#they're not so great with the autism either and I am autistic myself

[cometcon]

[Messages I sent to my friend last night for when I find out if I'm right or not as I continue watching this show. PLEASE DO NOT GIVE ME ANY SPOILERS. I WANT THE SHOW TO REVEAL IT AS CORRECT OR INCORRECT.]

Listen. I'm in Season 2 of Monk and I need to write this down to you because I'm calling it now and I don't think you want to watch this so it should be fine if I'm right:

RANDY KILLED TRUDY

I'M LIKE 80% SURE OF IT

They've dropped TWO extremely subtle hints and this show isn't always the most subtle in its set up and pay off [so with the vibe I'm getting from what I think I'm noticing I feel like they want it to be there so you can go back and see it again later but are intentionally drawing as little attention to it as possible so you hopefully don't figure it out early but also if you do you'll feel really smart for having engaged with the show] .(I much prefer that to telling me everything though so it's mostly ok).

One: Randy mentioned back in Season One that he joined the police department 4 years ago. At that time in the story, it was 4 years ago that Trudy died to PLASTIC BOMBS UNDER HER SEAT. [The reason why I clocked this as important is that the show has been consistently training us as the audience to never ignore a seemingly off-hand remark using times, dates, number of years, locations or anything like that whatsoever because 99.99999999% of the time it's relevant and gets used by Monk (sometimes others but usually Monk) to crack the episodical cases. I'm telling you now I'm 99.99999999% sure that wasn't an off-hand comment that doesn't actually matter any more than any other comment like that has ever been in any episode to that point or after it. It means something. They've taught me it means something so I really hope that pays off.]

ok it might be three actually I just realised something from another character not just Randy

Two: I'm now watching Season Two and Monk was talking to another character and they have him tell her that the car bombs were plastic bombs and that he feels guilty because he's sure they were meant for him. This isn't the first time this show mentioned car bombs, but it is the first time I remember them being identified specifically as plastic bombs.

Three: The very next episode - the one I'm currently on - is dealing with a series of murders using PLASTIC BOMBS.

GUESS WHAT RANDY JUST SAID

Ok ok so relevant dialogue leading up to it:

Monk: "What do we have?"

Captain Leland: "Mail bomb. An ounce and a half of plastique with a magnesium charge."

Randy (looking a little excited which wouldn't be unusual in normal circumstances for his character but is extra sus here given my existing sus): "There were two triggers-- a chemical detonator wired to the wrapping, and a motion detector. So when you opened it and moved it-- boom."

Cap. Leland: "Not hard to make.���

AND RANDY, this cheeky smug little fuckwit, GUESS WHAT HE SAYS NEXT????

"Crude and unpredictable actually."

YOU SMUG LITTLE PIECE OF SHIT MOTHERFUCKER I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE YOU SNEAKY LITTLE SONNOVA FUCKING BITCH

I'M GUNNING FOR HIM. I'M GUNNING FOR RANDY. FUCKING LITTLE WEASLEY SHIT.

Also you know there's that whole thing where some killers like to insert themselves into the investigation where possible as part of the thrill/try to head the cops off etc. It's a real life phenomenon. And if Randy is the type of character I've been thinking he is then he's a) very good at putting on the unthreatening bumbling dumbass assistant role which hello Felix archetype but without the competence angle to begin with, and b) he's exactly the type of person to insert himself into the police department Monk works with to see the damage he did to Monk with the bombs and revel in it, as well as stay close enough to gain trust with the department and Monk to know what's going on, but probably also to keep feeding his ego that even Adrian Monk can't figure out that Randy did it.

Basically imagine Felix [Red vs Blue] if he had no game or rizz and you have the underlying character I'm picking up from Randy.

(And if I'm right then a) I'm going to scream so loud the neighbours might call in a welfare check for me and b) jesus mother fucking christ his actor is amazing at playing a character-within-a-character, goddamn. Every kudo on Earth to him.)

[I haven't managed to watch past the Playboy episode yet because unfortunately I have a life and I can't bingewatch constantly until It's revealed whatever happened to Trudy but you can bet your arse I'm going back in as soon as possible because I'm so excited to find out if I'm seeing shit or if I'm seeing shit I'm both supposed to and not supposed to see. Goddamn I've missed getting to use my brain while watching media.]

************************************************

UPDATE: I just started Season 3 and I started my other best friend on Monk too last night so they're getting in on the drama. XD

We'll see how this season goes. They're ramping up the Trudy plot lately so my money is on this season for some kind of reveal. Crossing my fingers. It has to be Randy. Look at that weasely little face. Piece of shit.

Also said best friend I'm messaging in the screnshots above saw the individual scene where that dialogue is from I was freaking out about earlier. And they pointed out he looks really dressed up and they don't think it's because of his 'girlfriend.' They think it's because he was excited as fuck to be doing a bombing case similar to what he did (but inferior in his eyes of course) and he dressed up for it. Fucking smug little prick.

****************************************************

UPDATE: I finished the first episode of Season Three and I'm calling BULLSHIT. NO. NOT ALLOWED. B u l l s h i t. I'M STILL GUNNING FOR YOU RANDY YOU FUCKING PRICK I KNOW YOU DID IT I KNOW IT I FEEL IT IN MY LEFT ANKLE FUCK YOU. MY ANKLE DEMANDS YOUR TWO-FACED BACKSTABBING WIFE-BOMBING BLOOD, DO YOU HEAR ME????

****************************************************

UPDATE:

S3 Ep7.

There's a LOT more focus on Randy lately and it's making me itch.

Sharona just made a joke about Randy blowing up his 'girlfriend.'

Yeah that's not the only girl he blew up, Sharona, you watch. I know it was him. I can fucking smell it from here even through that cologne. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

Mini Update: Ok so Crystal's real. One thing he didn't lie about but wow there's a lot of focus on making Randy adorable. I'm not buying it. It's set up to make his evil nature feel all the more like a vicious betrayal, I tell you!!!!

****************************************************

UPDATE: I miss whoever chose to write Monk as capable of lying and emotional intelligence. It was refreshing. Yeah they see-sawed occasionally but they seem to have decided to drop what made him refreshing as an Autistic-coded character (holding out hope they'll see-saw back again since they seem to retcon whether or not he's capable of and comfortable with lying and emotional intelligence based on whoever is writing at the time). I'm tired of all the cis het white men who are Hollywood-Autistic and are socially inept bcause that's what Allistics see as the defining trait of Autism and not like literally the million other things it can be plus we are capable of learning and masking, so I'd like to see more of that which we did a lot of the time in earlier seasons (not always the masking but he'd definitely navigated most social interactions perfectly fine aside from his 'OCD' moments). I also miss Sharona and the way they wrote her off in the show was weird and kind of lazy. I wish they'd just paid her actress what she asked; it was probably perfectly reasonable and she was fucking epic.

[paperbackpanic]

WHAT CREEPS ARE AUTISTIC? + SUPPORT LEVELS

A/n: this are the pastas I personally think are autistic and why because I am autistic and I'll pass down the autism.

ATTENTION: Most of these don't have relation to my other headcanons, is just for good fun. The only one that really applies to my other headcanons is Jane. Cody and Toby can be implied but not really mentioned

Jane: I'm projecting

Cody (xvirus): because I said so

Hoodie/Brian: Because he's literally me

Toby: Because he already has ADHD and tourettes so he might as well get the whole pack

Bloody Painter: I'm projecting²

Sally: Because autism is coquette and she's too

Eyeless Jack: Because why not?

