#DISCLAIMER! when i say autistic i do not mean this is an exclusively autistic experience or that every autistic person will experience this

[dallonwrites]

my autistic ass when i would try to explain to my non-autistic writer friends how my ocs don’t just feel like characters/plot devices/narrative tools, they feel like fully fledged people that just live inside my brain who i just have access to for some reason and the stories i write are merely a snapshot into their fully fledged personhood/lives. and that that these feelings don’t mean i’m unaware of my role/agency/responsibility as the writer who has the final say in these characters and how they are written it just means that my writing process feels very intuitive and i can only describe it as “listening” and “getting to know” these people that just live inside my brain in a way that i don’t feel like i can completely elaborate on. and because of this i would actually consider these characters “real” in their own way because the impact and influence they have had on me as a person beyond just my writing is so real and not having them would feel like i’m missing a part of myself 

[izzyhandsrightglove]

The Izzy Hands Is Autistic PowerPoint Essay

(this is the essay i submitted to the above all else zine (@izzyhandszines ), the exclusivity period of which just ended. enjoy!!)

Hello!!

I would like to start off by saying I’m absolutely fucking terrified to write this essay for a variety of reasons. But I want to express my love of Izzy Hands and how important he is to me, and the best way I’ve found to do so is to express the weird ways I relate to him as an autistic person. I’ve joked in a couple friend circles that I was going to make a PowerPoint presentation about why Izzy’s autistic (hence the title) but I decided to write an essay instead.

Disclaimer: I’m not diagnosing anyone, nor do I want this essay to be used as a diagnostic paper. This is by no means an academic paper, it cites exactly one (1) study, it’s based on my own experiences, light research, and the experiences of my fellow autistic friends. I’m just a dumbass who likes imprinting themselves onto the characters they hyperfixate on.

Reason one why I think Izzy is autistic: because I’m autistic and I said so. *cue end credits*

I’m kidding.

The real first reason comes from Izzy’s interactions with Stede FUKIN’ Bonnet. For one, Stede hates Izzy almost the second he meets him. Now, you could argue that it was because Izzy “stole” his hostages but we’ll set that aside for a sec. It’s been proven that people inherently don’t like autistic people if they don’t realize they’re autistic (Neurotypical Peers are Less Willing to Interact with Those with Autism Based on Thin Slice Judgements by Noah J. Sasson (2017)). Traits that are often put towards “untrustworthy” or “creepy” people tend to describe autistics too. It’s entirely possible Stede caught a vibe and hated Izzy because of it. Stede is kind of an asshole after all (and we still love him for it). Another reason is Stede’s entire existence throws a wrench in Izzy’s routines as a First Mate. He whisks Edward away to do pirate-y things while Izzy is left to deal with a crew who frankly want nothing to do with him because he’s introducing structure on a ship that didn’t have any to begin with. Sure Izzy came off as an asshole (emotional regulation is a bitch) but he’s just a lil guy trying to follow his routines so nobody dies. He has the worst case of sense of justice. He’ll complain that an ambush is “unprofessional”, he’ll play fair in a duel even if it’s to his detriment, he’ll chase Edward around asking for a plan because Bad Things happen without a plan, the list goes on.

I’d like to dedicate this section to his stimming/eye contact/other little habits that make me think he’s autistic. Izzy has a tendency to touch his face when he’s stressed. Not just that, he’ll wrap an arm around himself and rest his hand on his chin so he can fidget with his beard, as if to self soothe. When he’s talking to people, unless he’s threatening them or yelling at them, he doesn’t look them in the eye. Often he’s not even facing them. When he is facing them, he often looks down at their lips, as if he’s struggling with eye contact. He walks around with his hand resting on his sword either because he’s short and the sword will touch the ground if he doesn’t or because it’s more comfortable for him to have his arm up near his chest. This is often referred to as T-rex arms and a lot of us find it more comfortable than letting our arms rest at our sides. He’s a little pyromaniac, he seems to use candle fire to soothe himself. He’s done it at least twice, once while he was lying to Edward about Stede’s response to meeting Blackbeard and once while talking to Spanish Jackie about Stede in her bar. He sleeps in his underwear like a WHORE (affectionate) which could be argued is temperature regulation because a lot of autistics (myself included) H A T E being overheated. Then there’s the ooh daddy scene. From my little list I made prior to this essay, “ooh daddy scene (thank u conbert), yes i have an explainiation for this. a weird ass intimidation tactic? sure. however what if he can’t read social queues and doesn’t fully realize how fucking weird it was to do that”.

