#that’s not a thing for neurotypical people

[demilypyro]

My father chases ghosts.

In a moment of uncharacteristic boldness, I once questioned my father on why he treated me with such cold detachment. Why his advice only ever seemed to come in the form of lecturing, and why he never hugged me, or even said he was proud of me. His words in that moment caused the small amount of respect I had for him to shake. He told me that he saw it as the mother's role to love a child, and that it was the father's role to keep the child on the straight and narrow. After some contemplation, I decided in that moment that I disliked him, not just as a parent, but as a person.

My father doesn't have a father. He was the product of an out-of-wedlock pregnancy between an interracial couple in the 60s... My grandmother was never willing to speak about what happened to my grandfather. I can only imagine he didn't stick around long, since my father never knew him, and grew up with only his mother. And it's always been clear to me that this bothered him. The man idolizes masculinity. Maybe desperate for a father figure, he found role models in his grandfather, whose portrait still hangs in his house and which he treats with great care, and his stepfather, whose surname he took (discarding his mother's last name) and passed on to me. Supposedly, his stepfather left his mother in a matter of years, so why my father idolizes him so, I don't understand. I've never met the man.

Perhaps similarly, my father left his mother's care the second he turned 18. Having lived with my grandmother for some years when I was in college, I can honestly understand why. She is prone to smothering the people she loves. In light of that experience, it maybe becomes easier to understand why my father would prefer a more distant form of parenting. Still, I don't agree with his philosophy on gender roles.

Some years after I transitioned, I had a conversation with my father that stuck with me. He said that he actually saw himself as rather unmasculine, a possibility that had never once occurred to me. With that in mind, I suppose he is somewhat short, and not especially muscular. He told me he had always felt insecure about it. But, unlike me, he had never once considered abandoning the pursuit of masculinity entirely. Rather, in his own words, he felt he needed to chase it even harder. To live up to the image he'd set for himself. The ghost of masculinity.

A lot became clear to me in that moment. My father is obsessed with chasing ghosts of how he thinks things Should Be. My mother once told me how he had this "plan" for where he wanted to be in life at each age. He wanted to live on his own by 20. He wanted to be married by 30. He wanted children by 40. When he found out my mother was pregnant, he married her as fast as he could. My mother didn't really care, but he said they HAD to be married before the baby was born. Things had to go in the right order. According to him, that was just how things Should Be.

He was chasing the ghost of the perfect nuclear family that was denied him.

They divorced when I was eight.

In light of all this, it becomes very clear why he acted the way he did when I was younger. I wasn't how his child Should Be. No matter how many things I was diagnosed with, he never bothered looking into what neurodivergency was, or how to deal with it, and simply held me to the standards of a neurotypical child. My mother tells me that when I was six, he yelled at me in a store for wanting to try on a dress. His child being autistic was something to be ignored until it went away. His child being transgender? Forget it.

In recent years, I think my father has started giving up on me. In a good way. Seeing me become happier as my transition progresses seems to have finally convinced him that he doesn't understand what's best for me, at least somewhat. I speak to him maybe once a month. But I often mourn the idea of a father I could've been closer to. A father with whom I could have had a relationship of love, and support. A father I never had.

Maybe I'm chasing a ghost too.

[chloelefay]

I made and continue to maintain this whole thing for free because nobody else was doing it and I thought it ought to exist:

the internet relies on people doing things for free that are useful but aren't monetisable. meanwhile profit driven companies are running their infrastructure into the ground with costcutting and making user experiences ever worse so they can extract more money.

profit motive encourages selfish, destructive, exploitative behaviour. without profit motive people will simply do whatever needs to be done, and spend the rest of their time doing what they want to do.

A new mode of production arises out of the newly networked masses.

[biancadoes1]

You don't need to share this. I just love those people. They know Luke so well. ADHD: the reason for everything.

„Sorry to burst the bubble, but us peeps with ADHD almost always have some kind of oral fixation (I see you, Luke. He smokes too (well...vapes?) and as a fellow ADHD oral fixation babe, I feel the kinship), so we're licking our lips and touching our mouths and all that because we're stimming. Many people have thought I'm flirting when I'm just self soothing with a stimming activity like playing with my tongue piercing or biting my lip. Neurotypical people often have a misunderstanding of how neurodivergant people's body language differs from theirs, since it isn't widespread knowledge. But yeah....he's literally just stimming. Same as when he's touching his lips”

Here’s the thing.

