#topic: neurodivergence

[krikeymate]

Different anon than before.

But what if, instead of Tara freaking out and begging Sam to stay she just. Stops. Goes catatonic. Sam leaves without realizing the state she just left Tara in.

Tara just sits on the couch staring into the distance, completely unresponsive when Quinn comes in. She calls Mindy and Chad cause she doesn't know what to do. They rush over and can't get any response either. They try to call Sam multiple times but she doesn't answer so they start fearing something happened to her. They still occasionally try to get a response from Tara but still can't. Then finally after several hours Sam comes back and just sees everyone gathered around Tara with lost looks on their faces.

Love a little catatonia disassociative episode.

First up, I want to point out how fucking perfect a time that would be for Ghostface!Quinn to decide to make a play lmao. Imagine Sam coming home to a Ghostface holding a knife to her sister's throat, except Tara isn't even reacting, she's just sitting there, and she doesn't respond when Sam calls out to her.

Anyway.

Quinn comes home and Tara's just sitting there, face vacant, she's not responding when she talks to her. Quinn tries to call Sam first, she's not in the apartment and her phone sits on the table. She has the twins' numbers for emergencies, and this seems like an emergency. (She thinks about taking Tara out now, about leaving a scene for Sam to come home to. But her father isn't ready yet, he's still planning, he wouldn't forgive her if she jumped the gun). She calls the twins and acts the concerned roommate.

They can't get through to Tara. Sometimes she speaks when spoken to - Tara, honey, you need to wake up now, please / I'm already awake - voice monotone, face blank and unchanging.

It's nearing 3am by the time they hear the front door and Sam steps - stumbles - through. She's been drinking. Chad grabs her by the jacket and shoves her against the wall. Despite her inebriation, she still reacts fast, grabbing at his wrists and digging his fingers in. The pressure forces him to let go, but he shoves at her shoulders again. "Where the hell have you been?!" he yells. "Chad," Mindy warns from her place beside Tara. "Getting mad isn't going to help."

"What the hell, Chad," Sam demands, pushing him back. She sees her sister. Mindy places a hand on Tara's, and speaks to her, hoping to get a response: "Hey, look, Sam's back!" Tara tilts her head slightly, eyes as focused on the floor as they have been since the moment they arrived. "Sam left. She hates me... gone."

Sam rushes forward and drops to her knees in front of her sister, fear sobers her up fairly quickly. She cups her face and moves her to face her. "Hey, hey, I'm here, what's going on? Tara?" The girl blinks, eyes unseeing. Oh, Sam thinks. This again. It's happened a couple of times when Tara was younger, she would just... shut down. It has only happened the once, after... what happened. But they always had such obvious triggers, she doesn't know why this wo- oh, she said...

Sam closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, guilt and shame flooding her system. She tells the twins she's got it from here, voice stern and leaving no argument. She offers them no explanation.

Sam stands and takes the time to prepare herself. She removes her shoes and her jacket, she gets changed into her pajamas, and sets out some for her sister as well. She goes to the kitchen and prepares some sandwiches, sealing them up in a food container, and fetching a couple bottles of water. She deposits this all on her bedside table and goes back to her sister.

She reaches out for her hands and says: "Ok babygirl, I need you to stand up for me, ok?" "Ok," she replies, complying. "Great, good job, come with me." Sam holds Tara's hand and turns, pausing to make sure Tara's able to follow. She does.

She directs her sister through getting changed, pushing the clothing into her hands and helping where required. Tara's always been able to follow simple commands when she shuts down like this. It makes it a little easier to care for her through it, it doesn't make it any less frightening. She thinks of this happening when Tara is with one of those strangers, of it happening alone, surrounded by people who don't care about her. She wishes she could turn her brain off.

She tucks them both into bed, and holds her sister close. "I'm here Tara, and I'm not leaving, ever. I'm sorry I scared you, I just needed some air. But I'm here, ok? I'm here, and I'm not mad, and it's going to be ok. I love you. I've got you."

