and staying asleep. Nothing about him on its own is indicative of anything strange, and yet he is intelligent undead! Just the fact that he can speak in a way that is convincingly human is incredible!

I want to believe that Emmrich (like many of us are about our blorbos) would immediately kind of be like "I want to study you under a microscope." (paraphrased ofc) (Is he the playful kind? Would he jokingly paint studying Tristan as repayment for his silence? Who knows! It's fun either way!)

And at first, Tristan would be hesitant (it's awkward, to be under such scrutiny, and to have his whole Situation upended and dissected like that, especially by someone he probably already considers somewhat intimidating, in a handsome, charming sort of way), but even if it's not suggested, he'd consider it repayment for keeping it a secret, and agree. And if I can make it work, I'd really enjoy for there to be an opportunity for a moment between the two of them that has Emmrich kind of like... "I have been around enough bodies, both dead and alive, naked and clothed, to not be affected by anything corporeal. I know flesh well, I know what lies under it, and my interest in this particular body is purely clinical, scholarly, and in no way romantic or sexual. This dimly lit office/surgery is not in any way romantic, nor does any sight of his body arouse anything in me. .......... oh, his nipples are pierced. That's not a good thing for me."

("oh, strong muscles shifting enticingly under inked skin." "oh, the big man is large in every way." etc.)

Something something hearing an otherwise abnormally sluggish heart suddenly beat faster at a touch, something something intense examination of all bodily reactions making them both feel both flayed and more naked than it should be possible, intense eye contact, oh in this kind of light his eyes do look reddish and eerie but I can't look away, and from there on I think it can kinda progress however it's going to progress in the game.

I am havign SUCH a normal time of it, man!!!!!!!

[horreurscopes]

hey i love ur blog n im sorry that a fucking phone blog is being an ass. love seeing ur posts

hi! thank you, i'm alright! it got to me for a second because i too am autistic about phones and found phoneid very delightful, so it was shocking + hurtful to recieve because i am a person with feelings. but i was cheered up by my many beloved mutuals and friends reminding me they have my back when people are disproportionately disparaging and demeaning online. the live-in bestie kissed my head and made me laugh and we had phone time in bed together. it was extremely cozy :')

the important takeaway here is that it is indeed possible to be around 30 and older and like, be online and have interests. any kind of insult along the lines of "how are you [age] and still..." is just reinforcing the idea that life ends when your 20s end and will eventually bite anyone using it in the ass

the implication was that it is somehow immature of me to be interested in ~dark themes~ in storytelling and fiction and talking about them with fellow adults on the very much completely insignificant-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things blogging platform tumblr dot com. the reality is that building connections with your community in real life is gonna have a much more real impact in the world than years of wasted time harassing strangers online

i think it'd be much more embarrassing for me to still feel like i'm somehow a terrible person because i want the homestuck clonetwins to kiss. as you age it becomes clear that, sincerely, in the words of a long gone great blogger, not to be fake deep but none of this is real

[butchamy]

Okay, as promised on Discord, here's a rambly micro-essay about David Byrne's music and autism. In case this post somehow reaches a wider audience, a preface: I'm not a scholar or an expert on any of these topics, I'm just an autistic person myself with a high school degree in humanities, so try not to take it too harshly if I get things wrong or generalize too much!

The inciting incident for this post, so to speak, was me talking about how listening to Talking Heads music or David Byrne's solo work often makes me feel a little less lonely than I usually do. Not like David Byrne even knows I exist, but just for a few minutes, I get this sensation that there's someone else in the world who thinks about things the way I do, which is a feeling that's hard to find through regular conversation with other people, even fellow autistics. I'm sure a lot has already been written about how music can often be more emotionally resonant than simple conversation, but in this case specifically I think it's because Talking Heads music, in a way, is autistic.

Now there's a lot of music that's exceptionally popular among autistic people, and a lot of music made by autistic people. And I'm sure a lot of those would also qualify for the label! But what I specifically mean with the music being autistic, is that a lot of ways in which the music is described or (mis)interpreted, especially by neurotypical music analysts, just feels similar to how autistic people (and several other people on the neurodivergent spectrum, I'm sure) are described or (mis)interpreted. Neurotypicals often seem to interpret David Byrne's personality as a distinct persona, as funny, or in some way ironic or satirical. Most neurodivergent Talking Heads fans I know though instead just see him as extremely sincere and open, which from what I've gathered, is also how David sees himself. And I reckon that's partly because a lot of the themes in his lyrics are atypical but relatable in a way that neurotypical people just wouldn't really expect, I think?