These are the autism support levels

This is not set in stone, levels can fluctuate during the week/month based on how stressed the autistic person is or how well therapy/treatment is going. A person can also be between 2 levels, I myself am between level 1 and 2, because of my high masking. I have great social difficultys but can do day to day activities (mostly) fine, although on paper I'm level 1. Support levels can also be defined by concomitant disabilities, specially if they're intellectual (down syndrome, learning delay, etc)

Ok so now to the actual reasons

Jane: She's literally the embodiment of autism in afab people lmao. Her straightforward way of speaking, black and white thinking and strong sense of justice and difficulty forming connections are all very autistic traits. She's level 1 of support, 2 on bad days

Cody: High interest in microbiology = hyper focus + special interest. Bedsides I don't see him as "social" he prefers to be alone which could be either esquizoid personality disorder, autism or both. I'll go with both. He doesn't understand humans neither really like to be with them. They're level 2 (almost 3) support

Toby: Many psychological Disorders are accompanied with others, much like a pay one get three deal, tourettes, ADHD and autism are pretty common together. It is not always that "social difficultys" are tied to shyness or isolation, it can also be pushyness and a hyper personality much like Toby's personality. He's level 1

Hoodie/Brian: In my head he's schizophrenic AND autistic. Which really makes his paranoia worse, autism already make you hear things people filter out (like electricity) this together with auditory hallucinations makes him have really bad meltdowns. He's level 3 of support but with all the bullshit he's been through he's forcing himself to be level 1, he don't manage it very well so he acts like a level 2

Bloody Painter: isn't really specified why he's bullied in the og as far as I remember and many autistic folks are bullied for no reason. His passion for painting and drawing can be seen as an hyper focus /special interest. Also his hate from loud places and crowds can be because of sensory overload. Helen also has a personality similar to mine when I was younger so why not haha. He's level 2 of support

Sally: Is pretty rare that girls are diagnosed with autism below the age of 16. So I'll give a little representation here. Her love for pink and typically girly things to the point of looking like a stereotype can be read as her special interest. Autistic girls are often more naive than the average girl of the same age, which more often than not leads to abuse/bullying, so one more point there. Not much else besides the "I want her to be autistic because I wish I was diagnosed much younger". She's level 1 support.

Eyeless jack: He's the embodiment of sensory issues, bedsides I see him as pretty socially inept, not that he doesn't like to socialize, He just don't really know how (like me). Also I see his medical skills as being a side product of his Human body special interest. He's level 2 support

[sweet-as-an-angel]

Hi!!! I’m the same guy as the one that asked about the age range and autism :] just having like another question or so idk I forgot tbh.

Again, it’s so okay if you don’t wanna answer any of these!! I completely get it, all is well 🫶🫶

Would Dominic have any reaction to a reader that stims a lot?? Either verbally or physically; maybe his adoration will miau like a cat as a vocal stim frequently or flap their hands or clap as a physical stim as well?? Would he do anything now that he has that knowledge??

If his obsession suffered from OCD, how would he exploit that disorder?? (under the impression that he would exploit it.) Perhaps their ocd revolves around severe obsessions of having something seriously wrong with them, paranoia, or extreme fear of dirt or contamination??

Can he speak another language?? If his adoration was bilingual would he put genuine effort into learning their mother language??

Would he find it disrespectful if his obsession was eye contact adverse?? Actually what things does he find disrespectful like in general?? Does he do anything to correct that behavior??

Would he be okay with them being like incredibly and insanely cuddly and touchy?? I am autistic myself and when I go nonverbal but can still stand touch it’s how I communicate if that makes sense at all??

OKOK I swear that’s it for at least a while 😭😭 he really has me thinking about things jesus christ man. If there’s any spelling mistakes or something you don’t understand, I’m sorry :[[ German is my first language.

Have a great day or night!! I wasn’t expecting to write this much ngl🫶🫶

In case I ever have anything else I’ll put a raccoon at the end!! :]]

-🦝

TW: Discussions of Mental Health, Mentions of OCD, Dominic Being Dominic

Welcome back, my dear 🦝 Anon <3 ! Your English is perfect, thank you for all your wonderful questions ^^ ! To answer your inquiries:

♡ If Reader stims a lot, Dominic will, of course, try to find a way to make your stimming all about him; especially if you have a lot of physical/verbal stims. He'll try to be in close proximity to you so that, when you do stim, you're more likely to either catch/grab him (unintentionally, of course). If you're apologetic - even though it isn't your fault - Dominic will absolutely find a way to guilt you into feeling bad about it, even when his veneer tells you that it's fine, it happens.

♡ Guilt breeds indebtedness - that's what Dominic has discovered. So, fresh off the wave of panic you're feeling, he'll ask you to do something for him that will require you to stay longer, during which time he'll see if you physically stim again or not. If so, he refreshes the process. Just like printing money.

♡ If you verbally stim and, say, make some kind of animal noise, he'll absolutely try and romanticise it. If you meow, he'll call you "Kitty," giving you a warm smile and a good-natured laugh. If/when you become more comfortable around him, he'll start calling you "Mon Minou," - My Kitty. He's one Discord server away from calling you Kitten.

♡ If you suffer with OCD, he'll start manipulating the physical environment to trigger you. Never in his own house, though. You need someplace as your safe space, right?

♡ He'll never verbally trigger you himself, either; nor will he allow any triggers to exist in his house as to try and reduce the likelihood of you having a negative association with his abode if you experience an OCD urge whilst you're there, regardless of how severe it is.

♡ In fact, he'll do things to make it seem like he's the only one that can combat it; he'll check windows to make sure they're locked, he'll sweep up crumbs off the floor to clear the path for you, he'll even call up one of his many doctor 'friends' (acquaintances. People in high places he's fashioned into his elite social circle) to come and informally examine you, to tell you that you're fine.

♡ If it's paranoia you're afflicted with, he'll seize the opportunity to turn himself into the only person you can come to, the only person you don't feel silly or afraid to spill your deepest worries to.

♡ Anything that will make you gaze up at him with nothing less than gratitude.

♡ Dominic can speak two languages fluently - English and French. He can speak other European and Asian languages, too, but to a minimal degree and only enough to discuss business matters. However, if you speak another language aside from the two he already has at his disposal, he'll absolutely make sure to learn it fluently, if only to become one of the few/only people in the neighbourhood with whom you can feel truly connected with.

♡ For peak manipulation, he'll learn everything about your mother tongue after your first meeting and start speaking to you in it - fluently - the next time you meet, pretending to have been able to speak it for many years past.

♡ If you are eye contact adverse, he'll try not to take it personally. But, knowing Dominic, that is a feat in and of itself. He values being able to exert power over others, and one of his main methods of doing so is unwavering eye contact. So, really, you're managing to inadvertently protect yourself from Dominic's Medusa stare.

♡ Behaviours Dominic views as 'disrespectful' would be signs dismissiveness towards him. Dominic is used to being the centre of attention in every environment he's in, so to have you, the object of his every desire, not paying attention to him is...a blow to his ego, to say the least. A metal rod to the backbone of his entire identity.

♡ Dominic will make quick work of ‘correcting’ your behaviour: standing so that it is only him in your direct line of sight; coming in close proximity so you can’t be ignorant to his presence; and, if he's bold enough, taking your chin between his fingers and making you look at up him.

♡ If you're very touchy-feely, Dominic goes absolutely feral; he can't believe he gets to have you touch him without: a.) having to initiate it, and b.) having to hide it. After all, it's a by-product of your mental health - it's beyond your control as much as it is his!

♡ He'll take full advantage of this, too, offering his arm for you to hang onto, his hand to hold, his chest to hide your face in. And all the while, all he's thinking of is how nice it feels not only to have you so close to him, but also how he can use this as an excuse to keep you close in the future.

Masterlist Yandere AI Masterlist Masterpost

AO3 Wattpad Tumblr Backup Account

[autumnoakes]

oh boy. i have not done this at all this year partly because a) i thought it was an art/creative challenge and i didn't have the mental capacity for it and b) i forgor 💀 so! i'm gonna do all of the days right now because. of reasons (the reason being that i have the energy right now right now) (by @autiebiographical )

autism plus - i think this is about comorbidities? i have an ADHD diagnosis and i'm working on an hEDS diagnosis as well. i'm also pretty sure i have OCD and anxiety in general tbh

infinite - i'm not too sure how to answer this one? sorry

audhd - THATS ME!!!!! it makes for some interesting times because i have and will eaten a food for weeks on end until getting physically sick of it or listened to the same song until i can't stand it or played the same video game until its boring (hello 800 hours in breath of the wild). usually if i take a break from it, then it gets better and i can enjoy it again.

