#we are neurotypical (no)

[inkskinned]

even 2 years ago people still said autism with a whisper. it was also how people sometimes whisper lesbian, like they're afraid of uttering a slur. autistic was either an insult or it was something terrible, a horrible burden only select people endure. "select people" were usually 9 year old boys and skinny white men.

they are not hispanic young adults with a dog and a life and friends. i can make (sustained, calculated, painful) eye contact. with certain people, i don't even have to count how many seconds i am holding their vision - i can just look at them. i can wear clothes that bother me, i will just have a worse day than usual. i might cry about any changes to my schedule - but change is scary! this is normal!

when i was 16 it was OCD. i mean that was the thing everyone said. i totally have ocd. they would arrange 6 colors of gel pen in rainbow order (no worry for indigo feeling left out) and they'd be "so ocd" about it.

if you struggle with intrusive thoughts, be careful at this next paragraph, but. at 16 i developed a compulsion that involved self-harm. my ocd was convinced i was simply forgetting that i'd hurt someone terribly - a thought that persisted for no clear or delineated reason.

at some point i will probably write about how the idea of "morally pure thoughts" was hell for me and others with ocd, but this was the odd dichotomy for many of us: they liked our "aesthetic", but were genuinely repulsed by our lived experience. "intrusive thoughts" now means "cutting your hair in the sink" instead of talking yourself down from believing horrible things. "so ocd" is a label without any true understanding.

it's something i've talked about before - in multiplicity - but i firmly believe in the veracity and necessity of self-diagnosis. i think it saves lives and it saves tragedies from occurring. as someone raised in a house that wasn't safe, self-diagnosis was, for many years, the only viable option. 15 and honestly googling: am i depressed or are there demons affecting my behavior.

but it is not genuine self-diagnosis anymore, most of the time. it is a strange, blanched version of that whispered word autism. now certain traits are constantly seen as "autistic" - any passing intense interest. any flubbed social interaction. people say it while laughing - a touch of the 'tism.

and i like the acceptance! i do. i like that people are talking about it. i like that if i self-identify, more people speak up and say me too, bitch. but there is something-else quietly happening, the way it happened to OCD. the quirky, "fun" parts have been washed and sanitized and removed of all suffering. now it is just something that makes you "a little bit silly."

it took me 27 years on this planet before i learned to make friends. something about me just seems incredibly odd, i guess, some kind of radiation monitoring. someone once (in a way that was almost friendly) told me i am doing the right things, but in a way that's off-putting. i have scoured myself raw attempting to be charming.

someone on tiktok does a deep dive into their particular passion. the top comment says "what kind of autism is this lol". like we are a breed of animal. like it has no influence on our experience. like our life is a fresh breeze, an open meadow.

more often for me, life was a drowning.

[deedra-posting]

Me when my best friend and I identify with V1 and Swordsmachine and suddenly it's about our friendship

Uhmmmmmm I like them yeag. Alt version under the cut

Nothing drastic just emojis lmao

[ambrosiagourmet]

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

[rouge-fauna]

Normally, I wouldn't really say anything about the drama and stuff, because that's not what I'm here for and honestly I feel like a lot of it is just none of my business. But, it just feels so close to home for me that I can't help but say something. Because here's the thing people aren't going to talk about and probably don't even realize, but I think so much of this drama actually has to do with Dream being autistic.

Just notice the themes of what Tubbo said about Dream being weird, inappropriate, not considering the social boundaries, not communicating, coming across wrong… etc these are all things that can be attributed to Dream literally not knowing better because of neurodivergence. That’s not an excuse but an explanation to know the difference between Dream texting Tommy’s mom out of being manipulative versus not understanding how that breaks a social boundary. That’s not to say Dream should get a free pass to do whatever but I think in the same way we take into consideration other people’s ages and their naivety and obliviousness and inexperience into consideration, Dream’s neurodivergence should be considered too. It is valid. It makes a difference between manipulative and malicious intent versus simply not seeing it the same way.

And really the sad thing is, that I think people will always dislike Dream. At the end of the day, I think that will never change, because even if he was the most perfect person people would still dislike him because of an underlying subconscious response to him not being like the rest. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he is made the villain in real life and in the dsmp, because it is simply a psychological fact that people inherently dislike autistic people. It’s not because they are ableist it’s just we don’t act like they do so that makes us weird and therefore unlikeable. And it’s hard to understand us because our brains our literally different and as has been said throughout history what we don’t understand we hate, we fear, we see as evil, we attack. Why does Dream get canceled and attacked over and over again? Not because they are true and it proves a pattern that he’s shitty, but because society is so desperate to find a more tangible reason to hate him other than the fact that they just do. Because his behavior breaks social rules he didn’t realize existed. Because he’s easy pickings. Because in my opinion it all comes down to autism and honestly until that piece is actually taken into consideration nothing will probably resolve.

[omglaurashutup]

i'm tired of all the bullshit about dating autistic people being all about OUR obstacles. what about neurotypical people who can't understand that autistic people may not have a job? what about neurotypical people who don't understand that some autistic people can't contribute to fucking capitalism and this has nothing to do with the person's worth? i hate this world

[venusmage]

guys im almost 28 and got diagnosed with ADHD :'). i thought i was just a lazy idiot moron dumbass dipshit alien robot but apparently it was The Disorder

[aardvaark]

I like how it seems Beth Riesgraf (Parker) made a really wild impression on the Leverage creators, executive producers & network, from all the interviews...