We don’t know Luke. We don’t know for sure if that’s how he stimms.

Unless you know Luke Newton I think it’s really weird to tell other people what he does when he’s stimming.

So unless he tells you that to your face, in person, that he’s stimming when he’s touching his lips and eye fucking Nicola, I don’t care to hear or take this shit in to consideration.

STOP USING ADHD AS A FUCKING EXCUSE FOR LUKE NOT BEING ATTRACTED TO NICOLA.

I’m starting to get really pissed off that something I also struggle with is being used a counter argument for people who can’t accept that these two are likely together.

Shut the fuck up. Stop claiming this man does certain things when you don’t know him in real life. You look fucking stupid.

[sambot2000xp]

THE THREAD I HAVE BEEN PROCRASTINATING ON FOR A WHILE!!!

murderface’s autistic traits

because i see a lot of people talking about toki, skwisgaar, and nate’s autistic traits but never murderface.,,,

under the cut

one of the more obvious traits is his interest in war history and macabre things, which definitely seems like a special interest. it takes up his WHOLE ROOM, and the only time we see him taking a vacation is for a war reinactment. it is basically the only thing we see him have any interest in outside of dethklok and other music endeavors (which he does not seem to be that interested in even) he is genuinely PASSIONATE for history.

his gullibility is definitely overplayed for jokes but to me it reads as an extremely obvious autistic trait. for example , the firecracker scene. that scene just screams autistic to me. the way he just never realizes that he should STOP trusting them and keeps on bending down? yeah.

one of the less obvious things that I notice is his pickiness with foods. also a joke and definitely tied to extreme internalized homophobia, but it just seems like something that most neurotypical people would not go to the lengths to defend. yes I know that he does eat a hot dog in doublebookedklok but who says autism people cannot be hypocrites, I know I am lol. also just a headcanon of mine that he is sensitive to foods and sticks to foods he is comfortable with + knows well, seems to be pretty canon compliant too.

something i notice is how he does seem to understand some social norms, but not fully. and even the ones he does understand, he does not care to follow. for me as an autistic person that is something I heavily relate to. It is hard to follow the social norms you do understand when you have no reason to, and you have never had them explained to you. murderface was just treated as a problem kid his entire life so of course he just sticks with it instead of trying to work on his attitude.

kind of reaching but autistic people are more likely to experience depression and other mental illnesses, something that murderface definitely deals with. he also shows symptoms in less typical was, tied in with his anger issues. i think his anger issues could also be compared to how he was never taught to deal with his emotions, and also combine with autistic meltdowns of the sort. basically all of his issues just are worsened by his autistic traits.

SPELLING!!! i know this is just something that shows he is uneducated, which makes sense as he (in the shoe, NOT the comics) grew up in the south (probably in poverty) and never cared for school, but it also could have been heightened by his trouble learning new concepts. he very easily could have been pushed away by the fact that no one understood how to be patient with him and teach him in a way he understood, an experience lots of autistic people face.

the way murderface talks to people, he rarely knows how to act when he is not complaining or insulting people, which definitely ties into the lack of social skills. he also seems to not be able to tell when people are joking, or read emotional subtleties.

with how he tries to be a “gentleman” around ladies, it definitely shows how he does not know how to act outside of stereotypes and what he has been taught, almost like he is following a script.

HYGIENE. a big thing for autistic people. i know some people who are extreme near freaks and very very cautious with hygiene, as for me and others,,, not caring at all. i think it is obvious murderface falls into the second category, he does not CARE about hygiene and frankly, does not want to. we seen him showering in one scene so I think he is capable of doing self-care oriented things, but maybe it is hard for him to start, or he is uncomfortable with it in most occasions.

we???? Have never seen him wear pants? Like never. Even when wearing suits he has never worn pants. Definitely a sensory thing and NOT NORMAL?? just something subtle but texture in clothing is definitely a big thing with sensory issues.

headcanons

ahem ahem,,, we never see him in any shoes with shoelaces so I like to headcanon that he either never learned how to tie his shoes, or if he did, he is very bad at it and it takes him a while, so he is embarrassed to tie his shoes in front of anyone.

i also like to think he makes a lot of references to old TV shows (see my murderface agere post) and got a lot of his ideas of what “masculinity” is from those. i assume he shaped his worldview around fiction and what he learned from history, which resulted in a really warped perspective.

that is all for now!! i will probably add onto this later!! ^_^ byebye!

