#which used to be the only stereotype of autism that ever existed in the media

[likeabxrdinflight]

working for a neuropsychologist for the past two months has been a powerful reminder that social media brand autism is not, in fact, representative of real world autism and the conversations being had on social media about neurodiversity do not, in fact, represent the entire scope of the neurodiverse experience.

in fact, I think it's rather telling who is often left out of those conversations.

[vanessagillings]

I’m posting the ever-so-rare photo of myself alongside one of my characters based on my childhood because today is World Autism Acceptance Day, and I wanted to show my little corner of the internet who this particular autistic person is:  

I was officially diagnosed in February, at age 38 (I’m now 39). A lot of people thought I couldn’t be autistic.  Some people who know me in real life still don’t.  And until around 10 years ago, I didn’t think I could be either, because I was nothing like the stereotype media portrays. I was told that autistics lacked empathy (untrue), and never played make-believe (also often untrue) and only enjoyed STEM.  I was — and am — an empathetic artist -- and make believe?  I can spend days sketching finely bedecked bears brewing tea or carefully choosing the right words to weave tapestries of fiction — though perhaps my hyper focus was a bit of a red flag.  Even so, how could autism describe me?  I was a good student.  I got straight A's. I didn’t act out in class.  I can make eye contact…if I must.  And lots of girls hate having their hair brushed with an unholy passion, right?  Clearly I swim in sarcasm like a fish, so autism couldn't be why I was so anxious all the time, could it?

If someone had told me when I was younger what autism ACTUALLY is — instead of the nonsense I’d seen on screens — I would have seen myself in it.  I didn’t hear that autistics have sensory issues until I was in my mid-twenties, which is when I first began to really research autism symptoms, and I had almost all of them:  sensitivity to light, smells, fabrics, temperatures, textures, and certain touches, all of which make me feel anxious, I fidget (stim), I never know what the hell to do with my hands or where to look, I talk too little or too much, I have special interests, I have entire animated movies memorized shot-by-shot and can remember the first time and place I saw every movie I've ever seen but I often forget what I'm trying to say mid-sentence, I echo movies and tv shows (my husband and I have a whole repertoire of shared echolalias, making up about 20% of our conversations), I was in speech therapy as a kid, I have issues with dysnomia and verbal fluency, I toe-walk, I can't multitask to save my life, I like things just-so, I’m deeply introverted but not shy, I need to recover from all social interaction — even social interaction I enjoy — and I find stupid, every day things like grocery shopping, driving and making appointments overwhelming and intensely stressful, sometimes to the point where I struggle to speak.  It turns out, I am definitely autistic. My results weren't borderline. Not even close. And while these aren’t all of my challenges, and not everyone with these symptoms is autistic, it’s definitely something to look into if you present with all of these things at once. 

So why did it take me so long to get diagnosed? The same bias that exists in media threads through the medical community as well, and because I'm a woman who can discuss the weather while smiling on cue, few people thought I was worth looking into. Even after I was fairly certain I was autistic, receiving an official diagnosis in the US is unnecessarily difficult and expensive, and in my case, completely uncovered by my insurance.  It cost me over $4000, and I could only afford it because my husband makes more money than I do as a freelance illustrator — a job I fell into largely because it didn’t require in-person work; like many autists, I have been chronically underemployed and underpaid, in part due to physical illness in my twenties, which is a topic for another day.  But it shouldn’t be like this.  It shouldn’t be so hard for adults to receive diagnoses and it shouldn’t be so hard for people to see themselves in this condition to begin with due to misinformation and stereotypes. Like many issues in America, these barriers are even higher for marginalized groups with multiple intersectionalities. 

It’s commonly said that if you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person.  This is why it’s called a spectrum, not because there’s a linear progression of severity (someone who appears to have low support needs like myself might need more than it seems, and vice versa), but because every autistic person has their own strengths and weaknesses, challenges and experiences, opinions and needs.  No two people on the spectrum present in the same way.  And that’s a good thing!  No way of being autistic is inherently any better than any other, and even if someone on the spectrum struggles with things I don’t — or can do things I can’t — doesn’t make them more or less deserving of respect and human dignity.

But speaking solely for myself, the more I learn about autism, the happier I am to be autistic.  I struggle to find words and exert fine motor control, but my deep passion and fixation has made me good at art and storytelling anyway.  I find more joy watching dogs and studying leaf shapes on my walks than most people do in an entire day.  More often than not, the barriers I’ve faced weren’t due to my autism directly, but due to society being overly rigid about what it considers a valid way of existing.  My hope in writing this today is that maybe one person will realize that autism isn’t what they thought — and that being different is not the same as being less than. My hope with my fiction is to give autistic children mirrors with which to see themselves, and everyone else windows through which to see us as we actually are.

If you’re interested in learning more about autism or think you might be autistic, too, I recommend the Autism Self Advocacy Network  autisticadvocacy.org and the following books:

What I Mean When I Say I’m Autistic by Annie Kotowicz

We're Not Broken by Eric Garcia

Knowing Why edited by Elizabeth Bartmess

Unmasking Autism by Devon Price, PhD

Loud Hands edited by Julia Bascom

Neurotribes by Steve Silberman

(trigger warning: the last two contain quite a lot of upsetting material involving institutionalized child abuse, but I think it’s important for people to know how often autistic children were — and are — abused simply for being neurodivergent).

Thanks for reading 💛

[emmkitt]

stop calling mephone4 a child.

my credentials(/silly): mephone4’s biggest fan + someone who sees mephone as representative of myself. i am also an autistic adult. (relevant)

i went on an autistic tirade rambling about this in a discord server but i wanted to compile my reasoning and stuff here into a tumblr post because this is very important to me.

alright. lets start with the most commonly used argument.

calling mephone a child is ableist.

now i certainly agree that some children CAN act the way mephone does. however, i think it’s harmful when your ONLY argument as to why he is a child is ‘because he cant spell’ or ‘because he creates fantasy worlds in his brain as a means of escapism.’

I think the issue is, we are reducing these very real symptoms of mental disorders to ‘oh he’s just acting childish,’ instead of understanding them for what they are. autism and dyslexia are not cured the second you turn 18. it doesn’t work that way. giving in to the stereotype that only children can act this way… i dunno man. it really rubs me the wrong way.

i think it’d be better to view him as an adult with these symptoms because, well, VERY rarely do we ever get representation of an adult with mental disorders in media. at least not in a way that’s not villainizing them or mocking/infantilizing them. (sidebar, mephone IS NOT THE VILLAIN. he did bad things, yes, and should be held accountable for it, but he is NOT. THE VILLAIN. he is an abuse victim, and his way of acting is actually very good representation of the way abuse victims may go on to mimic actions of their abuser.) cobs (mephone’s abuser btw) LITERALLY infantilizes mephone IN CANON. IN THE SHOW. WHY ARE YOU LISTENING TO COBS. WHY ARE YOU ACTING LIKE COBS.

bro didnt go to school

i didnt know how to title this section. basically, people reducing him to a child because he doesn’t know adult things are MISSING THE POINT.

HE WAS RAISED BY COBS.

do you think cobs had ANY interest in teaching him ANYTHING about the real world? about how to be an adult? about how to ride a bike or pay taxes? NO. dude popped into existence knowing nothing except what Cobs WANTED him to know. he was meant to just work for Cobs and do tasks all the time and that was IT. OF COURSE his knowledge is going to be limited to what Cobs taught him. that DOES NOT make someone a child. GO REWATCH THE SHOWWWW.

suspend your disbelief for once in your life oh my god

i dont understand how people are able to suspend disbelief for LITERALLY EVERYTHING ELSE in fiction. such as murder/death, supernatural creatures, the universe itself as a whole, etc. but when it comes to age, the real world standards MUST be applied, no exception. Like since Mephone was canonically created 14 years ago in-universe that means he is 14 years old. we are completely ignoring the fact he is a fictional talking sentient phone robot for a minute.

and adding in the ‘he acts like a child’ argument for a second… season 1. what 1 year old do you know that can walk and talk and create an entire game show?? he has practically acted the EXACT SAME WAY his entire existence, therefore that argument falls completely flat.

it would be DIFFERENT if in-universe they had established rules, where this age means this and that age means that, but the ii universe DOES NOT HAVE THAT. meaning people are free to interpret age however they want. it would ALSO be different if mephone was canonically stated to be a child (we’re getting to that) OR portrayed to be childcoded. which…. he isn’t.

okay so by these rules all of the contestants are younger than mephone.

the agreement amongst child mephone believers seems to be ‘creation date = birth date = real age’. so bot is like 3 years old. the unvitationals are like 2. all the contestants are somewhere between like 4-14. but wait- some season 1 contestants ACT older or younger than the others? no. no theyre ALL 13-14 only. no exceptions. every newbie in season 3 is like 4-5. every newbie in season 2 is like 10. makes perfect sense.

do you understand how ridiculous that is. WE CANNOT , i repeat, CANNOT APPLY REAL WORLD STANDARDS TO A FICTIONAL UNIVERSE. oh my god. they are holograms. they are robots. they are in a weird plane floating in the vastness of space that has a picnic table that can generate food, and the ability to revive dead people, and ghosts and talking corn and. and all of THAT is fine. but god forbid someone interpret the talking phone as an adult. I DONT GET IT.

b-b-but cobs called mephone a child…

once again, common arguement. i strike thee down with a ‘MANIPULATION TACTIC.’ i feel like this has been covered enough and better in other mephone rambles so im not gonna get into it.

personal section

this is more of a personal experiences and opinions thing. less based on fact. agree or disagree idc this is just my experience.

once again, like i stated in the beginning, i see myself in mephone. a lot. I am an adult. i have autism. i have the tendency to act ‘childish’ sometimes due to my condition. im bad at being an adult. i struggle with tasks that are probably easy for other adults. i’m not a child. it’s very disheartening- i WANT to be viewed as an independent functioning adult, despite my condition, but when even a FICTIONAL PHONE who acts just like i do gets reduced to ‘child’ because he acts similarly to someone who’s mentally ill and has been abused. it HURTS MAN. he’s just trying his best:[

anyways conclusion

idc. you can headcanon whatever you want cause technically nothing is confirmed, but this is more food for thought for the people immediately jumping on the ‘child mephone’ bandwagon.

unless someone is canonically stated to be a child or is very heavily child coded, i don’t think its wrong for people to interpret them as an adult.

if sometime in the future mephone is canonically confirmed to be a child like. in universe. ill probably be disappointed.

i am a firm believer in age doesnt work the same way in ii as it does in our universe. theyre all fictional creatures. they were not created by conventional means. you dont have to apply our world’s standards to it.

anyways uhh. ramble over lol

[fictionkinfessions]

Hello... popular media kintypes/fictives abuse victim anon here. I really don't want to drag this discourse out because I mostly come here to submit lighthearted confessions, so I have created a list of red flags or warning signs based my experiences with some of the toxic behaviors my abuser exhibited. I hope this is helpful to someone. Sorry if this is awkwardly phrased, making this sound appropriate for both kin and systems is hard (I am both and both was relevant to my abuse). Trigger warnings

Please be careful if:

