#this can be applied to many things not just autism btw

[planefood]

I hate it when I have to say "I have autism" to explain a certain thing I do which might not make sense to an average person and some dumb dumb gotta pitch in and say "well I have autism and I don't do thattt clearly just using it as an excuse". Like, okay damn? I have autism and I'm not a homestuck fan, what's your excuse? chrome dome.

[foundfamilyhq]

Propaganda under readmore:

At the end of Young Sheldon, his character displays grief in such a moving and honest way that I don't think you really ever see that often. At least, not in a way one would expect from a show like Young Sheldon. On the outside he appears cold and unmoved by the death of his father, but in actuality he keeps repeating the last time he saw him in his head over and over. Thinking of the many different things he could have said or done before he left his life forever. Should he have said bye? Should he have said I love you? He uses Star Trek to help cope, but that makes him come off as inconsiderate too. He starts to realize how much he underappreciated his dad, and wants to say something at his funeral. But he says nothing. He regrets not saying anything then, and he regrets never saying when he was alive. Sheldon never cries about his father's death once, but you can still see the pain and utter despair in his face.

(the rest is copied from my old propaganda cuz I was proud of it lol) HEAR ME OUT. We can FIX HIM! (not the autism btw. That's his best feature) He is still an innocent kid! A kid who has yet to learn to be a bigoted and prejudiced asshole. A kid who is mocked and bullied for the sin of being kinda annoying and hard to understand. A kid who is growing up in a toxic environment that encourages him to change for the worse.

If he gets adopted, he could be given the kind of support and understanding that he never had. He could be taught how to respect others and why that's important.

Sheldon Cooper at his finest is a smart, silly, and quirky little guy. And even with his flaws, just imagine the power the family could gain from this kid. Imagine the hijinks that he could get into with everyone! Just, Bazinga-ing all over the place. It's a silly and fun picture!

And if you don't like that, imagine different characters studying him to see what his deal is. Or different characters trying to fix him to varying degrees of success.

Please adopt the young Sheldon Cooper! He's autistic, has OCD, hoarding behaviors, and is asexual and arospec (if not aroace), and maybe more that I forgot! (*got the ocd/hoarding from his adult version, but I don't think it's a big stretch to apply to the kid him, or at least whatever he grows up to be)

Anyway, PLEASE LET SHELDON COOPER IN THE FOUND FAMILY! We can still save him from the adult he is yet to become!!!

[desire-mona]

siiiigh. todd autism headcanons because im projecting.

(using they/he/she pronouns for todd in this post. will explain but also if u dont agree i dont care, tw for alcoholism. time period is vague but autism hasnt existed as a legitimate medical diagnosis for all that long, so keep it in mind i guess.)

- cannot for the life of him stand welton's blankets. so itchy, just thin enough to not warm you up enough but still make you sweat, not long enough to cover your entire body. yes im making the blanket line in their poem about actual blankets, a boy needs to vent somewhere.

- beyond terrible temperature regulation, ALWAYS just a little too hot which is made worse by her sensory issues when it comes to wet fabric. constant slight agony and it never really goes away. theyre about 5 minutes away from crying about how uncomfortable they are at all times.

- had god awful handwriting until high school, like his teachers could BARELY read his handwriting it was Bad. OOOOOH OH MY GOD THERES A TRAIN GOING BY I CAN HEAR IT HONKING this is a really ironic thing to be pointing out rn but its sooooo worth mentioning. its still honking this is fun. 🚂. anyway. her parents made her spend an entire summer fixing her handwriting bc that was like the One thing her teachers criticised. its Fine now but their motor function simply doesn't deliver in the handwriting department.

- had a VERY INTENSE special interest in aquatic life + marine biology growing up, like read every book about any ocean animal in any library intense. his parents eventually forced him to abandon it because its "not a good career focus" but he still perks up when anyone mentions fish. once talked neils ear off about the biodiversity of coral reefs for roughly 2 hours, neil took her to an aquarium for their first date. rip todd anderson you wouldve loved spongebob squarepants.

- looooves pets, namely cats, but they have Too Sweaty hands all the time so any animal fur sticks onto their hands and just feels. so awful.

- had a brief period in his 20s where he was definitely an alcoholic, started as a social drinker but got too addicted to the feeling of not having to adhere to social conventions quite as hard, especially around other drunk ppl. eventually went sober after they realised they just Cant Stand the feeling of a hangover anymore. autistic ppl r more likely to develop a dependency on alcohol if we do start drinking. just btw.

- gets a Pretty Expansive vocabulary after actually starting to pursue literature. sometimes his family lightly teases him about using big words but it confuses the hell out of him. its just a word she thought would apply best!!

- soooooo obsessed with what other ppls idea of them is, both in an anxious way and out of genuine curiosity. would never ask ppl what they think of her bc she thinks thats 1) very broad 2) seems compliment fish-y and 3) just gonna lead to "i think ur great/ nice/ whatever filler compliment." but the dream is to sit someone (neil) down and just ask him every single question possible about how he perceives him.

- asks a billion clarifying questions about anything someone asks him to do, gets anxious about how many questions he's asking, tries to just figure it out, freaks out about the possibility of getting it wrong, ends up doing the thing perfectly. weekly occurrence.

- never fully grasped the appeal of religion (most definitely grew up catholic or christian or Something) just bc she could NOT let the lack of proof go. ALSO not an atheist bc the vastness of space scares them out of it. religious beliefs r a weird topic for them.

- suppresses a good chunk of his stims in public bc One total time someone looked at him weird while he was chewing on a sweatshirt string and he was like i gotta stop NOW. eventually develops tics and has to mask THOSE in public too. dear god someone let this girl unmask. also i started ticcing while writing that bc my body does this great thing where i only tic when im reminded of the concept of ticcing. its great and totally doesnt make me think im faking them (faking for who? dunno bc it usually happens when im alone)

- DOES in fact stim around neil bc NEIL STIMS TOO!!!!!!!! joyous day when they found THAT out! gets vocal stims of random lines from whatever play neil is practicing for. YEAA ART THOU THEEEEREE was a vocal stim for a solid week and a half which made neil VERY excited (autistic neil. how i love u autistic anderperry)

- velcro is The most evil vile disgusting material to ever grace this mortal realm. he hates it more than anything ever and i mean that fully. the feeling of BOTH sides, the noise, how easily it comes apart, she hates it all.

this is the gender part

never really viewed gender and gender roles as anything to adhere to beyond the fear of punishment if they dont. finds any social convention relating to gender to be Really dumb and meaningless, bc gender isn't (scientifically) real in any capacity, so why treat it like that? for the longest time just shrugged and said "eh, i guess im a boy" bc thats what she was used to being told, and didn't feel particularly drawn to agree OR disagree. eventually realised on a late night that Wait. i dont Actually care what i am. like yeah im a Male i guess but also im just me. my brain doesnt have a gender and i basically am my brain, right? and then never really thought about it again because that's genuinely how little he cares. adhering the most to canon with that mindset, she never really tells anyone (for obvious reasons on top of the overall apathy) and just lets the he/him happen to her but. in my dream world? agender they/he/she todd anderson. and this is MY blog so those are the pronouns im using from now on. i will forever love talking abt how autistic ppl very often view gender differently than allistic ppl, will forever love talking abt how autistic ppl are more likely to be trans. autism!!!

also yes that entire paragraph is just my view of gender, change the pronouns and the todd mentions and its just me. what of it.

[five-thousand-loaves-of-bread]

…something been in draft for while:

idk how say this exactly but often like. use what look like binary clear cut dichotomy that have set definition this is this that is that. because oftentimes call “cake” “cake” instead of “flour milk egg baking powder salt etc etc” that kind language faster simplier and nuance can easily put word count 10k+. and. with language communication disabilities not always able translate all nuance into tangible word on paper/screen/type sometimes have to call something with imperfect blanket word. and then you find out other people not really hold as much nuance as you & still simplify your nuance into something binary this this that that

but reality rarely that binary— say on here that nonverbal mean not mouth speak at all all time & semiverbal is struggle all time but can mouth speak some & verbal but actually more nuanced than that like some severely apraxic people who mouth do say thing but not in their control not what they want say & they still call self nonspeaking because it not intentional meaningful speech; or someone labeled nonverbal who actually do commmunicate with mouth words just not full sentence & not full clear pronounce but still labeled nonverbal anyway as almost like microaggression of not recognize their single or two word mouth word phrase as valid enough communication worth listen to; or someone with echolalia that not mean anything with it (vs someone with echolalia that is use echolalia as communication (think gestalts, etc)); or some research showing even able say 1-2 words more ability than those with 0 word; or research debate about where minimally verbal end is it 20 words 30 words 50 words

when combat “go nonverbal” crowd often say there is clear cut about what nonverbal and what isn’t and yeah there is clear cut but also is there

many not ready for this level muddiness & nuance because some take bring nuance as invite to say like “i nonverbal but can still (intentionally) mouth speak” or gateway to claim nonverbality as if fun new identity collect instead of some complicated complex experience with mixed emotion but often some level of grief at some point that get lot targeted awful ableism & discrimination like denied education refuse accommodation like IEP or put in segregated classroom without even consider accommodation in general ed to isolate away from peers n not actual to help nonverbal person where they best thrive, or secluded or restrained, or denied healthcare, denied communication, which all still happen now btw it still common now it not rare obsolete it majority still

which make me feel like this image

[id: meme. left side is philosophers (school of athens painting) with caption “talking about nonverbal nonspeaking with other nonverbal people”. middle say “vs”. right side image is parent guiding infant to look play at toy and captioned “talking about nonverbal nonspeaking with not nonverbal people. end id]

because sometimes really is that but also even this is binary. thinking about how some motor nonspeaking people without intellectual disability who language okay say their mind intact that they not stupid thus deserve education and not deserve abuse and throw people with ID & language impairment. or how nonverbal nonspeaking from autism so different from (but so similar to) from motor apraxia from cerebral palsy from intellectual disability from genetic or chromosomal disorders from stroke from TBI from aphasia from vocal cord dysfunction from dementia from from from… how talking to someone nonspeaking from primarily motor reasons without cognitive intellectual language disabilities as someone nonverbal because high level autism cognitive language disabilities, we not guarantee understand eachother experience, same with talk someone from acquired things vs mine neurodevelopmental, how what i say about nonverbal here may not apply to someone who not speak not because autism etc

but “if words so meaningless if experiences so boundless let abolish all” not helpful because for all kind way be nonverbal there experiences that 100% not nonverbal there experiences so different from nonverbal “not able meaningfully intentionally speak all the time” for every meaningless there meaningful reason nonverbal people use nonverbal and deserve word “nonverbal” for ourselves and how this difference in experience is intracommunity issue issue within nonverbal nonspeaking community something we have to grapple with and not invitation for people outside to talk about how “if nonverbal so wide, drawing line at going nonverbal & say that isn’t nonverbal is ridiculous and gatekeep” because as much vast different experience there is reason why there community why there this word we all call ourselves and. not one. of the reason is we can slide in and out of not speak and speak daily or weekly or monthly or regularly. there still common theme to what we call nonverbal despite different

wide word isn’t “functionally useless” it just you not know how n when use it

& this conversation not just apply to nonverbal but many other words n other things as well

[kiyocuck]

silly

ok im sick as hell and unfortunately also very bored so im gonna write down some silly naeishimondo scenarios ive been brainrotting for a while