Then there’s his glove. I could dedicate an entire essay on speculation on that fucking glove. Is it hiding something? Is it just to look cool? Is it a sensory thing where he doesn’t like the texture of his sword so he wears the glove to make sword fighting easier? We may never know. Or we might in s2 who knows. Speaking of sword fighting it could be argued by me that because Izzy is supposed to be the best swordsman in the world, sword fighting could be his special interest. He probably spent hours perfecting every move until he got to the level of carving his name into a man’s shirt without leaving a single scratch on him.

We’ve seen Izzy have at least one meltdown re: the duel. He’s losing the duel, the crew are jeering at him, Stede isn’t helping, he finally screams at him before his sword breaks. We’ve also seen him have a shutdown where after Edward goes below deck after realizing his plan against the Spanish isn’t going to work because it’s a leap year, Izzy is in the foreground of Frenchie and Lucius staring off into space. It’s possible that after everything he went through that day and the realization that he’s going to die made him completely shut down.

I have no proof of this since we never really see izzy by himself but I don’t believe in the entire time Izzy has been subjected to the constant torture of being alive and autistic in the late 1600 early 1700s he has unmasked even once. When living in such close quarters with other people and being First Mate to the physical embodiment of ADHD he probably doesn’t get a lot of time to himself. Therefore he has to cope with his existence in other ways, as mentioned above. And the crew of The Revenge have ruined almost every way he uses to cope and manage his autism. We’ll have to wait and see what other horrors unfold for this poor little autistic man, but for now all we can do is pick him apart and see what’s under the hood.

[whatgoesthroughmyhead]

Sooooo I just bought myself a fancy-ass (and in my opinion quite feminine) watch, and this is not a normal thing at all for me (it is my first time buying a watch that's over 40 bucks & not purely about function) and I'm excited!! Like, it's functional jewelry I can wear all the time and it's actually gonna provide me with legit useful information! Wow!! (It even has a lil crescent moon hand that points at the day of the month for Pete's sake. UGH!)

I... also have some mixed feelings (lol) because the world of watches can be so goddamned ridiculous (see: exorbitant prices) and it seems like it's some Deep Capitalism shit a lot of the time.. and I suppose I'm buying into that? But it ain't like this is a six-figure ~TiMePiEcE~ or anything extreme like that... I suppose "extreme" is relative, but this is a battery-powered quartz watch that barely has any precious materials in its construction: just stainless steel, and eleven(? nine?) little bitty probably-lab-grown diamonds on the face. It's fairly chill.

But it's so prettyyy! And it's a quality unit so it will likely be with me for decades. The MSRP for this one is $625 CAD (omg) (I say omg, but the company can decide on whatever freakin' price they want, can't they? It's not like that reflects how much the thing is actually worth, which is about to become evident). With discounts I was able to get it for $422 plus tax {$472.49 all in), which is a lot of money for a watch, considering that a sub-50 dollar watch tells the time and date just fine.

But now we get to what this is really about. It's about feeling special. It's about owning things that spark joy. And it's about celebration, too. I've bought this watch to celebrate my coming out as a feminine person (hard femme, specifically). I'm a goddess, really, and I deserve to adorn myself with items that are lovely if I so choose, y'know?! (Disclaimer: being a goddess is by no means exclusive to me. Anyone can be a goddess!)

Ehem... real talk though, I get BIG autism energy from watches and watchmakers and watch collectors. Watches are so... THING. They are such object, undeniably. "DON'T TALK TO ME I AM LOOKING VERY CLOSELY AT THIS LITTLE PIECE OF METAL," said the watchmaker, a totally normal person who would fit in with zero issues at any party...