music - music is actually one of my biggest stims! a lot of my life revolves around music. both sides of my family were/are musicians and i grew up surrounded by it. i'm always listening to music out in public. i really want to get back into it (i used to play violin before the pandemic but started working right as it started and ran out of time and motivation between work and school)

verbose - irl i'm not very articulate. i think sometimes i'm able to be over text where i can delete things and take time to think about what i'm going to say without it being awkward. in real life though, i'm always fumbling over my words and taking way too long trying to figure out how to form the words i want to say next. it's annoying :/

individuals - not too sure how to approach this one either? so loose interpretation. i know many other autistic people both online and irl, and we're all really different. sometimes i get along with them, sometimes i don't. same with allistic or neurotypical people.

neuroscope - i think when i saw this it was about being able to tell when others are also neurodiverse? i'm pretty good at this but i'm also really good at hiding my own neurodiversity (but getting worse at it actually). i know a lot of people who i watch and go "hm" (because people watching is something i enjoy /genuine) but i wouldn't tell someone out of the blue that i think they're autistic

non-speaking - i am fully verbal, and i live with two other autistic people. one is nonverbal and he is an important person in my life. my experience with life is very different though, so i don't have very much to say about this.

community - i've found that most of the autistic community, like a lot of disabled communities, are online which is great! however i do also think it has its drawbacks because the internet can be an echo chamber and i think there's a reason why a lot of people on tumblr especially are neurodiverse.

self-advocacy - oh boy, i'm still learning this. it's difficult to know when to stand up for yourself and how, let alone really draining. at least, for me it is. mostly because having to do so sparks deep anxiety and i find i just can't do it. i don't tell many people that i'm autistic at all

unlearning ableism - another one that's a long time work in progress. it's so difficult to unlearn ideas that you've been around your entire life and grew up learning, but it's necessary to create a welcoming community. i know a lot of people struggle with internalized ableism, myself included. although i have been able (been forced to, actually) take a step back from my responsibilities and focus on creating schedules that work for me instead of trying to do as much as possible all at once.

differently wired - yeah, my brain very much does work differently. i've had a lot of people (including other autistic people) think i'm weird and tell me so because i want to do something a certain way and i don't want to change it. i'm developing a theory that autism isn't JUST neurodevelopmental, but a lot more than that, considering the number of comorbidities that occur alongside autism.

vivid imaginations - i don't have maladaptive daydreams, but i daydream a lot. ironically, i also have aphantasia, so it kinda plays out as a book/audio recording with some vague shapes acting as the people. i love listening to music on the bus for this exact reason. i often daydream scenarios relating to a special interest or hyperfixation.

hyperfixations - SPEAKING OF. people who follow me will know i've been going feral about hades 2 for months and months (i love the narrative choices they've made with the main character, melinoë, and she's one of my favourite characters in general). i've also been hyperfixating on resident evil (games only) for almost 2 months now. i finished re4 remake last week and started playing re2 a couple days ago. re4 remake specifically is one of my favourite games because i love how they wrote the characters and i love the attention to detail in that game (i'm actually still playing it akdjskdn i got the DLC and i love playing as ada)

pebbling - i have an idea of what this means but i don't know if i do it?

autistic pride - i don't have a lot of it. i want to, but sometimes it's really difficult for me to find pride in being autistic. a lot of it is related to internalized ableism.

repetition - oh i am always repeating. i was told during my autism assessment that i always wear the same clothes which i never really thought i did before remembering that i wore basically the exact same outfit more days than not for like 2 years when i was a kid. same goes for food - i like eating familiar foods and meals and i don't like changing it up or trying new foods. i also do this thing where i repeat what i just said under my breath (pallilalia!) and people notice this but i've only gotten a handful of comments on it

self-regulating - i'm bad at regulating emotions actually or even identifying them sometimes. i've had it where i've gone from being really angry and just wanting people to face consequences for their actions -> having a meltdown. i can't often tell when a meltdown is coming and it's really embarrassing for me to have one.

comfort items - i have a lot of them. i always go out with two fidget toys in particular and my noise cancelling headphones. i have two necklaces i wear everywhere. i have a pile of stuffies on my bed.

executive dysfunction - mine takes the form of mostly being unable to finish tasks, being unable to switch between tasks, or being unable to stay on one task. i don't usually experience trouble starting a new task, but sometimes i do. it's the finishing tasks that's a big one for me because eventually i hit a point when i'm like "okay, i'll finish this later" and then i never go back to it. so i've been trying my best to do things in one sitting, but sometimes it's not possible. i once submitted a half-written essay for a class because i hit that point and i would have failed otherwise.

queer - my identity is hugely shaped by being autistic as i've come to realize. i'm aroace and bisexual, in that i don't experience sexual/romantic attraction, but i'm open to dating others (and maybe having sex with the right person), and i don't exactly have a preference for who i'd do it with. i also think people are pretty. i'm also aplspec, which is to say i'm on the aplatonic spectrum and don't really feel the desire to make new friends. i still have favourite people though. my gender is weird but recently it switched over to trans guy but like nonbinary about it (demiboy?)

disabled - since i'm in uni right now, i can't work. fortunately i live at home and have minimal to no costs despite being 23. it's hard for me to frame this as a necessity for me personally and not a luxury. if i worked, i would have to give up getting my degree. i also have chronic pain and fatigue, which makes it difficult to walk long distances. i do take the bus and don't drive, which helps me stay somewhat active. even if i did drive, without a job no one will give me a car loan, so i'd be in the same spot anyways.

synesthesia - i don't experience this

genetic - i have a lot of family members who are also autistic/ADHD. my assessor did a bit of a family tree about it. the two autistic people i live with are my cousins. i also have another cousin and an aunt who are autistic, and i heavily suspect my maternal grandmother is autistic or ADHD. my dad has ADHD too.

pets - i have none and i'm sad about it. i'd like to have a cat, but that makes rent go up i think, and i'm not sure if we're allowed pets here. my last house was a strict no pets zone. i grew up with cats though, and they make me happy. big dogs scare me quite a bit, even if they're chill and even though they seem to like me (i'll still give them affection. they didn't do anything wrong)

fidgeting - mmmm i do this all the time. my assessor for ADHD put me down as inattentive type because he didn't see me fidgeting much, but my leg was going under the table for the entire assessment and he couldn't see. i also have been unmasking and found out that i am more combined type/hyperactive than previously thought. i don't stay still in chairs very much. i always have a fidget toy on me, too.

stimming - see above. i'm always stimming pretty much. right now.... well i kinda am actually. i'm under my weighted blanket.

safe foods - i like to eat sandwiches and wraps a lot. sometimes i like meat, rice, and some kind of sauce. i have a lot of safe foods but also a lot of unsafe foods and it can sometimes be hard knowing what is and isn't safe. i've had many times when i thought i liked something and then didn't touch it or took hours to eat it (without doing something else and forgetting its there)

empathy - this is weird for me. i don't know where my empathy is. i think it's on the lower side, but sometimes i get just really upset over my friends being upset. i want to help a lot but mostly it's so the issue will go away. it took a lot of effort to stop constantly checking vent channels in search of someone i can help.

accommodations - i use accommodations in my education. i only got them about two years ago when i was diagnosed with ADHD. i could have some for a job too when i get one, but i only got those in august with my autism diagnosis, so i didn't have them for when i was working a couple of years ago.

sensory euphoria - i get this most when listening to music. a couple of weeks ago i put on the totk soundtrack to do work to and was listening to the colgera fight music and was just in BLISS for a solid 10 minutes. i was stimming so much and humming and it was an indescribable feeling listening to that music, especially when the dragon roost island motif comes in.

[rorah]

Yallo!

A bit random, but do you ever think about how potentially tragic of a character Byleth is, and how it's all dependent on if they get to forge bonds and a new path in life as a professor as we can see from both games?

They get to stray away from the mercenary lifestyle, albeit it was forced at first, and the label that was forcibly placed on them(Ashen Demon) that caused them to be negatively perceived for most of their life. Nobody besides Jeralt, their father, bothered to understand them, because their lack of emoting well would just scare people and make them think they're some emotionless husk. No friends, no support system, just the sword and Jeralt.

Like it's really telling how their first dialogue option in 3Houses is "I'm a demon" factored in with Byleth being surprised in Hopes that people weren't treating them as less when recruited.

Honestly I'd argue Byleth is rather complex in a behavioral sense.

Ah, sorry for the little ramble. As you can see, I am obsessed with this autist.