Makoto being sick like me and staying home, meanwhile both taka and mondo barge into his house, bringing in homemade soup and tea (both of which makoto already got), and while they're being sad over the fact their favorite little guy wont be at the academy with them for the rest of the week, komaru steals the soup and tea cuz she woke up sick too (from makoto). An alt ending is them giving makoto a Liiiittle kiss on the forehead, both of them thinking they wont get sick, and waking up with 40°C temperature the next day

Them all going to mondo's house for a hangout-sleepover bcuz hes the only one of the three with a queen-sized bed (lil context, after mondo quit being a biker gang leader [in a universe where daiya is alive cuz fuck you] him and his brother move to a more. "calm" place, just the two of them. they still hangout w the other gang members though). they all watch movies and taka drops dead snoring the second the clock hits 10pm bcuz his brain cant handle staying up later for "no reason" (he has pulled all nighters when it comes to studying). mondo falls asleep second, and makoto just watches them sleep peacefully before snuggling between them and going to sleep too (imagine cringing over what ur writing help)

Going home in the snowy weather after shopping all evening (taka made them both come with him). theyre all holding equal amount of bags, until mondo grabs them all and speedruns to their house cuz hes FREEZING, and boy oh boy does he not like the cold at all. after that he sticks himself to the heater for like 10 minutes, while makoto and taka think to themselves that he looks like hes purring next to it (they both assigned him a catboy in their heads cuz it makes him 10 times cuter (also my version of him has a default >:3 face that all owada family members have (its more noticable on daiya but still))

Continuing the last one, theyre cooking together now!!! mondo kinda sucks at it, makoto is trying his best, and taka is this 🤏 close to chewing a brick over how they cut the vegetables (they look chunky (his autism can't stand it, meanwhile their autisms dont care/dont even notice it (no im not projecting not at all))). eventually they make a nice meal (of unknown kind cuz i can never think of foods LMFAO) and it turned out surprisingly good. yum!

Pet assigning. as i mentioned makoto n taka have assigned mondo a cat/catboy, but the same applies for the others. taka is a dog, obviously, but specifically a husky BECAUSE (im gonna be so annoying about this): Hes black and white, hes dramatic and loud like how huskies are, very loving (as every dog), and when his hair grows out more and mondo touches it, it reminds him of how fluffy huskies' fur is. makoto is a bunny, but i unfortunately dont know many bunny breeds so i will probably elaborate more once i look up and decide. hes just short/"small" and silly like one, and his ahoge going down when hes sad resembles bunny ears going down. (btw if ur curious mondo is either a tiger (still a cat!!!) or a persian cat. bcuz i cant help but imagine him as a chonky orange persian cat that on one occasion scratches your eyes, and on another cuddles on your shoulders. la creatura)

i think thats all for now! most of my other scenarios are even more generic, like going on dates (aquarium, cafe, cinema etc) so i dont have that much to write LOL.

if you read the whole thing, heres some items for yuo 🍀🧭💎

[devilsskettle]

okay can i say something. it is actually very troubling to me that adhd is considered a “trendy” diagnosis, people were saying it was over-diagnosed when i was a child (including doctors which was why i was never assessed as a child despite my parents and multiple teachers having concerns that i showed symptoms but w/e) but now it’s only gotten worse with how it’s talked about on the internet and i think on one hand it’s this boogeyman threat that all kinds of kids are self diagnosing just out of like some kind of ego or clout thing or as an excuse to be lazy which i actually don’t think is what’s happening but also i do think a lot of people are pathologizing behaviors that are within the spectrum of “normal” neurotypical behavior and attributing them to autism or adhd (and not even distinguishing between autism or adhd anymore? like it’s one thing to apply an umbrella term of neurodivergence but what is an “audhd” trait like i feel like i understand where that idea came from wrt solidarity among people with overlapping symptoms or people who are diagnosed with both but it has gotten out of hand i believe. i can hardly find anything in internet spaces about adhd specifically, it’s all about general neurodivergence or actually just autism even though it’s being tagged as #adhd for exposure like???? that’s not helpful lmao and don’t even get me started on casually using “the tism” as a way to describe AGAIN just basically normal neurotypical behaviors that people find cringe arbitrarily or like. having interests lol). but anyway it’s again like the same thing that happened with depression and anxiety, people were trying to actually make progress and destigmatize those disorders so that people could have better access to treatment and not feel ashamed for something they can’t control about how their brain works but then people decided it made you more interesting so then a lot of people say they have mental health issues (and many do! i don’t want to invalidate anyone’s experience but i also have to recognize that being depressed and/or anxious WAS something that people propped up for clout or something idk) but then there’s still so much judgment for severe symptoms and how it affects people’s lives like as soon as you say it’s hard to take care of yourself, it’s hard to shower and brush your teeth, it’s hard to do anything because it’s hard to care about anything, it’s like nooooo you’re just not trying hard enough! i’m depressed and i get up at 5 am every day and do a 3 hour workout, shower, and eat a full breakfast, pack a full lunch, go to my 9-5, come home and read an entire book and cook a whole dinner and wash all the dishes and do laundry, then go to bed at 8 pm! if i can do it so can you!! actually you just need to buy the right products so you can be happy because that’s what all the health wellness fitness influencers are selling these days. anyway i think now we’re all bored of depression and anxiety because those aren’t they “actually bad” mental illnesses, those are the mental illnesses that everybody already has so you can’t get clout or sell anything to people anymore based on a mood disorder, you have to have a personality disorder or be neurodivergent to REALLY be suffering and therefore interesting (btw if being depressed or anxious affects your life in any way we will beat you to death with hammers). and it sucks because the things they tell you when they decide you don’t have adhd when you think you probably have adhd are TRUE like everybody finds some things difficult and tedious, everybody runs a little behind schedule sometimes, everybody struggles to keep up on their responsibilities, but we all have to do what we’re supposed to do because we’re adults and excuses aren’t gonna cut it anymore. but when you go but wait i think my inability to do certain things is really holding me back in my life and everyone else seems to be able to do these things (even if they “don’t want to do them” they still can do them with far less effort than it seems to take me?) they go hahaha you stupid little girl,

(character limit paragraph break) you’re actually just stupid and lazy and also so very stupid for thinking you have some magical special thing wrong with your brain that makes you bad at things, you just need to try harder like hmmmm where have i heard that one before. oh yeah when i was ripping up my legs every night of my teenage life because i wanted to kill myself without having to kill myself and nobody cared that i was sad because everyone was sad and everyone wanted to kill themselves how dare you want anyone to give a shit don’t you know that they’re more sad than you? it’s not a competition though don’t invalidate anyone else’s feelings!! until you finally have to admit what’s happening and go to a doctor and when antidepressants aren’t helping like you need them to it’s just why don’t you get a job! why don’t you have a job yet! i’m obviously the only person in the whole world who has told you that you need to get a job, i’m very smart i’m a doctor and i diagnose you with not trying hard enough. you’re depressed because you don’t have routine, all those years of your life when you were depressed within the structure of school were a fluke, lack of routine is actually the problem. yeah i’m sooo sure. anyway i guess i just feel like it’s so obvious to me that i have been depressed, it’s so obvious to me that i have adhd, i have a family history of it, i have a personal history throughout my childhood of adults recognizing symptoms, i am experiencing real concrete symptoms with real concrete consequences, i am so scared that i will not be able to have a good or even just livable life if i can’t get this under control, but i’m so EMBARRASSED that i might be “self diagnosing” and i’m wrong and i’m trying to make myself feel more special or give myself an excuse to be a fuck up and i’m just another dumb gen z girl falling for all the terminally online misinformation bullshit, and even if i’m not, other people will see me that way including doctors who i have had bad experiences with already about being very unkind and dismissive wrt my mental health concerns. IF they don’t see me as a drug seeker first which to be fair i don’t think i would give that impression upfront but i have had a history of substance abuse that might not look good if they knew about that and a big part of why i’d want to be diagnosed is so that i could be medicated but you can’t actually say that because then they think you just want to get high. i’m done with my pill popping phase i promise!!! but if i’m not being medicated then that means i will just have to brute force my way through my symptoms until i burn out again which is what i do anyway.

and the other thing is whenever i tell people i feel like this they’re always just like nooooo i don’t think so. i don’t get that vibe from you. like okay thank you doctor for that astute observation that i don’t have the “vibe” of an actual disorder. is it perhaps because i am quiet and soft spoken? is it because i try really really hard not to show any unpalatable emotions in public and lie constantly to make it seem like i have my shit together? is it because i spend all my energy on the things that other people can see and judge while my own space at home and personal responsibilities constantly fall to the wayside? is it because i seem smart and you think people with adhd are dumb? i actually feel dumb, really fucking dumb, all the time, and despite people telling me that i “seem smart” they treat me like i’m fucking dumb anyway so what is the truth.

anyway this isn’t anything i haven’t felt for years and years but every time i am facing the real possibility of failure, every time i am scrambling for a solution to a situation i put myself in again, every time i miss out on chances to do something fun or just take a break from all the work and all the busyness of my life rn because i still have work that i need to do that should’ve been done already, it all comes back up because i can’t decide if it really is just my fault and i’m fucking stupid and lazy and evil, or if there actually is something wrong with my brain and i could get help for it and not everyone feels this way so someday i might not have to either or at least i can understand why i do, or a combination of both like yeah it’s my fault but i shouldn’t feel as bad about it as i do because there is actually something wrong with me also and i just have to work a little bit harder than other people. but it’s hard when it’s like. do i actually have to work harder than other people or do i just want an excuse for not doing better? but also like my mom was very successful in her life without being diagnosed with adhd until she was in her 60s so regardless of whether or not i also have adhd, i really am a lazy piece of shit because i can’t do what she did. but. also. i’m bad at school that doesn’t necessarily mean i’m bad at everything in the whole world. sigh idk idk maybe before my last semester starts i can get evaluated? but it’s embarrassinggggg like if i do have adhd then i have to do something about it and that’s its own can of worms especially since there’s medication shortages and all of that but if i don’t have adhd then i’m just stupid and lazy and WRONG like damn i really don’t want to be told that i’m wrong but if i’m so attached to the idea of having adhd then how can i know that i’m thinking about it clearly without bias? i’ve gone back and forth about this so many times though like at some point i need to do something about it. but anyway i think it’s a really unfortunate time in our culture to be thinking about trying to address suspecting that you have adhd when people are so predisposed to thinking you’re faking it or delusional or too online or something. like i can’t even imagine going to get evaluated without upfront having to tell the doctor hey. i don’t trust you. i think you’re going to fuck me over. i feel defensive because i feel like you’re going to judge me or dismiss me completely but i’m going to be 100% honest with you about my experiences hoping that i’m wrong about you. i want to believe that you want to help me, i want to believe you have no external motivations other than trying to figure out what’s going on with me, your patient, as an individual, not as part of some kind of internet trend, but as someone who is facing challenges and wants to find the tools to address them. and i really really really want that to be the case for real if i spend all kinds of time and energy to get into an evaluation i want it to have some payoff in my life even if they have to point me in a different direction

and before you ask YES i’m procrastinating something right now, YES i’m actually procrastinating multiple things, YES some of those things are pretty important and may have real consequences in my life, but YES i am sitting here writing this stupid post instead. and YES when i am done writing this, the shame of wasting so much time writing this will probably shame my brain into focusing on something that i need to get done but YES i need to completely finish this thought before i can do anything else. yes i am deeply embarrassed that this is how my brain works but this is literally why i think i have adhd i’m not trying to get out of doing this because i have adhd i’m not gonna be telling my professor or anybody that my shit is late again because i have adhd because for all intents and purposes on paper i do not have adhd and i would not be trying to wriggle out of this assignment anyway but alas i do think there’s an explanation for why this pattern exists in my life but again i’m not telling anybody but the void maybe someday i can look back at these vent posts and know that i’m not actually crazy or stupid but then again crazy and stupid people typically don’t think they’re crazy or stupid either, right? whatever maybe i should just give up. quit school quit my job stop talking to my family live off the grid and die without ever having to think about this stupid shit ever again

[callisteios]

I ended up with "god of longing for connection", which is funny given my current situation (housing/attempting to get comics into animation etc) and I'm noticing that some others are getting deep sea god (when they're actually studying the deep ocean as their major) etc... so my q is, are you somehow an ancient greek oracle pointing things out using modern technology to see what the mortals do with this knowledge? (Also thanks for a fun quiz)

you're going to get a long answer for no other reason than I'm at work and I hate my job. sorry

like way to long. i am so sorry.