- they are extremely focused on your kintypes/fictives based on interests they have or fandoms they're in and seem uninterested in you as a person/your current life/other system members

- they respond poorly to you having shifts or system members front they aren't interested in. They may be rude to you in those shifts, ignore fronting headmates or ask them to leave front or ghost you. They may pressure you into having specific shifts or making specific members front and guilt trip you if you can't (such as threatening to hurt themselves or talk about how much they hate themselves)

- they seem to kinfirm or form fictives of past-life partners/family members/close friends quickly after you have kinfirmed a kintype or formed a fictive

- they automatically expect you to treat them/their fictives as canonmates or they begin referring to you as their partner/family member etc (such as them forming a fictive of one your fictive's canon love interest and immediately beginning to flirt with your fictive). This includes fictives seemingly being ''set up'' to date. They may behave sexually or overly familiar with you/your system members based on these souce-relations (including irl if applicable)

- they demand or beg you form fictives from sources they have fictives from so they won't be ''alone'' or insist you would totally be with kin XY if you only got into it (if spirituality is applicable, they may claim to be using magic or having a headmate with the ability to create said headmate in your system)

- they use their kintypes' experiences or system members' source memories (if applicable) to guilt you or make you comfort them (for example by claiming past life trauma, mental illnesses or neurodivergencies or disabilities that do not apply to them (my ex-friend would claim headmates had tourettes or autism neither of which they bodily had and they acted very stereotypical/infantilizing too (I am autistic)), and then expecting you to coddle them and take care of them. When not giving them this attention, they may become furious)

- they isolate you from other kin folk or systems (my ex-friend would threaten suicide or self-harm or claim I was going to replace them when I mentioned just speaking to any other system or anyone who was kin. This did not apply to them, they had plenty of system/kin friends). They want your system members or kintypes all to themselves, using the fact that the alterhumanity and plurality are rather niche

- they do not allow you or your system members agency or boundaries. If you have a system member they aren't close with, they will try to get involved with them by lying or manipulating. If your system member isn't interested, they will be ostracized. (For example: being told no one likes them and no one wants to talk to them, or they may be declared as Evil and Bad). System members that are involved with them are expected to act a certain way and not allowed to exist freely. They are treated as playthings rather than people

- they are inconsistent. They may have new kintypes or fictives with every new interest and the old ones never shift/front again. If you bring up a source memory, they will claim to have remembered this all along (to make sure they are your ''canonmate''). System members/kintypes might retroactively become trans or disabled (i.e. a cis man becoming a trans man) specifically in response to memories. If you ever point out these inconsistencies you will be treated as crazy or told you're wrong, they were ALWAYS like this, if you can prove them wrong it's brushed off as a joke

These are just a small sample but they might be helpful to someone.

=

[spectrumgarden]

This is one of those reblogs where I just want to ramble and its totally fine if you prefer to reblog the non ramble addition post, I get it, to be honest. But anyways.

I just want to talk about why I want you to think of us (and hopefully turn that thinking into appreciation and inclusion of our voices, and fighting for us when people around you are shitty about us.)

First of all not all of the post is specifically about me, but many parts, I just added on some things that I think heavily relate to it. And for context before autism regression the only part of this that really fit is the struggle to be outside alone part. So I do have the perspective of different point of views of autism so to speak. And I the grass is Not greener on this side.

And I found that while a lot of people stereotype autistics like me, like my friends, that's where it all begins and ends. A lot of them arent even aware they are stereotyping autistic people with their mockery... with the public image of autism ever so slowly but surely being dominated by savant type media representation over the past years, that and the grunting self injuring person accompanied by a carer or parent doesnt really fit into that label to many people. They think of us as simply, the r slur, people with ID, stuff like that. I'm not offended by being related to someone with ID, but I must point out its incorrect that everyone who presents like me, my friends or "more severe" has ID. I dont. This is all pure autism, babey.

So it's a stereotype at most, usually. Someone to stare at in public. To make jokes about. The few people who know us as autistic from rarer media representation, or maybe they have a relative like us, something like that.

But that's where I feel like the consideration by everyone, who is not immediately involved in care of us, that we exist ends. We are not included in research, generally. Like the medical community is aware we exist, sure, but they just seem to mostly want to ignore it, at least from a research perspective. In general studies we arent included, and in the very few studies on things that are "my" version of autism (or more severe), something like that, it's all the smallest sample sizes you've ever seen, and it's mostly just a couple case reports in a trench coat. No brain scans, no reaction time tested on fancy computer set ups, eye tracking, nothing. "Hey, these people exist I guess", maybe a mean IQ score thrown in there, not much more.

So what do they know about actually helping us? Not that much, to be honest.

Media representation has played a big part in how people perceive the autistic community, but the self advocacy movement undoubtedly has also played a huge part. And I find that I just. Dont really relate to most of it, if any. Which is sort of fine? Not everything has to be about yourself after all. But so much about the advocacy movement seems to hinge on either at the very least disconnecting from us or worse, erasing us. "Dont infantilize autistics because we are adults who work and date and go out and understand language just like you" ... well not all of us do, actually. And we are still autistic, and we still dont deserve to be infantilized. I feel it all sort of started as "not all autistic people act like your 5 year old autistic nephew" (true) but suddenly turned into "autism never makes you violent / need care like help toileting , eating , bathing , .../ unable understand jokes / ... " (very much not true). "Autistic people are smarter than allistic people!" We are more likely to have ID than allistics. "Autistic people are more this/ more that/ ..." but I promise you did not include many autistic people in that sentence. Why are you not even aware of them??? And I dont think demanding the large part of self advocacy movement to not actively try to erase people like me, and labeled more severe, is expecting too much.

We still get neglected, abused, sometimes killed by family. Being recognized as disabled does not actually protect you from that.

And none of that has even touched about how lonely this can feel, how painful, without any of the outside influence at all. Without anyone trying to erase my existence, I still feel sad looking at university students, thinking how much I would like to be like that. I still feel sad looking at my allistic sister traveling all over the world, taking planes by herself, raising a child, working a job or sometimes two. Meanwhile I'm 22 and I spend most of my days in bed because I dont work or study, I struggle to move, I struggle to go outside, I struggle to keep myself clean and fed, I struggle to connect to people. And often I fail.

And I can sort of count on one hand the big autistic creators who I've seen ever seriously advocate for someone like me, who isn't even HSN and only MSN. They are what many people look to for information, people who will interact with us as well. And we dont even get a mention unless it is to be erased (sounds paradoxical, I know)

This autism month please remember those of us who:

need verbal prompting (someone telling us each single, small step to a task) or hands on help for things like showering, getting dressed, cooking simple meals, using a toilet ....

who struggle to go outside alone or cant do it all, not out of fear or no motivation or anything but because we keep getting lost and cant find our way back, because the outside world is like a blurry maze that never becomes more logical no matter how many times we have walked that street, because we need help with mobility aids, or can not understand that cars are dangerous, other people can be dangerous, ...

whose bodies dont listen to what our brains tell it to do. Whose bodies throw things when we didnt tell it to, told it to stop. Who hit our head against the walls while wishing we could stop. Whose bodies freeze when we tell it to move. Not just for a task we are unable to start, but any movement at all. I dont mean when i'm stuck scrolling through my phone thinking about how much i should do that task but cant, I mean when im sitting on the kitchen floor and staring into space for an hour unable to even lift my hand to scratch my nose.

Those of us that will never work a job outside of sheltered workshops, if at all.

Who drool and scream and jump and hum and rock in the waiting room at the doctors office, on public transport, ...

[veronicathegoddess]

This is like a genuine question but if you're black and announcing it why do you have a yt profile pic and have your blog just generally very yt?

there's so much to unpack here and i have nothing to do tonight so let's delve into this

1. why is it seen as announcing that i'm black instead of me simply stating a fact about myself??? why is this is a critique that is leveled at poc in the first place especially in my experience black people???

why don't we ask gay people why they put that in their bios? or neurodivergent people why they post that they have autism or adhd? but i say i'm black and its viewed as an announcement like i don't live in my blackness every day. the same way that everyone else lives in their identities. black people can exist and assert their existence the same way other minorities do and it should be viewed the same way.

2. my profile pic is not yt. it's actually from hentai which yk is japanese. but considering that it is just boobs with no ethnic or racial context, i can't be mad at your assumption that it's a white person. however, let me ask you this, why would it be a problem if i have a profile picture of a white person?

why would you even bring my race into that when race has nothing to do with the media i engage with and what i choose to post or have as a profile picture?

this is just a racist implication that as a black person, i should only watch and support and post media that is black centered or contains black characters. which is hilarious when you consider that black persons are one of the most underrepresented groups in media even to this day.

and when we are represented the roles are often typecasted. it's always slavery, black misery, black best friend who never gets a happy ending, strong black girlboss who don't need man, it's all been seen. and let's not get started on the colorism within the industry related to black actors especially in modern media where black persons who are dark-skinned, especially women, are continually underrepresented.

i have no problem with black centered media, i watch a lot of shows and movies that are generally considered "black shows" but what i do have a problem with is you trying to link my race to something that is completely unrelated to it and implying that because i'm black i shouldn't have a white profile picture from something that i enjoy.

3. what the fuck do you mean by have my blog generally very yt? like i would love if you could explain to me what my blog is supposed to be like as a black person.

am i supposed to be using the n word? am i supposed to be ratchet? ghetto? is my blog supposed to be posts about weed and lean and rappers? please enlighten me. but until you do, i'll just make a guess.

it's not that my blog is yt, it's that i don't fit whatever racist, stereotypical view of black people that you have. you probably liked my content and assumed i was white until you learnt i was black

then you accused me of announcing my blackness but basically being a "race traitor" by having a profile picture of a non-poc character and then had the audacity to tell me that my blog is yt because you don't think that black people are a diverse group that can express who they are and their interests in the same way that white people do because we have to fit whatever racist view that you have of us.

to you i'm not supposed to be respectful or articulate or like non-black media or even be interested in hard kinks because that just isn't what negroes are like huh. that's what you cultured white folks do and it doesn't matter at the end of the day that i fit your respectability and acceptability politics, i'm still black and god forbid, i ever ever ever ever be anything besides what white people think i'm supposed to be.

i don't care that this is a "genuine question" because if it is, at the end of the day, it's still full of racism and i don't have to be nice about it because it is not my responsibility as a black person to educate white people on how to stop being racist assholes. i don't think this was a genuine question, but that's a whole other conversation.

the point is black people are not a monolith. black people are a beautifully diverse group and we can be and are interested in the same things as any other racial or ethnic group. we can assert our existence because we want to and we can be who we want to be and express that however we want to because we do not have to fit your racist stereotypical caricatures of what black people are like. and it's highly upsetting that i have to say this in 2022.

and to you anon, genuine or not genuine, i don't care, fuck you.

[neonbutchery]

ME2 Overlord DLC, an autistic perspective

So, uh, this was a long time coming.

