sometimes people who struggle like to make jokes or find positives about their condition that causes them to struggle so they can escape the constant negative and struggle. sometimes autistic people will say things like "the 'tism" or use the "autism creature" or say their autism helped them have a *positive trait* to feel better about their struggles. because living your life only focusing on the struggles and negatives is depressing and makes it hard to want to live, even if those struggle take up 100% of your life and you can't actually escape them. sometimes any little seemingly positive thing can help a lot.
but there's so many other autistic people that hate when we do that and call it "reducing autism to a cute trendy thing" and say it takes away from *their* struggles and is bad and shouldn't be used. maybe *you* want to only focus on your struggles, but some people can't live in constant negative and need some positive or to find ways to make their condition more positive so they can feel better about living with their struggles. life is hard. I take anything I can get.
I cant get jobs. I can't make and keep friends. I can't get help and support for doing "normal" things so sometimes I go weeks without being able to shower and without eating more than a bowl of cereal a day. most times can't even do things I like. struggle to communicate. have meltdowns. i'll never be able to live independently. I struggle a lot. but instead of sitting here always depressed and having no motivation to live, i'd rather try to joke about "my 'tism is acting up again" when i'm struggling (just an example. don't think I ever actually used the 'tism thing but i saw others use it) or say "i'm just being a creature" when I need to stay in my dark room because everything is too much and I personally find it cute to be a little creature meant in a positive way. i'm not actually downplaying mine or anyone else's struggles. I still acknowledge them and that silly jokes dont make them go away. i'm not trying to be trendy. i'm not doing any of the things people say we do by making silly little jokes. i'm using the silly little jokes to convince myself life can be a little more than pointless, painful garbage all the time.
(continue in tags)
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Okay so I've never really joined the whole "small talk" argument that's been happening increasingly over the last years because I tend to just not agree with anyone I see discuss it. Like no I dont think people who use it are evil or making things hard on purpose, I also dont think it makes them lesser, ... I Also dont think that someone who refuses to use it / cant use it is automatically worse and will not make friends.
Importantly i also dont think everyone can learn it. I should know because I spent multiple years with professionals trying to teach me how to have a conversation At All and I still am actually nowhere near what would be expected at my age group. (Most recent reports usually go something like "makes slight improvements in having a two sided conversation" - because I can say nothing, or I can ramble on and then not react to your answer. The rest? Struggle time, to this day, in every aspect) No matter how many intricate guides you write, if I fail at the basic concept of a conversational structure very frequently then I will not succeed at small talk either. And additionally I also genuinely can not tell what might be too personal for this other person.
A lot of these people who get upset when people say "I cant do small talk because I'm autistic and I cant learn it, I tried and failed" and go "of course you can!", just sort of like. Ignore that a lot of the developmental delay in conversation and / or (nonverbal) language never closes up for many of us, the way a lot of us generally never reach the developmental level of our peers (in some areas). and it's not because we have not seen enough complex flow charts or not practiced enough. when so many of us literally spend so much additional time of our youth sitting in front of whiteboards and workbooks and such, being explained over and over how to talk to someone at all. I am 22 and after years of explicit teaching I still have to ask for verbal confirmation and explanation of any nonverbal cues that I think were used by my conversational partner, but do not know what they mean. Which is pretty much all of them. And I probably miss a lot of them existing at all. You can scream "just practice until you can recognize the other persons little cues on if they want to deepen or end this" until you turn blue but it will not actually make me accomplish it if the fucking people who've been spending their whole life teaching it didnt make me figure it out. On account of, you know, the developmental delay.
Sure some people can learn! That's why they try to teach us after all! Cause it has been successful! But generally stop with this shit of "everyone can learn this you're just choosing not to!"
I will never be rude to someone for engaging in small talk, I will obviously fail at their attempts to engage me in some, which usually makes them stop trying (thank god). But I will not tolerate others talking shit about it that is uncalled for (implying malice from every user, making fun of people who seem to crave it, ...).
But I also do not care to learn it anymore at this point? It's no goal of mine. I have made multiple friends, most non autistic, without ever using small talk. Including in adulthood. We simply skipped that stage. We went from "hi!" "Hi!" Immediately to "heres when it went wrong in my life (humorous but still often dark / personal). Also these are my political opinions. Sure I want to hear about the girl you dated for years in excruciating detail. Let me retell you the plot of this old indie movie you will never watch for 20 minutes and why I enjoy it. Let's go to a concert together after talking slightly in depth like this twice". Is this the way that you creep everyone out in everyone's friendship acquisition theory I've been seeing? Sure! It's been working perfectly fine, enough of the times for me, though.