It's full of admiration or even adoration of the mundane or banal, like municipal workers or supermarkets or even the simple act of being. Sometimes there's an apparent tonal dissonance between the subject and the feeling of the song - Everybody's Coming To My House can be read on the surface-level as a song that's about just inviting people to look at your home, but it has a threatening, almost ominous sound to it. Flowers and Heaven both describe something that people would generally give positive connotations, but in ways that are more ambiguous or outright negative. Animals almost seems to be the poster child for this as I've seen several people question what the intended message of the song even is. And while on the surface that might indeed come across as some form of irony or satire, I think to a lot of autistic people - at least to me and several other people I know - it just reflects how often we can struggle with really identifying or making sense of our emotions.

We might feel really happy about "boring" things, or suddenly have a negative reaction to a "good" thing, and I find that this frequently results in people thinking I'm either fickle/irrational, or trying to somehow be ironic or funny. And David Byrne's music makes me feel like that dissonance can be a form of sincerity, too. If there's one thread I'd say runs through almost all of his work, both with Talking Heads and solo, it's almost a sense of naivety regarding emotions, in the positive sense. There's not really good emotions or bad emotions, emotions just are a part of existing and because existence is valuable, emotions are valuable, regardless of subject or context.

[blood-and-pizza]

Rockstar Freddy is autistic? Tell me more 😁

He's literally autistic-coded; his A.I. functions similarly to that of an autistic human's brain. Whether it's on purpose or by accident is unknown (knowing Henry, though, it's probably a mix of both). The coins are Rockstar Freddy's special interest, hence the intense collecting and obsession.

To be honest, quite a few of the animatronics have behaviors similar to autistic symptoms. Most notably, stimming.

Another notable Freddy who's autistic-coded is Funtime Freddy. His special interest, shocking as it may be, is anthropology... the study of humans. As much as Funtime Freddy doesn't trust most humans, he finds everything about them fascinating, from their biology, to their cultures, to their history. His excuse is that he wants to "know the enemy"...

Melissa Pomene, my self-insert in this AU, is also autistic... and so am I, for that matter. So... I sincerely hope I'm doing my fellow autistics justice as far as representation. If I'm failing in that regard, PLEASE tell me what I can do to fix it!

[gripes-withthesun]

some people reblogging that addition with the story about my friends and I gushing over each other behind each other's backs are saying "or you could just say that to their faces" or "this is why you need to tell them instead of keeping it in your mind" but the thing is!! I got to know about it in the first place BECAUSE I was told.

When I exited the staff room after our discussion on the paper presentations I found them talking and they said "we were just talking about how cool you are" and i was like "no way! We were talking last night about how cool you are!" That incident was reassuring because it helped us open up to each other as a friend group too. When I hear a song that reminds me of my friend I text her now and say 'I think I like this song only because I imagine it in your voice'. When I'm at some fun event I text my friend saying 'wish you were here with me'. But the knowledge that our friends don't "secretly hate us" had to come from that incident for me.

Because at the very centre of it is this insecurity that they might lie when they're saying it to our face, they might be saying it to be nice, they might be pretending to like us for whatever reason, they might have liked us once but don't anymore and don't know how to say it, etc etc. And I think it's far more reassuring for a lot of us to know that even when we aren't there, even when there is no impetus to be lying, even then our friends will express their love towards us. Not just to us, but to anyone who will listen. It's a beautiful thing!

And likewise there are so many people tagging the story with how they have a hard time expressing their affection too, or they don't feel ready to gush about someone to their face, and that's not a flaw, that's also coming from the same insecure place of coming off as caring too much, as being too invested, as being too close, as being too "desperate", all of which has been used against a lot of people. Or it's simply a difference in communication styles and love languages. And that's why just knowing that your friends' love for you is still constant and expressed without your presence is reassuring and opens up more avenues to communicate all this in the first place.