OOh hello! Not random at all. And if it's random you're coming to the right place because I love randomness 🙌 Thinking about Byleth makes me SOOOOOOOFFFFFTTTTTTT 😭 ngl, they have become one of my favorite characters in the process of trying to figure out their character throughout the several gameplays. And Hopes made it a punch in the guts 💔 but also give us voiced Byleth YAY. Yes, I think about the potential tragic of their character, their past and specially in Hopes that wrecks my heart and makes me cry like a baby in some random dark corner of my room. That notion of their first dialogue with Shez when recruited about everyone in the camp being nice breaks my heart a bit because it implies that even when working for the opposite faction you choose, they didn't get to interact any of the other characters we know. Not Jeralth fault by actively isolating them since he tells them to "try to fit in" when finally joining our ranks and yet, if they're with the "enemy", their mercenary group is still isolated from the main army and don't get to interact much. And if they do, is just the random average soldier who gets freaked out by their unnerving-ness as it's been implied. Byleth haven't grown and developed like they did in houses, so they still struggle.

You're so right about their complexity of their behavior. In my way to discover the Byleth, I found myself relating to them A LOT. But also had to be careful to not "project" too much into them. I like to look at the game's options and considering part of something Byleth would say either way (because there's really not many options to pick, most of them go around the same), character reactions to them, hopes, and also heroes' dialogues. I think Byleth is a beautiful character that deserve more credit and more focus It'd be great for the Autism representation and bring hope to the autists out here lol

[nokingsonlyfooles]

The Future is Allistic?

Murderbot is the best thing about All Systems Red, and I think the author knows that. That's cool. The humans don't need much for development, this isn't their story, they're just another thing Murderbot has to deal with. We've only got about 150 pages for this, and it's book one, so we're going to gloss over some aspects of the world to focus on the character.

Murderbot does not wish to exist in the sort of well-meaning institution where the humans would put it, a place where being "cared for" means a loss of autonomy. Murderbot would like the ability to get up and microwave a burrito at 0100 hours. ...Or whatever "passing the burrito test" means in the future, for a robot. So would we all!

But, uh, where are "we"? Where are the autistic humans who would read a book about Murderbot, go "oh, it me" and then talk about it with other humans, autistic and allistic both?

There are "humans," who may be well-meaning but clueless or openly hostile towards Murderbot, and who produce media with happy robots coexisting with humans and some level of personhood. (Either robots do not produce media in the future, most robots are not like Murderbot, or we just never see robot media or robots like Murderbot. Not much time for world-building!) There are robots, all of whom have no autonomy and are hostile cannon-fodder - although Murderbot doesn't feel great about that, it'll still kill them and move on. And there's Murderbot, who appears to be the only autistic thing in the universe.

And, I get that. I get how that feels. I get how someone in the YA audience who masks and passes like Murderbot probably feels like the only autistic thing in a hostile/clueless universe. It was like that for me and often it still is. For a book of limited scope, maybe that's enough. An author can't fix everything, and sometimes you gotta play the ball where it lies. But the real world is so much bigger than how it feels: there are lots of us, we have communities, we are seen, and we talk about ourselves.

We are human beings! We don't have to be created autistic like a robot, because we are naturally-occurring, and you would need to do some serious fucking eugenics to make us go away. (Even then, it probably wouldn't work. Eugenics hasn't been the society-purifying, scientific success so many people wanted/still want it to be.) It's not like you could just stop vaccinating kids, or abuse them a bit less, or abuse them a bit more - just until they're normal! - or any of these other "solutions" that have been floated to deal with us. You'd have to change how we function on a fundamental level as we develop in the womb, or shortly thereafter, or kill us, but I repeat myself.

On some level, in general, I think we do know that "curing" someone of autism, even if nobody physically dies, is a type of murder. Here, I am thinking of another future where autism doesn't seem to exist and nobody knows how to deal with it. Julian Bashir, in Star Trek: DS9, is the closest thing we get to an autistic human being who has a regular job and just gets to exist and interact like another person. And he's the illegal result of eugenic experimentation! His parents didn't like that he was underperforming in school, so they did some eugenics on him, and he calls that murder. That plotline is criminally underdeveloped, but it is there. It was there in the 90s, when the general view of autism was a nightmare disease with no cure that ruins children. We still knew that rewiring someone's brain to make them more convenient was wrong.

(Funnily enough, we do grab children who are underperforming in school and force them to mask better, like Julian. But it involves putting them in a Skinner Box and training them like Pavlov's dogs, with punishments for acting autistic and rewards for acting less so. It doesn't make them stop being autistic, but it makes them easier to deal with. And in so many cases, that's all we care about!)

If the public at large figured out that Julian was created autistic (because autism doesn't just happen), if he didn't mask like Murderbot, he'd go in an institution like the Jack Pack. Like where they wanted to put Murderbot. He clearly doesn't need to be there, but that's where society has decided he belongs, because he should not exist. He's only like that because someone made him that way, and they shouldn't have.

Just recently, I got smacked with the realization that people with complex intersections can't just happen in fiction. If I knew a queer, deaf person, I would write them the funnest queer and deaf character to play. It wouldn't be hard to write that character! They would fit into Hyacinth's house or the Black Orchid just fine! Calliope could've been deaf (along with being GNC, and multiracial, and autistic), instead of just growing up where there's a deaf school with a deaf friend whom we only meet briefly. ...So why didn't I do that? Why didn't that occur to me in the first place? I'm trying to create a diverse world like the real one, but we don't see that person.

Part of it is that I didn't see media with that person. But the reason it's hard to see that media is, it's hard to justify that character. We, the audience, have a default "blank" character in our heads (it's not blank at all, it's cis, het, white, male, and a lot of things the usual protagonist is), and the artist needs to tweak that into an individual with words or paint or a performance or something. The more tweaks someone has to do, the more likely the audience will get bored or confused and wander off. Beyond the privileged default, everything that makes a character has to be relevant, and stay relevant. That's why they say "murder your darlings." The worst sin is boring the audience, so don't involve them in unnecessary shit. Pare down the story until it bleeds.

Now, think how much space explaining something complex like "queer AND deaf" would need. And how much research from someone who isn't both of those things, or doesn't at least have a patient queer and deaf friend. And if, say, they were Black too? In the real world, a person like that can just exist and be seen. Probably they just live their lives without including you, it's not about you. But maybe they sit down next to you on the bus, you say hi, they speak with a specific accent or sign or hand you a card, and they have dark skin and a rainbow flag pin. Existence confirmed! In writing, I have to do pages and pages of work to get you to see them as a whole person, because they need me to create a place where they fit. If they don't have a place where they fit and we need them, why are they there? Real people don't have to justify themselves, they just are, and everyone else better fucking work with it. Everyone doesn't, but they should. You can't just ask someone why they're Black! But in fiction, you do, you must, you're supposed to, and if there's no reason, well, maybe they ought to stop being Black.

So, if I'm going to write a story in which Murderbot is autistic, especially if it's a short and simple one, it fucking well better be ABOUT Murderbot being autistic, or else why spend all these pages explaining what it's like to be autistic? "Autistic people exist" isn't a plotline, that dull and preachy. I need something better than that... Ah! "Murderbot hacked its chip and became autistic!" Yes! That's relevant for the plot and lets me do all kinds of worldbuilding about robots and how they work and how they are seen! There's my elevator pitch and a significant portion of the jacket plot summary right there!

"Autistic people exist in a community" isn't relevant to "autistic robot fights society and other robots." It should be, inasmuch as autistic people are part of society, but it would add pages to the story if the humans who are so clueless and stress-inducing weren't also the nice humans who live with robots and treat them like disabled people. Why add another type of human when we've already got the corporation and the other surveyors and the evil surveyors and a whole world to explain? There's no room!

But that means that, somehow, a group of scientists (!!) living in human society haven't met an autistic person and have no clue how to treat one. There can't be an autistic scientist who goes, "Why the FUCK would you look at someone to PUNISH them, what is WRONG with you?" That would make it less likely Murderbot will wander off to explore the galaxy and find itself! This is Book One! Where's the story if Murderbot finds a community right away and hangs out? That's boring!

So, in the future, there isn't a community among the "free" robots that we just don't see, because it would derail the plot if there were. The world wouldn't look like that if the robots alone talked about their way of being and the humans who lived with them listened. If there were also human beings who existed like Murderbot and they added their voices, it would blow Murderbot's adventure to find itself out of the water, and the point of the story is the adventure. It's not as fun to watch an autistic person look for friends by paging through websites and social media, and then they have lunch and go back to work. That's not a YA novel, that's just life.