[krikeymate]

@starstaiined #you know those cat owners who hear their cat meow a specific way and just know exactly what they're trying to convey?#yea that's sam#tara translator#meanwhile it drives christina insane#after all what will people think?#tara's already so slight and sickly#she can't be stupid too#she starts insisting on ignoring tara all together. tells sam to do it too.#'don't indulge her. if she wants something she can ask for it.'#which of course doesn't work#sam loses it when she comes home from school one day and tara is sitting at the table sniffling with an audibly growling stomach#and chrissy just insists if tara's hungry she can ASK for food#says sam spoils her and they need to fix things

Sam always understands what Tara wants. She knows her sister like an extension of herself. Sometimes she knows what Tara wants before Tara herself knows. Sometimes Sam thinks she knows her better than she knows herself.

In her moments where she talks too fast and her words get all jumbled. In the moments where she mumbles, unable to articulate. In the moments where she can't speak at all.

Tara's special.

It seems like Sam's the only one who says that with love in her heart. It seems like Sam is the only one who recognises that their attempts at ignoring or trying to force this specialness away is only making things worse. The more people try to force Tara to speak the way they want, the quieter she gets. Sam watches the world trying to force her little sister in a box and how much it hurts her, and it breaks her heart.

Tara learns to mask as she gets older and Sam's not around as much to protect her from the world. She learns to be self-sufficient, so that she doesn't have to rely on help that only ever comes with conditions. She learns when to speak; how to speak; to choose her words carefully. She memories phrases to fill the silence when the words don't come easily. She learns to smile and to meet their eyes and how to be charming and normal. It never stops feeling wrong, but she pushes that uncomfortable feeling away, shoves it deep down with memories of being loved and the sensation of her sister holding her.

as a kid, tara had a really long stetch of being non-verbal. the only thing she would say was sam? in different intonations

[fastbrain]

I couldn't resist creating some dad content for Fathers' Day here in Aus yesterday.

(The Reddit post with more Palia-related puns)

[intergalaactic]

i love the insane juxtaposition between how we talk about autism on tumblr vs on tiktok. on tiktok all everyone ever really discusses are the “easier” parts of autism, the “cute” ones like stimming, special interests and SOMETIMES, and HEAVY on the sometimes, they talk about the lack of tonal understanding and missing jokes and it’s like… dude that’s maybe 1/4 of what the Autism Experience™️ is… like i love tumblr bc we really talk about all the ugly parts on here like what is ACTUALLY means to go mute/nonverbal, or the daily struggles with hygiene and independence, the horrible feeling of knowing that you are fundamentally different from everyone around you and trying to mask but knowing they see through it and being compared to non human creatures to the point where you actually start feeling nonhuman!!! like okay missing the joke sometimes is annoying but yknow what’s worse? not being able to look after myself and knowing there’s a decently high chance that i’ll never be able to live alone. like i need tiktok autistic people to understand that in order for you to have autism, which is a disability, it does have to actually disable you first. i’m not saying that because they only post the “cuter” parts that they don’t have autism!! but like it’s an app full of teenagers and i feel the need to remind them that we all miss jokes sometimes, and we do all have interests and shows that we may really enjoy!! and that’s okay!!

but idk maybe i’m being bitter or smth i always get paranoid that i’m just being a hater but there’s not a single autistic person i know that hasn’t genuinely suffered bc of it in their lives whether it be in their social or personal or academic life. just a thought!!

[weird colours included bc huge chunks of text like this are gross to read otherwise lmfao]

[trans-axolotl]

Image description: [Black text on lined paper. Text reads: Share your story with the Psych Survivor Archive. Hold the psychiatric system accountable for the violence and coercion we've survived. Make space for our anger. Grieve together. Celebrate our resistance. The Psych Survivor Archive is a forum for psych survivors to share about their experiences and be believed. You can share as much or as little as you want. Your story will be anonymously published on the website with writing from other psych survivors. The archive is open to anyone who identifies as a psych survivor, including people who survived inpatient hospitalization, rehab, troubled teen industry, partial hospitalization, outpatient programs, ABA, and any other form of coercion psych treatment. Check out the prompts, participant rights, and content guidelines. Share your story now: www.psychsurvivorarchive.com/submit-your-story]

Hey everyone. I wanted to share this here as well. The Psych Survivor Archive is looking for anyone who wants to share their story and have it anonymously published on the website, in order to create a collection of our experiences navigating the psych system. Your responses will be anonymous and can be as detailed or vague as you want. On the website, there are prompts, but you can feel free to share in whatever format makes sense to you.