Expensive watches are all about the attention to detail (my experience as an autist is so detail-heavy it's not even funny). And honestly I am here for it. If you can afford to buy a mighty fine watch and it makes you feel good, freakin' buy that shit and enjoy it, and thank a watchmaker for its existence maybe.

Once this lil moon-goddess accessory arrives at my home I am gonna spend so much time looking at it and obsessing over its details. I'm stoked. It's a special thingy just for ME! Plus low key I feel like it gives off lesbian / witchy vibes (depending on how you style the rest of your look) and just, yas.

P.S. - The first image is from Citizen's website (they're a Japanese company by the way eh! As an otaku/weeb [depending on who you ask], I dig). The second image is also from their site but was posted in the review section by a person who only put down "Picky" as their name. Thank you Picky, it's a nice shot.

P.P.S. - Let me be clear: Japanese culture is rad because there really seems to be an emphasis on pouring your heart into your craft or whatever it is you do, hence Japan producing so much high-quality stuff (cars are a big one; like goddamn). I will say though, from what I've seen, they've got a long ways to go when it comes to work-life-balance, and like... uhhh sex positivity and queer rights, and drinking Respect Women Juice. Anyway I'd rather my money go to Japan's economy vs. that of the USA (for the record I was considering buying a Timex watch).

[nullset2]

On Diversity in the Tech Industry

"Write every day", lest the thoughts consume you. When you write, you think. Even more: when you write, you're actually doing it to organize your mental cabinet, rather than for the benefit of other people (even though people will be reassured that they're on the right path once they find your footsteps on their journey). "Writing = thinking", my previous employer used to say all the time, which is a principle that I incredibly value even though there are a lot of other things about their culture that I don't appreciate.

Let me preface this by saying that the matter of diversity is an issue at large in the tech industry, and not something specific to any particular company or segment in it, and it's something that I think people are honestly, earnestly doing their best about, and there's a lot of people that I'm infinitely indebted to, powerful mentors in my way who have made me a better person. Even though sometimes the path to hell is paved with good intentions, I still abide by this paragraph. By and large, the industry is comprised of just good guys and gals and non-binary pals, you know what I mean?

However, we live in incredibly bizarre times, and sometimes it gets the best of me and that's why I want to jot these things down.

The prevalence of technology and the quasi-autistic state of alienation it fosters is leading to this state of being where the Other is eradicated and the Self is regarded as the All there is to be.

How does this fit with the tech industry? Well, the spiel paraded by the activists in the regard of Diversity claims that "races and profiles have been systematically excluded off of certain echelons of society" like the tech industry. Thus, there's a mechanic of oppresion moving the threads of society like its puppetmaster, there's a glaring generational debt which should be reparated back as soon and as efficiently as possible, and therefore, affirmative action should be taken to get those profiles back into the tech industry. Affirmative action is, basically, to take it easy on the, supposedly oppressed types (it already feels horribly demeaning to me to write this) and to provide them with positive affirmations and validations. Thus, quotas of intersectional profiles, based off of criteria like race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, et. al., should be rigurously applied to hiring, delegation, assignment of responsibilities and formation of teams.

(Another disclaimer before we go on: there's a kernel of truth in this. Imagine that you were designing a website for a Muslim locale, and, lacking knowledge of the sensitivities there, you decided to put a picture of a big, fat, beefy burger with strips of chunky, crispy bacon on it. Egad, pork meat is haram there, but you never knew. If you had a muslim colleague, however, that kind of stuff would had popped up earlier. It does help to have multiple life experiences and sensitivities in your team in ways more succint than we realize. I am convinced of this being true.)