So.

personality stuff

I'm going to say that first and foremost I am a massive skeptic when it comes to stuff like personality types, astrology etc. I think a lot of these things are people making very broad statements which many people identify with and become more convinced of their reality. a messy rabbit hole. I'm hardly the first to say this so lets move on

I also am a massive fan of personality quizzes (done well) and things like tarot ( i literally love doing tarot readings does anyone want a tarot reading). so not super well meshing opinions you may say?

yes.

however. i make them fit like this. I don't think all people can be split into 12 or 16 or whatever number of groups. I do think there are many shared human experiences and emotions. I know that most people taking my quiz are of a smiliar age and mostly western. This means we have even more shared experiences in this very global world.

I also know that from a lifetime of studying people and trying to understand their motivations (thank you autism (in case you couldn't tell)) I have got reasonably good at understanding various types of feelings and states people experience. and yes i suppose 'types' of people.

From this observation I have understood that (on top of us living in a very similar/global environment) we all (not all but basically all) go through the same emotions at some point during our lives.

From this experience and my understanding of our shared reality and feelings it is not exceptionally hard for me to then craft a quiz and retroactively apply the answers.

Example:

I'm going to give an example here because I feel my explanation has got incredibly rambly. Uh spoilers for my god quiz

Let's look at this result: the sky and the earth (because it's one of my favourites)

the first thing i'd say about this is that it's literally based on one of my favourite songs of all time. written while the author was in a mental instition no less (stream dory previn). so i am hardly the first to identify this 'type'.

When i look at this result and am assigning answers for it, several things about it stick out to me. Its main focus is the in between feeling, the longing for more spirtuality but also a desire for the physical and real. while at the same time feeling as if those are very confliced desires. there's obviously more to it but i can only hold so much info in my brain.

i think this is a state many in modern society will experience as we live in such a new and confusing and separate world. i am exposed to more of the world every day, and yet i feel as if i understand it less. the opportunities for me to truly experience the natrual are few and far between. i want to crawl around upon the earth. i want to see the stars and be enlightened.

knowing this i will say

does someone who is sky and earth want to be a god?

(this was the hardest question for literally every type btw.) here i'd say yes. because only something divine can be two opposing concepts surely. surely to know the sky and earth is an impossible goal for a mortal.

ok moving on (im not doing this for every quesion, don't worry, just a couple more to hammer home the point)

this one was harder. i was torn between fruit, dedicated to one issue, and drowning. I think all fit but went for dedicated in the end

for this one i knew i was using a picture of an iguana and i thought iguanas come from deserts so i chose desert. they're not all hits

this one was so easy. to me the confluence of rivers, bringing together something that's normally apart. that felt like the duality of sky and earth to me.

basically the exact same thing as above with mutilation.

i chose the painting of the building surrounded by people. i felt like this building crushed between the sky and the earth, looked upon by passers by, felt like a monument to the dichotomy. when i am feeling sky and earth i feel like the building, i cannot move or touch or really experience. i am just stationary watching it all move around me

So you see. I have identified here an emotion which i felt, which i have witnessed others feeling. i have identified the likely responses i believe a person in this state would give and i hope for the best.

Tarot

OKay you definitely get the point bt now. but i am nowhere near done, i mentioned tarot earlier. there was a reason for this beyond me wanting to do more tarot readings.

I think even though im good, i am really not that good. one thing i have noted over doing many tarot readings is that often the subject needs incredibly little input from the reader. oh, they may need your help guiding them towards the symbolism on the card, but once they've got that they launch into an explanation of how this answers their question.

Because I Always make sure they ask a clear question. this to me is the most important part of any kind of reading or quiz. you want the person to think about this themselves and then perhaps help them to the conclusion. once they're at the results screen/have a card they already have some idea in mind. it doesn't matter if they were expecting something a bit different, this is just a vehicle for their own self truth anyway.

ok im done.

i am a god

woah woah woah. im not done though. you're talking to a classicist so ive GOT to address the oracle comment. my favourite oracle of delphi theory is that the oracle's chamber sat above some kind of natural gas deposit, this gas was possibly hallucinatory. The oracles would get high and then deliver prophesies. I believe that if you combined my observation with powerful drugs I could come up with prophesies like "if your empire goes to war with another empire a great empire will fall ;)". Therefore, yes i am. and i'm taking requests ;)

tldr? uh. i take very universal feelings, use some skill to present those to people most likely to identify with them, they do a bunch of the work

/tldr i am a divine prophet and would like my place at a nice temple and access to good drugs asap

[anima-temporis]

apparently, im an intp

it's crazy how typology works.

yesterday late night i was watching umibe no étranger/stranger by shore with my best friend and she was like “dude, you're so Shun and I'm so Mio” so (since I can't live without pdb) we checked their typologies and Shun's typed intp 6w5. then after that i was like "bro, do you think im really an entp” and she was like “i don't know man, you're the one who knows all that typology stuff here” then we went on my absolutely trustworthy favorite typology websites and started like calculating my "cognitive function points" (which i then made into percentage so it was clearer) and what the freak. I've always doubted how my Ne function represented me because of my autism i tend to have very few interests and hobbies and they're usually in the same category (fiction it is) so y'know I don't really have “many different hobbies and interests”, I don't move much BUT on the other hand I always need to be doing something unless I'll be bored and boredom is a hellhole of a sensation so idk if that counts as "tending to be active", im also an extremely careful individual who absolutely hates new things and im not very impulsive so new experiences (be it planned or not) aren't really my thing, i like my comfort zone. anyways, my Ne score was 6 on 9 so 66% and the straw that broke the camel's back were both my besties saying im not exactly the most sociable person they know?? I GENUINELY THOUGH I WAS MORE EXTROVERTED THAN INTROVERTED BUT I GUESS THEY HAVE A POINT and just because i like people, im generally talkative and i like their presence (and seek it) it doesn't make me an extrovert not even a bit. ANYWAY, i got a 100% Ti function score (i think it was like 7/7) which i honestly expected but i never really thought it to be my priority but my friends made me notice just how much I don't have empathy (that pure feeling kind of empathy and not just the cognitively understand how a person COULD be feeling kind of empathy) and put logic and fact over feelings in any reasonment and that's why most of those moral things people do (like not dating the person their friend likes like that person is their property or something idk it doesn't really make sense to me but they say it's just right like that, anyway this is just an example) don't really make sense to me, how im slow at changing my opinions, how curious i am (about stuff im interested in but yeah, same thing). now letting alone my capacity to correctly applying logic in my head cause my brain apparently can't stand mental images (also graphics, counting (basic math too)) and messes them up and confuses me every time, writing down helps applying it better and by that i can do a full reasonment that makes sense. ALSO (im sorry this is long you probably don't even care) intp's functions stack is Ti-Ne-Si-Fe in which i can find myself more easily than a Fe-Si (tert, inf) stack, since Fe is the empathy lord function which I don't really use.

anyway, typology makes you insane i mistyped myself like 4 times in my studying journey (probably lifetime long)

btw shun is like one of my biggest kins ever,,,

[nightcolorz]

i’m late but for the ask game: armand 6, 8, 25

YIPPIE!! Thank u sm for sending this, I’ve been pretty severely injured lately and I woke up feeling so shit and sad, so getting this notif absolutely made my day. Armand !!! He is my favorite character in anything ever. I have literally never been so insane about a guy before. U picked some great questions so I’m super excited about this.

6. What's something you have in common with this character?

I identify strongly with Armand for a lot of weird little reasons. I think the root of it is transgender and autism stuff if I’m honest 😭 Im going to try not to get tooo personal 👍👍 but I will let’s be honest, I will get personal. I can relate to being fetishized and characterized for my sort of androgynous/pretty/boyish appearance while I feel like how I look doesn’t truly reflect who I am as a person. I definitely get the struggle of being demeaned and treated like a child bcus of the juvenile ish appearance transitioning can give you. I also can relate to being demeaned and treated like a child because of my social awkwardness (due to autism) that causes many ppl to assume I’m unintelligent or immature, need to be treated gently or talked to slowly, etc. I see these parts of myself reflected in Armand ofc in different more vampiric ways, and having a character who is infantilized and talked down to while also fetishized and sexually exploited for a perceived innocence that isn’t reflective of who he really is at all, a guy who is also very strange and awkward and doesn’t act right, who is also simultaneously very bad ass (imo lmao) in his shamelessness and his overtly violent and freak of nature attitude, is weirdly very validating and empowering for me, lmao. He is like the weak shameful parts of myself if the weak shameful parts of myself had teeth. 👍👍👍 Yeah 😁😁😁😁 Armand 🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶

8. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

lmfaooo, I’m so happy u picked this one bcus I love complaining and being a hater 😍 I am sorry in advance if I say anything that ruffles any bodies feathers, just bcus I don’t like these things ppl do doesn’t mean I don’t like the ppl who do them, y’all do u I’m not stopping u. Anyways.

I don’t enjoy how a handful of amc exclusive fans characterize Armand, because you can tell they rlly only understand him based on Wikipedia reads and his brief appearance in the show so far, which results in this sort of glaring simplification of his character in fan content. This wouldn’t rlly bother me if not for how prevalent it is 😭 like it’s genuinely difficult for me to find interesting and in character fanfic about Armand bcus so much of it is uniformed. The amc fandom sort of dominates the tvc fandom, it’s just so big. I don’t like when Armand is reduced to Louis’s new scary hot boyfriend/Lestat replacement/potential villain. It feels like he’s often perceived through this lens of a role in the story, like “hm this guy seems like a potential villain”, “no I think he’s a new love interest”, which is a conversation I find no appeal in at all considering you can’t fit the Armand I love into any of these narrative boxes. This isn’t rlly smth I have personal beef with bcus there’s no harm in fans of the show characterizing armand based on there limited knowledge while they wait for the next season, but for me it’s a pet peeve you know, as someone who rlly rlly likes armand a lot 😭.