This is a more informal way to participate in the Psych Survivor Archive if you are not interested in creating art for the zine, but still want your story to be heard and validated.

For me, it has felt very cathartic to write out my story, on my terms, in the way that I want to be known. I hope that the archive can offer that space to other psych survivors as well, and I can't wait to keep developing this project and offering even more. In the next couple weeks, submissions will open up for the second edition of the zine, so if you're interested in submitting creative art or writing keep an eye out!

love and solidarity always <3

[idksjdhshdhd]

I wish they had an emoji to show my excitement about some things rather than just having to do a keyboard smash to show genuine excitement

[aroaceleovaldez]

Mark Oshiro confuses me a little bit not going to lie. In the press tour for the first book all they ever talked about was how Nico is their son and Will is fine I guess. Then they said like 2 weeks before TSATS came out that they didn't understand Will's character at all and it's one of the main reasons why Will has so little POV.

Possibly unpopular opinion but I don't think it's a good, encouraging sign when the writer admits to not really caring about the deuteragonist or not even having a sense of how to write them...

Yeah, no. If you have no interest in 1/2 of the POV characters of your book, you REALLY shouldn't be writing it (or at least, not have that be a main character). Especially when the main way TSATS could have been improved is if it was primarily Will-centric instead of Nico-centric. Will basically had next to no established character prior to TSATS! He was practically a blank slate! But all the new stuff we got for Will in TSATS was so clearly disinterested and had no regard for his previously established traits (or the established timeline/canon). Which is annoying because fleshing out Will would have been the PERFECT opportunity to actually incorporate a lot of the topics that Mark Oshiro specializes in as a sensitivity reader, which was the ENTIRE REASON THEY WERE BROUGHT ON AS A CO-AUTHOR!!!!

As TSATS stands, there is no reason for Mark Oshiro specifically to have been the co-author instead of someone else. It's so clearly just a PR move from RR following the huge backlash Rick received due to his response to criticism on how he wrote Piper and Samirah (and Reyna and etc etc). This was immediately following Rick saying he wasn't going to write what would become TSATS because "it [wasn't his] place to." Most of the topics that Mark Oshiro specializes in either weren't relevant at all to TSATS or written very poorly (to downright offensively) in TSATS, so either Mark Oshiro wasn't doing their job or was not able to do their job for some reason, but either way it basically makes the theoretical justification for Mark Oshiro being the co-author/sensitivity reader irrelevant.

With Will, it was HUGE fanon back in the day for him to be trans. Trans!Will and photokinesis!Will were basically the two biggest headcanons for him (both largely popularized by Cherryandsisters). We know Rick is aware of this old fanon because he canonized photokinesis!Will. If we had gotten trans!Will, that would have been great! And then made sense why we specifically got a trans co-author! (Instead, if anything, TSATS canonized Will being cis.) If we had gotten Will being latino, that would have been amazing!!!! And also then made sense as to why they chose Mark Oshiro for the job as a latinx author/sensitivity-reader, versus potentially choosing an Italian co-author since Nico being Italian/Venetian was emphasized so much in the book (and done poorly! Yknow what they could have done to fix that? GOTTEN A SENSITIVITY READER FOR IT)! Based on the themes and focuses actually present in the book, it would have been most logical to get a queer, neurodivergent, Italian co-author or sensitivity reader who specializes in those three topics at least. But we didn't! So why was Mark Oshiro chosen instead when they only specialize in one of those topics? PR reasons. It's blatantly entirely PR reasons and no actual thought or care was put into this book (or, likely, TSATS 2 either).