Now, carrying on, the problem is that, on paper, of course it's true. Everybody knows it to be true. That which fits the collective-unconscious pre-conception of a techie is good, and that which doesn't is to be eradicated and this has a racial skew. Work, dating, neighborhoods, HOAs, relationships... everything in the modern world is subjected to one or many heavy biases. I'm writing this essay in English for goodness' sake. The die have already been thrown centuries ago. The hands have been dealt and we're sort of trying to pull forward as-is, awkwardly as it is. The tech industry is vastly, grossly majoritarily Caucasian and Asian (and by this I also mean Indian), and those profiles form a techno-elite caste that mostly exclusively hangs out and disseminates information among itself. This technoelite caste is fast-tracked into colleges where there's literally classes where they teach them the very same problems that they get in technical interviews, which they get to learn and rehearse at leisure, ergo fastracking them into the industry too.

Now, the naive explanation to this would be to assume that the reason why this happens is merely racial, which is what those types posit, but I actually think that's a lie. Every good lie is partially true though. To assume that it is only racial disregards the matter of competence.

"Affirmative Action" or "Positive Discrimination" as I've heard it called, is the proposed solution to this problem. "So, there is a very obvious skew in the population --thus, what we're going to do is that we're going to strongly encourage you to hire and integrate people into the industry who don't fit this standard.". It's weird because in a way it feels as if the answer to racism is more racism, but I see what they're going for --a fair shot across the board. But when that fair shot seems to be predicated on you being given a crutch because apparently you have a historical handicap because of who you are... well, you can probably infer how that feels.

Yes, my parents got fucked by the machine, I lost a lot of prospects in my earlier life, and I was sort of assumed to be a loser, my parents giving up any hope for me after I failed to breed around 18 years of age. They sort of... never actually understood what I was up to, and they left me to my devices to commune with the 2001 space oddysey monolith. Everyone else also did. My high school friends sort of thought that I was some weirdo loser that was damned to irrelevancy, and when I developed techincal skills and I managed to come up in the world, everyone did a 180 on me and went "holy shit", and either started asking me for money, or cut off contact out of the shame they felt that someone like me was doing like I was (to this day, this process of alienation from my original kin continues to happen btw).

And all of that is because, again, of all of these preconceptions and mechanisms in place --so the Diversity argument does hold up again. I am not saying that the Diversity spiel is wrong. But the problem is that, again, every good lie is partially true. To be prioritized as a profile feels as demeaning as to be actually discriminated against on the same basis (to me, at least. I guess a lot of people are happy in their stations as long as they have a weekly pizza and Netflix to amuse themselves to death, but I personally go insane if I cannot produce anything new). It discounts my competence, right? It's a catch-22. Fucked if I do or if I don't. If I take the step and try to play in the big leagues, people are going to take the piss because I don't talk in Californian Fry and use the same dogwhistles that the techies use among themselves, but if I don't, then I get to stay in a ghetto and make nothing of my life.

I argue, my friends, that whoever is most competent rises in the hierarchy. As corrupt and dirty the hierarchy can be sometimes, this principle is something that I know to be true, and It's been taught to me by the power of the black star, and I feel it in my very bones, in my very marrow. But the problem is, if you come from a fucked up world, how can you effectively develop competence if everyone around you is constantly assuming that you're a loser? It's just horrid. It takes a ridiculous, massive, insane amount of effort that most people are not willing to undertake. I know I suck. I am not really anything when compared to the most competent people in the industry (you know who you are: if you're reading this, I'm sorry that things didn't work out, but maybe in better circumstances we'll do alright).

I fumble my way through things. Yet, I still get things right sometimes.

On a personal level, also: what happens when you decide to go for it, then, and break away from the expectation of your caste and class? It isolates you. It alienates you. It takes you away from your hive, like a bee, and made to wander. When a bee is taken away from its hive (I've been thinking a lot about bee symbolism lately), it will try to find and join other hives, if it can find any before it dies. It is literally a matter of chemistry at that point: if the bee has a compatible chemical signature, it will be accepted and taken in; if not, it will be expunged by the female bees of the hive. The hivemind is a powerful force.

It's even worse when half of the populace out there thinks you're part of a ploy to change the demographic distribution in a negative way, and thus you must be eradicated as soon as possible, but I am not going to go there right now. I'm just going to mention that some neighbors were very happy when a tree fell on my home a bit over a year ago.