Lot of people, especially fellow autistic people👋🏻, who are saying that's not been their experience? That's absolutely valid. Because it hadn't been mine either until I was in college, and it really is hard for neurodivergent and particularly autistic folk when every friendship is a guessing game of when their patience with your lack of social understanding runs out and they start "dropping hints" that they don't wanna be friends anymore but you never pick up those hints. Those insecurities don't just come out of nowhere and that's why it takes us long to feel secure enough in a friendship to both 1) know that our friends love us for realsies and 2) be able to express the sheer magnitude of our own affection without fear of it being another thing for them to mock. It takes time to feel secure in our connections again! And that's okay we're all just trying to find our place and recovering, and that's why incidents like those mean so much to people like us.

Sorry about this getting so long, but tldr: "just tell them they're cool to their face instead!" hasn't worked for many of us because of valid experiences of ostracization. It's a great practice to have to tell your friends you love them! But for anyone who isn't feeling secure enough to do so, it's okay to express affection in other ways. Gush about your friends to other friends! Maybe even with that friend present. Because that first time my friends said "we were just talking about how cool you are" it was said in this casual manner but that opened up the gates for much more ardent and sincere expressions of love

[fallowtail]

@ my fellow autistic adults when do you stop feeling like a tween piloting an adults body and not in the “adulting hard!” way but in a genuine “i sincerely don’t think i’ve cognitively grown past 12 to 14 at the most and it is severely impacting my ability to function in adult society and i need to heavily rely on my partner to be a caretaker to survive because of it” way 🫠

[blurrymango]

friendly reminder that even if you’re autistic calling people ableist slurs is still using slurs 🫶 you only get to reclaim slurs for yourself not as insults lol! sincerely a fellow autist (and btw you responding to anons with “waaa you’re bullying an autist” when most of tumblr is autistic is not a great defense. congrats. we manage to be autistic and not call people slurs so.)

I have not, to my knowledge, been using my autism as a way to get out of seeing the idiotic slew of bullshit I've been getting in my inbox.

Maybe if some of the anons I've been getting weren't such hate-filled idiotic garbage, I wouldn't feel the need to retaliate with slurs lmao.

Like, it's simple, actually-

If you don't want to get called a retard, don't go into my inbox acting like this-

If you don't want to get insulted, don't come up in this bitch insulting me first. It's mind-blowingly easy to understand.

All the anonhate I get does literally nothing to change my mind, and instead only makes me double-down on my own stances.

Sending me vitriolic bile is a waste of your time.

[voidandcold]

hey, fellow autistic here.

trans rights are human rights. everyone in the LGBTQIA+ community faces oppression, so why the fuck do you discriminate against other members of the SAME COMMUNITY?

sincerely, a concerned cishet.

What rights exactly do they not have???

I'm fighting for female only spaces, for lesbians to be able to talk openly about their same sex attraction (and to have their own spaces) and for people whose brains aren't fully developed to not be treated as test subjects

[spiderace]

Congrats on your diagnosis, fellow autist :)

Sincerely, someone whose characters kept having communication difficulties in her writing projects for some reason

Anyways when I was sixteen I wrote a story about a spaceship's communications officer (think Uhura) who was given a brain implant when he was a baby that automatically translates every language in the universe, but which interferes with his ability to perceive and process subtle changes in tone. He hears an emotionless automated translator voice inside his head rather than hearing the real voices being physically carried by air vibrations. So he has the ability to interpret every word in every language, but he can never interpret tone of voice. And the ultimate message of the story is that understanding every possible text isn't enough -- if you don't understand subtext, you'll be isolated. The "communications officer" actually struggles to communicate more than anyone else on the ship.

You'll never guess what they diagnosed me with a year later.

[sincerely-krp]

so i have seen a couple responses on sincerely in the past where muns admit they have autism, adhd, or other issuse and i’m wondering if i could get advice? mainly from fellow autistic people, but anyone’s fine. i also just need to “rant” a little, if you can call it that.

do any other autistic or nd muns just struggle making friends for their muses, even if you mirror that person’s energy? and what do you do? because it’s so damn tiring… it feels lately like i can’t do anything right. and idk if i should take a break from krp or leave for good or what.