If I pick up this series, and I'm not sure I will, I suppose there's room for a Planet Autism. Perhaps as a happy ending, or perhaps as just another place Murderbot doesn't fit in (this would be more realistic, it's hard for us to connect with each other, but much less happy). But they're not out there producing serials and saying they exist and shaping society. They probably hide, so Murderbot has to find them. As one does! One does have to find a community where they fit, and that's hard. But there are lots of us who don't hide, and can't hide. The first time Murderbot mentions a popular serial in a public forum, we ought to come running. Regular autistic people, who are not institutionalized, and who work regular jobs and have lunch. I'm almost positive we won't, though. There's no room. That "darling" needs to die.

It's systemic and it sucks. Like must systemic problems that suck, I've had to spend paragraphs just beginning to unpack it, and probably no one will bother to read it because I don't get seen. If I wrote a whole doorstopper about this, I couldn't get it published because I'm too autistic to navigate the system and too anarchistic to want to anymore. And Tumblr ain't gonna care because they're primarily concerned with short takes that get likes, just look at their app. The world doesn't elevate Murderbots and listen, that much is true, but we find each other and are seen, regardless.

If we want to change what we see in media, we have to change how media works. "The correct way to tell a story is to get from A to B as efficiently as possible and we must create everything that way" is a darling that will have to die, so other darlings can live, and people can just exist as they are without having to cough up a reason. I have no idea how to fix this, but that's how it seems to me.

And this is probably full of typos and awkward phrasing because I got distracted by it and needed to find some way to say it. I'm not gonna go back and edit it until it looks shiny, smooth, and efficient. I exist like this, messily. You may not see me, but I'm here.

[witchesofvaliant]

Hi! I've been for a while on Poppy's server, I dont interact much with people, im just starting as a witch and im struggling with autism. I never had issues with them, I feel safe and listened there. As an autistic individual I disagree with you about how its an unsafe server or maybe not accepting for neurodivigent people. I also seen you saying things about Poppys server being homophobic or creating channels for them separately

Idk its just not true that they are treated differently

There are many incorrect statements about this server and its just... There is so much hurtful things.

Im not supporting Poppy, idk, shes nice but i dont really even know who she is. Im just there because im there. And know her by name. Im not a follower or whatever you call it.. well. Yeah. Its. Please stop doing that. Its just harmful

Hello anon and thank you for the message!

I'm glad you feel safe and listened to, and I hope you continue to find places that are safe and comfortable for you to be in! My great hope is that the server does become safe and pleasant for everyone, going forward, but from what I experienced, as I shared, it wasn't safe for me, nor for others, as this post from @wayfind-er shows other asks related to the server where people have shared their experiences as well. That said, I did not say they were not accepting of neurodivergent/LGBT+ people, I don't believe they're homophobic, either. And it is fact, they created separate channels at one point for neurodivergency and LGBT+ members. I stated some uncomfortable and off attitudes about these subjects, citing experiences, not a perspective declaring them all as hateful towards these groups and I don't believe they are so, I'm aware many if not all are part of one of those groups or both. Myself and some other members in the server at the time simply disagreed and were made highly uncomfortable with the way some behaved towards either group and that is stated in my writeup on that here. If you take a look at my blog my only interaction on this matter has been that post, or other asks that other people have posed on the situation, as I am not in favor of ignoring anyone who comes to me to share their experience, and I did invite anyone to reach out to me about their opinions and experiences. Finally, my intention isn't to cause harm, it's to state the harm I've seen that was done to me and others in the server, and to give a message of caution and hopefully a wave of change for the better for those who are involved with that server. I don't want to cause harm, I have never intended to do so, and I wish all, including you and the server the best and hopefully a more positive and kind future.

[yooniesim]

Hi yoonie! I'm a big fan of yours and I agree with you about that hair but I just wanted to let you know as a Black person with albinism, calling someone "albino" is kind of dehumanizing to hear. It makes me feel like some sort of animal or freakshow. I would just ask that you don't use it that way in the future. <3

(Sorry I rambled a bit in this answer about unrelated shit lol you can probably stop like halfway through it, I got on a tangent 😂)

Yooo hey nonny, I totally understand and agree with you. I was referencing whenever people put black hairs on white sims, they all a sudden say the sim is "albino" in that phrasing as an excuse to have a white sim with that hair type. (And like, as far as I know, the sim doesn't even look like they have albinism, they just look white?) Heard this phrase so many times it's shameful. Probably should've used quotation marks or clarified that a lil more. Sorry for that, friend! I didn't even know the term "albino" alone was offensive in that way, I'll have to look into this more. Can I also ask, if you're willing to answer, what the proper phrasing would be? I'm gonna look it up myself either way but I am curious. Would it just be, as you referred to yourself, a person with albinism? I know it varies across communities- personally being ND, I know a lot of autistic people prefer not using "person with autism" as a phrasing for example, and person-first vs identity-first phrasing is a common debate. So I'm guessing it is similar among that community as well. Apologies again for hurting your feelings, I definitely know that sort of dehumanizing feeling and when I see that excuse for certain sims I imagine it must feel that way too. Like a tokenism so to speak.

It seems like, honestly, a lot of cc creators have one light skin black sim, one black sim with "albinism", and/or one black sim with vitiligo with the pattern making them mostly lighter skin in the face, for their cc previews. It's very odd to me. Like any excuse they can find not to have a sim with darker skin. It's a difficult topic bc on one hand it's great to have more representation for different types of sims but it just seems... weird... when there's never any darker skintones to go along with it? Ya know what I mean? And especially nowadays, I'm noticing that black sims and black hairstyles seem like... well... some kind of selling point? I remember in like 2018 and before, so many big (non-black) cc creators would not make black hairstyles at ALL, but now all of a sudden, a bunch of those creators that are now paywallers make them and put them under early access. It's like they know how limited they are and that people will pay for them. It's like we're once again a commodity. And it's weird bc back then it was all "we can't make black hairs, cos they're too hard!" but now that there's money involved it's apparently easy to slap a couple meshes together. Idk. ......I got way off topic I'm sorry 😂

[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.

[chandra-nalaar]

i have so many feelings about grammar, and i just took my adderall for the first time in months, so, you know what that means: tumblr essay.

disclaimer: i know everything i have ever said on here is incorrect grammar. i dont care. you should hear how i talk in real life. i'm absolutely freestyling the english language. this rant isn't going to be grammatically correct at all, because this is tumblr. so. ^^ disclaimer.

i think that younger millennials and gen z are being done a great disservice by not being taught the difference in the colloquial way that we write on social media or in a casual setting, vs formal writing. and it's not elitism (though, in a lot of ways, vernacular vs formal speech is rooted in classism, but that's a different issue and not what i'm talking about), it's about expressing what you're trying to say in a way that can be best understood by the reader. i struggle with this also, and i think a lot of spoonies and autists struggle with this as well; just being understood, and grammar and advanced vocabulary shouldn't be an obstacle to overcome to be understood, but instead a tool to help you best express yourself through words. and i care about that a LOT.

i know one thing that is really frustrating for me is when i'm trying to explain something to someone, and i just don't have to words to say it, or i can't phrase it in such a way to make them understand. that's why people disregard the opinions of people who sound uneducated; not only do people assume you aren't intelligent, but they can't really understand what you're trying to express; when really, you can be very intelligent and still not have the words to say what you're trying to say. a lack of language skills doesn't indicate a lack of reasoning skills. for most of my life people have treated me like i'm stupid because the way i talk is kind of funny; i use really weird phrasing sometimes, i have a lisp and i stutter, i ramble trying to find the right words, sometimes my brain just works a little different due to my disability. and it makes me sound pretty stupid.

its especially hard having ADHD (and maybe autism) and trying to express myself through words because not only do people misunderstand and misinterpret me so frequently (SO frequently), but also, it's difficult for me to read. it's just hard for me to read, period, and the way you understand how to use language and grow your vocabulary is through reading. so...you see my issue.

so i can't talk right, and i can't read, and so for years i thought, maybe i just am stupid. so....that's why learning how to effectively use language is really empowering to me.

i was lucky to go to a really amazing college and study writing with some really amazing teachers (i switched my minor from creative writing to art history, so although i did study art history, most of my writing education relates to academic and editorial writing. if that wasnt...obvious) and its frustrating to think that our education system really doesn't value liberal arts compared to STEM (and i honestly don't remember my high school caring about STEM much either) because now we have a whole generation of young people who dont know how to read and write, and it's not an issue of classism, i'm not saying they don't know how to speak right, the issue is that now a whole generation has been robbed of the ability to express themselves through words and say what they want to say and be understood.

so i think that learning grammar and vocabulary and how to use language isn't necessarily elitist and classist (although some people act that way), instead i think it's empowering for people. hopefully that makes sense. and that's why i'm so worried about how illiterate late gen z and gen alpha are and how they're just not being taught language skills.

also, this came out of a conversation about fanfiction, so, yeah, i'm looking at you, tumblr

me and @night-unfurls-its-splendour talked about how much we love grammar for almost two hours last night.