(This is the exception to my no hate to u if u do this disclaimer btw, all the hate to u). on the subject of amc fans, I also often see this hostility towards fans of book Armand, where I’ll see amc fans talking about how perverse he is conceptually in the books and how gross ppl who like him are, which REALLY makes me very mad, because ok. Listen. Show armand is not a character yet, any and all things you enjoy about armand as of now as someone who hasn’t read the books are 1. How he looks. And 2. Things from the books that you apply to him in a new context. Assad’s performance, the people working on the show, the writers, everything that you base your enjoyment of armand in, is from the books 😭 But god forbid someone enjoy the source material over the hypothetical character who barely exists yet? God forbid someone do the same thing u do (take smth arguably morally dubious and interpret it in a way that u find interesting and compelling while acknowledging the morally dubious source material) just not in the context of an adaption. Ok. God forbid I enjoy and identify with an adult character trapped in the body of a child who is misperceived for his youth and sexually abused, it’s not like this is the same concept of beloved amc Claudia anyway. It’s also not like I am capable of enjoying something while criticizing it and disliking it’s flaws, and coming to conclusions based on critical thinking and analysis of concepts that may have been executed poorly, that I still admire and enjoy, bcus I am capable of complex thinking, and I don’t need to blindly enjoy every part of smth and perceive it as flawless to enjoy it. We all know that’s fake ! Anyways sorry for the angry rant 😭😭😭 moving on.

On a separate note, I also sometimes have beef with how fellow book armand fans portray him. This is small and sort of petty but it bothers me when Armand is drawn as like, very small and skinny. Maybe it’s bcus I head canon him as chubby and sort of cherub-built, maybe it’s bcus in TVA armand describes himself as strong in build and “not waif-ish”, but either or it does feel sort of wrong and off putting when I see Armand drawn as like, so small and petite that it’s emphasized. To me this reads as a missing of the point, if you will. An emphasis on physical qualities representative of innocence and youth that aren’t reflective of Armand’s character, only rlly how some other characters see him. I can often tell when an Armand fan enjoys him for the superficial qualities (eternally young, angelic looking, etc) over who he is, and it always encourages me to steer clear. I hope I’m making sense lol. This is also sometime present in fic but it’s more subtle and difficult to describe. Anyways

25. What was your first impression of this character? How about now?

I was thinking about this yesterday! I was first introduced to Armand when I was maybe 11 or 12, my dad put on 94 interview with the vampire for me and my twin sister while he did work around the house etc. he started watching it with us (he loves 94 iwtv) but by the time Armand showed up at the half way point he got up and started doing other things, so my sister and I were alone in front of the screen. For some reason lost to time my sister and I were very excited about seeing Antonio Banderas, maybe because we knew him from Zorro, so in the aftermath of the buffoon scene with Santiago that we found really funny, when Antonio Banderas appeared on screen we were hyped tf up. We were so enthralled in the moment of his cunty ass entrance we started cheering and clapping and screaming 😭 I think shrieking ARMANNNDDD!!!! At the screen (with no knowledge of who armand even was) Till I started laughing to tears is in my top ten formative moments. My first viewing of iwtv was just like that 😭 there was smth in the water that had my sister and I loosing our fucking minds with excitement over that movie. Anyways, I only immersed myself into the fandom and got rlly into tvc just last year, when I read interview with the vampire (smth that’s always been in the back of my mind since my first viewing, I really did love that movie) and then the rest of tvc. When I was reading interview with the vampire I had that subconscious excitement over Armand’s half way point appearance brewing from the get go (every time my sister and I have watched iwtv together since we were 12 we’ve done the same screaming at the screen ritual for armand) so when I was re introduced to him I was instantly attached to him. I very quickly discovered how much I was enthralled by this guy, like by his first appearance and description it went from a weird little nostalgic affection to a “omfg I feel many inexplicably strong feelings for this guy”. He was just so magnetic and weird, I was intrigued by every thing about him, like Louis lol. I started drawing him a bunch b4 I’d even finished the first book, and by the time I was introduced to him in tvl he was my favorite character. Tvl really solidified my armand obsession, and queen of the damned made me the person I am today 😭 insane. I think my impression of him now should be obvious at this point 😔 he is my silliest guy every morning I wake up and he is the first thought in my mind I cry about him daily I worship him like he’s my god sometimes I see a blender and I am so overwhelmed with emotion I want to scream if a professional looked into my brain and saw all the armand in there they’d diagnose me with super mega autism. I like him a lot. 🫶

Thank you sm for sending this ask once again! I’m sorry it’s so long lol, hope my responses were interesting. This is the ask game in question for anyone who may potentially want to send me more asks: https://www.tumblr.com/nightcolorz/734243514562510848?source=share I would cry with joy if so.

[aromantic-misguide-to-romance]

Random personal rant about autistic things I wish weren't gatekept

or labelled as a lie because "you are functional enough".

Especially in case of late diagnosis, it's highly likely that an autistic developed some strategies to help them survive in the world of unpredictable punishments and unknown rules.

Yes, late diagnosis usually means they managed to feign being neurotypical but sometimes people have neglectful parents who keep ignoring even serious problems or simply there were no options because not everyone lives in the West and has access to diagnosis and help even if their struggles were obvious and clear.

And sometimes healthcare system just has stupid rules that makes it impossible to diagnose an adult accurately because some specific diagnoses are defined as a childhood-exclusive disorder and are limited by the age of the patient.

Anyway, a personal list of things that are not obvious and result from attempts to adjust:

following whatever the crowd does and never questioning it because you won't understand it anyway but was conditioned to just accept whatever bullshit society invented because you weren't allowed any accomodation, so you just blindly copycat whatever others do

asking trusted neurotypicals for advice regarding social behaviour you're supposed to follow and following it completely because said neurotypical is better at society, right?

not noticing if said others are toxic or advice is harmful because you generally have imprinted that you are in the wrong about society, especially if you were being punished for asking for explanation as a child

getting dumb in conversations with more people because it's just so resource heavy thing to keep up that you cannot fully process it but you normalised it and don't see it as weird or worrisome anymore because that's how it's always been

no theory of mind but you've been trained enough to attempt which sometimes works and you guess right but sometimes fails epically in important stuff which brings trouble (because you feigned being capable before)

finding people's reactions hilarious and forgetting that they have their own minds and feelings

generally forgetting that people have their own minds so you have to make an effort to keep that constantly in mind but slipping when you're too occupied to multitask mental processes

guessing someone's mood once or twice or even ten times doesn't mean it's always going to work and that it's just the same natural empathy skill neurotypicals have; it's still half-blind guessing

also constant need to remind yourself that you don't have the theory of mind so your opinion about things and judgement isn't accurate which bring us btw to first 3 points, tho tbf many neurotypical ppl definitely should learn to remind themselves that their opinion isn't law either

irony is fun, puns are fun and playing with language is fun but it doesn't mean that the understanding or use of the language is flawless. It doesn't change the fact the first language of an autistic person might be more like a foreign language for them. Which applies to non-native English speakers too, btw, and yes, the trickiness of the language is doubled when it's an autistic non-native speaker. People can be ironic, joke or insinuate in foreign languages, but it doesn't mean their language skill is perfect. I'd say it applies to autistic people who learnt to speak despite the trouble too.

Just because some "just" have sensory issues and "just" miss subtext or jokes doesn't mean autism is literally this, then long long nothing, and then suddenly people who need complete assistance with everything.

The fact that someone managed to learn to survive, can talk to you in the internet and has a job, and appears "normal" enough to communicate with, doesn't exactly mean that they're just like a neurotypical person that just need to be explained a joke sometimes and have some fun quirks.

Autism is not an adorable quirk.

[xcherry-popx]

if its not too weird to ask, could you write some posts abt rad + asd (either one or both/abt comorbidity)? cuz i wanna find more info abt them & i saw stuff saying asd/rad cmrbidity was impossible too & think i may have both. i have zero access to mental health help atm and will for a pretty long time so im just doing what i can as i wait, document my symptoms and stuff and try to cope, for now. (btw im saying this 2 clarify tht im not trying to be invasive or out of curiosty. sry its so long)

It's no problem! Honestly, I'm excited to hear about someone like me, with how uncommon it is. No need to worry about it being long, because my answer ended up long as well ^-^;;

I wrote this quicker than I expected, so please forgive any mistakes, and feel free to ask for clarification. 

I’m mostly going to use the term ‘RAD’ (reactive attachment disorder), but a lot of this information applies to DAD (disinhibited attachment disorder) as well. I was diagnosed when they were still grouped together as RAD.

If any information does not apply to both, I’ll specify the differences between them.

First off: there is no reason autism and RAD can’t be comorbid. Now, most psychologist insist that they cannot exist together, but this is outdated. Unfortunatly, because RAD is so uncommon, very little discussion occurs, and thus any progress in understanding the disorder takes a bit of time.

Fortunately, some discussion has begun. This study is one from 2017. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27895198/

As of now, it’s the only scholarly discussion, but hopefully that will change in time.

Essentially, autism is something you’re born with, while Reactive Attachment Disorder is the result of severe neglect or mistreatment.

The study found that several children diagnosed with RAD met the criteria for autism. The difference in children with autism and RAD vs children with only RAD can be distinguished by focusing on traits specific to autism.

That’s actually how I first suspected I had both: I looked through several diagnosis lists and checked whether I had symptoms exclusive to each list.

One of the current diagnostic criteria for RAD  and DAD is that the child cannot also be diagnosed with autism. This is because RAD, and later, DAD, were often used to explain ‘autistic-like behavior’ in children who either did not show signs of autism early on, or who experienced severe mistreatment.

The main reason this is outdated is because it relies on the belief that autistic individuals do not form attachments to caregivers, which many autistic people will tell you is false. That all relates back to the idea that because autistic people show affection differently, they do not feel it the way allistic people do, which is, again, false.

It’s often difficult to get an RAD diagnosis, much less one along with an autism diagnosis. However, it’s not impossible, although for me it involved two different diagnosises that my grandma and I realized made most sense together.

Under the cut, I’m going to talk more generally about RAD and DAD as well as about my experiences.

 You said you don't have much access to mental health help, but I felt I should include this next segment anyways. 

Attachment therapy, one of the most well-known treatments, is harmful. I would suggest avoiding it. It goes against attachment theory, the basis of RAD. I don’t say this to scare you, but it is coercive and has resulted in death in some cases. You can look into it yourself, but it is rather sickening for me, so please take care if you do so.

While most advice involves making sure the child has an emotionally available ‘attachment figure’, usually a caretaker, that assumes you would want someone to connect to that way.

As someone with inhibited type RAD, I always struggled when people asked if I wanted to be closer to my grandma. To me, we were like strangers, maybe coworkers. I didn't want to open up to her, and so I still don’t.

I believe that, while it’s nice to have a friendly relationship with caretakers, it’s not necessary. For me, it’s always been more important to have friends I can open up to.

Don’t feel pressured to form an emotionally intimate relationship if you don’t want to or feel ready for it. I still don’t think I’m close to my grandma, but we feel like acquaintances now, and that’s enough for me. You don’t have to force a relationship, but don’t be afraid if you want to start one.

Of course, you may have different experiences, or be in a different place with your caretakers, but since I've struggled with that aspect I wanted to talk about it.

Most treatment for RAD is under the assumption that the child is young, which I assume you are not. In general, I suggest finding people you can trust, if you don’t have them already. I don’t want to make too many assumptions here, so if you want more specific advice feel free to ask me.

While RAD is the result of mistreatment such as abuse or neglect, it’s rare even among those who have experienced such things. There’s some debate on why it occurs, and I believe many theories suggest disposition can make one susceptible? But I’m not entirely certain on that front. Also, I’d like to clarify one thing. While most criteria says the mistreatment must begun before age five, it’s not necessary. What happened to me was when I was 11, and it changed me enough that I gained a official diagnosis of RAD a few years later. What matters is how it affected you, not when it occurred.