What to do at this point? My friends, the answer resides in the Jungian archetype of the Fool. Even though some people would argue that the appereance of the Fool is a sign of the erosion of our societal bonds, the Universe has a soft spot for fools. Sometimes you have to do the most stupid fucking bullshit you can think of. A man has to be a bit stupid sometimes. Be a troublemaker. Be shameless. Dare. Of course, don't be an asshole, but put energy into it. Step into the abyss even if you get fucked by it --because that's where the great things happen. These days, sometimes I do things that I'm not even aware of, which make other people mad. I'm literally oblivious to them. All of a sudden, people react to them and they hurt me, projecting their shadows.

A friend (the only senior Mexican engineer I ever found at my previous employer, who was in a team where I actually performed pretty well once I had the advantage of, egad, lo and behold!, an actual mentor, mind you) told me once "well, at some point you just got to steal it", and then he grabbed an implementation of something off of github, and that's when it hit me. This is the archetype of the fool at play.

Still disgruntled by the whole affirmative action thing and the idea that the best way to integrate me into the industry is to give me a kindergarten gold star and a Chipotle gift card (... though I sure could go for some fucking Chipotle right now because I'm very hungry) every time I post a PR, I also have to offer that the only way forward is through, and that through is going to hurt. At some point, it's all become a function of sacrifice. You literally are going to have to burn the midnight oil many, many, many, many years, and you're going to get fucked by alarms at some point, and you're going to have to work out like mad and you're going to walk around with sore muscles every day. You're going to have to see many people rolling their eyes at you. You're going to have to put up with being laughed at.

Again, it's the appereance of the archetype of the fool.

Parentheses: I've found that being in good physical shape and literal fucking muscle memory and rote memorization (kata-style repetition of phrases) is actually better for developing skills in tech than actually having a degree from some 30 grand a semester school, so it literally means that you need to lock yourself in a house in the forest for three years and attend to a boxing gym like mad if you want to break through the current insane state of things.

At some point, I realized that no matter how much fucking adderall I'd take or how much I did, or how many hours I put at Amazon, I'd still be getting laughed at and punked on and tortured at the end of the day, and my friends, that's when the archetype of the fool, chthonically, rose from the depths of my soul, and it made me turn into something else. I sort of realized that if what I did didn't truly matter and people were going to throw shit at me no matter what, then I was truly free to pursue what I wanted. It unleashed this roaring energy that powers everything I do now.

It renders you alone, too, but (not being melodramatic here) at some point you sort of Accept your loneliness (not making it about me here, but you do really sort of Accept it). There's a part of me that thinks that this whole fetishism of the rugged individualist life that we're currently undergoing is vicious, sick and depraved, but it does feel better than the contrary. It still makes me unhappy, but the mature kind of unhappy, you know? Like there's an inner angel that sees everything through the eyes of the Logos, of eternity, inside me, and he's in command.

I've been reading "The Labyrinth of Solitude" by Octavio Paz and it's fantastic how he gets it all down perfectly. The Mexican is de-facto schizoid, an in-between worlds, a pariah that has to stick together to survive, a race whose divine Mother has abandoned it. It's better to be alone than to be in the company of Jezebels and Nimrods anyway. And things do actually change at some point. Nothing ever stays the same, you know, and there's a lot of people who really do care about you and who are fun to be around out there for you (as trite and platitudical as this sounds).

In the meantime: keep doing stupid shit. You'll be amazed at the results one day. Things are not going to change at large. Just do the most with the hands you've been given.

[void-galaxy-shenanigans]

((*Note we are/our body is diagnosed with Combined Type ADHD, & our therapist suggested autism is comorbid, which we suspect we do actually have based on conversations with the autistic community & research (peer reviewed articles + the old diagnostic test (RASSD-R? RAASD-R? Something like that - some of y'all probably know what I'm referring too. I think we got a 205?)). Relevant to what this is about.