[hyliagirl42]

Okay, genuinely, literally, this mindset was the ONLY reason i graduated college.

It was the ONLY REASON.

I struggled to motivate myself to do my homework, regardless of deadline, regardless of how important it was to my grade, without someone in the room with me checking in occasionally to say "are you still working or are you on tumblr?"

I convinced one of my (similarly neurodivergent) roommates at the time to make me come do homework with her every evening, regardless of whether i wanted to at the time or not. I gave her permission to drag me out to the living room kicking and screaming if necessary. And then we sat on the couch, often with other roommates also doing homework, and we would all work. And after i was done, and showed her that it had been turned in and nothing else was due the next day, she would give me a popsicle that she kept in a mini fridge in her room, so i would only get them as a reqard for doing homework.

She did not propose any of that to me. I was the one who proposed that plan to her, because I know what Im like. If i dont wanna do a thing, i will hole up in my room and not come out. Even if i come out to do work, and yes having people in the room does help a lot even if they arent checking in with me, i can still occasionally have days where i say "i dont feel like doing xyz specific assignment today" and then i wont do it, so proving i had everything done to an unbiased outsider helped with that. And i would eat the popsicles till i had no rewards left for myself if it was left in the regular shared freezer we used

To neurotypicals, the above probably sounds really bad. It would sound lazy, it would sound like i have no desire to actually finish school. But i did! I really really desperately wanted to succeed in school. I just knew from experience that my own brain would be fighting me the entire way. So i decided i would no longer try to fight myself on it, and got help. And i succeeded! Im graduated now! I have a degree! Do what you need to do in order to succeed!!

The most valuable thing I learned doing a Masters degree with depression, anxiety and ADHD was to change my “things I’m bad at” list to “things I can’t do on my own.” Stop thinking of them as things I could do if I tried hard enough, and accept that I can’t accomplish them by effort and willpower alone; they’re genuine neurocognitive deficits, and if I need to do the thing, then just like a blind person reading or a mobility impaired person going up a storey in a building, I need to find a different method.

I’m “bad at” working on long-term projects without an imminent deadline or someone breathing down my neck? Okay, let’s change that: I can’t work on long-term projects without an imminent deadline and someone breathing down my neck. So let’s create an imminent deadline and recruit neck-breathers. Find a sympathetic prof who will agree that 3 weeks before the due date they expect me to show them my preliminary notes and bibliography. Get a friend I trust to block off an hour to sit with me and keep asking, “Are you working on your project?” Write a blog post about my progress. Arrange to trade papers and proofread them with another student.

Accept your limitations and learn to leverage them, instead of buying the neurotypical fairytale that they’ll go away if you just try hard enough.

[stinkrat-aleks]

Only if you want to! but would love to hear your thoughts about telepaths/psionics bias within the in-universe mutant community. I've always liked seeing Erik's particular dilemma explored in fanworks since in the movies we got to see his relationship with different telepaths, but I always like seeing it explored more generally too. so I guess I was wondering if you'd explored/thought about these bits of canon too, and of course, no worries if not!

Hello!! Sorry it took me so long to reply to this, I was thinking my answer over and all the stuff I wanted to say (/overthinker).

I think a LOT about psionphobia (or whatever the term would be called) in-universe. Especially because to me, mutations are symbolic for disabilities and different neurotypes. The term “neurodivergent” describes people whose brain differences affect how their brain works…and to me, that means all telepaths are inherently neurodivergent.

Now I see Charles as autistic, but even if he WASN'T autistic, that means his psychic powers affect the way he perceives social situations, information, etc.

And so, when I see in-universe characters (like XMFC Raven) tell Charles to stay out of their minds—while I understand the desire for privacy—it feels ableist to me. I'd understand if Raven asked Charles to keep out of her more private thoughts, but to keep out of her mind in general feels almost like asking an autistic person to stop stimming when they're around you.

Like, that's just the way Charles is. He probably overhears people's thoughts and feelings at a surface level at all times, without the intention of delving deeper.

This artist does a REALLY pretty comic depicting this and it's 1000% how I headcanon Charles' telepathy now, please go read and reblog the full thing if you haven't already:

Artist: yancant on tumblr

I also think just because Charles CAN intrude on people's innermost secrets, doesn't mean he necessarily WILL. Like, lots of people drive a car. Anyone could technically plow that car into a crowd of people. But most other people assume they won't. So we don't freak out when we see cars. Ya know.