It doesn't help that we're also actively being told that the published version of TSATS was a rough draft. Or that their editor blatantly isn't doing her job. Or that "The Sun And The Star" was the working title that they just kept cause they didn't bother to make an actual title. And that the final version is full of explicitly last-minute scenes that weren't checked over at all (the final Bianca scene, for one). Or the ACTIVELY ADMITTING TO SOURCING IDEAS AND INFORMATION FROM FANS! That last one is kind of important because at this level of publishing that is a HUGE no-no for legal reasons. You can get into a lot of trouble for that and there is a reason why it is Ye Olde Fandom Law to never try to pitch your ideas or headcanons to the source creator(s) and keep fandom separate from the creators. There is a REASON why Rick Riordan is so distant from the community these days and it's for PROTECTION AGAINST LEGAL REPERCUSSION. Mark Oshiro being the exact opposite while also ACTIVELY ACKNOWLEDGING sourcing concepts from fans does not bode well! It has to do with copyright stuff.

It's just. So. Sighhhhhhhh >->o <- me lying on the floor about all of this. It's sad being able to see the glimmer of what could have been at the very least a decent book underneath all this. If anyone involved in the process had actually cared just the tiniest amount.

[geodaio]

Ok I was rewatching X-Men: First Class (the cherik brainworms got me) and I am very curious...

You can define his flirting "working" however you would like, this is for science okay. Please elaborate in the tags about your answers if you feel so inclined

[cyber-therian]

they should invent cuddles/hugs that don’t involve any forms of physical touch including implications of touch

[krikeymate]

Foster AU: what if as Tara approaches her 18th birthday, she has this fear in the back of her mind that Sam will kick her out/want her to leave because that’s what “normal” people are “supposed” to do when they turn 18. Cue her pulling away a bit because she’s so anxious about it and Sam being confused and a little hurt until it finally just comes out that Tara is scared that she won’t want her around anymore.

And Sam subsequently saying something along the lines of “you can stay with me as long as you want but I don’t want you to leave ever.”

Tara usually joins Sam at work. Sam trusts Tara to stay home alone, and more importantly, she trusts in the rigid security system, thick doors, reinforced windows, and numerous locks, their new home - recently moved into - has had installed. But Tara doesn't like being left alone in the house, and her tutor - Sidney - has the week off for Thanksgiving. (She had actually invited them both over to stay for the holiday, but Sam had recently been promoted to manager because she works the holidays, and didn't feel right then dumping the responsibility on the others and disappearing).

So, Tara sits in the staff room on her Nintendo Switch playing Pokemon, exploring Kanto with Sam the Pikachu, when Jill, 19 years old and only several months into the job, takes her break.

Tara doesn't like Jill (she doesn't like anyone). The way she speaks to her makes her uncomfortable, but she can't quite figure out how to explain why, so she doesn't say anything about it at all. Sam says she needs to think about her words more. Sam was laughing when she said it, but Sam doesn't say things she doesn't mean, so Tara tries to think about her words more before she says them. Dr Martin says she should think about the why behind the words, and that if she can't really explain why she wants to say what she does, then maybe she shouldn't say them. Sam told her that was stupid and she could ignore what Dr Martin said, but Tara still thinks about it sometimes.

"Hey, so I hear it's your birthday soon," Jill pipes up, pulling out a chair at the table. Tara wishes she wouldn't speak, and just nods her head, eyes never leaving the game.

"Soooo... what're you gonna do when you turn 18?" she continues. The question confuses Tara and she flicks her eyes to the girl for a moment. "What do you mean?" she asks, frowning. She continues to stare at the screen, but her hands still on the controls, battle screen flashing.

"Well," Jill says, chewing obnoxiously on her gum, "are you gonna, like, go to college or get a job, or what?"

Tara puts the Switch down to stare at Jill. She thinks carefully about her words. Don't be stupid is probably the wrong thing to say. "Why would I do that?" she eventually settles on.

Jill stares at her in bafflement, a weird smile on her face. "Well, you can't just stay with your sister forever." There's a laugh in her voice, like the idea is ridiculous. "You're an adult, not a little kid. 18 is when you leave the nest and make your own way in the world!" Jill looks at her, waiting for Tara to speak, then frowns, as if remembering who she's talking to. "Well, I mean, for normal people anyway. I guess it's not the same for people like you, what with your..." she waves her hand around in place of finishing her sentence.

The door opens and Sam appears over the threshold. "Jill, your break was over 3 minutes ago and there's a line of customers waiting to be served," she chastises, not unkindly. Sam catches sight of Tara's face, tight and upset, and lingers, moving out of the way for Jill to pass. Once she's gone, she moves into the room, shutting the door behind her.