Now, I’ve mentioned there’s a difference between RAD and DAD, but I haven’t specified what it is. I'll explain that, but to do so I need to talk about how they form.

The basis of RAD and DAD is what’s called attachment theory. This states that young children need strong bond with at least one caregiver to develop. The bonds with their caregivers dictate how their attachment style forms. However, RAD and DAD have their own types of attachment, referred to as inhibited attachment and disinhibited attachment.

They used to both be classified as RAD, separated under the categories ‘inhibited type’ and ‘disinhibited type’.

Many people with inhibited or disinhibited type will show signs of both, but can usually be classified as one or the other. I am inhibited type, but when I was younger I showed signs of disinhibited type in places such as school.

Inhibited attachment is what’s known as Reactive Attachment Disorder. It’s more common in mistreated children. This type is when a child avoids or ignores caregivers, often not showing affection unless convinced to.

Disinhibted attachment is what’s now known as Disinhibited Attachment Disorder. This is more common in children in institutions or group homes. This type shows affection to any and all adults. They are quick to trust strangers. When my grandma worked in foster care, she had some children who, after less than a day of meeting her, would cling to her leg and beg her to take them home.

In this case, inhibited types struggle to form attachments, while disinhibited types will form attachments quickly and easily, with no preference towards their caregivers.

I think that’s all for official information, so I'll talk a bit about my experiences with RAD.

Honestly, it’s isolating. It’s often seen as something that happens to children, and no one talked about adults with it. There’s numerous psychologists who’ll misdiagnose it in foster teens for not showing affection to adoptive parents ‘the way theyʻre supposed to’. Many people treat people with RAD or DAD as ‘psychopaths’, and there’s numerous times I’ve seen it listed as ‘terrifying’, even among the social workers that meet kids with it.

It's discouraging. But I want to tell you that you aren’t alone. I’d be happy to talk to you about your experiences, and share my own. I have hope that people will begin to recognize this disorder despite how uncommon it is, and see it for what it is.

In any case, I hope you are able to find the diagnosis you need, even if it doesn’t turn out to be this one. I wish you the best of luck!

[hazelcephalopod]

This was going to be part two of my thoughts on Hannibal (2013) and Mental Health and Neurodiversity. But I’m not yet satisfied with part one so here’s just the part two on Autism. ‘Cuz it’s done.

Preamble-

Also includes a bit about an older era of media and how autism was treated even just ten years ago versus now. A bit. I know it’s 2021, and many more articulate people have spoken about this, but I wrote this before I read most of that so here it is. And btw, I’m just one autistic and otherwise neurodiverse person whose experience is as a patient. So this is based on that.

AKA I watched this show b/c my dad recommended it, and CR paused so I needed something to fill the time, and the gifs on tumblr are fun. And now I have to expunge this somehow.

Essay starts-

Part of my biggest irritation, personally, with the whole show was from episode 1. Will says this “my horse is hitched to a post closer to Asperger's and Autistics than narcissists and sociopaths.“ in response to Jack asking him where on the spectrum he is (I recommend not doing that, especially if you work in the FBI*). Which… I object to the comparison because of inaccuracy. Many neurodiversities do have some overlap in how they present and there is co-morbidity, but that particular comparison is not accurate. Further, there’s the longstanding issues with conflating ‘sociopathy’ and autism. Sociopathy usually simply meaning lacking empathy. Which is, when applied to the broad spectrum of autism, incorrect as it stands. That said, this would be fine if it didn’t seem like the writers believed it. Will or Jack believing it, sure. But I get the impression, personally, the writers and others on the show do too. And yet they do a fantastic job of portraying autism.

They keep bringing it up through most of the show too. The idea doesn’t go away. Meanwhile, Will’s characterization is easily read as an autistic person. He barely makes eye-contact, is obsessed with solving serial murders, has difficulty communicating, very few relationships. Is very blunt, and rigid in his thinking. Externally, the way everyone interacts and treats him for just existing, and being autistic. Even the empathy which supposedly exempts him from being autistic, is a trait of autism! Because often, autistic traits are the opposite of themselves. I’m trying to exclude the encephalitis symptoms here or I’d list more, but all those listed occur before and after that.

Even the way the manipulation plays out, with Will making a connection with Hannibal because he’s actually willing to reach out. Latching on to that connection despite the fear of what it might bring. Despite how Hannibal pushes boundaries, still continuing in the relationship because of a desire for connection. It’s very easy to develop co-dependency when there’s a struggle with forming relationships. I know I resonate with that, and I think plenty of autistic people do. And! Pushing yourself because everyone else can -it appears-, and they insist you can too! So you do, despite knowing you can’t. Season 1 hit all of lot of that. And later seasons well, they contain the reactions at least

Now, over time it lessens a bit, but never fully goes away. Those things committing into season 2 and three. And where it doesn’t, in fact its very arguable masking, the thing autistic people do to appear allistic (that is non-autistic), for protection. It includes mimicking and mirroring others. Which is what happens. Specifically in season two. I’d say there’s even some reemergence in season 3.

Next, no one -or close enough to no one- pretends to be autistic because they are surly and introverted. Most allistic people don’t even understand autism enough for that to make sense. The idea of that alone feeds into the the unfortunately common practice of making an introverted, surly, wierd, highly knowledgeable character -like Will or Sherlock or most of the cast of BBT (as contentious as it may be, it’s there), and many more. All characters clearly based off autistic people, who the creators and often actors deny being autistic. Often insultingly imo. And I’m not saying they realize they did that, but there comes a point I wish they’d think about why so many (often autistic) people see these characters as autistic, and maybe tried to learn from it. They may have created autistic characters, who can still have the same expensive bandwidth of all humanity. Like why can’t they be autistic? What is so wrong with that? It doesn’t have to interfere with the plot or anything. The characters just are, just keep doing that. Why not?

Anyway, I’m glad that media as a whole has gotten better than this. A lot of cool series have come out since this, with autistic main characters and autistic leads. I’ve watched many of them and like some. Good Doctor, the premise: very classical presenting autistic man becomes a surgeon, and it’s a decent show. Not for me but decent. Atypical also decent, needed to work to get there but was pretty good. Everything’s Gonna Be Okay, a masterpiece in my opinion and extremely funny! Even Leverage which has a word of god autistic character, and she’s the best! And it’s clearly part of her but she’s more too!

But… it doesn’t undo the past. Like, this show would be much better for me w/out all that ignorance, with a character that is depicted as autistic, actually in canon being autistic. And Hannibal (2013) wouldn’t even have to do much. I wouldn’t want them too! It’s really good as is! So it’s even more of disappointment for that. The creators, couldn’t seem to understand that. Or maybe they couldn’t tolerate it.

It’s strange. Because “weird introverted man says he’s autistic to get people to leave him alone but may by lying, only to find out no he’s actually autistic” could be genuinely amusing to me. That premise is interesting! And it’s also part of the excuse used as to Will not being autistic. He pretends to avoid people. After “he’s the opposite of autistic” and “has an empathy disorder” that’s not real btw. No it’s Bullshit! I looked so hard for it, and could not find that! The closest was a low empathy disorder and borderline personality personality disorder. The former it is not, b/c Will is hyper-empathic. BPD I’m not much familiar with, so I don’t know but with my limited knowledge, it sounds plausible to me. Idk, but I’m open to it. That said BPD and autism don’t exclude the other, so I’d still say he was also autistic. Also PTSD, almost certainly.

So… if anyone knows any darker series with autistic characters let me know! Cuz the darkness was fun.

PS: Ok, some light hearted weirdness, ‘cuz I fear that everything before was kinda intense. This is another side of my thought process. I’m not entirely mad, like I understand that some allistics -mostly them I assume- made this show. Wrote that line, maybe trying to make Jack look an ass and set up Will not liking being analyzed. Or whatever, don’t need to explore that now. A place of deep ignorance, around the afore mentioned eras of BBT and Sherlock. They didn’t mean much by it, but unfortunately there’s a lot of baggage there guys! Like a lot. I’m really like “plz sirs stop! Don’t!” But it’s 2021, and a finished product. And I’m not going to go yell at them on Twitter! Or anywhere. I’ll just make this post, on Tumblr. Like… wow. These allistics just kept walking in with a great present but it’s not for us! Apparently! The audacity.

PSS: I’ve read, second hand, that some people have changed their stances since all this? Cool. But it is still the first things that pops up. On google. And right at the beginning of the bio on Wikipedia. But, if true I’m glad.

PSS: Part ones thesis was basically. “The show and the source material handling of mental illness was quite messy to say the least”. (Also I wouldn’t call autism a mental illness but the two are related by both being part of the neurodiversity umbrella)

*i assume they have a similar stance to the military but even if not my point stands. Also it’s rude, you can’t ask employees that, and they may not wish nor do they have to tell people.

[onthevirgeofdestruction]

35 Q’s for Fanfic Writers

From this post

I’m having a shitty, rude alter-y, crap night so I’m just going to answer all of these to distract myself and focus and to not bother anybody just making my own post and putting it under the cut btw, notice to anyone not aware: since I’m moving I won’t likely be updating anything until I’m done doing so.

1. From one to five stars, how would you rate your writing?  (No downplaying yourself!) 3/5? Could use more editing and description and can be weirdly paced.

2. Why do you write fanfiction? Because it’s better than focusing on pain 24/7. 

3. What do you think makes your writing stand out from other works? I don’t seem to have a specific narrative voice that people recognize but I’m pretty proud of mostly organic dialogue. 

4. Are there any writers that inspire you? as a rule i never look up to anybody for inspiration but there’s some stuff in my ao3 bookmarks I fawn over.

5. What’s the fic you’re most proud of? Right now, none of them. It changes normally, anyway. If get too proud then I’d get my ass kicked by RSD if someone didn’t like it so it’s safer this way

6. What element of writing do you find comes easily? Dialogue. 

7. What element of writing do you struggle with most? Organic description, poetic language kind of stuff. I can paint a scene but I’m not so great with bring out out a feeling with description alone.

8. Which character(s) do you find easiest to write? Janus and Virgil are probably tied. They both have things I struggle with but I don’t have to go back and do much adjusting of language and tone with them. Though admittedly my Virgil is signifigantly more foul-mouthed than canon and I tend to prefer pre-AA feral asshole Virgil.

9. Which character(s) do you find most difficult to write? Patton. I write him the least, so people can probably tell. I love Patton, I really do, but it’s so hard to keep away from fanon Patton. 

10. What’s your favorite genre to write for? Angst w/ H/C obviously. Or if you’re talking about regular book genres, Fantasy. I fucking love fantasy world building.

11. Who or what do you find yourself writing about most? Trauma. I blame Daeram. As if Ayri isn’t a giant Angst Demon.

12. Tell us about a WIP you’re excited about. Slopes. I’m really into it. I’ve got three one shots running right now. Patrons can read the first part of the unnamed cat remus one, there’s also a coffeeshop au tropey nonsense one like eglantine & lycoris, but Slopes is addiction angst. Mmmmm. Virgil is addicted to coke and alcohol and will listening to his friends even be in time? Who knows, especially not me, but there’s already over 30k. 

13. First fandom you ever wrote for? InuYasha. Or was it Harry Potter? Or shit, The Blue Sword? Fuck, I’ve been writing for a long time, I really have no idea.

