#so you end up with people being offended at the use of the word autism in a song

[thursdayglrl]

I think the "discourse" around thermodynamic lawyer is hilarious because the idea of cancelling a song for having a lyric that mentions autism (in a way that... doesn't really say anything about autistic people?) when the song in question ends with the line "kill yourself and go die" is very very funny.

[autball]

Part 1 of a 5 part series about the ways harmful practices are being made to sound more appealing through the co-opting of language and how to spot the differences between helpful and harmful approaches.

The language of the Neurodiversity Paradigm is soooo hot right now. Everyone from ABA centers to social media creators are adopting it to sound like they’re safer and more knowledgeable than they are.

But you can’t just pop some neuro-word in place of “autism” and stop picking on a couple of Autistic traits and call yourself “Neuro-affirming.” That’s the low-hanging fruit of #neurodiversitylite.

REAL Neuro-affirming practice comes from a complete shift in mindset, unlearning all the harmful things you once thought were true, and learning about all the things you never even knew you didn’t know. It’s also an ongoing process, not just something you can learn from reading an article or taking a single training.

ABA practitioners are probably the worst offenders right now, mainly because they know they need to rebrand as more and more people learn about what ABA really does to people, but also because their practices in particular are THE furthest away from being Neuro-affirming compared to any other discipline.

They are not the only ones, though, so be wary of #neurodiversitylite in ANY resource aimed at autistic people that appears to be saying all the right things, including: OT, speech, play/talk therapy, early intervention, education, your favorite parenting expert or social media personality who just discovered the world of Neurodiversity, etc.

Look beyond someone’s use of the “right” words or symbols. Do they talk about teaching people to fit into the normative world, or how to more safely and authentically navigate a world not made for them? Do they talk about making the person easier to deal with, or making life easier for the person? Do they concentrate on external behaviors, or are they more concerned with internal experiences? Does most of what they know come from people who studied autistic people from the outside looking in, or from actual autistic people who can speak from lived experience? And are they even using the words right??

The good news is that there are SO MANY resources out there BY autistic and otherwise Neurodivergent people for anyone who wants to learn how to make their practice *actually* more Neuro-affirming. SO MANY!! Three such resources are featured in the second panel from Autism Level UP, Neurowild, and Kieran Rose-The Autistic Advocate. (Big thanks to them for letting me include their work in the cartoon!)

EXPLANATION OF WHAT’S WRONG IN THE “FAKE” PANEL:

- The phrase “individuals with neurodiversity” misuses the word “neurodiversity” and utilizes person first language. The Neuro-affirming phrase would be “neurodivergent people,” or “autistic people” if they specifically meant autistic people.

- Getting rid of puzzle piece stuff is merely a surface level first step, not an end point.

- Not forcing eye contact and allowing hand-flapping are also only surface level first steps. The fact that they still target other stims means they do not understand the importance or functions of stimming, making them incapable of being Neuro-affirming.

- Social skills training aimed at ND people usually centers NT social skills as the “right way” and frames ND social skills as the “wrong way,” making them shame inducing and not at all affirming.

- “Tolerating distress” most often means “suppressing distress.” Neuro-affirming practice would concentrate on identifying and avoiding triggers, helping the person stay regulated, and teaching the person how to accommodate and advocate for their needs so that they are not distressed in the first place.

- “Sensory desensitization” is not a thing that can be done to someone without harm. It is usually done with exposure therapy, which should not be done TO someone who cannot consent. It is also inappropriate for sensory issues, which tells us they don’t understand sensory processing differences at all.

- The posters: Whole Body Listening is based on neuronormative expectations; “They say I’m neurodiverse” is incorrect usage of the word “neurodiverse” (it should be “neurodivergent”), and “but I say I’m perfect” insinuates that being “neurodiverse” is a bad thing, while the use of the rainbow infinity symbol with such a non-affirming message adds to the dissonance; the ABC’s of Behavior is an indicator that ABA/behaviorism will be used, which is the opposite of Neuro-affirming practice.

EXPLANATION OF WHAT’S RIGHT IN THE “REAL” PANEL:

- The person accurately explains what Neuro-affirming practice looks like, without needing to use (or misuse) any Neurodiversity “buzzwords.”

- Bumper, A Whole Body Learner, is a resource created by Autism Level UP that encourages people to discover what it looks like for them to be ready to learn, acknowledging that there is no one right way to appear attentive.

- The poster by Neurowild indicates that they value difference and neurodiversity and that they know there is no one right way of being.

- They use the Advoc8 Framework, a resource created by Kieran Rose, The Autistic Advocate. Using this framework means they want to help the people they work with achieve Agency, Autonomy, (Self) Acceptance, and Authenticity.

[a-substantial-trash-pile]

i’ve been getting haunted by dumb past social mistakes i’ve done. also trying to tell myself that i have the right to be mad/upset about things that have happened to me instead of completely blaming and beating myself up for them. because maybe it wasn’t just me. sorry. long pointless ramble of “dumb thing that shouldn’t bother me but is bothering me again” so i can sort out my brainwaves:

like a little while ago in a discord server, before i requested people use tone indicators with me in my bio, i had a misunderstanding with another person in the server. i had made a joke and the person just responded to me with “No.” my brain immediately interpreted this as a cold response compared to how they were responding to others at the time (friendlier, full sentences). it didn’t help that i was already having a bad mental health day. i thought i had offended them somehow, so my socially awkward ass (who was still trying to learn how the discord social system/unspoken rules worked) decided to dm them to apologize and also mention that i liked their art in the zine that we both were in, because i thought it would soften the awkwardness and make it more lighthearted. the response back to my stupid paragraph of a message was just, “jesus christ girl it’s not that big a deal.“ which my brain interpreted as annoyed/aggressive. so i apologized for dm’ing because at that point i started really panicking. the person responded, “maybe think before you go dm’ing people out of the blue next time.” i told them that i was sorry that they had to be my learning experience and that i wouldn’t bother them again and that was how it ended.

except this stupid interaction keeps coming back up in my mind once in a while to haunt me. and i would beat myself up about it. because yeah, i shouldn’t have dm’d this person that i haven’t dm’d before. but at the same time, i wasn’t really familiar with what was “socially acceptable” in discord. i didn’t see dm’ing in the same light as other discord users at the time.

when i told that person that i was sorry that they had to be my learning experience, i meant it both ways. to them and to myself. because i know i fucked up, but at the same time, i wish that person had been nicer to me about it. and i wish they hadn’t responded to me with just that “No” that started the whole misunderstanding in the first place. and even though i don’t feel like i have the right to be, i feel angry about it. or maybe frustrated is the more accurate word. because i know that if i had been in that person’s shoes, which i have been, i would not have responded like that. and maybe that’s another problem with me: not being able to be aggressive and stand up for myself. and i guess deep down i was expecting to receive the same treatment that i give. in hindsight it could’ve been worse and the person could’ve been even meaner, but i think it was just a shock to my system at the time, because i had this rose-tinted glasses impression of people in that server being all chill. i got too comfortable and i overstepped boundaries. but i’m trying to tell myself that the way the interaction went isn’t completely my fault. it isn’t because i’m terrible and deserve the way that person responded to me. i shouldn’t feel guilty about feeling upset about it. my brain just doesn’t work the same as others and i have to learn to be kinder to myself.

anyway that interaction made me realize how useful tone indicators were to me, which in turn made me think that maybe i actually am in the autism spectrum. and here we are. so i guess i can thank that person in a way. but also fuck them for making that bad day i was having worse /lh (but also deep down kinda /s)

[harryissuchalittleshit]

What would happen if you have an autistic character who has a special interest in weapons and making explosives who helps out the protagonist acting like a traveling companion during the apocalypse? The autism character doesn't have long lasting relationships due to being abused or used as they have anger issues along with being cynical about it. Those anger issues can get them into trouble which can lead to fights. Is it too offensive?

Look, I’m not the end all be all of autistic characters, but if you feel like this is all too much for one person/character then it probably is. When I write about autistic characters or any character that is neurodivergent, I do my research to make sure I’m portraying them correctly and some of that research has come in the forms of Derek, Ethan, and Joel.

Derek is around 30 and has autism, he is considered high functioning and able to live on his own fine. I have known him all of my life he is my older brother, I have picked up some of his traits and still don’t know if it’s because I too may be on the spectrum or because I’ve just copied my older brother.

Ethan is 7 and has ADHD, we work together on staying focused and getting out to school on time. He’s annoying adorable and gets away with a lot of things when he uses his manners without reminding.

Joel is 4 and is nonverbal autistic, he is either super happy or screaming and crying. He loves music and Sesame Street, especially Big Bird because he is also super curious about the world. He is very picky about his food and is slowly learning words one at a time.

Sometimes my research is in the relationships around me, sometimes I’ll spend 12 hours in the internet reading articles from health journals. I believe that every story needs to be told and yours is interesting, but if you find yourself offended by what you’ve written, so will others.

Yes there are autistic people with anger issues and who do obsess over weapons, but I think they can form long term attachments. Maybe this character has a favorite shirt they always wear or a favorite object they have to have on them, maybe just write down everything you know about the character and work backwards.

[brokenmusicboxwolfe]

People do the same to me

I've been called autistic as a reason even though I'm not diagnosed. But also even if I was, what difference does it make. Why would it be a bad thing?

As I get older I try to be more tactful but it's not my nature I am just very blunt. I don't mean it in a bad way but people think I'm doing it deliberately to cause trouble or am rude hence the autism classification as apparently this is a feature of autism to be so. I just keep quiet now and try not to engage in discourse or debate because people just feel alienated. It's always me at fault even if they're airing opinions that are disgusting like racist stuff. But just average discussion ends with me upsetting someone most of the time. As a teen and young woman it wasn't too bad but people get older more intolerant.