Kneeling down at Tara's side, she puts a hand in her lap and the other brushes against her cheek. "Hey, you ok, what happened?"

Tara squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head. "Fine," she mumbles out, taking a deep breath. Sam frowns. "Did she say something to you?" Tara shakes her head again. "It's fine," she says, more solidly this time. Sam goes to push the subject, when they hear muffled yelling in the distance. Sam sighs, getting back to her feet, hand lingering on her cheek. She pulls Tara's head up to leave a kiss on her forehead and gives her a smile, "just a couple more hours," she says wistfully. "What do you want for dinner?" "...Mac 'n cheese?" "As my girl requests, mac and cheese it is."

~

Tara's quiet over dinner that night, and retires to her own room for once. Sam struggles to fall asleep without her. She's not used to sleeping alone anymore.

The following week is weird. Tara chooses to stay home, even though Sam knows she doesn't like to be alone. She sleeps in her own bed, and hides away, and picks at her food. She shies away from Sam's touch.

Sam thinks back, trying to determine when it started, what caused it. She thinks back to that day in the breakroom, and corners Jill, demanding to know what she said.

"I just asked her what her plans were," Jill exclaims, hands up and a little nervous at Sam's expression. Sam's face scrunches in confusion, "plans? What plans, what are you talking about?" "Y'know, for being 18, the future or whatever." Sam shakes her head, she doesn't understand, and voices so, frustrated.

"Wow, you two really are sisters," Jill mutters, rolling her eyes. "Look, normal people turn 18, they move out, they go to college, th-" Sam storms off before she's even finished speaking.

Normal. Sam hates that word.

~

Sam crawls into Tara's bed that night. She curls around her and pulls her back into her and whispers "you're not gonna leave, right? When you turn 18?" She watches Tara's fingers tighten around her wolf. "Cause," Sam continues, "I would really like you to stay, for like, the rest of your life, but I understand if you want to leave, if that's what you want."

Tara twists in her grip, shoving her face in Sam's neck. "Don't want to leave," she mumbles, voice barely audible. "Oh," Sam replies, "that's good, because I don't want you to leave."

[franklyimissparis]

i think it’s funny how when some people talk abt alex turner’s potential drug usage it’ll either be like “he has a major drug and alcohol problem it’s so obvious!!!” or “i don’t think he’s the type to have ever even tried a hard drug” as if there isn’t a ton of middle ground between those two extremes

like the man who wrote “why’d you only ever call me when you’re high” and has been a touring musician since he was 19 has obviously fucking been high - and not just with weed - but that also doesn’t mean he’s completely off his head in every interview he’s ever done 😭😭

[mizuribbons]

getting a new hyperfixation can be great! but why the fuck do i have to now have a hyperfixation on fUCKING PRION DISEASES OF ALL THINGS.

[nicodwhw]

autistic and neurodivergent people that build a career around their special interests are the backbone of this world

[p0is0n-is-th3-cur3]

it’s okay to use water flavoring btw, if you struggle to drink water and the flavors make it easier then use them. All that matters is that you’re hydrating. You use a cirkul? Good, stay hydrated. Mio? Good, stay hydrated. Skittles flavor packets? Good, stay hydrated. Those mixes from TikTok? Good, stay hydrated. I’m autistic and really struggle with hydration, flavoring is the only way you can get me to drink water. If you need to use them don’t let others tell you that’s wrong.

[aroaceleovaldez]

in your most recent tyson post, you said something about leo being distinctly autistic-coded and I was wondering if you could elaborate on that? it sounds really interesting (sorry if you've already posted something on this, I couldn't find anything though)

Of course! I do have a specific tag for talking about Leo's autistic-coding/traits - [here], and [one for Nico as well].

The main aspects with Leo being autistic-coded actually have a lot to do with Nico being autistic-coded, because it's the comparisons between the two that most clearly indicate Leo is autistic-coded rather than it just being his ADHD or etc.