14. What’s your favorite fandom to write for? Sanders Sides. The characters are the perfect dynamic for writing since they exist in balance of each other and the popular, easy to project on archetypes featured are incredibly fun to do basically any scenario with.

15. What’s the weirdest fandom you’ve ever written for? Weird storywise? Kingdom Hearts? I can’t even follow the plot anymore. Weird Fandomwise? Sanders Sides. Its simultainiously the fluffiest and angstiest nonsense at the same time.

16. Any guilty pleasure trope(s)? Vampires. Gay ones. Gay Vampires. I also love calm tol and angy smol.

17. A trope you’ll never, ever write for. Any tropes that normalize incredibly toxic behaviour or tropes that are inherantly ableist, but I can’t think of any.

18. Wildest fic you’ve ever written? Incorrigible continues to be complete nonsense.

19. Do you prefer canon-compliant, AUs, or something in-between? AUs. I mean closest I even have is canon-divergence other than a single short.

20. Gen fic or shippy stuff? I like it when there is gay nonsense along with a plot that is treated as more important than the relationship the most. But I like both. There’s more shippy stuff in tss so i read more shipping action by default.

21. Favorite pairing to write for? (platonic or romantic!) Anxceit/Sleepxiety, but in general, give me darksides or give me death/j

22. Do you listen to anything while you write? Almost everything I write has a special playlist I listen to to help me write it, but otherwise I listen to my Nyan playlist, an alter is picking the tunes, or a voidfam playlist. I never have music off. When my internet is down I just listen to the songs I own or Anxiety’s theme on loop.

23. Do you prefer prompts and challenges, or completely independent ideas? I’m fine with all of them. I love working with prompts but I tend to deviate. And I’ve never done a challenge since I can’t do deadlines and bad things happen bingo never sent me a card and I applied three times.

24. One-shots or multi-chaptered works? I am generally multi-chaptered stuff, but I’ve been working on a few one-shots lately that are much longer than most one shots.

25. Have you ever daydreamed about side adventures/spin-offs from your fic? Tell us about them! I was originally thinking of doing some little 13-year-old Dreaming!Roman (y’know, the one with a job) shorts but it turns out I just had an alter of that little bastard and that’s why I inexplicably know more about him then I ever even considered. I still might do them after Dreaming is done. But that’s paced so slowly who knows when that might happen. Otherwise I put stuff in my notes and just do shorts of it if I’m like “oh you know what’s cool???” but since I can’t daydream maybe this question doesn’t apply to me.

26. Is there anything you’ve wanted to write, but you’ve been too scared to try? I want to do more autism stuff, and I’ve had it demanded a few times, but I’m scared of being that explict about it for some reason. Possibly because I might be, possibly because I’m scared of doing it wrong even though I’ve accidentally coded multiple characters autistic. I’m scared of explictly tagging them as such, too. 

27. What’s the nicest comment you’ve ever received? That I can remember off the top of my head? I’m going with one from @a-genz-with-trauma-and-kins. It really helped me out and was just so kind and literally the best christmas gift I got in 2020. 

28. How well do you handle criticism when it comes to your writing? I can handle it alright but Daeram is a little fucking pissbaby about it. Constructive criticism helps people get better, so I appreciate it. I can’t handle critism that is incomplete, though. “i just don’t get it” or “I don’t know I don’t like it” kind of things. If I can’t understand the why to fix it then things get out of control. And then I spiral and RSD for like four days minimum. If it came from an anon or a troll, too, It might not bother me for as long. Things that are just like “this is shit and you should feel bad” just make me laugh. Couldn’t even bother to read it long enough to insult me proper? I don’t care.

29. Have you ever gone outside of your comfort zone for a fic? How did it turn out? I have a few times. Mostly in shorts and prompts, I think. I think they turned out okay. They’re not particularly inspired or anything.

30. Tooth-rotting fluff or merciless angst? Depends on my mood. Am I triggered? give me the fluff. Am I vibin? Angst. 

31. Do you have any OCs? Tell us about them! Fuck, fam, no, I can’t, I have so many. I have multiple original stories and some of them have very large casts and like holy fuck. Or do you mean in Sanders Sides fandom? Um, Morgan and Thorn in PD. The lesbian and her himbo dynamic. I love them. They’re dorks. Morgan is strong person with sharp tongue and soft romantic heart and Thorn is just so kind and so dumb and so exciteable he’s like a puppy. They were just filler characters and I got attached to them. Felton even gets redemption for being an ass later in PD, like oof i never intended to include so much OC content, especially for names I just picked randomly. 

32. Summarize a random fic of yours in 10 words or less. nope I’m doing all of them because these are fun plea for my new self: 2 gay vampires, 4 humans, 1 braincell dreaming while I wake: trauma child needs therapy and so do you break: big oof, oh dragons, oh why, go virgil go rebuild: virgil is so not okay there’s more virgil to deal painful death: gay teens drink themselves into a new religion stargazing: whoops we didn’t realize people actually cared whole castle: everyone will throw down for kid!patton, even you incorrigible: found family with a shot of psychological horror and crack dangerous instincts: wholesome crime syndacite action  slopes: addict gets mugged and thinks that’s just fine with him conflagration: logan avoids everything ever like a champ cat!remus: bored fae shifts gay pining from one person to another  caffeine cyptids: caffinated gay panic goes faster than regular gay panic eglantine & lycoris: more tropes than you can toss a shoe at storytime: overpowered virgil also overreacts literally always

33. Is there anything you wish your audience knew about your writing or writing process? an alter and I write together and I have absolutely no idea what’s going to happen, what I’m writing about, or even what year it is. I often don’t even remember what I wrote. There’s no outline. I have an idea and I pick things at random for it. There’s just notes and an evil gleam in a demon’s eye. The only reason I know more than readers is because I take a long time to edit and some of these stories have fucking alters up in my head who can tell me things. Daeram tells me nothing. The writing demon supposedly has all this knowledge but I have absolutely no clue because he does not talk to me, he just fronts and slams out 9k in a few hours or we cofront to write and I’m like “oh no she didn’t” while typing 

34. Copy and paste an excerpt you’re particularly fond of. i’m fond of the entire painful death series and I tried to find something I really liked without spoilers in stargazing and I couldn’t so here’s a random thing from incorrigble: “So, what do you do with your friends?” Patton continued on with a megawatt smile. “Grand larceny,” Virgil deadpanned and glared at Patton, who was taken aback. Remy and Andy just broke out laughing while Virgil tentatively sipped his still-too-hot-cocoa. 

35. Ramble about any fic-related thing you want!  slopes my dudes slopes i have learned so much about cocaine! like wow! I thought for a minute it was going to end with MCD around 30k but it swtiched from whump to hurt/comfort and I still don’t know if it’s going to be MCD but look at that funky little coke/alcohol addict go, it’s a medical wonder he’s alive! It’s not like there’s what seems to be a little talked about interaction between alcohol and cocaine that causes a toxic chemical to build up in the liver which can result in liver failure and sudden death at basically any moment! Which is part of why it may result in MCD but this time no ghosts! maybe it’ll be h/c with whump elements or maybe it’ll be whump with h/c elements we can’t know for sure

[signaturedish]

I found out that there is a name for struggling with emotions and hilariously it's making me feel an emotion that I can't identify. But I finally, FINALLY have a word and explanation and it is so GOOD. Alexythymia. Anyways, I bring it up because I'm especially curious if you think any cybertronians may have this? My first thought was honestly Megatron. XD - Optical Admirer (P.S. I'll send a second with what it is in case you don't have time/energy to look it up.)

So to explain alexythymia, I gotta explain how emotions happen. The body has a physical reaction to something and the brain translates that + the situation to an emotion. Alexythymia means either the body doesn't produce those signs in the body, or the brain can't interpret the signs. A fast beating heart could mean many things, arousal, fear, anger. Most people would know while staring at something scary that it's not because they're horny. People with alexythymia aren't sure... - OA 1/5

... what they're feeling. They may not even recognize there IS something to feel. This isn't psychopathy btw, people with alexythymia could have an angry face, gesture wildly, and be yelling... and not know they're angry. They can feel emotions, but the body may not show them well or their brain seriously can't identify even the clearest of signs in themself what the emotion is. They can also label emotions incorrectly. For me, I have two that emotions often get shunted to. - OA 2/5

Amusement and Frustration. If I feel a lighter emotion, a 'happier' one I guess, I usually just call it 'amused'. If it's heavier and 'sharp', I call it 'frustrated'. Those are the two I often use because they're what I often translate from my body. Most of the time, there is nothing for me. I do have other emotions, but I'm trying to keep it a tad simple. This may or may not be the norm (shifting emotions), but I read of at least another person doing it, but with anger and fear. - OA 3/5

This means people with alexythymia do also struggle with empathy too. If we can't really identify our own emotions, it's hard to identify emotions in others. Not impossible, for absolutely sure. It's often a struggle though, especially in similar looking emotions. It does lead to interpersonal problems, but can be overcome with time. We just have to manually learn how each emotion looks on a person in particular, and how to react to that emotion. Which leads me to the last part! - OA 4/5

We often end up memorizing 'procedures' for how to react to situations. Our emotions can't comprehendingly or quickly lead us through situations that require such. So we memorize what other people do and how they react. Honestly, this does lead to problems where everything feels fake, because a good chunk.... kind of is? We do care about people though, we just may not have the words. With training and therapy, recognizing emotions can get better, but will always be a struggle. - OA 5/5

Thanks so much for this information, Optical Admirer! I’ve never heard of anything like this but it sounds so interesting! One of my favorite gen ed courses in college was physiological psychology because the way people function and percieve is so complex. It’s fascinating! 

This sort of disorder sounds very nuanced and interconnected with other atypical psychologies but I can’t help = but wonder what sort of physical component might contribute to this. A deficiency somewhere? A difficulty transferring information between hemispheres? I did look this up lol, but it’s new and largely related to cognition so there doesn’t seem to be much certainty, unfortunately.

I don’t need to tell you any of this of course, I’m sure you’ve heard it all before. Thank you for sharing your experience and I hope your alexythymia doesn’t cause you too much trouble in your day-to-day life. 

If you don’t mind my saying so, you sound very well put together and from my perspective, empathetic and compassionate. I’m so glad you have access to resources such as therapy and that they appear to be effective. I have a relative with very mild autism that mostly affects his emotional maturity and empathy so while I can’t speak to this sort of challenge myself, I can say that I have seen and appreciate the conscious effort that goes into being social and connecting with others. 

If you would like to share any other experiences (in anon or privately) I’m always here!

As for how this psychology might be applied to the transformers...

You have more authority on the subject so let me know if you disagree with any of this!

Honestly, a lot of Decepticons could be safely considered alexythymiac. In my au, a majority have tweaked with their own programming for streamlining specialties and gaining an edge in combat against the Autobots and their social protocols were the first to go. Lack of empathy and social awareness run rampant in their ranks.

Frenzy doesn’t bother addressing any of his issues, he’s not sure how he feels and he interacts haphazardly with basically everyone to the point of gaining a reputation for being spastic and temperamental. He’s not, but he doesn’t bother correcting that perception, he doesn’t care for anyone outside his handler. So long as he can infiltrate and communicate the information he recovers, he can validate himself. 

Seekers largely dodged this trend because their social intricacies are their edge and quick, long-lasting bonds are what make them terrors in flight formations. But bots like Megatron now have difficulty handling nuanced emotion or reading it in others. They aren’t emotionless by any stretch and are fully capable of social bonds, it’s just more difficult to take on and maintain. 