Sorry to be replying to this so late. I had intended to answer the next morning, but life had other plans.

Yeah, I agree, why would it be a bad thing? I have been diagnosed with anything, but I certainly am wired oddly. I figure the label for it doesn’t matter. I’m just going to be me either way, and as long as that isn’t hurting anyone it shouldn’t be a problem.

How you describe yourself sounds a lot like my mother. My father used to try to remind her to use a bit of tact, because it would never occur to her. She was never trying to upset someone. She wouldn’t do chitchat, and would just say what she thought. Conversation was for exchanging information or ideas, and all the fiddly stuff around judging the individual, the mood, and so forth so you can phrase things “right” was blind spot to her.

I know people that years later are STILL offended by something she said, and it’s exasperating. It wasn’t what she said but how she said, as you say, bluntly. When people say to you over and over “Your mother once said to me…” it’s tiring. But that the things they find so horrible aren’t horrible at all, and that the only difference between what she said and what I have said to the person is wording it gets upsetting.

Suppose someone said a very blue sky was green, Mom would say “No, it’s blue” while I would say “It’s interesting how everyone’s eyes see things differently. It looks very blue to me.” The person would be upset with Mom and not me, yet we would both be saying the sky is blue.

I get why you try to avoid discussions with the possibility of turning contentious. I get very uncomfortable myself. I may not be blunt like Mom, but I’m honest. People hate honesty if you don’t wrap it up with so much wool they can’t even see it. And if you hide the truth of what you are saying too much, then doesn’t it stop being the truth?

Well, the “good” news is that if you get old enough people will just shrug off your bluntness as being “an old woman”. The bad news is, people tend to write off anyone they perceive as an “old woman”. Mom said said she could be a great spy because people didn’t see her at all once she was past a certain age. Of course, her bluntness would totally have been I liability!

I wish human emotions weren’t so delicate, not delicate like glass but delicate like trying to tap dance through a mine field.

[five-thousand-loaves-of-bread]

why are autistics without intellectual disability so quick to distance themselves from those who do?

*unbolded version under the cut*

i see this most often in autistics who are (labeled) level 1/"high functioning"/"aspie" (yes i know the three don't always equal one another yes i know hans asperger nazi). this of course happens with all autistics without intellectual disability (ID) but see most with them.

this is largely rhetorical question.

see so many autistics without ID say things like "i'm autistic not STUPID" and get so offended when someone even imply or genuinely ask if they have ID.

"i'm autistic not [r word]," "i'm autistic but not like those kinds of autistic." all implying they're the "good" kind of autistic that deserve respect and rights and there is group of autistic who are "bad" (read: not palatable enough) who should be bullied and denied rights and locked away and mocked. often these are autistics with ID and autistics who are visibly stereotypically autistic who don't have ability to mask.

understand wanting to correct someone when they think wrong information of you, like you thought i have ID but i actually don't, just like you thought i have depression but i actually don't (just example not personal about me). but often when these autistics say "i'm autistic not STUPID" and variants, they often mean more than that. some autistic people without ID get so offended when people think they have ID. so offended at the idea of being associated with ID. like "how DARE you assume i have ID and are like those people."

so quick to separate self from people with ID. like they have the plague or something.

or. sometimes see autistics without ID talk about an autistic person with ID. talk about an "ugly" (unaccepted, not cute symptom) symptom and say "oh that's not the autism that's ID. autistics don't do that." and act as if there is a clear beginning and end to where the autism ends and where the ID begins. there is not.

or when autistic with ID gets mentioned. everyone focus on the autism and not the ID. or think they can speak about said autistic person with ID's experience just because they themselves are also autistic even though they don't have ID.

or "actually many autistic people have above average intelligence!" which is objectively true but 9/10 times this gets brought up to derail the conversation. yes many autistic people have high IQ (online autism space oversaturated with them), but what is left out is there is nothing wrong with having average IQ or low IQ/intellectual disability.

or. when bring up people w ID and/or autistics with ID, will say "IQ is a inaccurate/racist/colonial/ableist measure" and stuff like that. which is objectively also true! or "don't say you're stupid, you're actually very smart, there are many types of intelligence!" but the issue is when you are bringing these topics up. because yes IQ bad measure, intelligence subjective, BUT ALSO current society have specific types of intelligence they value (and this cannot be denied no matter how much you derail the conversation), AND there is nothing wrong with being "not smart" "stupid" "dumb" "unintelligent" etc. there is nothing wrong with having ID. admit that. why are you (general you) having such a hard time admitting that, to the point you will say everything else before admitting to that?

or say "[r word] is slur towards autistic people so i as an autistic person (without ID) are allowed to reclaim it." when no. r word is not slur towards autistic people. just because it has been used against you doesn't mean it means you. r word is an outdated medical term for intellectual disability, aka mental [r word]. not yours.

many many microaggressions (and macro aggressions tbh too)

autistics with ID are one of the more marginalized more vulnerable autistic population, more likely to be in bad conservatorship, more vulnerable to all kinds of abuse, less autonomy, no privacy, seen as completely incompetent, etc. particularly many have carers and are expected to fully trust and be completely vulnerable to other people and have no personal time no privacy.

autistics with intellectual disability are still autistic. they're not going anywhere.

i say this is rhetorical question because largely know why autistics without ID do this. especially level 1/"high functioning"/"aspie." because think are closest population to nondisabled neurotypical society, on the edge of nondisabled neurotypical society, expected to function well but do not. just "normal-looking" enough to be let in but not normal enough to be truly included, to thrive. many trouble. many trauma. and intelligence is one of the few things many feel proud to have feel positive to have. even feel superior to have. so have internalized ableism towards self but also internalized ableism towards intelligence.

BUT. your trauma or autism still don't justify your ableism. you are still responsible of educating self about ID and unpack ableism about intelligence and ID.

your trauma or autism doesn't justify your ableism you're just ableist

...

unbolded:

i see this most often in autistics who are (labeled) level 1/"high functioning"/"aspie" (yes i know the three don't always equal one another yes i know hans asperger nazi). this of course happens with all autistics without intellectual disability (ID) but see most with them.

this is largely rhetorical question.

see so many autistics without ID say things like "i'm autistic not STUPID" and get so offended when someone even imply or genuinely ask if they have ID.

"i'm autistic not [r word]," "i'm autistic but not like those kinds of autistic." all implying they're the "good" kind of autistic that deserve respect and rights and there is group of autistic who are "bad" (read: not palatable enough) who should be bullied and denied rights and locked away and mocked. often these are autistics with ID and autistics who are visibly stereotypically autistic who don't have ability to mask.

understand wanting to correct someone when they think wrong information of you, like you thought i have ID but i actually don't, just like you thought i have depression but i actually don't. but often when these autistics say "i'm autistic not STUPID" and variants, they often mean more than that. some autistic people without ID get so offended when people think they have ID. so offended at the idea of being associated with ID. like "how DARE you assume i have ID and are like those people."

so quick to separate self from people with ID. like they have the plague or something.

or. sometimes see autistics without ID talk about an autistic person with ID. talk about an "ugly" (unaccepted, not cute symptom) symptom and say "oh that's not the autism that's ID. autistics don't do that." and act as if there is a clear beginning and end to where the autism ends and where the ID begins. there is not.

or when autistic with ID gets mentioned. everyone focus on the autism and not the ID. or think they can speak about said autistic person with ID's experience just because they themselves are also autistic even though they don't have ID.

or "actually many autistic people have above average intelligence!" which is objectively true but 9/10 times this gets brought up to derail the conversation. yes many autistic people have high IQ (online autism space oversaturated with them), but what is left out is there is nothing wrong with having average IQ or low IQ/intellectual disability.

or. when bring up people w ID and/or autistics with ID, will say "IQ is a inaccurate/racist/colonial/ableist measure" and stuff like that. which is objectively also true! or "don't say you're stupid, you're actually very smart, there are many types of intelligence!" but the issue is when you are bringing these topics up. because yes IQ bad measure, intelligence subjective, BUT ALSO current society have specific types of intelligence they value (and this cannot be denied no matter how much you derail the conversation), AND there is nothing wrong with being "not smart" "stupid" "dumb" "unintelligent" etc. there is nothing wrong with having ID. admit that. why are you (general you) having such a hard time admitting that, to the point you will say everything else before admitting to that?

or say "[r word] is slur towards autistic people so i as an autistic person (without ID) are allowed to reclaim it." when no. r word is not slur towards autistic people. just because it has been used against you doesn't mean it means you. r word is an outdated medical term for intellectual disability, aka mental [r word]. not yours.

many many microaggressions (and macro aggressions tbh too)

autistics with ID are one of the more marginalized more vulnerable autistic population, more likely to be in conservatorship, more vulnerable to all kinds of abuse, less autonomy, no privacy, seen as completely incompetent, etc. particularly many have carers and are expected to fully trust and be completely vulnerable to other people and have no personal time no privacy.

autistics with intellectual disability are still autistic. they're not going anywhere.

i say this is rhetorical question because largely know why autistics without ID do this. especially level 1/"high functioning"/"aspie." because think are closest population to nondisabled neurotypical society, on the edge of nondisabled neurotypical society, expected to function well but do not. just "normal-looking" enough to be let in but not normal enough to be truly included, to thrive. many trouble. many trauma. and intelligence is one of the few things many feel proud to have feel positive to have. even feel superior to have. so have internalized ableism towards self but also internalized ableism towards intelligence.