I must admit that I’ve never played the Overlord DLC until now, when I’ve gotten around to playing ME:LE, which included all DLCs-but I had heard about it both from casual players who commented certain moments, and other autistic ME fans who chimed in to give their thoughts. I’m autistic myself, and needless to say, I was very intrigued to see how Overlord dealt with autism, disability, and the horror inflicted upon the different. I will try and update this as I play the DLC, so I can put down my thoughts.

Obligatory disclaimer that this is just my own opinion and perspective, and I’m in no way, shape or form, a spokesperson for my whole community. I also want to make it very clear that this will not be a formal essay with citations and sources: this is a post on tumblr dot com written by a college student and that mainly draws from a) my experiences as an autistic person b) the stereotypes surrounding autism in media and c) the history of the treatment of autistic and neurodivergent people, including institutionalized torture.

CONTENT WARNING: mentions of ableism and torture inflicted upon disabled people. I will not include any graphic images. Also, Overlord DLC spoilers.

Overlord starts with the premise of a Cerberus research facility that had been researching experimental science going off-the-grid, which prompts Shepard/the player to go investigate. How shocking, the organization that also experimented on biotic children, rachni, husks and Thorian creepers is having problems with yet another of their questionable scientific projects. Who would have thought? (Clarifying that this is sarcasm).

Once you arrive at Aite, the planet where the base is set in, you meet Gavin Archer, the leader of Project Overlord, who vaguely explains you what happened, how everything went to hell, and how there's a rogue VI that has infiltrated the facilities' systems and now wants to take over the galaxy. Keep in mind that the VI situation is presented at first as the villain of the plot, which becomes relevant when you later learn what is behind it.

The first sections of the DLC aren't that bad. I really loved the gameplay, being able to use the Hammerhead for something other than picking minerals up, and LOVED the whole design of Prometheus station, which was like a crossover between Giger and Dead Space aaand now I want a full ME game in this style.

Then we get to Atlas station, and, in my opinion, that's where the trouble begins. The first log we encounter from Archer describes David's autism as a "handicap until now", evoking the stereotypes that autistic people are somehow impaired (because we don't behave like allistics do), and, at the same time, that we somehow have some sort of "superpower" thanks to our condition. What this log tells us is something I've unfortunately seen before: some people will demean us for being autistic until it's suddenly convenient for them. Autism is bad because we stim, can't make eye contact, or communicate verbally, and the only good thing from it is what society sees as "genius". We are not a burden just because we have different ways of expressing ourselves or needs that aren't often met by conventional society. We deserve to exist, even if we aren't geniuses or revolutionaries.

And that ties into my wider issues with David's characterization: he's another version of the only autistic characters we ever see in media, (mostly) white, cis men who aren't able to behave by neurotypical standards, and who are extremely good at memory, math, and numbers.

Is it the most harmful thing in regards to autism rep in media? No. But as someone who doesn’t fit most of those molds, and who knows many autistic people who also don’t, it’s frustrating. While probably unintentional on Bioware's part, it ends up repeating the same cliche and establishing one autistic experience as the universal one and erasing the rest that are across the spectrum. It's called that way for a reason, dammit.

You fight through the station, get into the weird virtual matrix VI-thingy, and finally learn what the hell happened. David is a mathematic savant and is able to learn how to communicate with geth; intrigued, Archer decides to take the project one step further and (forcibly) integrate his brother into a VI to control the geth. The result is horrifying in more than one way and looks like something straight out of Warhammer 40k, with a gratuitous dose of mechanical body horror. I won't put an image, but if you've played the DLC or google it, you know exactly what I'm talking about. This is just a side note: while I'm not opposed to fictional depictions of violence, and ME is a universe with plenty of it, I can't help but think of the institutionalized torture autistic people are put through in real life under the name of therapy when I see what David went through. If you want an example, read about the Judge Rotenberg center.

Overlord's end has you deciding what to do with David: either rescue him from his brother and send him to Grissom Academy (where he makes a cameo in ME3) or allow him to stay with Archer (which leads to him continuing being part of the project and eventually, being euthanized by Gavin). Complaining about such a decision being available would be silly since this is also a game trilogy where you can commit genocide three times, but I still don't like how a) the agency of an adult autistic man is stripped away b) the narrative gives Gavin Archer room to cry a river about how he didn't mean for it to happen and oh poor him. Let me play you a song on the world's tiniest violin.

That's the point of the "essay" where you yell at me in the notes about how Gavin Archer is a character that you aren't meant to like, and with that, I agree. He's a POS who decided that experimenting on his brother would be a good idea, and one of the few ME characters I actually hate with a burning rage. And, as I said before, it would be hypocritical of me to complain about Archer doing and saying bad things in the game where you can befriend assassins and war criminals. But you, the player, Shepard, are the one who scorns Archer (as he should), and we never learn anything else about David or how he felt about the project other than he was in pain, or about the fact that, you know, his brother, who he trusted, tortured him in the name of science.

This is where my main issue lies: David has no agency in the entirety of the DLC or his characterization. His life and character arc are narrated through other characters, Archer and Shepard. Admittedly, when you actually meet David he really isn't in the position to make a speech, but we see him being able to communicate (in a neurotypical way) throughout flashbacks. One of, and probably the only, explicitly autistic characters in the history of the franchise is relegated to not being in charge of his own story and narrative. Again, this is not the first nor the last time this is done in media—autistic stories tend to be told both in and out of universe by allistic people, and we're constantly excluded from our own narratives, because we're infantilized and/or deemed as unreliable. When autism comes up in media it's to talk about how it affects those around us, but almost never about us. I'm not saying David needed to become a squadmate or romance interest, but getting to know and interact with him in a wider context that wasn't a full on torture scene, and getting to hear his story told by him would've been nice.

There's also the othering. Both the characters and narrative present David not as a human being, but as an other, with Archer explicitly calling him a human supercomputer. I'm a huge sci-fi fan and love my aliens and robots, but we're often seen as robotic, weird, or, well, alien. I would probably feel different if this had been written by an autistic person, and I'm not saying neurodivergence in non-human characters shouldn't be represented, but it's a nuanced topic and characterization with a lot of ways to execute it, and this wasn't one of them. The connection and similarities David might have with the geth only serve to hammer home what the narrative has been telling us this whole time: that autistic people are the others, and that because their brains are wired in a different way, they're akin to computers, not human beings. Hell, I even think that pulling a JKR (minus the bigotry) and saying that Mordin or Liara were autistic a decade after the game's release would have been better representation, even if that also has its fair share of issues. All of that combined with the fact that this is probably the only instance that we get an explicitly neurodivergent character in the trilogy—and it's a dehumanized caricature that relies on allistic conceptions and torture porn—just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

So, where do we go from here? Can we do something that is more productive than complaining about it on Tumblr? At least in my opinion, the harm is done. BW removing the Overlord DLC from ME:LE or the ME2 DLC or issuing a notes app apology via social media would just be performative and accomplish nothing. Overlord is one of many cases of bad autistic representation, and pretending like it never happened wouldn't be productive for anyone.

But Bioware isn't dead. They're currently working on new ME and DA titles, and personally, I think that this could be a great chance to put neurodivergent/autistic rep in their games and this time, do it well by hiring neurodivergent consultants or (better yet) writers. We're the ones who know the nuances and difficulties that our experiences carry, and even though the topic of good representation isn't black and white and has a lot of debate surrounding it, we should be able to tell our own stories and handle delicate topics in a way that doesn't feel outright careless or hateful.

As a final note, April is Autism Acceptance Month. If you’re interested on learning more about autism, autistic people, or helping our community, there are many resources out there, but I recommend starting with ASAN, an organization by and for autistic people based in the US. If you know of any local organizations based in your country that do good work and are led by autistic people, feel free to add them in the reblogs. The Twitter tags #Creatingwithautism and #CreatingwithASD are also good places to find artists and creators on the spectrum and support them. 

I encourage any other autistic folks out there to add onto this post, or if disagreeing with something, tell me about it. This is a free social media platform and I can't control what people do, but I'll prioritize autistic voices in this conversation. I'm willing to answer any questions as long as they're in good faith.

And before anyone comes here asking: no, liking ME2/the Overlord DLC doesn't make you a bad person. But refusing to listen to marginalized groups in regards of their representation in mainstream media and belittling their concerns does.

[mellometal]

Hi, everyone.

I have something extremely important to talk about that is NOT fandom related. I really do hope this can reach everyone on here, especially since it's still Autism Acceptance Month.

A few quick questions for anyone who happens to see this before I dive right into this: Have you ever heard of Dhar Mann? If so, have you ever seen his videos? What do you think about them?

If you don't know who Dhar Mann is, he's a content creator whose main platforms are Instagram and YouTube. He makes these videos about various scenarios from a couple on the brink of divorce, to kids bullying one of their peers, even about Autism Spectrum Disorder. All of his videos have some kind of message at the end that really drives the point home. One of his most recent videos is about ASD, which is what I'm going to discuss today.

Personally, I think some of his videos are interesting, despite the concepts being reused and recycled over and over; however, how I feel about the video he made about ASD is the complete opposite. I'll summarize the video he made so you don't have to watch it. (If you really want to watch it to see exactly what I'm talking about, I'm not gonna stop you. Do what you need to do in order to form your own opinion.)

The video Dhar Mann made about ASD is about this boy who excludes his autistic brother from participating in activities with his friends at school. The boy bullies his autistic brother and does pretty much everything to make his brother's life Hell, even going as far as to pretend that he doesn't know his own brother. The boy "instantly regrets his decision" when their mom is called into the school to discipline her son for bullying his autistic brother. What his mother says is what REALLY upsets me. The message of this video in particular is this, WORD FOR FUCKING WORD. I wish I was kidding. But here's the message below:

How the video concludes is the boy reluctantly includes his autistic brother in every single activity, the boy sees his brother's potential, and they live happily ever after. Whoop-dee-fucking-doo.

As an autistic woman who works with disabled people for a living, that message Dhar Mann put in this video specifically is not only extremely ableist, but is also spreading misinformation about ASD.

News flash to all the people who still spread misinformation about ASD: Not every single autistic person is a little white boy in elementary school, nor is every single autistic person a young white man who's a Super Genius™️. (I could go on all day long about how the media stereotypes autistic characters and autistic people in general, but that's a whole other topic.) No autistic person is the same, meaning we all fall on the spectrum in different places and all that jazz. There's no "look" to autistic people either because no autistic person looks the same.

Autistic women exist.

Autistic girls exist.

Autistic nonbinary people exist.

Autistic BIPOC and AAPI exist.

Autistic people who are completely nonverbal exist.

Autistic people who are completely verbal exist.

Autistic people who are in the middle of being nonverbal and verbal exist.

Autistic people who require minimal to no support exist.

Autistic people who require moderate support exist.

Autistic people who require full support exist.

Autistic LGBT people exist. (Reason why I bring this one up is because the media almost always shows cishet autistic men and I don't see autistic LGBT representation very often, if ever.)

Autism isn't something you can "catch". People have this same mentality about ADHD and Tourette's Syndrome too, which, by the way, you can't "catch" either.

Autism doesn't "go away" when you reach adolescence or adulthood. Why? BECAUSE AUTISTIC TEENAGERS AND AUTISTIC ADULTS EXIST. Autistic kids grow into autistic teenagers, then into autistic adults.