Megatron especially filters most of his emotions through rage and pleasure. This may have once been habit in his grandstanding to appear without weakness, but now it’s a reality. It’s not that he doesn’t feel anything else, but it’s easier to attribute whatever that emotion is to either camp and actualize from there.

Optimus could be considered the poster child for alexythymia as Wikipedia has led me to understand it. Just like those with the condition, he is caring and aware of his perceptions. And while he is very good at managing himself and his own emotions, he has a great deal of difficulty with direct, physical empathy in real-time. It’s hard for him to anticipate how someone dissimilar from him might feel, like he’s honed his self-perception so finely that now he’s only an expert on the exclusive psychology of Optimus Prime.

Bumblebee is bad at interacting with Harry, for example, because he’s never been around a child and has a poor understanding of them. Optimus has been around countless children, but because they’re so removed from how he thinks and behaves he can’t easily identify their emotions or extrapolate on why they feel the way they do. Just like those with alexythymia, he needs to consciously establish every emotion on an individual and study their inner workings to connect with that individual. 

All of them can, have, and will, establish strong connections, it’s only their rate of success and necessary deliberation that is different from other, more social bots. 

What do you think? Did I miss one? Did you disagree with any of these? Let me know why! 

[autisticstarseed]

👐 Hand washing guide when you have sensory issues 👐

tbh. we shouldve been talking abt this a long time ago for many disabled ppls sake but ive put this post off for like a million years out of pure solidified fear of ableist harassment/kneejerk ignorance and also generalized cringe idiots but now that we got so much covid-19 fear and autistic ppl actually tend to have weaker immune systems than most people lets jump the shark;;;

i have autism and i physically struggle with washing my hands as often as i want to, having wet hands, drying them, the temperature difference, bad soap smells/textures, etc. are all genuinely painful. the good news is that ive dealt with water aversion shit since birth (its a common sensory issue), so ive had time to figure out alternatives and coping skills that still help reduce risk of disease and spreading it in ways that i can personally manage. (ie. not lazy or selfish or gross. genuinely putting more effort into this every day task than most other people would even think about. just disability lads) so heres the guide i have to offer if you’re in a similar boat, with some keypoints about hand hygiene and tips addressing the most common sensory struggles ive noticed with it;;;

1. hand sanitizer

i love hand sanitizer, i can get it in almost any scent i want and it dries down very very fast. the problem is; hand washing and hand sanitizer do different things. it only kills certain types of germs. which is all fine and dandy, but because of this, using only hand sanitizer wont actually keep you from catching or spreading many illnesses. so what its good for is times you cant wash your hands (out in public, sensory overload, no spoons, etc), thats fine, but it should not replace all hand washing if at all possible. it is supposedly effective to covid-19, but so little is currently known that it should not be considered your go to for this, and the only unanimous statement straight from the CDC is that hand washing works best at preventing its spread.

temperature - if you have trouble with it being too cold, conveniently keeping it in your pocket or closely against your body in some way warms it up and makes it much more comfortable. 

scent - they come in almost any scent you can imagine, but if you have trouble with strong scents, there are ‘scentless hand sanitizers’. they usually have a faint chemical smell, so if there are any testers available, you should check to make sure it can work for you before you buy it.

texture - if gel doesnt cut it, they also make foamy hand sanitizers and liquid sprays, but theyre harder to find and might be a little more pricey.

and remember; always buy hand sanitizer that says it contains AT LEAST 60% alcohol, the higher alcohol content the better, but try to keep track of how high it is and how much you apply it so you dont dry your skin out. and right now price gouging is pretty bad, so dont be surprised if you cant find any for a while, and dont buy any small bottle that costs over a couple dollars, its a rip off.

2. hand washing 

so what does hand washing do thats better than sanitizer??? soap and water lift up the dirt and oils that are carrying the germs and actually wash them off, and not only that, it also gets rid of all the things sanitizer cant, such as dust/dirt, spores, chemicals, and the previously mentioned viruses that are harder to kill. ik to an outside perspective it might not seem that hard, but obviously when you have autism and these tasks are split down into bigger ordeals and sensory nightmares, it can feel impossible. 

soap - there are so many different kinds of soap! scentless soaps exist, and they very rarely have any lingering chemical smell! theres also soap for sensitive skin, and baby soap also works well for that issue. bar soaps can come in all different shapes and sizes, with many different ingredients and additives to choose from (independent soap makers are an amazing source for customized soap btw), and liquid soaps can be pure gel, frothy, mousse-y or even have tiny exfoliating or moisturizing beads in them if thats a sensory experience you enjoy. this is my number one rec for people struggling with hand washing bc of sensory issues;;; mix up the soap. finding one that gives you an okay or even a GOOD sensory experience can completely turn around an otherwise meltdown inducing task

temperature - this is the one thats always been hardest for me. cold water straight up hurts me, and our plumbing is Terrible, so the trick i have for slow pipes is to run the hot water on high as Soon as i get into the bathroom. leave it going and by the time you’re done there should be at least lukewarm water. if this still takes too long for you, try out the various sinks in your house, usually one is able to get hot water faster than the rest (for me its the kitchen sink) and that can become a designated station for you if need be.

texture - some ppl just hate water. if thats the case, it rly doesnt change much abt the process if you use less water, ie work the soap into a lather, and then only use as much as you need to rinse it off. you dont have to keep your hands under the whole time, the soap clings to the dirt, the water takes it off all together, as long as you scrub well and rinse till you see no suds, you’re good 

If it really comes down to it, a washcloth with water+soap, a disinfecting wipe, or even literally just a rinse with plain ol water is better than nothing, but the stream of water and act of rubbing the soap in is the most effective combo against disease. soap/disinfectant wipes and hand sanitizers are your second best option. if theres a time in your life where an issue is so disabling for you that you truly cant keep any of this up, rly the most important thing is to limit your direct physical contact with your face and commonly used objects as MUCH as possible until you can figure smth out. (you kno those old ladies that grab a wipe and open the doorknob with it between their hand and the knob? become that old lady) and if push comes to shove, if a safe and accepting therapy setting is something accessible to you, hygiene struggles are actually something many mental health professionals understand Very well and can help you cope with personally and directly, without shame.

3. hand drying

this is also. my personal hell. and what most people say is the hardest part of the sensory experience. but ya cant just walk around with wet hands right

towels - the obvious choice for most, but to me they actually dont dry enough. i always end up damp and with lint stuck to me. this kills the man. but hand towels do have some variety to them, you can find em with really long fibers or really short/flat, really fuzzy or really stiff, etc. sounds silly but its smth a lot of ppl dont think about that can change a lot. you can also try super absorbent towels (yes like a shamwow), and again baby bath towels are also an option if you want something gentle.

paper towels - yeah a little more wasteful and expensive, but imo much more absorbent. theyre also pretty thin so you can get between your fingers (MY BANE), and under your nails if you use a corner. 10/10

blow drying - ik this is the kind of shit you only see in like movie theaters and malls and they are definitely LOUD AS SHIT, but if you happen to have the money, and struggle more with Textures than Noise, ie a stream of warm air seems worth the sound, you Can actually find a small basic one of these items for your own home. 

4. public restrooms

everybody hates em!!! but you can make em more tolerable;;;

soap - bring your own! little travel soaps you can keep in your bag are a godsend for ppl with sensory issues, sensitive skin/allergies, and if you just prefer not sharing soap.

temperature - most public places i notice actually do get hot water pretty fast (like,,, too fast,,, like,,, it bur ns me) so if there are no faucets and its too hot or too cold, once again you can try different sinks and one might be more comfortable. if there are faucets i recommend grabbing a paper towel to turn it off, so you dont have to touch it again with your clean hands.

sound - WHY R AUTOMTIC FLUSH TOILETS SO FUCKEN LOUDD..... honestly if you have noise cancelling earmuffs or earplugs or w/e pop em in. if you dont have any of that i just literally plug my ears with my fingers when i stand up. if you struggle with the sound of the blow dryers, they almost always have paper towels as well, but its a great idea to carry something like that around in your bag with you just in case. if its really packed and people chattering is getting to you, sometimes the ‘family’ bathrooms are actually smaller and less full. if its bad enough and you feel comfortable asking, an employee might be able to direct you to a single stall bathroom or at least a different one than that.

and though its convenient, try not to use your sleeve to touch things like doorknobs, toilet handles, etc. instead use something disposable like a paper towel or wipe, bc the germs will simply transfer to your sleeve and still risk infecting you. 

5. schedule

the number one suggestion is to wash your hands literally as often as possible during a time like this but like. even for allistic/nt/abled/ ppl thats just not always an attainable schedule so the Best times to wash your hands are;;;

after using the bathroom - the most important time and generally the easiest to get used to. its smth you have to do multiple times a day that already has a schedule, and if you were to forget or go into sensory overload its usually immediately accessible as soon as you can. as i mentioned earlier, if you need help remembering, you can turn the water on when you first get in and leave it going.

the doctors - ANY KIND of health facility should be avoided right now unless really necessary, places where sick people would frequent is the quickest way to get sick but like. ya rly cant help it sometimes right. you cant stop dealing with your own illnesses just bc theres another one floating around. so, this is time to go apeshit on the handwashing. if your health issue involves coughing and sneezing, ask for a face mask. bring a scarf in case they dont have any, its not as great but better than nothing. otherwise, you honestly dont need it, face masks are more for these people bc they keep germs in better than out. whether you’re worried abt getting sick or infecting others, this is a time to use hand sanitizer, avoid physical contact like shaking hands [autistic cheering], and when you first arrive and right before you go to leave are the most important times to remember to wash your hands. 

preparing food - not as commonly spoken about, but also easy to work into a schedule. i personally dont care unless its food for somebody else or if im going to be putting my hands on it a lot, but if thats the case, a lot of the time thats produce you already want to wash in the sink, so you can kill two birds with one stone there. dont just get the germs off your own hands, get em off the fruits and veggies before you eat em. carpool

after grocery shopping - not very common. most ppl just slap some sanitizer/a wipe on there or dont think abt it at all, but if you just got home from walmart thats a great time to wash. you just touched a bunch of items other people touched, including the cart, money/credit cards, and all the products people will pick up and put back, so its prime germ time babey. But again, sanitizer or a wipe will help if its all you can manage after a trip out like that.

before self care - also uncommon. ppl always say ‘dont touch your face’ and ‘apply this product with clean hands’, and what they mean is that one of the fastest ways germs get into your system is through your mouth, nose, eyes and ears. if you’re simply washing your face theres not as much concern, but applying a mask, moisturizer, makeup, etc. should all be done after a gentle rinse of your hands (and face). very hard to get into the schedule of, but if you consider it a Part of your ‘self care’ or use a special fun cleanser, it can stick a little easier.

6. stim items

STIM ITEMS!! if you have stim items, its a good idea to clean them regularly, but even moreso during an outbreak like this.

rubber/plastic - if it goes in your mouth, hot water (not hot enough to melt!) and dish soap, if it doesnt, look up how to safely make a diluted bleach solution.

silicone - silicone is usually dish washer safe.

fabric - if its light, add bleach to the washing machine, if its colored, you can use white vinegar or hydrogen peroxide which are less likely to discolor any dyes. lysol detergent is also super great. small items you’re worried about losing, or items with details/loose parts, you can usually wash inside of a sealed pillow case. 