[purplefixations]

Something that I find interesting is the huge difference in autism representation online and offline. And the online representation differs between platforms as well.

For example, in offline society a majority of allistic and neurotypical people still view autism as a disability for young white boys, with high to medium support needs. There is the idea that you must be higher support needs, have an intellectual disability, or be nonverbal.

(This is in my experience, in the town that I live in and the people that I have met, this does not reflect the entirety of society, nor does it reflect every autistic person's experience)

Autistics with low support needs often get told that they're not autistic enough, and their autism gets questioned. But those with higher support needs and intellectual disabilities are seen as a burden on the community, while those with low support needs are seen as faking it or just quirky. And either way, there is not great representation through mainstream media for any autistic person (it is slowly getting better, and there is some good representation out there, And of course this is not reflect the opinion of every autistic person)

While online, I've seen a lot more representation for autistic people in general, but specifically for low support needs. For example, on TikTok, I was able to find people that I related to because they were autistic and had similar struggles and accommodations needed as I did. However, maybe it's because of the way the algorithm works there, but I do not see as many high support needs autistic people on TikTok. And while I see advocacy for people of all support needs, I do see people with lower support needs like myself talking over those with higher support needs and intellectual disabilities as well as autism.

However, here on Tumblr I get to see a lot more stuff from medium to high support needs autistic people. Which is a great thing for me, because I cannot experience that side of autism, I don't have the same worldview or experiences. And it's good to learn and listen.

But basically, what my big thought was is that while advocacy for all hism is getting better, a lot of it is targeted at low support needs autistic people, and while that is great to help us get the accommodations we need and not have to mask as much in society, and have our autism be believed, we should not leave out those with medium to high support needs and any autistic person that also suffers from other disabilities, specifically intellectual disabilities. And while it is important for low autistic peoples autism to people leave, we should not talk over other autistic people just to get what we want. We have to look at the big picture. We have to work together. Because if only one group of people gets what they need, the other gets left out, and then it's easy for progress to go backwards.

So I thought I'd share that.

(if I said anything to offend any other autistic person, please let me know. The purpose of this post was not too belittle anyone or cause conflict. This was just me sharing my thoughts because I appreciate it when other people share theirs. I am what is considered low support needs or level one autistic, so this only reflects my experience and my autism stuffs)

(They/He/Ze/Bean, Tone Indicators Appreciated)

[soundsfaebutokay]

So I've recc'd this video before, but it deserves its own post because it's one of my favorite things on youtube. It's a Tedx Talk by comics writer, editor, and journalist Jay Edidin, and I really think that it will connect with a lot of people here.

If you live and breathe stories of all kinds, you might like this.

If you care about media representation, you might like this.

If you're neurodivergent, you might like this.

If you're interested in a gender transition story that veers from the norm, you might like this.

If you love the original Leverage and especially Parker, and understand how important it is that a character like her exists, you will definitely like this.

Transcript below the cut:

You Are Here: The Cartography of Stories

by Jay Edidin

I am autistic. And what this means in practice is that there are some things that are easier for me than they are for most people, and a great many things that are somewhat harder, and these affect my life in more or less overt ways. As it goes, I'm pretty lucky. I've been able to build a career around special interests and granular obsession. My main gig at the moment is explaining superhero comics continuity and publishing history for which work I am somehow paid in actual legal currency—which is both a triumph of the frivolous in an era of the frantically pragmatic, and a job that's really singularly suited to my strengths and also to my idiosyncrasies.

I like comics. I like stories in general, because they make sense to me in ways that the rest of the world and my own mind often don't. Self-knowledge is not an intuitive thing for me. What sense of self I have, I've built gradually and laboriously and mostly through long-term pattern recognition. For decades, I didn't even really have a self-image. If you'd asked me to draw myself, I would eventually have given you a pair of glasses and maybe a very messy scribble of hair, and that would've been about it. But what I do know—backwards, forwards, and in pretty much every way that matters—are stories. I know how they work. I understand their language, their complex inner clockwork, and I can use those things to extrapolate a sort of external compass that picks up where my internal one falls short. Stories—their forms, their structure, the sense of order inherent to them—give me the means to navigate what otherwise, at least for me, would be an impassable storm of unparsable data. Or stories are a periscope, angled to access the parts of myself I can't intuitively see. Or stories are a series of mirrors by which I can assemble a composite sketch of an identity I rarely recognize whole...which is how I worked out that I was transgender, in my early thirties, by way of a television show.

This is my story. And it's about narrative cartography, and representation, and why those things matter. It's about autism and it's about gender and it's about how they intersect. And it's about the kinds of people we know how to see, and the kinds of people we don't. It's not the kind of story that gets told a lot, you might hear a lot, because the narrative around gender transition and dysphoria in our culture is really, really prescriptive. It's basically the story of the kid who has known for their whole life that they're this and not that, and that story demands the kind of intuitive self-knowledge that I can't really do, and a kind of relationship to gender that I don't really have—which is part of why it took me so long to figure my own stuff out.

So, to what extent this story, my story has a beginning, it begins early in 2014 when I published an essay titled, "I See Your Value Now: Asperger's and the Art of Allegory." And it explored, among other things, the ways that I use narrative and narrative structures to navigate real life. And it got picked up in a number of fairly prominent places that got linked, and I casually followed the ensuing discussion. And I was surprised to discover that readers were fairly consistently assuming I was a man. Now, that in itself wasn't a new experience for me, even though at the time I was writing under a very unambiguously female byline. It had happened in the letter columns of comics I'd edited. It had happened when a parody Twitter account I'd created went viral. When I was on staff at Wired, I budgeted for fancy scotch by putting a dollar in a box every time a reader responded in a way that made it clear they were assuming I was a man in response to an article where my name was clearly visible, and then I had to stop doing that because it happened so often I couldn't afford to keep it up. But in all of those cases, the context, you know, the reasons were pretty obvious. The fields I'd worked in, the beats I covered, they were places where women had had to fight disproportionally hard for visibility and recognition. We live in a culture that assumes a male default, so given a neutral voice and a character limit, most readers will assume a male author.

But this was different, because this wasn't just a book I'd edited, it wasn't a story I'd reported—it was me, it was my story. And it made me uncomfortable, got under my skin in ways that the other stuff really hadn't. And so I did what I do when that happens, and I tried to sort of reverse-engineer it to look at the conclusions and peel them back to see the narratives behind them and the stories that made them tick. And I started this, I started this by going back to the text of the essay, and you know, examining it every way I could think of: looking at craft, looking at content. And in doing so, I was surprised to realize that while I had written about a number of characters with whom I identified closely, that every single one of those characters I'd written about was male. And that surprised me even more than the responses to the essay had, because I've spent my career writing and talking and thinking about gender and representation in popular media. In 2014, I'd been the feminist gadfly of an editorial department and multiple mastheads. I'd been a founding board member of an organization that existed to advocate for more and better representation of women and girls in comics characters and creators. And most of my favorite characters, the ones I'd actively seek out and follow, were women. Just not, apparently, the characters I saw myself in.