BUT. your trauma or autism still don't justify your ableism. you are still responsible of educating self about ID and unpack ableism about intelligence and ID.

your trauma or autism doesn't justify your ableism you're just ableist

[gun-powder-milk-shake]

me and my mom are planning to ask my psychiatrist for a full psych evaluation and advice on how to get an autism diagnosis and it’s crazy how many things i’ve been describing to people that i never realized were apart of autism:

————————

sensory overload:

- i have an insane sensitivity to sound something that i’ve been trying to explain to people (including about 7 therapists) for years. i can feel it in my brain like in my ear IN my brain. it physically pains me and i’ve literally dropped to my knees in the middle of a school tour because i heard a random ass scraping noise. i also cannot stand pencils for one thing, the feeling of it hitting the paper is unbearable. i physically cringe everytime i see one being used and especially using one myself. istg my younger brother purposely tries to set me off and that gets me angry as fuck. this usually ends in me just screaming at the top of my fucking lungs (no words just screaming) and at times becoming physical. it’s just literally my brain doing anything possible to get rid of the sound

————————

masking:

- i’m still trying to find out the definition of this but i literally just talked to my therapist about this the other day. i had to permanently move from in person to online school mainly because of sensory overload but because i always fucked up socially. i pride myself on being well mannered, polite at all times, wary of other people’s needs, considerate, analyzing facial emotions, but i’m only able to do those things with people i actually know and i’ve learned over the years how to handle those people and myself around them. i never realized that until i got out of the insanely small bubble i was in. i told my therapist that “i can’t help but be myself” and by that i mean i always wanted to change myself into just being more friendly and able to keep up a conversation without being unbearably awkward, but i always fucked up.

- this has resulted in me trying to be aware of everyone around me’s needs and i try not to offend anyone. this usually ends in me breaking down because no matter how hard i try i usually end up failing and “feeling mentally ill af” as i usually call it. this is only really a problem for me with in person situations. online i am more myself and unafraid to do so because online i feel like i don’t need to hide if that makes sense?

————————

stimming:

- YOU WILL NOT UNDERSTAND HOW HAPPY AND RELIEVED I WAS WHEN I RESEARCHED MORE ABOUT THIS. i for a stupid amount of time have certain things i do to calm down. these things have been noticed by family friends, my mom especially, friends, and random ass people because of how strange it apparently is. what i usually do is shake my hand in an orderly manner if that makes sense. like i shake it back and forth like a tambourine. i used to do it in the middle of soccer games and that’s when people started to take notice, but now i use it in breakdowns and when my senses are overloaded. i just recently was doing it to calm myself down after a failed social attempt that was thrown at me while walking my dog (my safe space usually)

- i’ve never brought up that method before because i thought it was stupid i suppose and i have a hard time talking to people about something that matters to me without thinking that they don’t fucking care. i’ve been taught for a decade now how to do deep breathing and grounding exercises but nothing compares to that random ass jazz hand i do 🤷🏻‍♀️

————————

mutism (sometimes):

- something i’ve done for a long ass time now (that has gotten me into a lot of fucking trouble btw) is shutting up completely when i’m super fucking stressed. actually sometimes i just don’t feel like talking? i will stop mid sentence, like i run out of juice. even my thoughts get tired of moving, it’s relaxing sometimes. unless it’s almost involuntary, for example me struggling to form anything other than hums and grunts when spoken to. humming is a habit of mine that people point out and associate with me on a daily basis. i just hum out words and sometimes people get what i mean and sometimes they don’t. if they don’t i ignore them entirely because of how fucking pissed i get of having to repeat myself (even tho i have people repeat themselves to me all day because i always drift off)

————————

special interest:

- okay this one was hard to deal with because i always talk nonstop about “you’re just mad you’re not interested in anything! i’m not obsessed it just makes me really happy!”and they may have a point but at the same time fuck off because it makes me happy so leave me alone. i go into like hyper focus on really random shit. for example i’ve had years worth of phases (or current ones): sims 4 (obsessed with the control), minecraft (easy to drift away into), certain musical group (i don’t even know how to explain this one), hot wheels (holy shit i lost my fucking mind over these things growing up), etc. the thing is when i get into something, i get into it. i learn everything about it, i make whole notebooks, i make focused playlists on spotify, i daydream about it for fucking years and lose my sense of reality, etc. it becomes a staple for who i am and i guess i do get a little obsessed? but i really don’t see it that way. it’s just normal for me

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twitching (?):

- time for the “this isn’t right but i also don’t know if this is apart of asd?” i’ve read something about tics as some people have describe them? my face and body repetitively twitches hard. it usually starts when i start to get triggered but gets progressively worse as i go more into it. it can be painful at times because i can’t really control it and i knock into things (the anemia already has me knocking into things but this is different lmao)

————————

advice please:

- i really don’t know much about this, but i do know that autism can be genetic (i’m still researching) and both of my brothers (21 and 10) have been diagnosed with autism and it’s never really been considered for me? i have been diagnosed with all the same mental disorders as my older brother, we’re very similar when it comes to how we perform as human beings, but nobody has bothered to check with me. they usually just try to add another mood disorder, ocd, or bpd to my list.

- i’ve actually been told i display ocd tendencies by my psychiatrist and looking back at it i think it was just repetitive movements and intense bursts of energy caused from me having a breakdown

- i’m going to ask my psychiatrist about what to do and get some advice about where to go from here especially with everything i’ve learned because these basic ass anxiety and grounding coping skills aren’t working anymore and i just need something more, something that is actually helpful for what i’m going through, and i honestly believe that this is it

- please let me know any info you have, i’m researching a lot and am hyper focused on this shit like a mf but i still have some stuff that i don’t know and some paper online isn’t gonna teach that to me

[serene-victory-77]

Why The Crows Being Teenagers Is Actually Perfectly Realistic

There’s a TL;DR are the end because wow I like to rant.

I lightly discuss the general situations they’re all in to explore how they are frighteningly mature and competent, but it’s not particularly depressing or descriptive, it’s definitely lighter than the books

I thought about this post with a joke first: “People who think that Six of Crows is unrealistic because they’re so young clearly have not spent much time with traumatized honors students.”

It’s a bit of an exaggeration, but the point stands.

But I decided that, hm, actually, I could make a point about this. I totally agree with the aging up of the characters in the Shadow and Bone show, but when people straight up say that the books are wrong or unrealistic for having a young crew, I get annoyed, and here’s why (other than me reading the books for the first time when I was 13 and thinking ‘Huh okay, I see it’ and now being lowkey offended when people say they ignore it for being unrealistic):

On Inej

- At first I thought Inej’s wisdom and general demeanor was one of the most unrealistic things in the book

- When I thought about it longer, I was like “Actually, she’s 16, right? I’ve sent some of the most lyrical philosophy trying to help my friends while in high school. My friends have done the same. It’s valid.”

- Frankly, teenagers love hard-hitting philosophical truths. They love repeating what they’ve read or heard in movies and in books and from family stories. They love sharing little bits of wisdom they have come up with

- Inej’s ability to hear and understand philosophy and wisdom that she was surrounded by for 14 straight years and then sit on it and elaborate it for her friends to understand, or even just to piss them off in Kaz’s case? 

- Teenagers have that. They do it. So, Inej’s Wisdom passes, to me. It’s valid. 

As for her being calm

- You know how everyone jokes that Kaz seems calm on the outside but when you get to his POV he’s like “What the fuck” at the Van Eck house or just straight up “Huh, is this revenge for making tree jokes” at the Djel River thingy in the Ice Court?

- Inej is like that, too. And she gets angry, and she gets confused, or exhausted.

- AKA every quiet kid ever. Like, are you kidding? Have you ever been in a situation in which it’s literally chaos all around you, people are screaming and things are being destroyed (think middle school classroom with bitchy long term substitute and even worse students), and you’re just, calm? You pick up your things, you do what you need to do?

- That’s Inej. Like, what else is she gonna do? She’s smart enough to know that panicking won’t help anyone, and so she just rides it out. Internally she might be like “Why is this happening” but frankly, her being quiet and controlled in most situations is probably a coping mechanism and I respect that

- Pretty sure this is also based on the fact that the Suli have no land for their own and constantly have to keep moving. It might align with generational trauma, I’m sure someone could explain it better than me, but being able to keep your cool while constantly having to change and adapt to new situations, in, say, a country with hellfire politics and no land to call your own? Seems like a hereditary trait that could be useful in Ketterdam, although it’s sad.

On Inej’s abilities

- Simone Biles started training when she was 6 and went to the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships when she was 16, where she qualified in all the events. 

- There are videos of people walking over tightropes as young as three years old. We know Inej didn’t start that young, but not only was she naturally talented at it, but she spent a lot of time practicing. I think it’s valid. Plus, some of her family members do some pretty crazy things in her flashbacks, because that’s the whole point of what they do. 

- Youngest person to beat American Ninja Warrior was 16 year old Vance Walker

- Inej has a variety of of tools that help her wall climb, and while it’s true that she started young and got good really fast, she already had a history of physical work that would help her, and from what we can gleam from the book, a surprising amount of free time in which she was actively encouraged to learn everything she could. 

So that’s Inej! I think her skills are perfectly possible for someone with her history and situation. It’s true that she’s naturally skilled, but that’s not actually all that unusual. And her demeanor and wisdom do fit in with what a lot of teenagers are like and the circumstances she was brought up in

Onto Kaz!

- One thing I hear about is that Kaz is too smart for not having gone to school and also too young to know all that he does

- Do you all KNOW how many self-taught people there have been in this world? The word for people who are self-taught is autodidacts, and honestly a huge amount of famous people apply. Like many, many other people in history (there’s a whole list of them in Wikipedia), he had an vested interest in a field and he learned all he could. Sure, those fields were magic tricks and math, but still.