With that logic it feels unfair to assume Charles is going to do bad things with his telepathy simply because he can. ALL humans are capable of bad things! Why is he being singled out for the way he thinks.

Re:Erik, he is the only one who seems to understand this. Him inviting Charles to be in his head (in fanworks but also XMFC) shows that he is not only tolerating Charles' mutation but EMBRACING it. (We all know he has a telepathy kink but that's something different okay.) To use the neurodivergent metaphor, he's telling Charles it's okay to unmask around him.

Like obviously this scene is very emotional for Erik, and Charles is definitely too caught up in his savior complex to take notice of his own emotions, but imagine!! Feeling that welcomed in someone else's mind for the first time!! And them not pushing you out or getting angry for touching a sensitive memory!

I have no idea any of that makes sense or if I'm grasping for straws but that's my overall take on it.

ANYWAYS…so that's my overall take on it. In terms of the soccer AU I'm currently working on..I have other thoughts and some of it will be addressed in futuer chapters (I'm gonna try to upload today). So we'll see. Sorry if this completely didn't answer your question LMFAO.

[queerasflux]

man I wish people understood how much it sucks ass to be neurodivergent and trying to find the middle ground where people like/tolerate you. like, I'm either "boring" (trying to wait my turn in conversations, holding space for other people, taking a back seat to let others get some spotlight) or "too much" (too loud/talking too much, getting excited to share, trying to participate in group conversations/activities). No one really talks about how much of being neurodivergent is just sort of trying to make yourself palatable.

I feel like so much of my life has been spent trying to find this effortless sort of middle ground everyone else seems to automatically already know, and I'm always swinging too far one way or the other. I'm lucky to have neurodivergent friends who grok me, but goddamn I wish that I could just like, exist without the constant background script in my brain that's like "you're being too loud. You're not talking enough. you're being self-centered. you're being boring. you're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong." I feel like I'm back in high school trying to make friends but stuck as the eternal "weird kid"

it's just... lonely and sucks bad.

[always-a-slut-4-ghouls]

The older I get the more times I realize that “that’s normal though” we’re not, in fact, normal

[appleshmapples]

Things neurotypical people do that confuse me.

They’ll say “it’s time to go” so I go outside and stand by the car… I wait….. no one else comes outside.

I go back inside and see that they are still talking to someone, haven’t put their shoes on, decide it’s time to cook a four course meal, etc.

Like… you said it was time to go…. Why are we not going????

[inkskinned]

oh you know it's all latestage capitalism but the thing is. how are you supposed to be a person inside of this. a person trying to be a better version of yourself.

oh, you started working young, which was kind of hard, but it's just the way stuff works sometimes. and it was 2008 and your family couldn't afford heat. but it's fine, you grow a spine and get used to the professional world and besides it was the suburbs we're talking about here, like, your life could have been actually hard, so what if your father lost his job and you can't afford to move or turn the lights back on. and once you start making money, it's good. you keep doing that. because now they're relying on you. so you have to do that.

oh you were in thousands of dollars of debt at 17 years old so that you could go to school, because you have to go to school if you want to get a "real" job. you even did it "right", you worked parttime and attended community college before you transferred to a public school. you were under so many merit scholarships.

which is fine. you pick yourself up and you say like, okay. i graduated college. i'm holding down a job. i'm doing the Adult Thing, which looks and acts like this, according to all the books i've read. you start with the shitty job and then you climb that corporate ladder.

but the shitty job doesn't cover rent and you stretch yourself too-thin so you get sick. good luck with that. the shitty job no longer pays for your meals. everyone asks why you don't just move, but there's nowhere to move to. and with what money are you going to be moving? and then the loans come back, because they were never going to forgive them, because you were 17 and trying to do the right thing, which was stupid. people are now saying you shouldn't have even gone to school.

which is fine. but because you have no other option, so you do the shitty job, and you apply every day for like 5 new ones, and despite the fact everyone says "there's no one who wants to work!" it's actually just that nobody is fucking hiring so you can either work for 13 dollars an hour in the shitty place you know (where at least you have a passingly friendly relationship with the manager) or you can start from scratch again with a different 13 dollars an hour without knowing how much abuse from the new job you'll be taking.