You can't "cure" it either. Unless you can build a time machine and a device to go back in time to change how a person's brain develops, there is no cure. ABA therapy is a fucking shit show in itself that does more harm than good.

The title of the video is a real squick for me too. It's mostly because I don't particularly enjoy people using person first language (the "boy with autism" part). I've seen many other autistic people on multiple other platforms sharing that same sentiment and preferring identity first language (autistic person). There are also others who prefer using person first language and those who don't have a preference. That's all perfectly valid. Whatever you prefer people using when referring to you, or whatever you refer to yourself as, in this case, is totally valid and I love you. This goes for disabilities in general, not just Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Regarding the message in this video, here's my response to it! A quick heads-up, my response is VERY long and VERY passionate. I was VERY close to making a response video where I tear that video apart AND tear Dhar Mann a new asshole. Unfortunately, it worked me up so much that I was really struggling with what I wanted to say and I had to stop multiple times because I kept stumbling on my words. That's how angry this message made me. I'll try my best to explain whatever parts you have questions about. I put my response in the nicest way I possibly could, despite me seething with rage, wanting to go OFF on him.

(The first part of my response are the first three screenshots, and the second part are the last three screenshots.)

The first part of my response, I did forget to add that the message is offensive and disrespectful to autistic people as a whole. I apologize. My initial comment got way too long. I pretty much covered that when I told him the message is ableist. I wanted to clear that up before anyone asks about it.

The second part of my response is me opening up about my experience with being diagnosed with ASD, formerly known as As//per//ger's Syn//dro//me, at sixteen years old. I also went into how not calling ASD what it truly is (which is a disability) and calling it a "different ability" instead is extremely harmful and is treating being disabled like it's a bad thing.

By the way, saying that a disabled person is disabled isn't a bad thing. I'm disabled. It is what it is. Does it have its challenges? You bet. Does it help me with certain things? Hell yeah. I can really absorb information about my favorite bands, characters, shows, books, etc., and tell you a lot about those things. For example, I can tell you that Su can't ride a bike or read manga and she's okay with that. I can also tell you she can't tie her shoes very well, which is why her boots don't have laces and are slip-on and/or zip-up. But that doesn't mean my struggles are nonexistent or that I never struggle. I do, and it makes my life Hell at times.

The narrative that autism is a bad thing to have, every autistic person is somehow broken and they all need to be "fixed" is also super fucked up and not true. That's the narrative that I received when I was diagnosed by a therapist I had. I'm gonna be real here, I cried when I was first told that I was diagnosed with ASD. I felt like I was broken. I already felt like a total outcast. Being told about my diagnosis made me feel even more broken than I already felt. I was so ashamed of myself, despite me not doing anything wrong whatsoever, that I masked for SEVEN YEARS of my life. I masked for so long that I forgot I was even diagnosed with ASD in the first place. I wasn't taught how to really put my special interests into good use. I kinda had to figure that out on my own. I was pretty much under the assumption that me being interested in anime, cartoons, music, comics, theatre, writing, etc., to the point of obsession, was somehow weird and hurting people around me. You know, despite those things being harmless. Despite me being able to separate those things from other things that are important (like work, for example). Despite my only surviving parent, other family members, and the woman he was dating at the time completely overreacting and not bothering to see exactly what makes these things so special to me.

(By the way, having a disability does not completely make who a person is. There are a lot more things that make who a person is than that.)

It's kinda shocking that I wasn't able to come to terms with my diagnosis until this year. Considering that I masked for so long due to being ashamed of myself, plus being treated like a burden for being disabled, it's probably not very surprising. I initially thought at the time that it was the worst thing to have, as I was already struggling with enough shit back then, but came to realize it's not a bad thing. It doesn't change who I am. But I'm glad I came to terms with it finally nonetheless.

This is getting way too long, so I'm gonna wrap things up here. If you've read this far, thank you so much. I'm sorry this got so long!

If you watched the video, what are your thoughts on it? If this is your first time hearing about Dhar Mann, how do you feel about him? If you're a Dhar Mann fan, did this change your opinion on him in any way? Feel free to sound off in the comments!

Have a great day, everyone!

[the-ghost-rat]

Tbh i mainly only like the g3 dolls-the medias are just an utter mess(ESPICALLY the movies)

Thats very fair lmao i made a post abt it but i never got the whole “toradeen only makes sense in g3!! Make it canon there!!” Some fans have cus like-girlie are you sure we r talking abt the same g3 toralei?? Its the one w the awful british accent who wanted clawdeen removed from monster high for being half human & also tried to ruin draculaura, clawdeens best friend, life by exposing her as a witch - your also right, clawdeen sundally trusting toralei cause she did one selfless act makes no sense, the episodes petroyal of toralei was so ooc n made no sense as a whole-they did a whole 180 and decided toralei was actually never racist(even tho she was) it was just her mom, then they had her n clawdeen act like besties n have toralei call her a friend even tho just an episode ago toralei tried to ruin her life like hello?? Since when were they friends?? - also again your right, while i do think g1 cleos redeemption was somewhat rushed too cleo was never an actual threat, she was never bigotted, she was just vain & bossy but you can see that she wasnt all that bad, unlike g3 toralei

Yeah critiquing autism stereotypes is p diffcult like you said-i myself was on the fence abt critiquing twylas voice cus of the actress voice being already high pitched, but after again seeing shea say she wanted twyla to be “adorable”(n mind you twas the ONLY character she described lime that, not even draculaura even tho shes supposed to be the cutesy one) n heard that “autistic women r more likely to have high pitched voices” (which is based on a wrong belief that theres female autism & male autism) that went away real fast lol it feels uncomfantable to look at g3 twyla now w that context in mind, especially when her fashion is very cery child leaning n her theme switched from bugs to mainly bunnies even tho it wasnt in g1 - i also headcanon frankie as autistic in honestly all gens, i remeber shea commented on the compleint abt ghoulia being able to talk now saying she acknowladges alot of autistic ppl looked up to her but she “wanted to chellenge zombie stereotypes” that pissed me off SO SO much my other autistic friends who like mh also hated that statment she made

While she ra’s represention of autism was horrible too(w how the allistic characters treated entrapta) i do think entrapta herself is still one of the beat autistic characters i seen-shes not just a shy quiet reserved person like every other autistic person shes rlly loud n blunt as well as struggles w personal boundries & takes things too litreal , she even has food sensories (only eating tiny food) i really wish we got more autistic characters like her (shes even an adult woc-which we barley barley ever see)

(Yeah its THE first thing thing i seen latine fans post abt-imagine patting yourself on the back for making a character latine only to be bashed by latines for not doing the most basic research LMAO)

See a zombie tailsman would make much much more sense then a fucking frankenstein tailsman-those actually existed for ages unlike frankie, hell frankie could still use it even if it was a zombie tailsman cus they are just a zombie(even tho the show pretends like their not even an undead monster) the show did confirm that frankie was built by monsters not humans which is even WORSE-esp when one of the parents is a zombie, why in the world would a zombie go around n take other corpse’s parts?? His violating other zombies automany n stealing their parts why isnt he shunned for that?? Same w the mom even tho shes a troll shes violating other monster’s autonomy-i seen ppl compare g3 lagoona to GIR from invader zim n thats honestly an insult to GIR he was actually funny & cute, lagoonas just annoying n a try hard

Dude i swear we r just straight out twinning in regards to our opnions LMAO ive been making some posts ranting abt how terrible hazbin hotel is n its so ironic to me how it and monster high g3 share so much in common even tho g3 is more praised-like w selena wolf & her husband, helluva boss did the same thing w beelzebub dating a hellhound yet no one cares even tho hellhounds are on the lowest tier , i do think hazbins worse then mh g3 but man its funny to me how both so much in common in regards to issues lol

Monster high G3 rant

Watching the TV series and I’m kind of disappointed.

This will be my second watch of season 1, I’m rewatching after the current season 2 episodes.

the show feels very flat in my opinion. They’ve given the characters a lot of cool traits, but they’re used for like one episode and then never brought up, or they only use one specific trait 24/7. Like Frankie in this generation, they have the ability to electrocute, extend their body parts, and they get visions from the people they’re made out of. Specifically they get visions from this one recurring doctor/ scientist. The idea is cool, but the vision literally is there to give exposition about something conveniently. Like when they are trying to solve the puzzle of clawdeens mom, Frankie’s vision just conveniently tells them what to do and how to do it.

In that same episode, we see manny taur. A Minotaur character. And right away we are just told that he’s good at puzzle solving, and so is draculaura! They’re rivals! But this is the first time I’ve ever seen or heard about draculaura being into puzzles, let alone her one sided rivalry with manny. And as the episode ends, she’s like “well you can be the rightful puzzle master” but it feels so flat. There has been no build up to this moment.

Another example is lagoona. In her designated episode, she is rooting for torelai to win the fear-leading captain over draculaura (another thing that has no build up as to why it’s important to her) lagoona explains that torelai is holding a secret over her head, and if it gets out she will lose her status as the fiercest monster in school. But this is the first time we have heard this!! In previous episodes there’s no mention of her being scary or fierce. Or even her super fast swimming skills. It’s just brought up and glosses over with a “be who you are, it’s okay to like what you want! We all have secrets 🥹” but there’s no real character development.

My last example will be the way draculaura is presented in this series. From what she tells us, she has high standards to live up to as a vampire. She needs to look good for her day so she studies endlessly and is striving for perfection. But she also has a love for witchcraft, which is banned in monster high due to its connections to humans. This can be a cute premise, but they NEVER show draculaura compared to any other vampire to show how she’s supposed to act. They never give us episodes where she blows off her friend’s shenanigans because it makes her look bad, and they never really show her dad being so overbearing. They don’t show us WHY humans are hated. And even though witchcraft is banned, whenever anyone finds out about it they’re just cool with it? No push back or anything. The only character to challenge draculaura was torelai.

This all may be very nitpicky, but MH is a character driven franchise. Character relationships with each other and their surroundings are very important to me. I want to feel the so called pressure these characters are being put under. It doesn’t have to be ultra serious 24/7, but issues get resolved within one episode and then rehashed a few episodes later with no further development. Especially with characters like Cleo and lagoona. They have been benched as side characters in this show, and side characters get much worse treatment.

‘The general episode progression is like this - introduce an issue, introduce a high stakes situation that involves the school, have all or one of the main 3 engage in a sequence of fights against this issue(or rapid solving of said issue through convince) - issue is resolved and lesson is told to viewers-characters reset for the next episode.

I know this is a children’s show, but that doesn’t mean it needs to have bad writing, not all kids are high off cocomelon. Kids deserve good writing in their media!

My next rant will be about clawdeen and her story this generation

[lassieposting]

Bit late and random but it's the anon you leave food out for here to give away I am also bi and I think exactly the same as you about bi val pretty much, every time Derek offers me representation my reaction is to slowly, hesitantly take it and say "thaaaaaaaaanks..." while rolling my eyes, in much the same way one accepts their least favourite flavour of sweet from an annoyingly enthusiastic uncle-type-individual. Ironically I feel I had more in common with her before the bi shit started up.