- Suddenly I have a lot of thoughts

- Okay, think, hyperfixations. That’s essentially what Kaz’s thing with magic tricks was, right? Have any of you ever spent time with an eight year old that clearly really, really loves dinosaurs? Those kids can spout names and facts and identify them by their skeletons and frankly know more than I ever will. Kaz’s was magic tricks. All kids are special.

- Kaz continued working on magic tricks and practicing them for years, so, I think that gets a pass. 

- As for the math! Look, a Fact Of Life is that some kids are just Like That, whether it be possibly from neurodivergence or other factors:

- Flo and Kay Lyman are twins with Autism who basically have the calendar of EVER memorized. Kaz memorizing card decks is sensible, and these ladies don’t need to look up anything to figure it out, so Kaz doing sums inside his head seems plausible. His “photographic memory’ isn’t impossible, although the term itself might be incorrect.

- Katherine Johnson who worked at NASA (yes, the lady from Hidden Figures), was so good at math that she was in high school by age 10 and went to college at age 15. It’s true that she had some teaching, but 1. There’s no evidence Kaz had absolutely no schooling, even if it was just at home with books and 2. Kaz was 9 when he came to Ketterdam, and after Jordie died, when he wasn’t surviving, he was learning. 

- Human calculator is a term that is applied to children a lot and there’s definitely plenty of videos showing how smart these kids are and them doing mental math easily, which he does in the books

- He had a LOT of pressure on him to figure out all he could, and if he wanted to move forward, he was going to have to learn a lot. He spent hours practicing magic tricks, for all we know he spent hours practicing math too. We know Jordie was a bit of a bookworm too, so Kaz from a young age probably already had a reason to learn. Personally, a lot of my love for books was inspired by my older sibling when I was younger

- Young people are adaptable. Kaz is incredibly adaptable. The term prodigy exists because of people like him through history. 

- As for him being rational, there’s no other way to survive. Some of the greatest soldiers in history have been very, very young, and very, very smart. It’s true tacticians are generally considered to be older, but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been very young ones. 

- A lot of the generals I found were like, 19 years old, but Kaz is 1. not a general and 2. in a place where young people take up the mantle really, really quickly, and frankly it’s been like that for a long time. I still think this passes. This isn’t relevant but William the Conqueror was apparently called “The Bastard”?

- Frankly, underground communities of thieves probably don’t go around publishing their escapades so to me it makes sense that I can’t just look up “famous young thieves” and get anything that makes sense, but I did try

- Y’all I tried to do research on youngest escape artists since I think Kaz qualifies and I found myself in what I think is a magicians forum? It’s from 2002-ish and I feel like I’ve just found a relic. I can’t definitely prove they’re all saying the truth, but some of the people there talk about 10-11 year olds at magic camps, so, it’s not impossible for this to be a skill Kaz learned really young, particularly when he made a habit of following around magicians

- I think he passes the realism check overall

For the other Crows:

- Nina being so proficiently multilingual makes sense to me, because she’s been in the Little Palace almost her entire life with all the best teachers they could afford at her disposal. Some people just click with languages. One such would be Timothy Doner, who spoke 23 languages at 16. 

- Nina is a child soldier. She of course can handle the battlefield, although I imagine there’s a degree of trauma that she has to deal with (although it’s true that most of her work was always meant to angle her towards being a spy).

- Jesper was taught to shoot from a young age by Aditi, who was likely incredibly proficient. Plus, there’s mentions of him and his father being on some sort of frontier at one point in the books, so, it’s likely that Jesper got his fair share of ‘being a child soldier” since he would’ve been 15 or younger. Plus, with being a Fabrikator, he gets a leg up

- Jesper’s smart y’all, he just also likes to have fun

- I am a little terrified by the fact that I looked up ‘youngest sharpshooter’ and found out about a 9 year old girl (Addysson “Addy” Soltau) who can indeed shoot guns, but uh, it does prove my point

- Matthias... I haven’t heard anyone really argue about Matthias. He’s the oldest at 18 and again, he’s essentially a religious child soldier. Of course he would be built af and know how to handle himself in a fight, and in a flashback about meeting Trassel, we’re told that he was actually distanced from the other boys and was the biggest and strongest/smartest of the group. Perhaps not compared to Kaz, but still

- We know how Wylan ended up how he is, so I don’t think i have to defend how he’s both a musical prodigy, good at math, and good at chemistry. Plenty of kids who can’t do one thing will immediately gravitate to a different field (think AP math students who can’t write essays, or those kids who could analyse a book and it’s metaphors in class but didn’t understand geometry).

- Granted he took it far but it’s kinda implied that  his father ignored him eventually and what else was Wylan going to do

- I don’t really know how he did chemistry while not being able to read the symbols and stuff, but that’s likely because I’ve never had to learn the way he did and also I really suck at Chemistry, but I refuse to believe that it invalidates his capabilities

Final Thoughts:

- They’re Traumatized Honors Students

- People might say that “it’s unrealistic that all the smart ones somehow ended up together” but again they’re traumatized honors students and those gravitate to each other

- Of course the smart ones ended up together, they’re the ones in those crazy situations precisely because they are prodigies. Nina wouldn’t have met Matthias if she wasn’t skilled and a spy, Kaz wouldn’t have known Inej if she hadn’t been skilled at silence (I can’t explain that one but uh ninjas did/do exist and it IS still a fantasy world). Kaz would have never been a leader of the Dregs in a position to find Jesper if he hadn’t been so determined to rise to the top, and Jesper wouldn’t have been in Ketterdam if his father hadn’t thought that Jesper was smart enough to get that chance.

- You know how those fringe revolutionary artists for new eras end up knowing all knowing each other and even hanging out? That’s them.

- I have decided there is a strong basis for Autistic Kaz, someone who is more studied than me should feel free to explore this.

- I read this book a few years ago, A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah. It’s about this guy’s experiences as a boy soldier and it’s a painful read so I’m not sure I recommend it as a casual read, but he talked about these young kids being able to actually make competent military strategies and handle warfare. It’s an extreme example of what I’m trying to explain when it comes to them being able to handle the brutality of their situation, but it’s true, essentially

- They are definitely serious, but if you think they’re not teenagers I just, disagree so much. They have moments of lighthearted banter, they make light of their situation, they try to support each other Nina covers it so well in her farewell at the end of Crooked Kingdom: The little rescues of laughing at each others jokes or eating together and just supporting each other, is not only a very human thing, but a very teenager thing. 

- Scary experiences that shape us happen all the time, and although for most it’s not the things that the Crows experience, picking each other up is a big part of why they do read as teenagers to me. I’ve seen kids be able to seriously converse about things like being questioned by the police, or being left to their own devices for days at a time, or the general impending doom they all feel, and it’s dark, but they’re also going to joke about silly puns 20 minutes later. 

- Teenagers aren’t exempt from terrifying maturity and competence

- Finally: Despite all I said, it’s a fantasy story and doesn’t have to be realistic

In the end, everyone can believe what they want to believe, but this is my case for my opinion.

TL;DR The Crows are all prodigies and a lot of their achievements and capabilities are based in reality and there are real people who actually achieved things like what they’ve done. Messed up prodigies gravitate to messed up prodigies, hence how they all end up together. When it comes to their mental state, most of them have been brought up their entire lives in situations that required for them to problem solve and keep their cool even when things are going to hell.

[gaysimpsstuff]

Fatgum As a Dad

This was inspired by a conversation I had on a discord server, we all have daddy issues and want Fatgum to adopt us so here’s all the shit we collected.

There are some serious themes in here, mostly regarding the biological parents of the kid, but it’s vague as possible. If anyone wants me to add a trigger warning please let me know.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It all started when he was a kid, when he learned what an orphanage was. One of the kids in his class mentioned being from one, so when he got home he asked his parents about it. 

“Mom, what’s an orphanage?”

“Well, Taishiro, it’s where children that don’t have parents go. Then people can come and adopt the children. Why do you ask.”

“A kid at school said he’s from one, when d’you think he’s gonna get adopted?”

“He might, not all children get adopted. Some of them stay in the orphanage until they’re adults.”

“BUT THAT’S NOT FAIR!” he shouted. “EVERYONE DESERVES A HAPPY CHILDHOOD!”

“Well, honey, life’s not fair. And not everyone gets a happy life. It’s how most villains are made, actually. They were hurt more than everyone else and couldn’t handle it anymore. Not all villains are like that but many are. I think you should stay away from that kid, Taishiro. He might turn out a villain.”

But he didn’t stay away. And he made it his mission to become a pro hero so he could make a ton of money and help as many people as he could. He’d help even villains, keep them from doing something dangerous and inspire hope in them.

Then, he’d adopt any kid who needed a father. All the orphanages and foster programs would be empty. Homeless children off the street and in his house, being fed and clothed. He’d care for each and every one of them, not wanting a single person to feel like they didn’t belong. 

He finds most of his kids at pride parades. He walks around with a shirt that says ‘FREE DAD HUGS’ and a box full of candy. He remembered one of the kids walking up to him slowly.

“Um.. are you Fatgum?” 

“Yes I am!”

“Can I have a hug?”

“Yes you can, Kiddo!” he got down, and the kid put his arms on his stomach (Fatgum’s too big for anyone to fully hug, the dude’s taller than Allmight!) he wrapped his arms around the kid before he heard sniffles. He looked down and saw that the kid was crying.

“M-my parents never hug me like this!” they exclaimed. “They haven’t since I came out. They want to kick me out when I turn thirteen!” 

“Can I have their number? I’m going to... talk to them.”

He ended up taking the kid’s family to court, and since the parents were going to just kick the kid out anyways, they let Fatgum adopt them, but they kept nagging him about how he was ‘going to be raising a little demon.’