So with Nico being autistic-coded, it's very clear in the Titan's Curse that he's intended to be autistic. First, the first series has a repeating pattern of secondary characters being very distinctly neurodivergent-coded in different ways (Annabeth's adhd/dyslexia, Tyson's down syndrome-coding, Nico's autism-coding). With Nico's introduction, he's pretty stereotypically autistic and we're given a lot of descriptors about him that are notably not attributed to him being ADHD, like it would be for other demigod characters. He doesn't register social cues such as people getting annoyed at him, he's asking/making inappropriate or impolite questions/comments, he gets particularly upset about change (such as Bianca joining the Hunt) and generally gets emotional, and one of his most notable traits he's introduced with is the fact that he has a special interest (MythoMagic) - and we're shown that this special interest particularly colors how Nico navigates the world. While ADHD has hyperfixations, we don't really get much acknowledgement of hyperfixations with demigods usually - Annabeth gets a little, but most others don't and it's not nearly as focused-in on as Nico's is.

Then as the series continues we see these traits stick with him and him start to show or voice more traits that similarly indicate he's autistic: He regularly mentions how he doesn't understand living people and prefers the company of the dead (social issues). He has more notable stims than other demigods (twisting his ring, fiddling with bones, etc). He's indicated to have strong sensory preferences (usually wearing mostly black/aversion to bright colors, usually wearing layers/his coat, multiple times he's described as wearing loose/baggy clothing or clothes too big for him). He has specific comfort items (his ring, likely his jacket(s) as well). We later get even more information about his special interests (Mythomagic/mythology/history and an older interest in pirates - the latter he specifically notes likely heavily influenced his feelings towards Percy). He struggles with emotions and facial expressions and tone. He struggles particularly with ostracism and feeling like he doesn't fit in and has something distinctly different about him from the people around him (who notably, all have ADHD, which indicates it isn't the ADHD that's making him feel that way), and other characters regularly describe him as being off-putting because of his strange behaviors - again, different from specific ADHD traits they recognize. And that last point is kind of notable because we have Hazel and Bianca for comparison - we know people are off-put by both Nico and Hazel because of being children of Hades/Pluto and their powers/aura, but other characters get past that general feeling of discomfort way faster with Hazel. And even after characters get past the death stuff with Nico, there's a second thing that they aren't moving past that isn't a factor with Hazel (Nico's autism).

So that brings us to Leo - Leo is paralleled to Nico a lot. And there's some very specific traits about him that we know are autistic-coding because of how they're used with Nico: He similarly struggles with social cues/etc, and in a very similar parallel to Nico describes how he prefers the company of machines to people because machines make more sense to him. He has similar types of clothing/sensory preferences (again some stuff with layers but also - pockets! He likes having pockets and things to put stuff in! He's even introduced as having a jacket with lots of pockets), and he has a distinct special interest (machinery) that we specifically know heavily influences how he views and navigates the world (constantly comparing things to machinery, describing things with machinery metaphors/terminology, etc etc). He even describes his entire general worldview to Hazel and it's a machine metaphor. He also similarly struggles with ostracization like Nico does, the only difference being that Leo specifically puts on a persona to compensate for areas he knows he's lacking in and very explicitly describes it as a means to make people like him, because without it he normally struggles to fit in (He's masking!). We also see notes of characters describing that similar discomfort with Leo's behaviors that they do with Nico, except without the aura of death this time. And when we're in Leo's POVs we see a very stark difference between his masking and his actual personality/behaviors such as his internal dialogues or how he behaves when he's alone. Also, like Nico, he stims more than other demigods, though for Leo it's more attributed to his ADHD. Leo also, more often than most, similarly struggles with tone and reading the room, such as making misplaced jokes/comments or etc.

But yeah! It's really interesting. Also it's just a fun thing that ADHD/dyslexia and autism have comorbidity, so it makes sense that we see demigods who are also autistic. It's also really fun to look at how other characters are coded in the series, what coding looks like in the riordanverse specifically (usually it's tied into the mythological stuff - like Chiron being in a wheelchair but he's actually a centaur, Grover being introduced as having a muscular disease but he's actually a satyr, demigods having adhd/dyslexia, Tyson being coded as having down syndrome but he's a cyclops, etc etc - it's a lot of specific metaphor stuff that I've talked about a bit before), and to look at how characters are compared to one another.