What I find really amusing is that Landy actually did reasonably well at representation when (and only when) he wasn’t trying. 

Oh god, this got long, anon, my ass rambled.

tldr; I'm glad actual bi people dislike bi val (or how Laundry handled bi val) as much as me, this will probably offend at least one person but i don't really care, Dirty Laundry wrote better rep when he didn't mean to write rep at all, and if he ever starts trying to "represent" groups I'm part of I'll take him out back like a dying horse and shoot him.

Like, yes. He had stupid and potentially offensive shit - I say potentially because what offends one member of a group won’t necessarily offend all of them. His attitude to mentally ill people is, frankly, disgusting. We’ve had “Skulduggery can’t be abused, he doesn’t have feelings”. We’ve had “eVeRyOnE iS bI eVeNtUaLlY”. We had Ping, who seemed to be pretty much universally offensive. And that's what's always going to happen when a straight, cis, white, wealthy, male author tries to write marginalised groups he doesn't know shit about, because inevitably he's going to fall back on stereotypes.

But we also had:

SEXUALITY REP: Phase One's nonstraight characters were treated like the straight ones, and like, isn't that the whole point? There was no need for a massive Coming Out Story TM to grab for those sweet sweet Woke Points, because sexuality isn't supposed to be important to mages. I never understood why Val needed that whole Coming Out Panic storyline. Like...Des and Melissa are ridiculously supportive, encouraging, loving parents. They accepted you dating a ~19 year old when you were ~16. They accepted you revealing you could do fucking magic and that you'd been lying to them for like seven years. They took your undead buddy in stride and the most pressing question your dad had was whether magic toilets exist. There is zero reason to think that "I'm bisexual" is gonna be the thing that makes them flip and throw you into the streets in disgrace, Valkyrie. Come on.

Tanith had girlfriends and it was just mentioned casually, because it's normal.

China had massive UST with Eliza. That was an opportunity right there to not only include a f/f relationship, but also to bring back one of the few precious surviving characters from Phase One, using characters and a relationship that already had several books' worth of setup and tension and interest from fans.

The Monster Hunters have a casual conversation about which one of the Dead Men they'd date.

Ghastly has a conversation with Fletcher about the pain he's been through being in love. He never uses any pronouns.

It was confirmed at one point re: the Dead Men that at this point, after 300-odd years, everyone's been with everyone else at some point.

Thrasher is gay, and while Scapegrace's...everything...is treated as a joke/comedic relief, Thrasher's love for him isn't. He's completely devoted to Scapegrace, and that in itself is not played for laughs, even though the rest of the scene usually is. Thrasher's description of their first meeting is essentially a love-at-first-sight situation for him.

"ABNORMAL" RELATIONSHIP REP: Age gap relationships are normal for mages. Off the top of my head, using only canon, canon-implied or almost-canon ships:

Ghastly/Tanith (~350 year age difference)

Tanith/Sanguine (~250+ year age difference)

Tanith/Saracen (~350 year age difference)

Caisson/Solace (~250 year age difference)

China/Gordon (~400 year age difference)

Kierre/Temper (~500+ year age difference)

If you include fan ships, there's also things like Mevolent/Serpine or my Mevolent/Vile, which are both ~600 year minimum age gaps based on the timeline, or Valdug (and its variations) which is ~400 years.

Now, whether you consider this kind of rep positive or negative is up to you, but it’s there.

MENTAL ILLNESS REP: more like "Which characters in this series don't have a mental illness or a personality disorder?" I have some of these issues, but not all of them, so this is just how I read it, but:

ADHD: Skulduggery

Dissociative Identity Disorder: Skulduggery & Vile

Dissociation: Skulduggery again, most notably in DD and DB

Schizophrenia (or similar): Valkyrie & Darquesse, Valkyrie "seeing" Darquesse's ghost thing in Phase Two

Impostor Syndrome: Reflectionie

Autism: Clarabelle

Trauma/PTSD/CPTSD: Skulduggery, Valkyrie, China, Ghastly, Erskine...pretty much everyone has a believable, understandable, morally grey trauma response in this series. People struggling with trauma are spoilt for choice of characters to see themselves in.

TRAUMA REP: This series is a trauma conga line, but everyone has a believable, understandable, morally grey trauma response in this series. I see little bits of myself in more than one Phase One character.

Childhood Abuse (of varying degrees & types): Skulduggery, Carol & Crystal, Omen, Fletcher, Ghastly, China, Bliss, Sanguine...

Estranged Family: Skulduggery abandoning his crest, Fergus & Gordon, China & Bliss

Bad Romantic Relationship: Skulduggery is also very clearly an abuse victim. He’s got a solid history of romantic attachments to women who manipulate, use and gaslight him for their own agendas.  There's a whole paragraph in SPX about how Abyssinia broke him down, isolated him from his friends and preyed on his desperate need to be loved, all classic abuse tactics.

And I’m personally a huge fan of this backstory for two reasons:

1) Society likes a plucky victim in media. The "My suffering made me stronger" type of victim. And it's not always like that in real life. Not all survivors come out of their abuse stronger or kinder or more understanding. Some of us come out cold and fucked up. Some of us end up as emotionally stunted, bloodied-nails-and-bared-teeth survivors, broken in ways that can't be fixed and sustained by enough rage to power a small sun. But society doesn't like to tell the story of that kind of survivor, because we're not usually a likeable protagonist. When we're shown in media, we're usually the sympathetic villain, or maybe the antihero. But Skug is someone who's done awful things and lost pretty much all his faith in humanity and been burned more times than he can count, and he still makes the conscious choice to try and be the good guy when he could so easily go Evil Supervillain on the world, and I don't know about any of y'all, but I've modelled myself on him in that. I've made the choice to do something good when all I really want to do is just become a horrible, shrivelled ball of nastiness and revenge. And that's because I saw him do it and realised that I could do that too.

Skug is an incredibly capable, strong, masculine Man's Man. He gets in fights all the time, and he usually wins. He's military, an industry that's Really Bad for stigmatizing weakness and mental illness, and he's right up at the top of the hierarchy. Almost everyone is afraid of him. He's a straight up cold-blooded killer. Skulduggery Pleasant is precisely the type of person who's not normally portrayed as a victim of anything. Nothing about him screams "victim" at all. But his abuse history is insidious. He's so conditioned to respond in a certain way to abuse from the women in his life, probably from a very young age, that despite all that strength and capability and stubbornness and ego, he just goes along with it. And it's an established pattern going back hundreds of years. He keeps going back to China, even though he knows she's bad for him and his friends keep telling him to stay away from her. Abyssinia latched onto him when he was traumatized and vulnerable and weaponized it against him to make him easier to control - and when she reappears, hundreds of years later, she jumps straight back into using, tmanipulating and gaslighting him and not only does he let her, he doesn't even seem to realise that behaviour is abusive. He thinks it's normal! That's how he's always been treated by his long-term girlfriends, with the notable exception of Wifey. Even when Val is being fucking nasty to him in the first couple books of Phase Two, sniping and lying and blaming him for everything under the sun, he just takes it. There's no attempt to tell her she's being unreasonable, no telling her to fuck right off and give her head a wobble, no defending himself even when she's bitching over something that isn't even his doing. And this is a man who has an absolutely gleaming steel spine the rest of the time; Skug has no problem saying no to anybody else, but he can't get past the way he's been taught to treat the important ladies in his life. Skug is a walking reminder that anyone can be a victim of abuse, even the ones who seem least likely to be susceptible.

GENDER REP: This one is the most iffy out of the bunch and definitely was not done very well in the eyes of the people who matter most, but I'll include it anyway because it mattered to some.

So there's Nye, who's...agender? Genderless? And uses "it" pronouns? Nye was generally considered horrible rep because it's also a war criminal and experiments on people and I've seen people say "Well I don't want to be seen like that" but? It's still possible to be a war criminal and also genderless. I never saw the two things as being related or relevant to each other.

There's also Mantis, who's in exactly the same gender/pronouns boat as Nye and always seems to be forgotten about, which sucks because Mantis is a war hero. It fought for the Sanctuary during the War and they never lost a battle when it was in command. It's called out of retirement to fight for the Supreme Council in LSODM, ends up fighting alongside Skulduggery during the Battle of Roarhaven, and ultimately dies attempting a very brave, very risky strategy. Mantis is, unreservedly, one of the good guys. It was also my introduction to sentient beings using "it" pronouns, and did it in a way that felt natural, so when I met my first person online who used "it" pronouns and hated to be referred to as he/she, it was...weird, but not as weird as it would otherwise have been, because I was like, "Oh yeah, like the Crenga. Okay."

And then there's the Scapegrace sex change plotline, which...I might have an unpopular opinion on this one. From what I’ve seen, trans people don’t seem to think was handled well or with any sensitivity at all. I’m not trans, so if the trans community says he was being offensive to them, I’m not going to claim otherwise. But...I first read the Scapegrace plotline as a young teenager in a tiny rural school with zero diversity, going through a period of being deeply confused about my own gender identity. He was more or less my first introduction to the idea that genitals =/= gender. I was relieved, at that point in my life, to read someone having a lot of the same thoughts I was having about being in the wrong body. So while it may have been badly done and yeah, the series would probably have been better without it, it did make at least one kid suspecting she might not be cis go “Huh! So there are other people who feel like this.”

Thrasher is also implied to be legitimately trans/gender-questioning, and that's not played for laughs either.

So? Phase One, while it absolutely had faults and issues and things that were just "Oh god why", was actually full of rep, at least compared to the other series that I read as a child/teen. But? As soon as Dirty Laundry started trying to be woke? He fucking sucks ass at it. Aside from confirming Phase One's hints that Skug has a background of abusive relationships, every single attempt at shoehorning rep into Phase Two is Bad.

The painfully OOC, forced, badly-written awkwardness of Val suddenly being rabidly horny for women out of fucking nowhere. The stilted, forced cringiness between her and any of the women she's flirted with - contrast that with Sorrowscorn's interactions, full of natural chemistry that had us all like 👀 I mean, I never shipped Val/Melancholia, but I could always see why people did - they had miles more chemistry than Val/anyone in Phase Two.

The fucking mess that is v*litsa, because if someone says "I'm really not interested in friendships/relationships right now", clearly the route to true love is to bulldoze their boundaries and forcibly insert yourself into their life and proceed to treat them like a delicate soft uwu flower, completely ignoring the horrible things they've done, while gleefully damning their best friend as an irredeemable monster for the exact same things, which is. You know. Gonna affect your so-called love's self-confidence and self-esteem because she knows she's no different to him. Y'all know I love an angsty ship, an unhealthy ship, a ship with fucked power dynamics, but I literally cannot roll my eyes any further back in my head at this shit. I never read Demon Road, but from what I've heard from friends who did, it does seem like every time Laundry tries to write an f/f ship, he comes up with a cringey abusive/manipulative caricature and tries to call it rep, and he needs to Stop.