“Then call me Lucifer.” he spat right back. Now, that kid’s grown up, has pride flags all around their walls, and doesn’t ever doubt that they’re loved.

Fatgum probably bakes with his kids. Helping them up onto the counter to mix ingredients and play with the dough. If they mess something up or break a glass, it’s fine. He doesn’t yell at them or sigh and shake his head, he just kissed the kid on the forehead and helps them clean up the mess. 

The food always turns out amazing, and Fatgum always tells the kids that. All of his kids are now Gordon Ramsay level chefs and have probably met Gordon Ramsay. 

No matter what their body type is, Fatgum tells his kids their handsome/beautiful and are model worthy. If anyone comments of one of his kid’s body, whether it be negative or... ‘positive’ in a creepy way, you can expect that they’re getting slammed into the ground. No questions asked.

One of Fatgum’s kids is really good at make-up. Like, really good. So Fatgum did the only thing a rational father would do. 

Ask for a make-up job.

It didn’t end all that well...

“Hold still.. I gotta get the eyeliner on.”

“Gosh, Kiddo it’s making my eyes water.” 

“I know, just hold still... aaaand...... done! Now don’t touch it or it’ll smear!”

“Wow, that looks great! You’re really good at this!”

“Thanks, dad- you smeared it already didn’t you?”

“....Nope.”

Fatgum: I'm not gonna do it, it just seemed like a good option. 

Fatgum not even two seconds later after seeing a trans kid crying: now carrying said child on his shoulders while his spouse is chuckling in a corner after signing adoption papers I did it.

This man would get his kids almost anything they wanted. Especially kids with ADD/ADHD/Autism/Tourettes/Anxiety who need stim toys.

Kid: chewing on their nails.

Fatgum: here take this stim toy, and this one, you chew this one so that might help-

Kid ends up with more stim toys than they can count.

Fatgum: just doing his job 

The Daddy Issues Gang: Hi dad- oh shit wait- Hi- I- fuck- trauma ensues. crying

Fatgum: grabs the daddy issues gang we're going to the nearest courtroom say hello to your new father its me im the father ok lets go.

Kid: um, dad can I talk to you? 

 Fatgum, turning around quickly: yes? 

 Me: ‘he moved so quick, he's mad at me, I'm gonna get yelled at’ Sorry, sorry! 

Fatgum: uh, no. I'm getting you ice cream and a new stuffed animal no questions asked

He'd just know when something's wrong, and he’d be great at comforting.

His usual style of comfort is to let the kid sit on his stomach and tell him what’s wrong. His body is one giant pillow for his kids to lay on, he can fit at least eight of them if they cuddle in closely.

Once filmed a commercial dressed as the Cool-Aid man, and all of his kids were in the commercial.

Fatgum: Busts down wall  “OH YEAH!”

Director: “And CUT! Okay, try a little more aggressive-”

Fatgum, in tears: “I don’t wanna scare my kids.”

As stated before, if anyone makes his kids feel bad he’s punching them to the ground, but sometimes he’s not in a position where he can do that. Like if a Karen mom ever comes over.

"Linda stop bringing lemon squares if you're going to talk about my son that way because they're just as sour as your attitude."

Fatgum but he slaps the toxic members of your family and tells them to do better or he's taking you.

Then takes you anyway because you prefer him.

Fatgum with a sweater that says ‘mr dad guy on it’

Fatgum definitely watches ATLA, and quotes Uncle Iroh daily. When his kids are minding their own business they suddenly hear

“Leaves from the vine... falling so slow...” 

INAUDIBLE CHAOS AND PANIC

Fatgum agency cosplayed ATLA characters on Halloween.

Fatgum was Iroh.

Kirishima was Sokka.

Tamaki was either Momo or Appa.

Maybe get a couple others in on it too, Mirio could be Aang and if Kirishima convinces Todoroki to join for a while he’d totally be Zuko.

Fatgum lets his kids squish his face.

Fatgum used to work with a hero who was hard of hearing, so he learned sign language to help them, and he’s got the skill saved in case one of his kids might be deaf.

So one day, Kirishima invites Bakugou on patrol with him, and we all love that headcanon of Bakugou going deaf, so when he gets pissed at something, he starts insulting everyone around him in SL.

Fatgum notices and starts signing back to him.

YOU’RE ALL MOTHERFUCKERS AND I HATE YOU ALL!

Hey, now, let’s calm down and not call everyone motherfuckers.

FUCK YOU TOO

Bakugou...

Everyone thinks that they’re doing magic, because they’re making all these shapes with their hands and keep looking offended at each other.

Now, Fatgum tries his gosh darn hardest to keep up with the memes, so when his kids come home with good grades, he says “That’s so pog, Kiddo!”

All of his kids are embarrassed.

In the middle of a battle, he throws Kirishima at a villain and they both scream “YEET!” the villain afterwords forever lives in fear of the word ‘yeet’ because he thinks it’ll result in a human rock being thrown at his face.

Fatgum can’t text very well, because his fingers are just too damn big-

sonhsisntextsblooklikehthis'

Translation: so his texts look like this

you learn to understand his texts

Someone better get him a large tablet instead of a phone

If he gets married after he adopts the kids, there’s going to be a huge competition over who does the rings and who does the flowers etc.

If any of his kid’s ever bring home a romantic partner, you can bet your ass he’ll be all over them.

“What’s your average grade?”

“E-eighty percent sir!”

“And do you take sports?”

“No sir, I wish to be a biologist.”

“I see, I see...”

“DAD, YOU AREN”T INTERVIEWING MY PARTNER, ARE YOU? YOU SCARED OFF THE LAST THREE I DON’T WANNA DEAL WITH THAT AGAIN!”

“SORRY, KIDDO! I’LL LET THEM GO NOW! I’ve got my fucking eyes on you. Don’t screw this up.”

Hope y’all enjoy this, if y’all want I can write some headcanons for if Fatgum’s kid becomes a villain-

[looniecartooni]

Analyzing Alador Blight (Sorry no pictures...)

Warning: This theory may be clunky and contain spoilers for The Owl House. I also do not have a psychology degree so whatever I analyze is mostly off of limited research, analysis, and personal experience. If something is inaccurate or offensive, I apologize deeply- that is not my intention. If you have any words of criticism or agreement, please kindly share them. 

When Alador Blight first appeared onscreen, people were weary and suspicious of him. When he made his official appearance, most people instantly fell in love with his goofy personality and completely opposite nature to his wife Karen Odalia. However, people are still weary of him and not very happy that he helps enforce his wife’s insane treatment towards their daughter Amity. And many people are confused on why he seems so different from his first debut or why he doesn’t divorce Odalia and take the kids with him. But- I think I have the answers to tie up all these loose ends.

Let’s start of with the basic suspicion most people have... Alador Blight is very likely on a neurodivergent spectrum. He has special interests that take most of his attention away from the world around him such making abomitrons and chasing butterflies. While he tends to remain mostly silent and seemingly in his own little world, he does speak to Luz directly when she asks what it is Blight Industries does.

For the sake of this theory, I’m going to go ahead and say that Mr. Blight might be on the Autism Spectrum. It is possible given his attention span that he may have ADHD, but my knowledge on that is limited so I’m going to go off with what I know. Some variation of autism also might be the more likely candidate given that not only does Alador have special interests and deep focus on those interests, he also doesn’t quite react (and I apologize if I offend anyone with this statement) to emotional situations in ways more neurotypical people might. This in Autism can often be interpreted as a lack of empathy.

Alador does have empathy as we’ve seen him looked shocked and sad when a butterfly he chased was crushed by the hand of his wife. He has also shown somewhat a bit of empathy towards Luz at the demonstration where he warns her that Blight Industries focuses mostly on weaponry and that she “might want to duck” from an incoming projectile. And when Luz asked for the demonstration to stop, he was the first one to pipe up and say, “She has a point, Odalia.” That of course did nothing to stop Odalia or the abomitron which raises the question again of why does he put up with Odalia.

In my own personal experience (contributing to the Autistic theory), I was always told people on the Autism Spectrum tend to be “rule oriented”. For the sake of this analysis, let’s assume that statement is somewhat true and apply it to Alador Blight. Why? Because this key to his character...

The times Alador does act serious seemingly without his wife’s manipulation, he always mentions the Blight family as a whole. For example, in Understanding Willow, he says, “Blights only associate with the strongest of witchlings.” When he confronts his wife with her own “A Blight always upholds their end of the deal” he mentions the family name again. This to me suggests these were things his parents or other Blight relatives told him (assuming that Odalia married into the name Blight while Alador always was a Blight). He’s enforcing the rules of his family. If that’s the case, it might also explain why he follows Odalia’s crazy regime of tiger mom Karen. Perhaps he’s used to being told what to do and/or her attitude to how her daughter should behave is similar to the Blight standards he grew up with. In his mind, the standards of being a Blight must not be broken.

Whether or not that “Blight Rule” following is a sign of his own abuse from family or simply being a rule follower shall remain ambiguous for now and whether or not he is on the Autism spectrum and if it contributes to his enforcement will be left up to you or remain obscure until further is revealed. (sorry for that run on sentence) But this “Blight Rule” probably explains why he wasn’t too troubled on getting Gus, Willow, and Luz expelled from Hexside via his wife’s request. Blights only associating with a ”select few” as Amity puts it while clearly Odalia being a female dog and controlling/ manipulating her daughter, he probably thinks he’s contributing to helping his daughter succeed by only associating with the best.