if someone’s joking around, my muse jokes back in the same tone, but suddenly i’m the mean one even if that person was “mean” first (and nothing i said was even rude?). or even if our muses have the same interests, it’s like they think i’m the weird one just bc my muse is really, really into it. if someone sends me a super long dm or thread response and i send a message back that’s the same length, then suddenly i’m the one that’s “too much.” i try to engage in conversations by asking questions, but i don’t get that back. and then they act like the question’s annoying to them or something? like i’m sorry i asked who you married in stardew valley or who you want most in genshin. i thought that’s what i’m supposed to do? and my muse is genuinely interested!

and it’s like??? even if it feels like someone’s nice and we’re vibing, sometimes that may not really be the case. because i’ll join group hb streams and things will seem great, but then i dm someone after to continue a convo/joke and i’m ignored… they’ll even reference the dm in a future hb stream, but never actually respond to my dms despite being active everywhere else and with everyone else. or there was someone who my muse was becoming friends with and things seemed fine. they talked regularly about all sorts of things, could tease each other, the interest seemed mutual (platonically). but then one day after a teasing comment they said “can you chill out with being so fucking annoying?” and we stopped talking asap.

i also don’t understand why i’m supposed to be understanding if someone takes days to respond, but suddenly i’m the bad guy or the one who’s “not interested” because i didn’t respond in 1.365 days… which i have been accused of and it didn’t make any sense. my muse has been accused of flirting and leading people on when my muse is just being friendly, then they’ve also been talked bad about because they DIDN’T pick up on flirting cues and it seemed “rude”. my muse just doesn’t really flirt, so i don’t even get why this is an issue.

it’s just really tiring and i’m not sure what to do, because again, i’m trying to be consistent and match energy/vibes. my muses do have some friends, sometimes a ship partner will come onto the scene, but it takes. so. damn. long. and even then it’s not a cohesive friend group that everyone seems to make so easily.

so tl;dr what do my fellow autistic/nd people do about making friends? i’m struggling.

・❥・

[criticalsucc]

I don't think I ever actually sent you any numbers for the sapphic asks??? HUGE OVERSIGHT, let me correct that 😊💖

2, 9, 14, 27?

Haha that's ok! 💖

2. do you identify as butch, femme, masc, and/or gnc? or none of the above?

Oh lord this is a question for me isn't it lol. I can't figure it out sometimes myself. I don't identify with either butch or femme. Definitely not masc. But my ideal self seems to at different times slide along a spectrum between androgynous and feminine, but not to the level of like hyperfeminine. I haven't progressed far enough in my transition to start presenting in a really feminine way. I want to, but my comfort level just hasn't quite risen high enough yet. The closest I get is when wearing lingerie, which is easy because it's private. I do think I pull off androgynous fairly well, especially now having been on hormones for a while. You know, now that I think about it Christen Stewart is actually a pretty good model of what my ideal presentation looks like. Sometimes tomboyish, sometimes a bombshell. Ahhh one day.

9. do you have a "type"? if so, what is it?

Hmm let's see I can name a few: Short stature, short hair, and feisty is one of them. Another is tall(ish) with a sort of mysterious and bewildering quality that entrances me. Another is really tall and built like an amazon but with the gentlest heart. Oh and like, long hair with one side shaved, really striking makeup, and a couple piercings. Wait one more: bookish nerd who acts blasé about everything but hides a secret passion desperately waiting for the opportunity to break free. As you may be able to tell, basically anyone who really stands out from the crowd lol.

More generally, a sincere personality is a top priority. (my "anti-type" is someone who is overly sarcastic about everything to the point where you don't even know if they have a genuine bone in their body.) Someone who is overflowing with compassion and understanding. Someone who is intelligent and has a certain...certainty in what they know. Someone who is very skilled at something. Someone who loves nature.

14. list five things you look for in a partner, or five things you love about your current partner(s).

(I originally typed all these for the previous answer but when I got to this one I realized it would just be a repeat so I cut them out and put them here.)

Someone who can humor my awful jokes (even if they roll their eyes). Someone who can expose me to new things and make me see the world in a different way. Someone who is unafraid to show real interest in me and doesn't make me feel like I have to chase them. A fellow autistic is a huge plus. Someone who will be patient and kind with me when I'm struggling to be a human.

27. do you fit any sapphic stereotypes / other stereotypes related to your identity?

Umm the only one I can really think of is that I will sit in a chair in ridiculous ways :P

Thank you so much for the questions!!! 😁♥️💜💛😊