‘squishies’ - for ‘mochi’ squishies aka the rubbery ones, soap and water + some dusted baby powder or corn starch (optional) to keep it from grabbing lint for a while. for foam squishies, they can rarely be deep cleaned without the risk of growing mold or taking paint off, but a disinfecting wipe every now and then should keep it clean for a while.

slime - cant be disinfected, sorry. also a breeding ground for mold if you arent careful, so its always best to cycle through these quickly.

technology - cant really be completely sterilized, but there are many places to get sprays and cleaning wipes for the devices you use that can at least keep the areas your hands frequently touch a little cleaner.

BUT of course if your item comes with instructions on how to wash it, always follow that instead. this is just a general idea.

and as a final note;;; disabled ppl should not feel guilty or dirty for struggling with this. like. man idc abt ur cringe feels or your ignorant blame or your lack of understanding/sympathy for what goes into these tasks for us. if u dont wanna get our struggles and sensitivities when we’re working twice as hard on functioning tasks which personal ease you take for granted, thats on you. @ disabled people if you struggle with maintaining the same standard of hygiene as nts you arent gross or bad fucking person, you’re disabled and by definition that means your level of functioning will be different, and you deserve sympathy. its just that germs dont discriminate, they wanna cause problems for everybody involved (especially you!!!), so Anything you can manage is Great and if anything from this post can help make it a little easier for people in any way, i feel its absolutely necessary to talk about with respect and dignity. people with autism/adhd/sensory processing disorder/similar neurodivergencies/literally anybody else this could benefit, pls feel free to add on any tips you might have or send me questions. let disabled ppl help disabled ppl do our personal bests

[momoyomaki]

Could Five realistically be autistic based solely on what we see on the show?

I stumbled across the theory that Five is autistic, and as someone with autism I find that very interesting. I’m not yet convinced he does have autism, but I’m not convinced he doesn’t either.

So let’s take this apart. :cracks knuckles:

First off, a couple things to keep in mind:

-No two autistic people are exactly the same.

-I am drawing on my own experience living with autism, and what I’ve witnessed from my sister and the kids I work with.

-Disabilities that affect the brain overlap. Many different things can affect the same areas of the brain, and we just categorize things for ease of assigning coping mechanisms. For example, if you were to take a brain scan of my brother who has PTSD, my sister who has brain damage from childhood trauma, and myself with autism, the scans would look very similar.

-Whether or not Five has autism, he most definitely has PTSD.

-Please chime in with your own theories and experiences, I’d love to open this TED talk up.

Ok here we go:

Klaus calls Five addicted to the apocalypse and he’s not wrong. Through an autistic lens, obsessing and hyper-fixating is like our bread and butter. My hyper-fixations have driven me to all sorts of extremes, like staying up for 24 hours, and giving myself heatstroke by hyper-fixating while outside. Whether Five is autistic or not he can obviously relate. His obsession with stopping the apocalypse drives him for 40+ years. He carries an eyeball around the entire time. His fixation on returning to his family keeps him going through his career as a hitman, something he makes clear he didn’t enjoy. On that note, he spent an episode walking around with a goddamn bullet wound. Talk about mind over matter, and also another tick in the hyper-fixation column. Again, when he checks on Klaus after he time travels to the Vietnam War, he’s clearly concerned for him, but gets sidetracked once again by his need to stop the apocalypse. Which is honestly valid, I mean, it’s the apocalypse.

Dolores. Anybody whose seen a decent therapist will probably have been told “yeah I know it sounds crazy, but try talking to yourself.” Being your own sounding board is a very healthy thing believe it or not, and Five uses Dolores for this purpose. Those with autism in my experience have crazy good imaginations. If I try hard enough I can fabricate fake memories to the point where I can’t quite remember it’s not true. I think this has a lot to do with the way autism thinks in pictures. Imaginary friend anyone? So Five finding Dolores and talking with her as if she were real for so long that he actually sees and hears her as a person? Totally believable and something I could see having happened to myself under the right circumstances. That being said, I feel he’s probably perfectly aware that she is, in fact, a mannequin. Dolores can be seen as a sign of Five having snapped or as a brilliant way of keeping his sanity while isolated for decades.

Coffee. Five’s caffeine addiction is probably not related to autism in anyway whatsoever, but boy can I relate. Coffee is my holy grail because it calms my personal blend of brain chemicals down enough for me to focus on things like driving. Of course that’s my ADHD talking. It’s not uncommon for those with autism to also have ADHD, but that’s a whole other post. So let’s just say Five’s relatable and leave it at that.

Sarcasm and Snark. Possibly the most common coping mechanism ever for any problem in existence. Probably just a part of Five’s glorious personality, but let’s say he developed it the way I did. As a way of taking on the world, sarcasm makes everything more bearable. It’s also a form of humor and nothing is as good as humor to cover social missteps. It takes you from being a weird outcast to being the Funny/Sarcastic Friend™️.

Five and routine. The first thing Five does when returning to the past is make his signature sandwich. Here he is, back with his family after all this time, and he doesn’t allow himself to bask in that, because the count down to the apocalypse has started. There’s no way he isn’t thrown off though, come on. 13 years old again with his family alive. When feeling shaken, most people with autism will absolutely fall back into routines even if they’re old ones. And who wants to bet he drove past at least one other perfectly serviceable shop with coffee on his way to Griddy’s and ignored them in favour of familiarity? And of course he works to get Dolores back right off the bat. When upset over the lab getting blown up he returns to what we can assume was home during the apocalypse; the library.

Five and his ability to take people at face value despite his overactive paranoia. From my experience working with those with autism, autistic people are some of the most forgiving people you will ever meet. This doesn’t have to come from a place of kindness. It’s more our black and white nature. Something used to be this way, and now it’s that way. We tend to just accept it where others might have a million questions. This goes hand in hand with our people sense. Oh we suck at reading social cues, but our instincts in regards to a persons trustworthiness are generally bang on. You see this in Five’s chat with Hazel. He doesn’t seem to have a problem buying what Hazel’s selling. Same with Klaus, who he acknowledges more then his other siblings even if it’s in a snarky manner. (He didn’t shoot Klaus down when he talked about conjuring their dad unlike Luther, and despite his angry reaction he took Klaus’ point about being addicted to the apocalypse seriously.) He gets angry when Vanya doesn’t believe him about the apocalypse but when it becomes clear that her disbelief is not malicious he doesn’t take it out on her. In contrast he doesn’t buy the Handler’s bullshit. To sum it up, Five is a practical people person, with good instincts but an outdated copy of Social Cues for Dummies. Is this autism or an effect of 40+ years alone? Both?

Five, the pragmatist. As the Handler says, Five is a first rate pragmatist which fits how a lot of those on the spectrum are very blunt, black and white thinkers. Where my family can debate politics for hours, my opinion is always the straightest path to whatever outcome I’m arguing for.

Five and clothes. Those on the spectrum tend to be hypersensitive, and clothing can be a Thing™️ for us. Certain materials feel like they're made of needles as opposed to just itchy, jeans are too tight, turtlenecks feel like a noose, etc. This is common, but sometimes it’s less about comfy sweatpants and more about familiarity. I have an undercut and if I don’t have time to get it shaved at the usual point, I get panicky. My hair feels slightly different, it looks slightly different, and it all just doesn't feel right. Five grew up wearing the academy uniform, and while he didn’t have the luxury of a suit and tie in the apocalypse, wearing a suit was clearly important to him during his time with the Commission. Even the Handler took notice, and gifted him a suit. And the second thing he does after making a sandwich in the past is find a suit that fits him. Ok, he didn’t have any options, but he didn’t have to wear the whole outfit. He could have mixed and matched. He could have stolen something from the department store. But no, he’s got to wear a suit jacket and tie. He even grabbed his tie off the guy he strangled at Griddy’s before he took care of the last dude. (Badass power move btw.) So I find it believable that the uniform was partially about appearances and partially about Five’s comfort zone, physically speaking.

(But wait, I hear you say, how can you throw in hypersensitivity when back up this post you claimed Five could have ignored his bullet wound via hyper-fixation? Here’s the thing, hyper-fixation basically mutes the notifications our bodies send us. We can be uncontrollably hypersensitive and still not clue into our bodies screaming at us while we fixate on something. But boy, we sure notice when we snap out of it.)

Five is all or nothing, ride or die. Oh boy is he ever. And most autistic people are too. We put our all into everything we do. Doesn’t always translate to doing it well, but we definitely give it our all. (In fact, we tend to over do things and need some serious recouping time after.) This can cover things already in the hyper-fixation section, like his obsession with the apocalypse. But going all in for something is different from the magnetic pull of hyper-fixation. It’s a conscious decision for one thing. The biggest example for Five is his commitment to his family. The Hargreeves are a dysfunctional family, and Five didn’t escape this by jumping to the future. He’s hardly the perfect brother but he’s the most invested in his siblings nonetheless. He became a killer for them, threw morals out the window for the slim chance he might be able to save them. And as is established pretty quickly, he put his all into being a hitman, becoming the best there ever was. That fight scene in the diner speaks for itself. And slicing up his own arm to get at the tracker? Well, it’s pretty clear that when Five commits to something he doesn’t mess around.

Five and math. Here we hit a stereotype about autistic people and their ‘special interests.’ Yeah, it’s really common, but what most people don’t know is that the majority of those on the spectrum are not math geniuses, or geniuses of any other kind. My sister’s ‘special interest’ is still relatively useful, being science, but she’s not a genius. Mine is ‘stories.’ Books, movies, theatre, music, etc. I can devour fiction forever. It’s basically useless to society though, because I’m picky af. But okay, Five fits the stereotype and is a math genius, or at least where it applies to time travel. We see this in the flashback already. Ok, time travelling didn’t work out as he’d hoped, but he managed it at 13 when even Reginald didn’t think he could. This makes me think that his tendency to spend hours working out equations didn’t start in the apocalypse.

Does Five stim? If so, we don’t really see it. That doesn’t rule out autism though, because, well, it’s a spectrum. I only stimmed as a toddler. Some people don’t stim at all.

Vanya. Another theory I’ve seen thrown around is that Vanya is autistic. I’m not going to address that here, but I do want to say that if she is, that wouldn't affect whether or not Five is autistic. Autism is not personality after all, and they are very different people. Again, autism is a spectrum and nobody displays all the same traits. If you’re thinking it would be unrealistic for Reginald. To have adopted two kids with autism, think again. That one autistic sister of mine? Adopted as a baby before we had any idea that she was a mini me.

Five doesn’t appear obviously autistic. What most people don’t realize is that autism is at the end of the day an invisible disability. Most people will know someone at some point on the spectrum and never even realize it. Because sure, sometimes you’ll see us rocking under the table or otherwise displaying what movies have stereotyped as autistic behaviour, but most of the time you won’t notice. We’re the slightly overly bright cashier at Walmart, the quiet bookworm at school, your favourite author that writes emotions so well, the person at comic con who can recite their favourite movie line for line, that kid that gets along best with those older or younger then them. If Five is autistic we may never know, because he’s perfectly functional, but that's hardly and argument against autism either.

And finally; people relate. Nobody knows autism better then those with autism themselves, so I’m inclined to take all the posts I’ve seen about Autistic!Five as a pretty big point on the autism column.

To summarize; none of these points taken alone indicate autism, but together well.... it’s an option at least.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk, I will now open the stage to audience input before this monster grows any longer.