As far as we can tell though, Alador does still exercise his own form of control over his wife’s craziness. During the Blight sale, he did see his daughter stand up to Odalia and his unstoppable creation and seemed quite fond about how strong she has become (which he mentions when confronting Odalia) (he probably also knows about Lumity too and supports it- but that’s for another time). He isn’t afraid to confront Odalia on her own contradicting lies and even somewhat even perhaps has his own way of manipulating his wife as he puts the notion in her head that Amity might become a coven head someday. Given that it appears that the Blights seem to only like being “the best” (or in Amity and possibly Alador’s case feel pressured to be the best) (not sure about Edric and Emira- they seem to like to just have fun), Alador could be speaking the truth. However, given that his eyes were on another flying creature while talking to her and immediately he goes chasing after it, he may have been trying to ham her up so that she kept up her end of the deal and perhaps realize Amity is stronger before going after things that matter to him.

I’m sure Amity does matter to him and is probably one of the main reasons why he goes along with Odalia too. But he does also seem to really like tiny creatures that move too (Edric might be the same way given the bat situation at the Knee). Speaking of Alador and Amity, Amity seems to have picked up the habit of enforcing the “Blight Rule” too often saying “We Blights” when describing her behavior like who she associates with and what she does.

Is Alador a completely evil parent for letting his wife use Amity the way she does? Is Amity a reflection of his own upbringing and values? Does he associate with Odalia because of these values? Will we see him change? Well we’ll have to await for more information in further episodes but hopefully, we will have our answers soon. If you have any questions or theories, please share them or tag me in them. I’d love to hear and discuss. And I apologize again if I got any neurodivergent facts wrong or offended anyone by my observation. Hope I helped you understand Alador and thank you for reading my theory.

[omegawolverine]

hi hello i dont think we have talked b4 but i would love 2 hear ur craig ND headcanonz :))

hehe hello!! thank you for the asks!! here's my ND craig headcanons aka me projecting onto one of my kins :>

note? ig: im diagnosed with adhd buuuut i probably also have undiagnosed autism and idk how to separate those symptoms tbh so im not gonna be too specific about what's what ig. this truly will just be Pure Projection soooo

let's go!

-was absolutely that one kid growing up that got either "never applies himself" or "has good grades, but issues with socialization" on report cards

-bad at making and maintaining friendships :/

-school probably tested him and was like "yeah there is something here but we arent gonna diagnose bc that means we have to give him Actual Accommodations" and then stuck him in SPED classes which just got him bullied ajsksk

-has bad sensory issues with like. the feeling of skin and the sound of like silverware on plates, it literally makes him wanna peel his skin off. there's other ones obvs but those ones are the worst

-sensory overload makes him incredibly agitated or just downright pissed. gets very snippy but doesn't yell bc yelling feels Weird and he doesn't like it

-cant wear more than 2 layers, cant sleep with more than one thin blanket, it makes him feel like he's being suffocated and having his movement restricted

-always stimming but pretty good at making it unnoticeable, has a lot of normalized stims like playing with rubber bands, leg bouncing nail tapping, cracking knuckles, etc.

-but when he isnt trying to hide it? ohhh boy is he a loud motherfucker, very into stims that involve noise like rolling his r's, doin lil brr sounds, clickn buttons on like remotes and stuff, etc.

-not very good at masking tbh

-mmm echolalia galore

-flappy hands!! lots of flappy hands :]

-stims by hitting the balls of his hands/wrists together repeatedly, is probably one of his most used stims

-has like. harmful stims when he's upset or in pain? like hitting himself, scratching himself, etc.

-has lil dancey stims but only really does them in private or around close friends

-so flipping people off is already basically a stim in canon lbr but imagine he starts doing 👉👈 as a joke and then it just becomes a Default Stim. he jus be standing there and outta nowhere he's goin 👉👈 while having a completely normal conversation

-very bad at reading tone and social cues but he just wont admit it. refuses to ask questions either. leads to a lot of bad situations but he'd rather die than ask for clarification

-if you don't tell him exactly what to do he will just kinda. be confused. like you need to give him a step by step tutorial otherwise he will not do something very obvious on his own just incase he's wrong

-low empathy my beloathed /hj

-uhhh pls dont put him in a situation to comfort someone he will say and do all the wrong things even if he's trying his best

-red racer hyperfixation <3 guinea pig hyperfixation <3

-the most dry texter known to man bc he refuses to have important conversations over text due to Lack Of Tone Indication (his friends would be an exception bc tone indicators pog but still greatly prefers irl)

-its the having multiple swears as stimmy words for me /hj

-walks while leaning on the outside of his feet more than having them like. level? if that makes sense. similar to toe walking but like on the sides of the feet

-dont ask him to read a book he'll either hyperfixate or end up rereading the same page over and over again bc he retained nothing

-very blunt but he's not trying to be mean he just has literally no idea how to Not talk like that

-does a lil high picthed mm sound when happy flapping and usually rocks back and forth with it :]

-will be in the middle of the test and you'll just hear him softly muttering "bonk. bonk. bonk. bonk. bon-"

-that ^ or bababooey

-basically any tiktok sound he hates turns into a stim at some point

-has a playlist just titled "neurodivergent moment" bc he's that kind of person. the first song on it is the home of 47, followed by stupid mf (idk if the person who made the home of 47 ((trolleycat)) can reclaim the r slur but it's used a good amount in the song, stupid mf is just blatantly ableist tho lol)

-*info dumps by tearing apart his favorite media and then gets offended when a NT does the exact same thing*

-calls things ableist when they dont go his way

-has a lot of oral stims like give him anything he can chew on and he will fucking destroy it unless it's made to be chewed

-*sees strings on hat* *sticks end in mouf* *complains when its soaking wet 2 minutes later*

-hyperfixates on a lot of problematic media so he has become the most critical ass mfer when it comes to the shit he consumes

-sometimes he just. screams. bc he can. and he feels the need to.

-has rsd but shhh he'll never discuss it

[soulvomit]

I realize this sounds like “when I was your age” but really I mean no judgment of anyone. Childhood just was not aspirational for me. My family *needed* me to know about the World Outside. I had to know that murderers and sexual assault existed (and for that, I had to know that sex existed), I had to know about illness and death, I had to know that some people abduct and murder little kids. I had to know that people get murdered by authority figures because of their ethnicity or religion. I had to know that authorities did not always have our best interests at heart and that my parents were the only trustworthy adults. I talked like an adult because parents trained me to talk like one. They rigorously molded my grammar and mannerisms and trained me to report on things that happened in my world with the journalistic “who/what/where/when/why/how.” Stories of the Holocaust were what I grew up with as cautionary tales, instead of fairy tales. I grew up with nightmares not about witches and demons and monsters, but nightmares about murder and genocide.  Being an innocent child, in need of perpetual adult vigilance and protection, was not an option for me. My parents simply couldn’t afford that for me, or for the rest of us. I had to know when to lie to adults and I had to know not to talk to strangers.  But for a part of my early life, the kids around me weren’t raised any differently, because we lived in poor areas. And it isn’t until my dad got a white collar job and we moved to the whiter side of Panorama City and I encountered WASP culture that I encountered the Middle Class WASP Ideal of Childhood. 

And that’s when I started running into what 90s autism authors refer to as “inability to grasp unwritten rules of society.” I kept offending these kids and I kept offending their parents. I didn’t know why, and nobody would tell me, because of the sheer fucking laundry list of things you’re not allowed to talk about in status-conscious white space. You’re just supposed to Get It, and the only way to Get It is if you were raised in that environment to begin with or went through some kind of heavy enculturation or re-education into it (and religious conversion is this for some people; my parents spent two years selling Amway and trying to be Mormons for *this exact reason*.)  For me it wasn’t neurology, it was culture. But for so much of my life, I didn’t have those words, I had no way to talk about my experience. I was *trained not to talk about it* to other kids and I had parents who themselves were kinda weird. I was lonely because my early life was alienating - and anyone would find it alienating.  If I *had* been raised in a more WASP-normative, conventional manner and I *still* didn’t grasp what I was being raised around, or I had social issues all the same, then we might be able to know what is “Soulvomit’s Brain” and what is... the actual world I lived in, and my place in it. There is a point at which the material reality of the world you’re in, and your place in it, are what shapes you.  Every kind of intervention I’ve ever gotten from the white middle class/upper class monoculture, has been from people whose worldview is based on the idea that the world is already good to them and they just need to *feel themselves better.* It’s like being trapped inside an invisible jar but you’re being told the jar is imaginary. The people around you don’t really see what’s different from them and just think you’re imagining your difference and that you could be just like them if you really wanted to. They don’t know what your day to day reality is like. And the alienation I had growing up as a secret Jew who superficially passed as WASP but wasn’t really accepted by Jewish kids (because of grades and social class), meant that I was taken for a *broken* WASP.  But for me, every attempt that started *inside myself* - my spiritual lost soul stuff of my 20s, a lot of trying to figure shit out via mental health interventions - ultimately led to a dead end. Even many subculture spaces tended to just lead to go *deeper inside yourself* for answers. The answer must be something internal to *you* and if only you could discover that thing... you’d be happy, right? What if you suspect that the world is the way it is, because it really is the way it is? When The Matrix came out, it spoke to me deeply. All of my life, I’d had that feeling, and here was somebody validating it.  People around me were raising their children in a fake fantasy world, and aspirational culture was all about keeping that fake fantasy world going for the rest of one’s life.  You weren’t supposed to know that the middle class WASP system was supposed to be the default, and that if you knew it wasn’t, you *weren’t ever supposed to tell anyone.* Ever. (And *that* is what I took away as subtext, with a lot of themes in “Fight Club,” including the “first rule.”) Your very existence in the presence of these people (especially if they were women and children) is seen as damaging their soul. You have to validate their worldview 24/7. You have to pretend that Santa and the Tooth Fairy exist and never, ever mention death in the presence of their children and heaven help you if murder and death are part of *your* ancestral stories, because that’s too dark and scary. You aren’t ever allowed to expose them to information they don’t already have. If you don’t validate their worldview, if you corrupt their children, if you in any way stop validating the assumed superiority of their systems... then it sucks to be you, I guess. 