Now I still didn't realize it was me at this point. Remember: self-knowledge, not very intuitive for me. And while I had spent a lot of time thinking about gender, I'd never really bothered to think much about my own. I knew academically that the way other people read and interpreted my gender affected and had influenced a lifetime of social and professional interactions, and that those in turn had informed the person I'd grown up into during that time. But I really believed, like I just sort of had in the back of my head, that if you peeled away all of that social conditioning, you'd basically end up with what I got when I tried to draw a self-portrait. So: a pair of glasses, messy scribble of hair, and in this case, maybe also some very strong opinions about the X-Men. I mean, I knew something was off. I'd always known something was off, that my relationship to gender was messy and uncomfortable, but gender itself struck me as messy and uncomfortable, and it had never been a large enough part of how I defined myself to really feel like something that merited further study, and I had deadlines, and...so it was always on the back burner. So, I looked, I looked at what I had, at this improbable group of exclusively male characters. And I looked and I figured that if this wasn't me, then it had to be a result of the stories I had access to, to choose from, and the entertainment landscape I was looking at. And the funny thing is, I wasn't wrong, exactly. I just wasn't right either.

See, the characters I'd written about had one other significant trait in common aside from their gender, which is that they were all more or less explicitly, more or less heavily coded as autistic. And I thought, "Ah, yes. This explains it. This is under representation in fiction echoing under representation in life and vice versa." Because the characteristics that I'd honed in on, that I particularly identified with in these guys, were things like emotional unavailability and social awkwardness and granular obsession, and all of those are characteristics that are seen as unsympathetic and therefore unmarketable in female characters. Which is also why readers were assuming that I was a man.

Because, you see, here's the thing. I'm not the only one who uses stories to navigate the world. I'm just a little more deliberate about it. For humans, stories formed the bridge between data and understanding. They're where we look when we need to contextualize something new, or to recognize something we're pretty sure we've seen before. They're how we identify ourselves; they're how we locate ourselves and each other in the larger world. There were no fictional women like me; there weren't representations of women like me in media, and so readers were primed not to recognize women like me in real life either.

Now by this point, I had started writing a follow-up essay, and this one was also about autism and narratives, but specifically focused on how they intersected with gender and representation in media. And in context of this essay, I went about looking to see if I could find even one female character who had that cluster of traits I'd been looking for, and I was asking around in autistic communities. And I got a few more or less useful one-off suggestions, and some really, really splendid arguments about semantics and standards, and um...then I got one answer over and over and over in community after community after community. "Leverage," people told me. "You have to watch Leverage."

So I watched Leverage. Leverage is five seasons of ensemble heist drama. It's about a team of very skilled con artists who take down corrupt and powerful plutocrats and the like, and it's a lot of fun, and it's very clever, and it's clever enough that it doesn't really matter that it's pretty formulaic, and I enjoyed it a lot. But what's most important, what Leverage has is Parker.

Parker is a master thief, and she is the best of the best of the best in ways that all of Leverage's characters are the best of the best. And superficially, she looks like the kind of woman you see on TV. So she's young, and she's slender, and she's blonde, and she's attractive but in a sort of approachable way. And all of that familiarity is brilliant misdirection, because the thing is, there are no other women like Parker on TV. Because Parker—even if it's never explicitly stated in the show—Parker is coded incredibly clearly as autistic. Parker is socially awkward. Her speech tends to have limited inflection; what inflection it does have is repetitive and sounds rehearsed a lot of the time. She's not emotionally literate; she struggles with it, and the social skills she develops over the series, she learns by rote, like they're just another grift. When she's not scaling skyscrapers or cartwheeling through laser grids, she wears her body like an ill-fitting suit. Parker moves like me. And Parker, Parker was a revelation—she was a revolution unto herself. In a media landscape where unempathetic women usually exist to either be punished or "loved whole," Parker got to play the crabby savant. And she wasn't emotionally intuitive but it was never ever played as the product of abuse or trauma even though she had survived both of those—it was just part of her, as much as were her hands or her eyes. And she had a genuine character arc. My god, she had a genuine romantic arc, even. And none of that required her to turn into anything other than what she was. And in Parker I recognized a thousand tics and details of my life and my personality...but. I didn't recognize myself.

Why? What difference was there in Parker, you know, between Parker and the other characters I'd written about? Those characters, they'd spanned ethnicities and backgrounds and different media and appearances and the only other characteristic they all had in common was their gender. So that was where I started to look next, and I thought, "Well, okay, maybe, maybe it's masculinity. Maybe if Parker were less feminine, she'd click with me the way those other characters had." So then I tried to imagine a Parker with short hair, who's explicitly butch, and...nothing. So okay, I extended it in what seems like the only logical direction to extend it. I said, "Well, if it's not masculinity, what if it's actual maleness? What if Parker were a man?" Ah. Yeah.

In the end, everything changed, and nothing changed, which is often the way that it goes for me. Add a landmark, no matter how slight, and the map is irrevocably altered. Add a landmark, and paths that were invisible before open wide. Add a landmark, and you may not have moved, but suddenly you know where you are and where you can go.

I wasn't going to tell this story when I started planning this talk. I was gonna tell a similar story, it was about stories, like this is, about narratives and the ways that they influence our culture and vice versa. And it centered around a group of women at NASA who had basically rewritten the narrative around space exploration, and it was a lot more fun, and I still think it was more interesting. But it's also a story you can probably work out for yourselves. In fact it's a story some of you probably have, if you follow that kind of thing, which you probably do given that you're here. And this is a story, my story is not a story that I like to tell. It's not a fun story to talk about because it's very personal and I am a very private person. And it's not universal. And it's not always relatable, and it's definitely not aspirational. And it's not the kind of story that you tend to encounter unless you're already part of it...which is why I'm telling it now. Because the thing is, I'm not the only person who uses stories to parse the world and navigate it. I'm just a little more deliberate. Because I'm tired of having to rely on composite sketches.

Open your maps. Add a landmark. Reroute accordingly.

[lazydoodlesandfanfic]

Lmfao dont worry I got that too. If I cant see it, it's not there. 😂

Oh. Great. We love that. So helpful.. It's really frustrating to think how much more support you could have gotten. My mum works in early years SEN; shes a teacher for preschool age and SEN has always been her speciality anyway, so she is the manager of all things to do with that at her work, and it's amazing (in the worst possible way) how many parents just refuse to have their children assessed because they think it's something to be embarrassed about. It's like an actual fight my mum has to have with these parents to just sign the documents or just go to the appointment or whatever, so that the children can get the support they need and parents dont ever want it because autism and adhd isnt something they want to be associated with. They either outright make up excuses (most popular ones being about how the child is fine at home) or they say they'll do whatever it is my mum needs to get their referrals going and then they dont turn up/dont do it.

I think I was about 7 or 8 when it was first pointed out for me. My year 3 teacher told my mum she thought I might be autistic. But nothing ever came of it because my mum didnt have any clue as to any of that at that point. She didnt get into her current field of study until I was about 13. And even the therapist I saw at 12 didnt pick up on anything. So it ended up being the summer after my GCSEs that I finally got diagnosed. So the support in my GCSEs would have been amazing but I just didnt get it.

Yeah I sort of had a familiar expierience. My Year 5/6 teacher had expierience with autistic kids and my mum's boyfriend at the time had an autistic son and they both told her "Hey, that one's probably autistic, get her tested" so I got tested when I was 10, and I don't really remember the test itself, I just remember the woman coming to the house and doing a few things with me and talking with me with my mum in and out of the room, but it ended with her sitting my mum down and basically going "Alright, what support and benefits would you like?" Which is... telling.

My mum told her that if I needed help going into secondary school she'd get me it, but that never happened. I didn't know I could ask for help because I wasn't informed of my autism, and actually I did ask for help about my mental health once to her and she basically told me I was fine and nothing was wrong and I was making it up so I didn't ask for help again. Not long after I found out what autism was (thanks to Markiplier playing To The Moon and I plan to get a tattoo related to this since it played such a big role with who I am today), started doing my own research, and on at two occasions, confronted my mum about my suspicion and the test, and I asked her "What was my diagnosis" and she refused to give me a straight answer, being really wish-washy so I couldn't decipher if I was diagnosed or not. After 11 years of all this, doubting myself despite having autistic friends tell me to my face "Your definitely autistic" and feeling like I didn't fit in no matter what in school which really did a number on my mental health, she finally, in a passing comment, not even to me, acknowledged that I was on the spectrum.