Val's Mental IllnessTM arc. It's funny how he wrote Skulduggery as a wonderfully complex character with deep-rooted psychological damage and long-lasting trauma, but believes he wrote a character with "no feelings" - but when he tries to delve into the damage the world of magic has done to Val, he turned her into a weak, whiny drug addict who treats everyone around her like garbage and is so selfish and dislikeable that I? Honestly can't even reconcile Phase Two val with Phase One val. They're two completely different people. He's shown on Twitter that he doesn't have any respect for mentally ill people, and it shows. Other mentally ill people might see it differently, but the whole thing just makes me go "yikes".

Never, who has no personality outside of being genderfluid, and whose pronouns make no sense. I'm sorry, I have never met an nb person who insists that you change from male to female pronouns multiple times in a sentence, every time you refer to them. It's confusing as fuck. Now I have been told that Never has apparently received some character development in the last couple books, and if so, fair play, but I quit reading after Midnight, and Never and the rest of the personality-less new characters introduced in Phase Two who just seemed to be 2D Stereotypes to snag Woke Points were a big part of why, so. Development too late, I'm afraid.

(Now, if anyone is looking for a well-written genderfluid character, I recommend the Tawny Man trilogy by Robin Hobb. I have a lot of issues with her as a writer, and unfortunately I hate her POV character which puts me off the series as a whole, but she wrote the Fool/Amber/Lord Golden and their gender identity/approach to sexuality with so much more respect and realism. That is the kind of rep nb people should be getting: 3D, complex, realistic characters whose gender is only a tiny fragment of their personality, not the be-all-and-end-all of their existence. You know. Like cis people get. Nobody wants to be represented by a 2D cardboard cutout stereotype.)

Anyway idk how much sense this makes it just really amuses me that Laundry would include all this rep completely unintentionally and then go on Twitter and remind us all that actually he's a massive asshole via insensitive/offensive tweets about the groups he'd actually done a fair job of including (i.e. Skulduggery has no feelings, mentally ill people should find another series to read, the bullshit about Val being "heteromantic bisexual" on Twitter and then spouting all the "the woman she loved uwu" shit in the books (proving he has no idea what he's talking about), eVeRyOnE iS bI eVeNtUaLlY. He can only write half-decent rep when he's not trying and he inevitably outs himself as having a really shitty attitude towards those people anyway, proving that ultimately it's all either unintentional rep or performative wokeness.

[wellthatschaotic]

ok so can we talk about how like, a flip switches when you get diagnosed with autism/someone finds out you're autistic/you tell someone you're autistic

(tl;dr at the end)

my brother, being amab and with more "obvious" symptoms, was diagnosed at a very early age. (can't remember an exact number but like, 4-5?)

this led to my former guardian (not calling her m0m anymore) saying things like "you need to give him clear instructions*" and "he doesn't understand ___", basically babying him and infantilizing him because of stereotypes of autism and her own lack of knowledge/misunderstanding.

(*give clear instructions is typically good but the way she did it was specify parts that didn't need to be specified, it's hard to describe)

not only did this lead us to believe autism was a "negative" thing, it also made us think there was a Right Way to have autism- our brother loved (and still loves) lots of hugs and things, while we hate physical contact. he's very active, while we prefer to not be (though some of our closed-off-ness could stem from other past events)

since we weren't portraying the Right Signs Of Autism, there was no way we could have it (/sarc) and we were just a bad kid.

she'd let our brother have all sorts of sensory accommodations, including getting him a whole new wardrobe of a Good Texture (which we are very happy for him). then she'd turn around and say "ugh, it's just a shirt" if we complained about the tag.

this not only forced us to mask more both at public places and at home, and solidified the belief that we were just a "bad kid". that something was wrong with us. kind of like heavy internalized ableism from age 6(?).

finally at age 12(?) our middle school went "wait a minute" and gave us a test (we didn't know what it was at the time) and diagnosed us with both autism and ADHD. we didn't know how to react- we didn't think autism was a bad thing, like, we supported it- but it wasn't something we ever thought of having. ADHD is always played off as "can't sit still disorder" so we didn't know what to do about that either.

since then a lot has happened (/pos) we got away from the former guardian to a safe household (still trying to convince the whole system that safe does exist) and have learned a ton about mental health and our disorders, and are now proud of them!

the thing is, since we're used to masking so heavily and are just now starting to break that down, we don't "look autistic" and get weird reactions when we say we are. i've even gotten someone who overheard say "prove it!"

i've been talking with people, off-handedly mention i'm autistic, and they go like- baby-talk almost? nothing has changed about me?

TL;DR

(in our current society) it sucks on both ends. on one end, you're forced to mask and feel broken; on the other, people treat you based off stereotypes in the media.

(this applies with many other disorders but here is a personal story talking about our autism)

[writesistersociety]

Writing Disability and Neurodivergency

Writing Disability and Neurodivergency- Some simples Dos and Don’ts from a Person who is Both

Diverse representation in media is extremely important, and it’s more than just skin color or sexual/gender identity. Disability and neurodivergency are often grossly misrepresented in media, if they get represented at all. As an allistic, able-bodied, cishet woman, I’m constantly striving to put more diverse representation in my stories, but sometimes it gets scary! I’m a bad researcher, what if what I look up is wrong? When I’m so nervous about it, how do I know the line between accuracy and othering? 

I want to be able to represent these often marginalized and overlooked groups in a respectful way that doesn’t put my perception of them over what they feel and really are, so I talked to my friend @Franzidoeseverything on Instagram, and this is the rundown that thon gave me: 

“Word of advice, hold the opinions of someone living with the condition they’re talking about higher than someone who has a similar issue, but not the same thing. For example, I can’t talk about what it’s like to be in a wheelchair, but someone in a wheelchair who doesn’t have EDS cannot talk about what it’s like to have EDS. Same goes for neurodiversity, I can educate about autism but not ADHD.

NEURODIVERGENT CHARACTERS (Specifically Autism)

Don’t make them super weird or strange in unnecessary ways, but don’t try to make them as “normal” as possible. Stimming, being overwhelmed, shut downs, meltdowns, and things to accommodate sensory needs are normal for us, and they should be portrayed as such. Portraying them as weird, strange, or unnatural is gross. But simultaneously don’t make us as “neurotypical” as possible, don’t hide the less flattering sides of it, don’t hide the joy either.

Always avoid person first language. Say “autistic people” not “people with autism.” Make sure you’re using the right vocabulary.

Autistics aren’t robots, geniuses, or “special needs.” We’re disabled because our brains function differently in some ways.

All of our needs are different. Some autistics are nonverbal, some are hyper verbal, etc. We are not cookie cutters, we are just as unique, diverse, and individual as NTs. 

ALWAYS avoid stereotypes like Sheldon cooper and such.

Try your best to portray positive aspects of neurodiversity as actually positive. For example: “They were so overcome with joy about the news they couldn’t hold in from flapping their hands and jumping, a pure, unfiltered expression of happiness” is a better way to portray stimming than “Overcome with the news they couldn’t hold it in, as hard as they tried, and ended up flapping and jumping, which earned them some stares from everyone in the room.”

DISABILITY 

Everyone experiences pain differently. A wonderful, accurate, description of pain that comes to mind is the the beginning chapters of Misery by Stephen King. We usually have many different types of pain, caused by different things, and can sometimes distinguish between them.

We have good days and bad days, the good days are minimal pain (not none). The bad days are baddd. Learn about spoon theory, we use it to describe ourselves very frequently. 

DONT EVER CURE IT. DONT CURE PHYSICAL DISABILITIES OR NEUROLOGICAL. DONT DO IT. It’s horribly offensive and should always be avoided. Obvious exceptions for curable illnesses.

A disability will impact every single aspect of life, keep that in mind. For example, I have a lot of tooth issues due to EDS. 

Make sure your disabled character (physical or neurological) isn’t being infantilized by you. By other characters in order to make a point is fine, but as an author don’t forget disabled people smoke, drink, date, have a sex life, swear, get angry, get sad, feel joy, and every other aspect of life

Disabled characters should be in everything, even just as a background character, as long as they don’t exist for white saviorism or to make the main character look better. If you’re writing a piece with an emphasis on a disabled character, you have an ABSOLUTE DUTY to represent that community well or you cannot write that character. If you’re writing an autistic character, you bet your butt you’re personally gonna spotlight autistics, listen to them, and speak out against Autism $peaks.We aren’t inspiring for living day to day lives, stop the inspiration porn.”

Some general stereotypes to avoid:

Crazy/psycho ND character

Genius autistic

Sad good-for-nothing disabled character

Only there for inspiration disabled character

Only there to make another character look good disabled character

Only representing autistic children (it’s lifelong)

Saying “multiple personalities” instead of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID, OSDD, etc).

OCD being only cleanliness character

Disabled character being cured or “finding God” and magically being fine (something about finding comfort in religion is obviously okay)

Some Instagram Accounts to Look At:

Thechronicon

Livingwaterless

Livingwithlilac

Living.With.Misophonia

Autiscope

Autism_unmasked

Actuallyautistictiktoks

Chronicallycatastrophic

How.u.feeling

Jessicaoutofthecloset

Sweetsensorystuff

εїз Happy Writing, Creative Minds  εїз

[vincent-g-writer]

The Silver Screen Savant, pt 2- the Meh, the Bad and The yikes.

Hello Writers!

Last time here on Starry Starry Write, I talked a little about Autism in the media and my personal experiences therein. Today, I’d like to go a little broader, and tackle the topic from a macro perspective.

In recent times, you’ve probably heard “Representation Matters” oft repeated. Especially in prominent talking spaces like social media. But what does that mean, exactly?

Why “Representation Matters,” and how.

The short answer:

Diverse representation in media tells us that everyone has a place in the world. That everyone’s story matters.

The long answer:

It’s no secret that we begin engaging with media at a young age. When I was growing up in the 90’s and 00’s, TV and video games were often the babysitters of my peers. I was one of the few kids in my neighborhood whose parents weren’t divorced. The kids I knew? Not so much. Most of them were raised by single parents, grandparents and of course-the boob tube. I personally prefered books, when my mom wasn’t yelling “it’s too nice out to be holed up in that dark bedroom!”

Now, don’t mistake my preference for some kind of intellectual superiority. I watched plenty of TV too. Besides, books aren’t magically out of the equation. Printed material is our oldest form of media. And- often just as problematic. Though I will say- I saw a much broader range of people on covers adoring library shelves than I ever did titles on a TV roster. But, I digress. The point is: for many of us, consuming media begins at an early time of our life. And that’s where the problem starts. Even in my childhood, where The Magic School Bus, Hey Arnold, and Sesame Street showed people of all kinds, I can point to many that did not. Especially not people like me. Which did me a grave disservice. I didn’t know I was on the spectrum for a long time, and when I finally found out, I was horrified, thanks to what I had seen on TV.

Because media is not only a wonderful way to learn about people that don’t look, act or sound like us. It also informs our ideas of who we are, and what we can be. Whether we like it or not: it shapes how we understand the world. And it doesn’t stop with Childhood.

Time Changes Much, but not all.

Things are better now. Well, a little bit, anyway.

As an adult, I see more people like me on the screen nowadays. Which is nice.

Ish.