[ms-hells-bells]

a non autistic said “don’t call people autistics, call them people with autism”, i said “no, stop speaking for me, please literally just ASK us what we like”, non autistic proceeded to get extremely upset, saying “we can never win”, “the nhs taught me this, my EX worked with disabled people!!”, “you are so RUDE and AGGRESSIVE”, ended it with mocking my autism “maybe it’s because you can’t see how non autistic people see the world”, then blocked me.

allies are always like this with disabled people. regularly, non disabled people INSIST that having the noun of our disability first is dehumanising us, as if they need the word “people” to remind themselves that we’re people. nouns with the implication of “people” in it are used all the time; baker, mother, worker, grandma, baby, the poor, lesbian, pet owner, cleaner. and some people don’t like some of those terms! and so, what happens? oh, the person asks and finds out what said person prefers to be called because we’re all individuals. but not disabled people, if different individuals prefer different terms, we’re “being difficult”, and “moving the goalposts” and “looking to be offended”. i’m not fucking offended by you saying “people with autism”, i’m offended by you insisting that i call myself a person with autism and that everyone should assume that i’d be offended by autistic!! we are individuals, no person, organisation, or institution can create and insist on a blanket rule for what we should be called, that’s up to us. stop relying on what OTHER non disabled people tell you and JUST FUCKING ASK. sure, use person with autism for general public stuff, it’s probably the safest bet, but please just stop assuming what we’re okay or not okay with and telling others what you assume we’re okay or not okay with. how hard is that? people ask dozens to hundreds of questions each day, you can’t ask one more?

[atozfic]

Love when people reveal themselves as being so obviously online and insulated in leftist/progressive circles that they seem to forget that the rest of the world is not nearly as accepting or supportive of not conforming of gender roles as these spaces are. Like when did you say the reason anyone likes femsub or the reason it's popular at all is because they're young or don't know anything about sex? To me it's pretty clear you were talking about it as a larger trend and why it's so much popular than everything else overall. And to be completely frank, what is the reason femsub is so much popular than anything else OVERALL (not why any individual person likes it or it has any kind of appeal), if not gender roles? Are women just naturally more submissive than men (not saying you think this)? Because I have seen people say this, yes even so-called "feminist" men and women, that my preferences are unnatural because men evolved to be sexually dominant and women evolved to be sexually submissive, and that I'll never be in a happy or satisfying relationship unless I make myself more submissive and change my preferences because men just naturally don't like dominant women. I'm pretty sure you would not like if I took those hurtful and negative experiences and said any woman is submissive is that way is because they're misogynists who just think it's all women's nature to be submissive. And I'm pretty sure of this cause of the way that you freaked out when you even THOUGHT somebody might be implying that when they weren't. So why the fuck is it okay for you to say dom women are the way that we are because we think we're "enlightened" or more strong or better than everyone else and only like what we like because we want to be ~not like other girls~ for attention because of your negative experiences? And I like how they only talk about submissive or vanilla women getting shamed, so true bestie, dom type women, sexually or otherwise, never get shamed for their preferences. Nope, never ever. It's not like people always joke about women "wearing the pants" in the relationship and how it means she doesn't respect her partner. It's not like assertive or aggressive women are called a "bitch" but when men act that way it's sexy. It's not like religion teaches women they have to submit to men or no man will ever love them or they'll never be happy. It's not like people say that women that want to be dominant are "acting like men" or "want to be men" and therefore are unattractive, as if dominance is inherently masculine thing. It's not like a lot of men genuinely believe that all/most women want to be dominated in bed and so they don't even have to ask, they just do things to you and try to dominate you without your permission or consent or without ever having talked about that kind of thing before. Nope, we must have it sooo easy because we've got grrrrllll powerrr on our side, all women love us cause they think we're such cool independent and empowered women, and all men love us cause they think we're just so cool and not like the other girls. Like honestly, I don't assume to know what they experience of submissive women is like or that they must have it so easy because they're preferences are in line with gender roles, because I'm not one and i know they don't always have it easy because I've heard of women in the irl bdsm community being treated badly by shitty men who think it's okay to abuse them or do whatever they want to them because they're sub identified (or sometimes just because they're women). So why is it okay for you to assume what are experience is like?

I'm not involved in any real life bdsm community because corona and I'm anti-social bitch but I do like to lurk on online communities for fun (something I should probably stop doing cause it's not good for my mento health luv lmao). This whole thing reminds me of these weird ass screeds I sometimes come across by straight male doms on reddit where they go on and on trying to reconcile their desires with feminist politics either because a) they're genuinely a misogynistic piece of shit and people call them out on it or b) they're genuinely progressive/humanist men who have some difficulty reconciling their desire to be dominant with feminism for whatever reason. And so they do this weird thing where they project these worries and insecurities outwards, and manufacture a situation where anyone who criticises gender roles at all is against them personally, and it would be so much easier if they were just a female dom instead, everyone would apparently have no problem at all with them then, cause grrrrllll powerrr.

I don't like to engage in armchair psychology but the follow-up ask from that anon made it pretty clear to me that they have some insecurities around reconciling their preference for submission with feminism because of some negative and hurtful experiences, and so they deal with it by projecting it onto anyone that suggests that gender roles might be why SOME people gravitate more towards it and why it's so much more popular than everything else. I'm sorry that those people said those things to you anon, they're wrong, but a) most of those people tend to be against all bdsm in general, not just femsub and b) you need to work out those insecurities by yourself. You can't lash out at anyone who tries to talk about the relationship between societal norms and preferences at all, it's not helpful or productive.

Also how do they know those people unfollowed you for that reason? Is that an assumption or a verifiable fact? I'm not necessarily saying they didn't either, I'm not a mind reader, but like, some people are just sexist and think women are naturally submissive, sexually or otherwise. I've met them before.

to quote my therapist: that was alot to unpack.

i'm gonna give a longer reply under the cut but i just want to state here i'm not posting this ask to offend or hurt, or even "one-up", the original anon who sent that ask regarding sub!females. i have no issue with them and, again, think they're in every right to send their original ask. i'm posting it because i do think this anon made some very interesting points and brought up alot of worthy of being discussed topics.

let me also put a disclaimer here that i am not a genius nor someone very well-versed in gender politics, i'm simply a twat on the internet with a negative mindset.

"Love when people reveal themselves as being so obviously online and insulated in leftist/progressive circles that they seem to forget that the rest of the world is not nearly as accepting or supportive of not conforming of gender roles as these spaces are."

this. omfg, t h i s. i see this so much, especially in my younger cousins/relatives who are just now beginning to develop their own political opinions. let's take the conversation away from dom/sub for one second and just focus on gender in society. one of the clearest examples of gender affecting the way someone is treated/viewed is something i've experienced first-hand: i was misdiagnosed four times before i was correctly given my diagnosis for ASD, because most of the studies regarding it center around boys and, therefore, most women go undiagnosed. in fact, for years it was believed only men could have it which is why there has been such a surgence in the past few years of adult women being diagnosed with autism. i remember hitting high school, experiencing academic burn-out (thanks to everything moving too fast + my classmates catching up to me intellectually) and having my teachers treat me like i was an imbecile, or i was lazy, rather than just someone with neurodivergence. (this isn't me implying tjat men with ASD have it easy or that society accepts them anymore than women, it's only easier for them to get diagnosed.)

"it's not like people always joke about women wearing the pants."

this applies to both the shaming of dom women and sub men. the amount of men who get treated like they're "losing their manhood" for letting a women(or anyone else) dom them is ridiculous.

honestly, I think at the end of the day (and to close up this whole issue-that's-not-really-an-issue), we're unfortunately always going to live in a world where people have opinions against either side of the dom/sub spectrum, or the whole bdsm community in general. the best thing we can do is try lessen the internal conflict, especially between dom and sub women. we gotta stop treating each other like the enemy when all we really are is people with a differing preference. at the end of the day, what someone chooses to do in their bedroom is no one else's business (unless it harms anyone) and we need to take away the importance we seem to put on it. we're on a floating rock in space, who cares if becky likes to peg her boyfriend on a sunday morning or if stacy likes to be tied up on a thursday evening?

also, anon, i like the way you worded this whole ask. despite it being long, it was easy to read and you made some great points. sorry my reply isn't more exciting, i just in general agree with most of what you've said.

[betwixtedthoughts]

Bet Thinks:

Masking is the external consequence of a very arduous internal process.

I can only speak for myself, but I have never stood at the door and thought, “I don’t want people to think I’m a freak, so I’m going to pretend to be normal.” Absolutely never! I have been blessed to be raised with a very patient brand of unconditional love, and so I have never once thought of myself as abnormal or a freak (except the funky fun kind).

This may not be the case for others on the spectrum, but that is why I cannot fathom “hiding symptoms” to be the cause behind masking because I still mask.

Masking is the result of what I call my “Mental Simulator.”

Everyone has one, but not everyone is constantly conscious of using it. What do you do when someone says, “Hi!” and waves at you across the street? Whatever your response is, that is the active use of your mental simulator. You already know what you’re going to do.

The only problem is, most people don’t even have to think about it. Their body just lifts their hand and waves back, their face breaks into a smile, and they say “Hi!” or “Good morning!” back. Most people don’t have to calculate the exact height at which to raise their hand, the volume or tone with which to say the words, and with what degree of smile appropriate.