Will this work in like a work environment or something? Most likely not, which is why I generally plan to keep to myself. Does this mean I still confuse every stranger who approaches me trying to small talk? Sure. that's why I'm still fucking disabled. But I have created meaningful relationships as an adult without small talk. I have genuinely tried learning in many ways and failed. And I'm done apologizing for that, either you take me with my inability to small talk or you wont.
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(Milgram self-insert oc masterpost hehe)
Name: For the sake of posting online I’ll call her Rose!
Color: #E7355B [the pink in the art]
Age: I guess she’d be 20 given when Milgram started huh.
Status: Milgram Staff, Machine Technician
Symbols/imagery: ballet/musical theater, science experiments
Song genre: very similar to Mahiru's, something upbeat and extra pop-y
Tentatively she's number 011? She's not really prisoner but she's also not free to come and go, so I'm not actually sure if she'd get a number (Edit: I've decided she'll actually be 012. Staff is given the 01X range, and even though Es doesn't actively have a number they'd be staff member 011, making her 012.)
Story: Since the project is supposed to be realistic/present day, the mv machine would be brand new and unpredictable tech, so they’d want someone keeping up on maintenance and making sure the brain-invasive process won’t cause any harm to the prisoners. Rose was studying abroad in Japan working on some cool neuroscience tech (irl I know nothing about technology or brains but shh) and she stumbled upon some secret tech/plans from Milgram. Long story short, she was dragged into the experiment to make sure things ran smoothly.
Writer's Reasoning: She’s really fun for me to play around with, as she allows me to work with a character who has a tiny bit of pull over Es’ mindset in conversation but not the final decision (aka mirroring the voting system), and someone who is simultaneously trapped in the prison but has a reason to see all the canon content.* I really enjoy the character interactions and dynamics Milgram has set up so far, so it’s been super fun seeing how things change for better and worse when someone not quite aligned with either Milgram/the prisoners is thrown into the mix!
*As much as I love dramatic irony in fiction, it would drive me crazy if I knew every detail of of the vds/mvs but Rose didn't – and every single Milgram character is The Worst Communicator Ever so I couldn’t justify that she’d hear it secondhand from them...
Story roles:
She’s a bit conflicted -- she’s officially Milgram staff and knows she should remain neutral on the prisoners, since she won’t be allowed to interfere with the process/executions. At the same time, her job description is literally “make sure the machine doesn't hurt them and everyone's safe :)” and she's way too emotional to avoid getting hopelessly attached to everyone 😅
I really enjoy the theory that the machine extracts videos based off of priming, so one of Rose’s duties involves listening in on the interrogation and making sure there’s been enough material discussed/not too much time has passed overall (hence the ringing of the bell happening at different lengths for each vd -- That's her ringing it :3). She then watches the mvs along with Es to make sure there are no machine glitches, and know how to calibrate it better for next time.
(IEdit: I've since decided to add in official trial mvs, but before when I wasn't ready to tackle that:) She has to run some tests on the machine to make sure things are calibrated correctly, so she'd extract little things here and there. It gives me the opportunity to think up lyric snippets and recurring symbols for her without worrying about full encompassing music videos.
I'm not afraid to admit she can fall into Mary Sue territory every so often by being everyone's friend, because it's less about "aw everyone likes her" and more about "canon is too painful rn and I need a fix-it tool to take care of these guys and give them hugs and tell them someone forgives them and cares about them and unfortunately these characters wouldn't let anyone less than a friend do that." Rest assured she's definitely not perfect and will fuck everything up on occasion :3
Miscellaneous: Whenever I play around with normal au ideas she's still working on the machine (but in a public, more ethical setting), and she's Mahiru's roommate :) Her character isn't super focused on love, but if I had to pick a cover song it'd be Stickybug II. It's very much my vibe, the lyrics fit well enough (better than most songs, at least lol) and it's one of my favorites out of my limited knowledge of unchosen Deco songs! (Edit, I've actually given her non-deco cover songs hehe)
So yeah, I hope she's not too boring without a cool crime to decipher, but I wanted to share since I was really proud of her! It took a bit of tinkering to find a way to fit her into a perfect secret-third-thing role that runs very smoothly with all of canon, so I was very excited!
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