Why “ish?” Well…

Frequently, these “noticeably different” characters (read: Autistically coded) are branded “NOT AUTISTIC!” You heard it here first, folks! That one character (insert your favorite) is Totally Not Autistic. Despite being written in a way that gives every indication otherwise.

*Facepalm*

Now for some examples, which we’ll call the “Meh,” “The Bad” and the “Yikes.” For “fun,” we’ll also go into the off-air perceptions of the characters.

The “Meh.”

First on the list is Dr. Spencer Reid, from CBS’s “Criminal Minds.”

Dr. Reid is the youngest member of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, having joined at the age of 22. He holds three B.A degrees in Sociology, Psychology and Philosophy, as well as three Ph.D’s in Engineering, Chemistry, and Mathematics.

He also has the social skills of a limp dishrag. Wait, what’s that? High Intelligence + Low Social Awareness? Hmmm…Then there’s his restrictive behavioral patterns, obsessive interests, and general “quirkiness!” that we could talk about. But let’s hear a quote from the actor who plays him, Matthew Gray Gubler:

“..an eccentric genius, with hints of schizophrenia and minor autism, Asperger’s Syndrome. Reid is 24, 25 years old with three PH.D.s and one can’t usually achieve that without some form of autism.”

Hoooo-boy. I could go into all the things wrong with this, including why the term “Asperger’s” is both horrific (TW: Eugenics,Ableism, N*zis) and harmful. However, today we’ll simply leave it with the fact that this term is no longer applicable, having been reclassified in 2013 as part of Autism Spectrum disorder.

The “Bad.”

Next up, we have Will Graham, from NBC’s Hannibal.

Like our first example, Will works for the FBI. He’s a gifted criminal profiler with “special” abilities, namely hyper empathy, which allows him to reconstruct the actions and fantasies of the killers he hunts. He’s intellectually gifted, hates eye contact, socializing, and prefers to spend…most of his time…alone.

Oh dear. Haven’t we been here before? But, I mean, he doesn’t have Autism! The show runner says so!

For Will Graham, there’s a line in the pilot about him being on the spectrum of autism or Asperger’s, and he’s neither of those things. He actually has an empathy disorder where he feels way too much and that’s relatable in some way. There’s something about people who connect more to animals than they do to other people because it’s too intense for whatever reason.

You can’t see me right now, but I’m cringing. A lot. This is just…ugh. I mean, for starters, I know a handful of autistic people who struggle with hyper empathy, which can make social situations overwhelming and hard to navigate. In fact, I happen to be one of them. Plus, there’s a cool little thing about how, frequently, people on the spectrum more readily identify with animals. But, y’know. Who am I to say? I’m just someone, one of many, who’s dealt with this my whole life.

Now, onto the “Yikes.”

*sigh*

And finally, we have BBC’s Sherlock, a modern adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s renowned “consulting” detective, and probably the most famous fictional character of all time.

Now, I’ll start by saying that the BBC incarnation is not the first to be Spectrum labeled. In fact, Sherlock was my childhood hero, and the first “person” I saw referred to this way. My aunt, an avid reader herself, casually remarked to a friend “I’ve always wondered if Holmes is Autistic,” after I came yammering on about how fantastic the books were. Had I not been champing at the bit to get back to my reading, I might have asked her what that meant.

I also believe this fandom driven speculation is why many detective type characters (see above) are often coded as Autistic, intentionally or otherwise.

In this New York Times article, Lisa Sanders, M.D. describes Holmes traits:

He appears oblivious to the rhythms and courtesies of normal social intercourse — he doesn’t converse so much as lecture. His interests and knowledge are deep but narrow. He is strangely “coldblooded,” and perhaps as a consequence, he is also alone in the world.

Now, before we go any father, let me take a moment to defend his creator. During the time Sir Arthur Conan Doyle first created his most famous work, Autism was not known. That isn’t to say it didn’t exist. We’ve always existed. In fact, it’s now believed that the Changeling Myth, a common European folk story, was a way to explain Autism. In one telling (there are a few) children displaying “intelligence beyond their years” and “uncanny knowledge” were imposters, traded out by Fae creatures for offspring of their own. Children believed to be “Changlings,” regretfully, often came to a bad end. A chilling reminder that the stories we tell impact our real lives.

So while Autism was at least somewhat recognized, it did not become its own official diagnosis until 1943.

Meanwhile, Sherlock Holmes was first published in 1892. Now, as a writer who often draws from my personal reality, I imagine Doyle probably “wrote what he knew,” which is to say, acquainted with one or more Autistic people, he used them as inspiration.

On the other hand…

BBC’s Sherlock first aired in 2010. And while one might argue that the writers simply capitalized on the Autistic fan-theory, or took already available traits and exaggerated them for their version… they left a lot to be desired. Autism aside, this new Sherlock is…well…an asshole. Narcissistic, abusive and egocentric (to name a few) he sweeps his caustic behavior under the rug of “high functioning sociopath,” and blytly ignores the consequences.

Which is a major problem. Because while doing this, he’s still “obviously” (at least in the Hollywood sense) Autistic. In my previous post, where I said some characters are “too smart™, and logical© to ever have feelings, friends or empathy,” this is what I meant.

This is bad. We’re looping right back to Representation Matters. Bad representation, and the navigating of such, is just as important for writers to think about as good representation. Maybe even moreso. Because bad representation paints real people into cardboard, stereotyped people-shaped things. It otherizes. And it’s harmful. You would not believe the people I’ve met assume I’m not Autistic because I’m not an egotistical jerk. Why? Because they watched, you guessed it, BBC Sherlock.

Confession time:

Now here’s my little secret:

I love all of these characters. They are some of my favorite on tv. Why? Because for good or ill, I recognize myself in them. Finally, I can turn on the TV, and see myself. Or, somewhat, anyway.

My favorite character out of this list? Loath though I am to admit it… Is Sherlock. See, what those well meaning folks didn’t know (the ones who say I’m I’m “too nice,” to be Autistic) is… well, if we’re being honest, I wasn’t always nice. A few years ago, I was that guy. I was a jerk because I thought I was the smartest person in the room. Which is really not a good look. In fact, sitting down and watching the first season of sherlock, (around three or four years after it came out) made me realize how much of a jerk I actually was.

There are other things there too. Things that tie me to all these characters, that I didn’t list. But that’s for another today.

For now, I’d like to add a caveat or two:

1) I’ve watched all the shows listed above, and adore them. As I mentioned, Sherlock is my favorite. He’s also the one I’ve watched the most (Repeatedly, in fact. Whoops.) and I recognize it’s not all bad. In the end, he learned to treat people better (somewhat) and certainly became more human over time. And, there are other deeply problematic elements of the show I’d like to tackle, eventually.

*cough* Queerbating! *cough*

2) I’m well aware that the above cases are all thin, white, able bodied, “straight” males. But I chose these characters for a couple of reasons. One, they’re the most prominent type on TV. Again, we loop back around to representation, and why we need more positive, diverse examples of it.

And finally-

3) In my last post, I mentioned I’d give some “good” instances of Hollywood Autism trope. But I didn’t exactly do that. Partially, because half way through, I thought…perhaps…I’m not the best to judge what might be a good Autistic character. I mean, I’m sure someone will read this and think my current aforementioned characters are fine. Heck! They might even argue my perception here, and say the characters are just fine. I accept that. In my life, both on and off the page, I recognize that I cannot, should not (and don’t want to) speak for an entire community.

Because of this, I cannot tell you how to write a “good” Autistic character, or what media is “acceptable.” I can’t even really tell you what a bad character is. Sure, I have a lot of opinions about it. But- if you’re on the spectrum and like and identify with the above? That’s fine. I mean, even with all the problems I noted (and some I didn’t) I certainly do.

On the other hand, if you’re a writer, and you want to write a character from this (or any, for that matter) community you aren’t part of, I caution you.

Do your research. Preferably from multiple credible sources.

Talk to people on the spectrum about what it’s really like. (Though try to steer clear of asking for emotional labor.You could, say, hop on reddit and ask the community there, for instance, which is a no pressure way to obtain potentially decent info.)

Finally, whatever you do, remember this-

Autistic people can look like anyone. We can act, and think and be different, like anyone. We are real, living, breathing people. Not robots, not sob stories, not tropes. People. So if you write about us, write us like people. And your work will be all the better for it.

-Your Loving Vincent

[wiltedeyesandtwistedlies]

What are the inattentive symptoms of ADHD?

Before I answer, it’s important to acknowledge that not everyone experiences ADHD the same way. I came up with this list through hours of extensive research, but I still explained each one based on how I experience them personally, because I wanted it to be an honest and accurate resource.

Now, I experience every inattentive symptom of ADHD severely. As well as most hyperactive type symptoms, but not nearly as severely. Hence why my explanations are on the severe side. So if you don’t experience every one of these, or you don’t experience them exactly like this, that doesn’t mean you don’t have ADHD.

Most Commonly Known Symptoms:

Inattentive ADHD is pretty much the same thing as hyperactive ADHD but with less hyperactive tendencies. So technically these symptoms apply to both, but ADHD has a few more that won’t be listed here.

• Inability to focus on disinteresting or unengaging tasks even if you need or even want to – As if your brain physically won’t let you. Because that’s exactly what’s happening. There is no, “Just do it because you have to.”

For real. Imagine a video came where you’ve reached the end of the map and there’s that invisible barrier to keep you from going any farther. But all the other players are passing it just fine. They look at you like you’re crazy and can’t believe that you can’t get through. But it’s literally IMPOSSIBLE.

Now apply that to easy individual movements or tasks like plugging in your charger right next to you or washing a few bowls.

• Focusing WAY too much on this single thing whether you like it or not. It’s called “hyperfixating” and it’s both the most exhilarating experience in the world and the most soul crushing. You can watch/do nothing else, consume nothing else, think of nothing else. It’s exciting and invigorating. But as soon as there is no more material/info about it to devour, existence is gray and meaningless. The adrenaline rush and laser focus are like nothing else, but the crash is just as intense.

• Inability to divert attention to something different when you're already focused on something else. (More of a product of the two above, really)

• Inability to organize or maintain a neat system. It’s not that we don’t have a system (because we do, and if it’s altered in the most miniscule way we will know and we will be furious) but that our systems tend to be more about ease of access. It looks messy, but everything is just easily reachable instead of tucked away in drawers or hidden in organizer bins.

“Out of sight, out of mind.” As soon as we can’t see it, or we get used to it and it becomes a background visual (like background noise but for your eyes), it no longer exists. Until we see it again we have never seen it before either.

• Emotions are forceful and kinda scary. Lacking the ability to regulate emotions means violently strong feelings. They can sweep you away and leave you stranded in an uncomfortable predicament. Major highs and lows as well as strong grudges and emotionally based actions.

• Distractability: There’s this stereotype that all people with ADHD are hyper airheads who cut off mid sentence to shout random shit like “SQUIRREL!” whenever they see something remotely interesting. They’re super excited about it and HAVE to let everyone know, no matter what they were doing before. It’s kind of the “cutesie” version that the media portrays a lot. Most ADHDers don’t actually fit this stereotype.

However, stereotypes are often based on true characteristics, even if they have been twisted into a sick joke or a cruel portrayal.