And therein lies the problem with leaving the house. Masking happens as a coincidental result of always running that mental simulator. Or should I say the meltdowns are a coincidental result of overworking that mental simulator? Projecting as “normal” isn’t the abnormal condition, the breakdowns are. The meltdowns happen when the mental simulator cannot keep up.

Because see, when I get ready to leave the house, I am forced to prepare myself.

“I am about to step into the world, and there will be things I cannot predict out there. There will be loud sounds, bright lights, lots of things to touch and feel and smell, and lots of people.”

Which means my mental simulator is about to get a workout.

“Is there anyone else in the neighborhood outside? If there are, do I recognize any of them? If I do, is it appropriate to say hello? Have they seen me? Are they in a good mood? Should I say hello? What if they want to start a conversation? Do I have time for that before I need to leave?”

This process can happen rapidly. The more frequently an event occurs, the more prepared I am to deal with it. The more times I encounter someone (anyone) outside in my neighborhood, the more I can develop a rapid and suitable response. I can now wave and say hi while I walk to my car. I now know this is an acceptable response to seeing someone I know walking around outside. It is polite, but it also gets the message across that I need to go. Etc. etc.

Other times, this process lags. The more tired I am, the less experience I have with a situation, the more surprised I am by the event, and other circumstances can slow it down. That often means I end up missing the appropriate timing to respond. Several years ago, if someone were to say hello to me from across the street, I would be blindsided by it. I possibly offended many people because my simulator took too long to decide whether I should smile, wave, say hello back, do all three, or just keep going, and I lost the opportunity to respond.

How tired I am, my experience with the situation, and how surprised I am by the event are all alarmingly critical variables.

My mental simulator is continuously at work, and that takes energy, which means the longer I’m forced to keep it running at full speed, the more exhausted I become. The longer I am out, the more tired I am at the end. Makes sense, does it not? Yes, but the reality of the matter is that exhaustion is sometimes the difference between me being quick enough or too slow to respond to an event, especially at the end of the day.

There was a time where I couldn’t respond to a neighbor waving to me on my way in at the end of the day despite it being the same process as that morning, simply because I had overextended my simulator that day. I had no more energy left to run even one more simulation.

My experience, on the other hand, determines how deeply the event is buried and the amount of energy my simulator requires. It’s like running water down a pipe. If the pipe is small, clogged, or rusted shut, it takes a long time for water to get to the other end. But if the pipe is wide, clean, and frequently used, the water will rush through to the other side. This is the difference between something I’m encountering for the first time or for the hundredth time.

As for surprises, it’s not that I don’t like them! It’s just that surprises mean events I’m unprepared for. And even small events such as bumping into someone I know at the store can be jarring because it’s inserting a new simulation into an already running one.

Think of that like cooking. You’re preparing a meal, and you have all the ingredients and tools you’ll need. You’ve already set the pot on the stove. You’re adding ingredients to your pot. When all of a sudden, you’ve got an entirely different dish to prepare on top of it all. You’re in the middle of keeping track of the first meal because it’s already started, and it’s too late to stop now, but you’ve also got to slice, dice, and prepare the ingredients for this second dish.

Now you’ve got to get them both finished, and they both have to be edible. Sometimes the second dish has to be completed before you can get back to the first, and sometimes the first demands stirring or adding ingredients at fixed intervals. You’ve got no choice but to juggle them both.

Sounds exhausting, no? It’s just as exhausting dealing with surprises. In the same way someone might not mind preparing two dishes simultaneously, I don’t generally mind surprises, but it is still taxing.

And unfortunately, the insertion of these new simulations into existing ones is an inevitable result of leaving the house. That is part of the reason I “gear myself up” for the day before I leave. I have to be prepared to juggle sometimes upwards of ten different dishes at the same time, and they all are going to finish at different times and have different needs in the meantime.

Not to mention the more dishes you’ve got cooking at once, the easier it is to make mistakes. And making mistakes means you’ve got to expend energy to fix them, and the increase in frustration for making the mistake in the first place. Simple things become more and more difficult, until it feels like you either can’t do anything right or that it’s absolutely impossible to get everything done in time.

This mental strain leads, expectedly, to mental exhaustion. I am always tired when I get home, but I’m still not done for the day. Continuing with my metaphor, just because the dish is done cooking doesn’t mean I’m done in the kitchen. I still have to plate the meal, eat it, and clean up afterward.

When I get home, I shut down so I can process my day. I go over the entire excursion. I confirm that I accomplished everything I set out to do, and I review every interaction I inevitably encountered. Not only to make sure I didn’t commit a major faux pas but also to assimilate the events into my simulator for future reference. I reject or approve the effectiveness of the responses I made that day and prepare counter-responses for similar events in the future.

It doesn’t matter if it was a ten minute run to the store or an eight hour day at school, I do this every time I go out. The length of the time out, the strain on my simulator, and the number of surprises determine how much I have to go over and how long it will take for me to “restart.”

This is, incidentally, one of the reasons routines are so comforting. When I have a pattern, it becomes as close to autonomous as is possible for me. These routines become the simulations with the lowest amount of energy required. And I revert to these autonomous routines when I need to process.

I come home, and I fall into my “shut down routine.” I set aside my keys, hang my purse, take off my shoes, and change clothes. If I have not bounced back by that time, I now utilize idle clickers on my phone as they function exactly like my autonomous routine in giving my body something to do on the surface while allocating most of my energy to processing.

Lashing out occurs when the processing couldn’t finish or when my exhaustion levels exceed functioning level.

I don’t mean to bite people’s heads off when in that state, but in either situation, I am so tired that I have no energy to allocate to tone or vocal regulation and all I feel is one more simulation I need to run on zero energy.

Metaphorically, it’s like, in the process of cleaning up the entire kitchen, being told you need to start cooking again. To start the whole process all over again.

And at that point, I have no option but to “blue screen of death” and abort everything.

This often looks like I’ve jumped from a neutral basal state of concentration to immediate frustration or lashing out.

I’m not masking my symptoms while I’m out; I’m just running on, basically, an adrenaline rush. I’m geared up, on guard, and prepared for anything and everything the world has to throw at me. And I tunnel-focus on getting back home so I can retreat to my low-energy lifestyle.

For autism, experience is really the best coping mechanism. The more things you’re exposed to in low tension environments, the better off you’ll be in the long run. The more experience you have, the more you’ll develop routines for events outside, and the more stuff you can make low-energy, the less tired you will be at the end of the day, and so on.

Routines are about predictability, and we find predictable comfortable because we know what to do in response. Rather than lock yourself up in a bubble of comfortable, expand your comfortable. Develop patterns to handle events outside your current routine. It eases the burden on you mentally.

[littlebabycrybtch]

i dont wanna ruin ppls fun or w/e but i just,,,,,,, anybody else honestly getting tired of seeing character coding essays. bc like. ppl will write some analysis on how a character is ‘coded’ as a minority and then their examples literally just boil down to 100% personal headcanons revolving around stereotypes, baiting, or just literally making something out of nothing. like. i am not personally gonna Celebrate that?? and im not gonna give some random privileged creator my praise for any one of those things???

idk hot take but.... imo? coding isnt. even good. its not a diversity positive thing to ‘’’code’’’ a character. frankly most of the time a character isnt even fucking coded as anything, but even when thats truly the case, its not rly. representation. its half assed, its a cop out decision. it should be like. a last resort for when you Cant represent a trait, like if ur fighting censorship or smth. otherwise................ whats the point of it dude. im rly not trying to be black or white abt it but. minority rep is not the place for requiring ‘analysis’. just represent the fucking trait. if you want people to think your character is a certain thing... blatantly make them the thing. you dont make majorities play guessing games with their rep, why should i let you play me like that. i dont want your symbolism or ‘’’’’’coding’’’’’’. to me its insulting, demeaning, and does nothing for me. and thats just talking about when coding posts end up being Reasonable, 9 times out of 10... its downright eyeroll worthy. now ofc, however you choose to relate to characters is 100% fine, and you viewing their traits as relatable to your through your own minority lens is valid analysis! but its kinda inexcusable to ignore the social harm it causes to just. literally out loud pretend that blatantly coincidental or even Malicious character choices are actually intentional, and that this vague intention would mean anything truly progressive anyways, especially when once again, most of these ‘coding’ essays are written about stereotypes and baiting. coding at this point seems to be just... a fancy word for ‘a headcanon with a little extra analysis to fantasize that this was the truth all along, yaaay everybody agree with me’.

in other words.... if you try to tell me one more time about how this quirky character is autism coded, or this male character who one time said he doesnt like sports is gay coded, i am gonna fucking scream. lmao dude. no they arent. thats not real. they arent for me. they dont represent me. they were probably written by an abled cishet who isnt thinking about me at all, so im sorry, but its just too much to ask for me to pretend with you. i refuse to lower my standards that fucking far. i will Not clap for that, i will Not fake that this means anything to me just bc you want me to. and if its actually supposed to be that way, well tbh the concept would probably offend me bc based on the points given it sounds like absolute garbage rep anyways. smh. like its fine when you see stuff that way, but thats a fuckign HEADCANON ok, stop using stereotypes and baiting as examples of ANYTHING positive or realistic, and pls just go back to writing HEADCANON analysis essays instead of implying this sort of shit is intentional and progressive, unless you have CLEAR evidence thats fucking real and makes sense!! im sorry to be harsh but it makes me wanna pull my hair out lmao. idk, have fun, but pls stop and think about how it affects other minorities (and if you’re one, remember the people in your group besides yourself) when you leap from ‘this is what i think for self related reasons’, and ‘this is what i am going to publicly claim is the truth’. theres a big difference in headcanon vs coding conversations, and the problem is its way more harmful if you fuck ‘coding’ up the way a Lot of people have been.