It should never have come to that, or taken that long. I shouldn't have had to go through that. Not getting a child tested despite people who know what they're talking about telling you to, and/or hiding, lying and concealing their diagnosis and denying them help, is shitty parenting, and honestly, I don't think I will ever forgive my mum for putting me through that.

[scriptautistic]

Hi! This blog looks so great I'm really excited by it. In a story I'm writing (it's fantasy), there are elves, and as well as being off folklore/mythological elves, they're also based off autistic people but I'm struggling to figure out what an only autistic society would be like, do you have any ideas?

First of all, having a whole, non-human race be autistic can be quite problematic in terms of representation. See Mod Aira’s thoughts on non-human autistic characters here.

Since elves look a lot like humans, and are usually positively described as a race equal or superior to humans, that might not be that much of a problem, but you should still give this issue some thought and make sure this is really something you want to do. This is not a decision I can make for you.

As for the specifics of an autistic-only society, this is where things get fun !

Here are some ideas in no particular order. Of course I can’t cover everything and other autistic peeps are encouraged to pitch in as always!

Everyone is stimming freely and openly. This is seen as a completely normal thing. I don’t know how modern your universe is, but people are allowed to stim in school or in their workplace. Shops have whole “stim toys” aisles. There are sensory rooms available throughout cities for everyone who might get overwhelmed.

Social norms are completely different. Making eye contact is seen as rude, people are expected to explain their jokes and sarcasm. Actually, communities might write down and edit regularly their social rules so they are explicit and available to all.

Kids are taught in schools strategies to cope with sensory overload or to get stuff done with executive dysfunction. They are encouraged to work on their special interests and it is used as a medium to teach them other things. There is highly individualized teaching and varied teaching styles since all kids have different needs. They would also be taught (either by caretakers or educators) many life skills, such as self-care, taking care of a home, taxes… more explicitely.

In our society, there are things that are seen as “basic needs” that everyone shares such as be well-fed, warm enough, not be in pain, have enough time to sleep… In a workplace or school for example, those needs are supposed to be met. The other needs, the ones not everyone has, are seen as “accomodations” when they are met, and are often more begrudgingly met. In an all-autistic society, meeting needs such as sensory needs or break time when you are overloaded wouldn’t be considered as making accomodations, but as meeting basic needs and as a normal thing.

Autistic people are very diverse and sometimes our needs are conflicting. For example, some might be hurt by loud noises, while some may need to stim and regulate themselves by making/ listening to loud noises. So it is probable that people with similar needs would gather in communities.

Since a lot of autistics are nonverbal at least some of the time, I think all verbal people would also know a nonverbal language such as a sign language they could use to communicate with nonverbal individuals or when they go nonverbal themselves. Communicating via AAC wouldn’t be seen as unusual or surprising.

Art and culture would probably be very different. Autistic people are often creative, but they create different things from what allistics create.

I feel like emergencies such as fires would be handled differently. I don’t think loud alarms and blinking lights would be the most efficient. I don’t have ideas for an alternative system though.

Lots of autistic people have trouble driving and I feel like it would have an impact on the most commonly used means of transportation. Either, for a more primitive setting, horse riding would be a huge thing - since horses are sentient they can take care of some of the “looking around to make sure we don’t run over someone or collide into something” - or, for a modern setting, automatized transportation means would have been developed sooner than in our world.

There would be more focus than in our society on precise planning and available information. Navigating administrations wouldn’t be so chaotic, or else no one could deal with it. There would be early on a need to get stuff organized in a very clear, explicit way.

That’s all I can think of for now. I hope this helps!

-Mod Cat

There are some great ideas here and I can think of a million more, but I will restrain myself! I just want to add a couple of things as food for thought:

Sign language isn’t speaking, but it is still verbal (the brain still processes it more or less the same as any other language), so many people (including me) are not able to sign when nonverbal despite being fluent in a sign language. However, many autistic people find signing more comfortable than speaking, so I definitely agree that more people would know how to sign, and it would likely be a second language requirement.

I have to be honest here… Although I have many autistic friends online, I don’t have many that I see regularly face to face. I think there is a reason that autistic people make up a minority of the human race, rather than the majority. For all our advantages, we often have conflicting needs, and we are not at all specialized for living in large groups the way allistic people are. Even though I like my autistic friends a lot, I don’t like spending a lot of time with them in person because they… get on my nerves. I mean in specific ways - for example, we have completely unrelated special interests, and they infodump about theirs for ages, and I have no interest whatsoever but don’t want to interrupt and seem rude (since I hate it when people do that to me). Or they stim and it bothers me. I’m extremely hypersensitive, including to movement, so if someone (besides me) is rocking back and forth or doing another repetitive motion near me, I can’t even open my eyes or I get overloaded. I love my autistic friends and I love the fact that I’m autistic, but I would not want to live in a completely autistic society - I’d have to hide away from other people and I’d become socially isolated even more than I am in this world. Note that this is my personal point of view and NOT true for all autistic people. But there WOULD be people like me who couldn’t deal with being around other people’s stimming, and we might not all get along as well as you might think.

On the positive side: all the things that are considered “disabilities” in this world with regards to autism would be seen as the norm. Not being able to speak some or all of the time would be considered a normal personality trait, like being good or bad at sports or drawing. Suddenly getting up and leaving a conversation due to overstimulation would be perfectly normal. It would be a given that normal respect for other people includes maintaining a quiet and calm environment as much as possible.

Another issue regards public spaces. There is something called “selective attention” which allows people to block out background sensory information and focus only on what is relevant to them at the moment (for example, listening to what one person is saying when there are other conversations happening nearby). In autistic people, this is usually very weak or completely nonexistent. It’s not possible for me to filter out background noise. If I need to meet someone for a conversation or work meeting, it MUST be in a quiet place. I am incapable of following a conversation when more than one person in the room is talking. I literally can’t unscramble their words from the words of other people and it just becomes a jumbled mess of gibberish that rapidly becomes painful. So how would things like restaurants work? Cafes? Parties? Assuming many or most people can’t hear what someone is saying when ANYONE else in the room is talking, how could you have spaces like that? Would they exist at all? Would their be some kind of magic (in a fantasy world) or tech (sci-fi) that can block out all sounds outside of the group you’re in? 

Not trying to poke holes, but trying to point out possible issues that you should think about when creating your society. And as Cat mentioned, be very careful about painting a non-human race as “like humans but autistic”. Being autistic is not an inhuman state, and it can be very damaging to describe it as such, even if your intentions are good. I would be much more comfortable with a human all-autistic society than a non-human one. Maybe consider making the humans all autistic and code the elves as allistic. :P

If you keep all this in mind, I’d be interested to see what kind of society you might come up with. Good luck!

-Mod Aira

[autism-asks]

(1/2)Hi! I was wondering if you have any good responses I can use for when I mention an autistic trait I have around someone who doesn't know I'm autistic and they say something like, "What?! That's weird!" Usually I'm just like, "Haha, yeah. I'm a weird person," but even though I definitely am a weird person, I always feel guilty referring to things as weird when I know they're directly related to autism, like I'm being ableist towards myself or something, haha.

(2/2)A recent example is that my coworker was talking about how she hates winter and wishes it were hot year-round. I said I don't like hot weather because I hate the feeling of air against my bare skin, and you can't wear sleeves/long pants when it's hot. She thought that was super weird. I feel like I dismiss my sensory issues as just "weird quirks" a lot, and I kind of hate it. Especially about food textures, because people think I'm just being annoying and picky. How can I stop doing this?

I think it’s great that you’re considering your language choices and the unconscious biases they reveal! 

I’ve been thinking about this question a lot and trying to figure out something that could replace weird as an automatic response. 

I would suggest trying something like:

“I know it may seem a bit strange, but human beings are each unique and isn’t that just beautiful? We may not understand why others behave they way they do, but it’s so wonderful that we can acknowledge and appreciate each other’s differences.”

This is definitely a longer response, but it’s something that will make people think and maybe stop them from questioning/making fun of someone else for “weird” behavior. 

If you want a quick response and you’re comfortable being out as autistic, you can always respond with “Yep. It’s the autism.” 

This is likely to either result in people awkwardly changing the subject or potentially asking more questions to learn more. 

-Sabrina