and if you quit you lose your insurance. if you quit you lose your housing. if you quit, you'll be another burnout kid. the lazy ones. these assholes, look at them!

and you come home to a family dinner and you hear from your father the same old thing. how he worked hard at his job and yes it sucked for a while but he was able to provide for the family and then the house and the dog and the rest of barbie's dream vacation. how the insurance did cover some of it. how you just really need to start speaking up more in manager conversations so they know you're a go-getter. you want to tell him - did you know we're actually doing more now hourly than any previous generation? - but you can't remember where you heard that statistic, and you're far too tired for the fucking argument. and then he starts in on his usual bit. where's the house? where's your kids? where's your ambition.

the same job the same money the same hours doesn't do it anymore. the same nose-to-the-grindstone now just shreds your face off. there's no such thing as upwards mobility, not really. and as far as you're aware, the money certainly is not trickling. you do the soulless stupid shit you signed up for because you fucking have to or else you literally risk your life (food, the apartment, the insurance), but it's not getting you anything. you download the stupid "save more" app and you budget and you do every right thing and then the price of eggs is 7 dollars and you say - oh great! another thing i have to fucking worry about now!

and you go to your stupid job and everyone in your father's generation just tells you to be better about being an adult. they have their homes and their savings account and their bailout and they say. well have you tried not drinking starbucks. well your generation just spends too much on clothing. well you might just be too addicted to travelling. and you - because you need the job - you bite your tongue and don't say i am being held prisoner and you're suggesting i stop pacing my cell if i don't like the scenery and you don't say what the fuck do you think i've been doing with my money and you don't say i haven't spent a cent on something nice in literally forever much less coffee you arrogant asshole. you open and close your bank app and check your loans and check your credit score and check fucking zillow and ziprecruiter and apartments.com just one time more. and still they give you that demeaning little grin and say - see, what you need is -

what you need is for your meds to stop being so fucking expensive. what you need is for the housing bubble to explode into dust. what you need is for billionaires to choke on their wealth. what you need is actual help. what you will get is more economic advice from people who are older-and-wiser.

and above you, almost in a glimmer, you can see the wedged smile of your debt getting toothier, wider.

[ambrosiagourmet]

I dunno, I kinda think that describing an often-viewed-as-autistic character as relatable to everyone is fun and rad actually. I think that the idea of autistic people being relatable to neurotypical people is cool as hell

[marzipanandminutiae]

she's a 10 but is she cool with allistic people being obsessively passionate about things, too? or people who haven't publicly given a category into which she can neatly slot their neurological state?

does she think people owe her a medical label to explain their "weird" aspects, whether it's helpful for them or not?

(applying labels to people who haven't self-identified with those labels is bad even if you phrase it as "omg bestie have you considered that you're definitely 100% autistic? #neurospicy :D")

[aropride]

*neurotypical meaning "typical neurological development or functioning". i.e. not neurodivergent, i.e. someone who doesn't have autism/ocd/schizophrenia/an intellectual disability/tourettes/a personality disorder/social anxiety/dyslexia/bipolar etc etc you get the picture i'm just listing off disorders atp. yes self dx'd or questioning/researching is fine i love you 👍

[artsfavoritehorn]

It really does make more sense to me now as a fellow audhd individual as to why I'm so drawn to Art and comforted by him instead of being unnerved by him like the majority of people seem to be- I'm always like "he's just like me fr!" and then the sudden realization of it makes me go 😧 when you think of how unnerved neurotypicals are by neurodivergents just existing and doing their thing lol

Learning Art's actor David Thorton has autism- it's something else because like well that clicks into place why body language other people might say adds to the unnervingness makes me go :] I do that, puts me at ease almost. I'd fret over since David was chosen over this big pool of actors and differs from the prior actor in the All Hallow's Eve version might have some unconscious bias about disability as horror shorthand but he's having fun and honestly jealous of what he's got going on career path wise. Plus, can you imagine a world robbed of Art's best quality- his wiggles

[krash-8]

neurotypicals will laugh when I say 'im autistic" like bitch im not joking AND now I know you think making fun of autistic people is funny

[maynardoisfromouterspace]

TV show: look at this characters. They’re bullied bc they’re an outcast and don’t fit in.

Neurotypicals: Omg they’re so quirky and relatable. I love them.

Neurodivergents: They’re my new comfort character bc I’m and outcast and don’t fit in and am bullied bc of it.

Neurotypicals: lol eww cringe