NOTE: There is nothing wrong with this form of ADHD. It just sucks that if you don’t match this stereotype, no one really believes you have ADHD. Also that so many people use it to insult and bully people with ADHD, even if that isn’t how they display their symptoms.

Lesser Known Symptoms:

Basically if these are #relateable, you probably have ADHD.

• Unable to conceptualize time in any way. Will this take two minutes? Three hours? No one knows! You thought this would take a half hour at most and it’s taken three! How?? This was a five-minute task and you’ve just realized you zoned out. It felt like two seconds but it was two hours!

• There is only Now and Not Now. Again, it’s a time thing. The future always seems so far away that it's almost like it doesn't exist. "Time is a construct" is something I often say because I have no sense of time passing, having past, or will pass. People describe me as "living in the present.” But that’s only because I forget that there is a future or that time is moving. I just don't think about it at all and when I try to it's impossible to understand and it feels made up.

• Sensitive to any form of rejection, actual or perceived. A friend texts you back, but they don’t sound nearly as enthusiastic as usual. You immediately tear your message apart to try to find what upset them and how you can make it up to them. Because surely that’s what that nontypical period means? You want to curl up in a hole and never come out, never face the horrible thing you’ve done to a treasured friend. Intense fear and sorrow mingle into all consuming guilt. The kind that makes you wish you’d never met them, just so they wouldn’t have to be hurt by you now. All because they added a period.

Everyone with some form of an anxiety disorder will recognize this. But it’s also a very common ADHD experience. This is in part because anxiety is SUPER likely to be comorbid with ADHD. But we also have Rejection Sensative Dysphoria. Which basically means we’re ridiculously sensitive to the slightest possibility of the barest chance that we maybe might receive a sliver of perceived ambiguous rejection. To the point where we cut off good relationships for seemingly no reason because we’re too afraid to even speak to them again, much less explain our emotions that we know are irrational but can’t help. The guilt and regret are too agonizing, the fear to face them too much.

• Reading is AWFUL. We’ve already established that attention is not your friend. Unfortunately, that makes it difficult to read blocks of boring text. The information could be good, it could be fun even. But if the format is too uniform and plain, it’s impossible to get past the first few sentences. You just keep rereading the same line over and over, realizing every time that you zoned out halfway across. It’s infuriating and very sad. It also makes studying an absolute nightmare.

Many people actually don’t have this experience. They hyperfocus on their reading or their schoolwork so it isn’t a problem. I was the same way until college and now I can’t even read a little recipe card without zoning out. But it’s a very common experience nevertheless so I listed it anyway.

• Ringing ears, hearing electricity. This is one I just heard about. I haven’t been able to actually research this one, but it’s interesting and every ADHDer I know has confirmed it so I’m adding it. ‘Cause I’ve had constant ringing since I was old enough to talk. And I’ve always been able to hear power lines, household appliances, wires inside the walls, all those varying vibrating hums and crackling pops. It’s one of the weird quirks that “run in the family.” Just like Tinnitus and all ADHD symptoms. Apparently, MANY people with ADHD have similar experiences.

• Negative stimming. Things that negatively stimulate your senses. After encountering a certain stim, you feel it physically. It causes a sensation that hurts, in a way. It shouldn’t, logically. But your body’s reaction is to pain. This includes foods you can’t eat because the texture is wrong. Clothing you can’t wear because you can easily breath but no you really can’t because the collar sits wrong against your throat. Sounds that make your spine stiffen or skin crawl. Bright lights or colors that don’t affect anyone else but make your head ache.

Stims and sensitivity can affect any and all senses. A certain smell, agitating fabrics, an unbelievably smooth stone, specific tastes and food textures, certain color combinations, particular sounds/pitches/volumes, et cetera.

• Positive stimming. The other side of the sensory coin. Things that are exceptionally pleasant to your senses/stimulate you positively. For example, the way light shines through a transparent bright blue gem. Watching the light catch and twist so fluidly when you move it takes your breath away. There’s a euphoric feeling to it, and you can’t look away. It’s too pleasing. It’s like a deep satisfaction you can physically feel throughout your whole body, emanating from deep within your chest. You never want to stop that feeling.

Personally, it feels like my chest is somehow much deeper than it actually is. And at the farthest, deepest part is where that satisfaction settles. Nothing else can ever reach that hidden, impossibly deep cavity. It’s so amazing, I never want it to stop. It can feel like that endless pit is starved, and the stim is the first sustenance it’s ever had so it never what’s to let it go.

• Forgetting supposedly unforgettable things. Like where the fuck I parked my car. Also what my car looks like. It’s blue right? It has a hatch. I accidently memorized the license plate (complicated story) but I can’t tell you what model it is?? Is it even in this parking lot? I’ve never parked anywhere else but my memory is obviously garbage so now I need to check every parking lot just in case.

End Note:

It’s important to know that ADHD has many symptoms that overlap with other nuerodivergencies such as autism or ASD. Executive dysfunction can be caused by a number of mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety. Emotional regulation problems can look just like Bipolar disorder and vice versus.

My point is, every symptom could actually be something else. It’s really easy to be misdiagnosed because they all have such similar symptoms. I know someone who thought they had ADHD for years, but it was actually a mix of severe depression and anxiety that fucked with their working memory (as both depression and anxiety do). Someone else I know was diagnosed with manic depression and thought they might be bipolar, but it was undiagnosed ADD the whole time.

[loavesofoaves]

Mental Illness Is Not Sexy and that’s OK

Note: I wrote this in 2018, re-discovered it, and think it’s relevant now more than ever

Every year, we seem to become more transparent and accepting of mental illness in America. Therapy is encouraged, TV shows deal with characters coping with mental health issues, and many people feel comfortable talking to their friends and family about whatever issues they may have. It seems to be a normal part of the American experience in 2018 (and how!).

But.

Somewhere along the way, having mental health issues became a little too pervasive. “Relatable” social anxiety memes fill up twitter, #selflove on Instagram presents mental illness as this sort of fantasy quirk that can be cured by #positivity. You could almost say it’s sexy to be mentally ill—but only if you’re performing mental health issues in an acceptable way.

Posts about staying in bed all day, bingewatching Netflix and eating Mac and Cheese? Hilarious and relatable, especially if tweeted out by a celebrity. Selfie stories that go on and on about your hundred days of self-love? Hundreds of likes. What you don’t see are people feeling any compassion for public meltdowns, posting about how lonely they are, or Instagram pictures of the physical consequences of depression and anxiety: weight gain, eating disorders, diarrhea, vomiting, sleeping too much, sleeping too little, headaches. Coping with mental health issues is everywhere and nowhere at once, because it’s hard to glamorize the less socially acceptable aspects of it.

People who are truly mentally ill know they are caught in a sort of catch-22. They need help and support, but the only way they can get that help and support is by playing Pagliacci. They have to tailor and cherry pick the socially acceptable aspects of being mentally ill to disclose and laugh it all off in the true spirit of dark comedy. Yeah, that post about eating an entire pizza and wanting to leave the planet? It’s not a lie, but it’s really motivated by a desperate need for approval and overwhelming loneliness. Maybe the poster hasn’t talked to an actual person in two weeks. And the number of likes is never enough without real human interaction. Never. And that’s even if you have enough social capital to get likes.

It’s even harder when you’re trying to juggle several issues at once. For example, I am autistic. I was born autistic, I am still autistic, and I will always be autistic. There is no “cure” (and frankly, there shouldn’t be, but that’s a whole other discussion), so there will never come a day when I post selfies on Instagram saying “Guess what everyone? I will never have social issues again!” Sure, I have people who love and accept me for who I am, but there is always a part of me that will doubt their acceptance. Like in the brilliant movie Get Out with white people performing liberalism to lure Black people into a false sense of security, neurotypical people are performing acceptance because it’s trendy; it’s in to talk about autism and inspiration porn and sob stories and whatever other things neurotypical people like to talk about. Autism is more talked about than ever, and I still see these same people who just love to talk about autism speaking in hushed voices about vaccines, how hard it is for the parents, and “isn’t it nice that they let Timmy have a job,” as if that’s the best Timmy could ever hope for or achieve.

So imagine having to navigate being autistic, but like, in an acceptable way that doesn’t reinforce negative stereotypes. No more public meltdowns, no more stimming (for me, it’s flapping my arms), toning down my obsessions about my special interests and being super agreeable all the time and doing whatever people want me to do even when it’s detrimental to my health. And how, after doing all that, I still don’t have the social life or sense of community I masked my autism so hard to get. The depression and anxiety come creeping in, which I just have to laugh off, because if people knew of the paranoia and insecurity and desperate need to be loved and gastrointestinal issues and bitterness and overeating and outbursts, God, would that be annoying and unsexy (a lesson I learned from having a LiveJournal where I documented all my woes in high school. Curses!). So I have to sum that all up: God I wish everyone would just let me eat my burrito and get out of my swamp. HILARIOUS. A+ Shrek reference! Meanwhile, this does nothing to help me cope, other than a transient validation that I am funny.

Just because more people are talking about mental illness and health does not mean that we’ve become better at dealing with it. Sure, we’re still miles ahead of the days where it was dealt with by institutionalization or pretending it didn’t exist. It’s great that neurodivergence is getting more positive representation in the media and that therapy is more and more easily available. But it’s easy to think we’re living in a golden age of mental health awareness if you’re not actually mentally ill. I question whether neurotypical people cashing in on “relatable” social anxiety memes and “self-love” is really helping people who actually need help; to me, it feels like an appropriation of sorts because depression and anxiety is sexy now. A teensy tiny bit of mental illness is expected, normal even in 2018 America. But neurotypical people have the privilege of being able to perform that without facing the negative consequences of being truly mentally ill. The rest of us weirdoes? We’ve got to compete with your performative “look at me in my sweats eating McDonalds” bullshit.

[itsclydebitches]

So I read on Reddit that Oz has some form of autism. How do you feel about that. I find it really cool but if RT uses autistic traits to make him untrustworthy, I be severely disappointed as that’s a common thing that NT people use against us.

It’s very cool! I feel that way about all kinds of minority headcanons: they continue to exist as headcanons? Excellent. Awesome. Chances are someone within that group is the one implementing that interpretation and (presumably) know how to treat the character respectfully. On the other hand we obviously want “real” (canonical) representation as well... but then as you say, anon, you get into questions of how the author is using these traits. Which traits are they highlighting, when are they highlighting them, and are they otherwise allowing for any positive representation along the way? Creating a well-rounded character as opposed to a stereotype. 

I’m NT, so I don’t really have a say on---if we interpret Ozpin as embodying autistic traits---whether that’s a “good” representation or not. But I’d imagine that such a question would always create a divide, simply  because people respond to characters in different ways. Look at Ilia. Some people were thrilled with her as the first out, queer character in RWBY. I very much was not. Which just comes back to why we need LOTS of representation for EVERYONE. So that when you do encounter something that feels potentially offensive it doesn’t likewise feel like that’s the only representation you’ve ever seen. Or at least one of the very few. An untrustworthy + autistic Ozpin existing in a world where autism is much more prevalent/accepted in media is a different situation than the one we have right now.