Leverage Cast: S4 Behind The Scenes - Auditions

Beth Riesgraf: I left the [audition] room and it was one of those moments where you go down to your car and something clicks, and you really get something that you didn’t get in the room. So I walked back up and they’re like "well, he’s got about five more people to see" so I was like "oh, awesome". So I waited. John comes out of the room and I’m like [suddenly very animated] "hi! so listen!" and by the time I was done, I had him like this [grabs Timothy Hutton, who’s seated next to her, by his lapels with both hands] and I didn’t even realise, but I got so excited that I was like "no no no, just let me do it again!" and John was like, "no no no, I think you’re fine… I think you got it. I think you got the character".

LA Screening Q&A with Devlin, Rogers & Downey

Dean Devlin: Fun story with Parker is that there were two actresses who came in for the final reading for the studio. And one of the two actresses - beautiful girl, very competent actor, very good […]. But after she left, we turned to the people at the network and we said, "she’s great, we like her - this next girl’s the girl we’d really like to hire. She’s not kind of the typical girl you’d normally hire in a show like this". So then Beth [Riesgraf] came in for the audition. Didn’t say one word. Just came in- John Rogers: None of this "hi, I’m here", yeah. Dean: She just read in character, and then walked out of the room. At which point the head of TNT turned to me and said, [whispering] "is she… crazy?". [normal voice] I said, "I don’t know, but I love her". John: Her hair was in her face, remember? She came in and did like, the crazy, angry, just-hates-everyone Parker.

The way these link up so well is so funny to me & it gives such a hilarious picture of the Parker audition process.

[asthedeathoflight]

Coda to my other post because I didn't want to completely derail it but we might not be ready for this conversation as a fandom but ableism is absolutely a contributing factor to the way Armand gets treated and im tired of pretending like it's not. The way autistic people of color get treated in our society is abominable and this fandom is not immune to perpetuating that. So much of how he gets talked about can be chalked up to "well he didn't perform empathy/emotion/regret like I wanted him to." If Armand was as effortlessly personable and correctly emotive as Lestat is we'd be having a different conversation. That's all I'm saying.

[kaboom--bitch]

'Kay, maybe if you're gonna have a sensory room in a very big goddamn popular aquarium, have someone on staff guarding the fucking door. Please. People having meltdowns or shutdowns or literally just trying to fucking chill in there shouldn't have to deal with assholes opening the door--which is soundproof only when it's closed and also blocks out light ONLY WHEN IT'S FUCKING CLOSED--poking their head in and gawking at the "special needs issues people" thinking it's a fucking exhibit because they can't be bothered to read the sign until they're confused as fuck at what they see.

Just a fucking thought, guys. Do not advertise a fucking safe space if it's not fucking safe! Use your god damn brains!

[uefb]

Specifically writing the missing 1k words to get me to the next chapter for the person who added my fic to their —

list.

Because y’all —

I WILL NEVER GIVE UP ON TEEN!THESEUS & BB!NEWT. The absolute audacity to suggest it🥺😭😭

I love them your honor

[krash-8]

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

[theflyinghydreigon]

Honestly one of the reasons I really like Epic: The Musical is because it reminds me of when I first read the Odyssey. I was a freshman in highschool English class and I wasn’t doing great. Probably one of the worst points in my life. I was one of the very few people in my class who enjoyed the Odyssey and it was awkward to have conversations with people in (or out of) class because of that (among other things).

I just didn’t have a lot that I could talk about with my peers. During highschool — especially the beginning — I was a socially isolated depressed autistic kid. Now I get to be excited again! People get it! People want to talk about it! It’s made people want to read the Odyssey!

I just think it’s really special to have a book be enjoyed for thousands of years (And taught in schools that long too). There could’ve been people casually doing exactly what we are right now. Annoying their friends with poems, songs, drawings, literary comparisons… it’s something special to continue such a long tradition. Odysseus has been my special little guy for 9-10 years now and I’m so happy other people like him too. I don’t have to feel alone anymore :)

[chubbychiquita]

answer my strawpoll abt nd identity re: fat kink please

[singletofadown]

a theory of mine as to why the children in the did community gravitate so hard towards making pk tmeplates, alter packs and etc is they want to feel useful, want praise and appreciation from people online that they lack in real life, without having to acknowledge their disorder as something negative.

Writing about symptom management or help requires acknowledgement that having alters is a symptom, that you can't just let your system "run wild" and that new alters are often not a good sign, while a lot of younger systems like to obsess over their alters, either to cope with the rest of the disorders being horrible by focusing on the thing they see as "positive", or simply because they're faking and having alters is the one overly glorified part of did. just my thoughts though

[horsesource]

"We must break with autistic conceptions of ecology, which still largely prevail. The term autistic may come as a surprise for it is usually reserved for individual mental pathologies. But Western culture has managed to collectivize, if I may be so bold, an individual pathology and turn it into a cultural trait by considering that living beings communicate with each other only on a superficial level; that human beings themselves are incapable of communicating with other living beings [..] Even worse, in the culture of Western elites, whoever speaks of communication with any kind of non-human being [and many "profound" autistics write about exactly this] is regarded as a crackpot."

Dominique Lestel

[d1sc01nf3rn0]

I'm seeing a lot of people with neurodivergency, specially under the autism spectrum say that "Laios is annoying, never shuts up, is insensitive, and I can't stand him"; and the irony is not lost on me lmao.