Also I use “™” (trademark symbol) to indicate “this is one section/thing” & “this is a ✨vibe✨” so that's what those mean))

---

Us for the past week or two (especially before work): Well, if ADHD meds are just stimulants, and caffeine is a stimulant, I can basically use coffee to self-medicate without worrying about unknown side effects (since I already know how caffeine affects the human body & how it affects us).

Us at work on caffeine, unmasked: *some tics (especially when tired/stressed), The Cups Must Be Arranged In This Pattern Or I Will Cry™ (portion cups for dips, we work in fast food), Sensory Overload Says Hi™, That Beeping Pitch Is Making Me Want To Rip My Skin Off™ (timers; angry fridge door got left open), Sauce Got On My Hands, Bad Texture, Get It Off™ (lots of extra hand washing), can't make eye contact to save our life (/mild exaggeration), Please Don't Touch Me™/avoiding contact, hyperfocused zooms, gets 2x to 3x normal work done like it's nothing, small head shakes (as if saying no) are soothing, going nonverbal every hour or two from Overstimulated™ because the beeps don't stop & having to type into a document on phone to communicate, Auditory Processing delays, Visual Processing delays, This Face Mask Is Grabbing My Face, Bad Texture, Make It Go Away™, can function without music but feel awkward & processing delays are worse without music, Words Are Difficult™ + Entire Dictionary Vanished & Everyone Is Speaking Simlish, I Understand Nothing™, collapse to the concrete shaking & immediate meltdown or shutdown as soon as work is over, lay in bed Too Overstimulated To Move/Exist™ for 2 to 4 hours as soon as we get home because need to recover*

Us at work on caffeine, masking: *dissociation, losing time, very long audio processing, everything gets internalized & shoved down, quiet/distant thoughts swirling, very dizzy*

Us this morning (before work): Yea no I don't feel like drinking coffee today.

Us at work (leading into after work), unmasked: *constant inner monologue, both narrating what we're doing & thinking about how the way we're doing it screams ‘I'm ADHD’, more intense & frequent tics (hard head shake, shaking hand off like it has something on it), need music to not zone out/get Choice Paralysis, more shaky hands, thoughts go zoom, losing large chunks of time, rearranging the pattern of portion cups literally every time we put another set out to fill because Too Similar Is Too Boring™, every little bit of movement draws attention & Must Look™ (cars, people walking, flashing lights, clocks), ✨S H I N Y, Must Look 😍™✨ (one of our favourite visual sensory things is silver &/or gold/bronze shiny metal), That Person Is Wearing A Business Suit To The Dentist, That's Odd, ¿Did They Just Leave Work? (& similar unhelpful distraction thoughts)™, Go Go GO/Must Move™, Pace Back And Forth Is Soothing™, Tap Fingers On The Keyboard™ stim (move fingers as if playing piano, but just tapping palm/other fingers/air), “EEEE” constantly in head, very awkward eye contact (Too Intimate™), immediate full body shakedown after work (5 hour shift) because ✨Need To✨™, goes for a walk immediately after work because Too Much Energy, Need To Move™ & Understimulated™, replacing words with other words that don't make sense or make little sense (e.g. “that's not what I was trying to make” instead of “that's not what I was trying to open”), people's voices are speaking so slow they sound far off & processing is difficult, Please Talk Faster™, Very Very.Easily Distracted™ (planned to do some self-care an hour ago, planned to read today 3 hours ago, but ✨Nope✨ Tumblr & distractions are too interesting)*

Us at work, unmedicated & masked: *inner monologue/brain background noise: “Old McDonald had a farm, and Bingo was his name-oh. B-I-N-G-O, B-I-N-G-O, B-I-N-G-O, and Bingo was his name-oh.” into the Jeopardy theme (doo doo doo do-do, doo doo doo), into the McDonald's jingle (“buh dah buh dah dah, I'm lovin it”); shaky hands, clumsy as heck, bouncing on toes, wiggling toes; humming to self, quiet whistling, hidden fidget cube in pocket quiet clicks*

Us: ...

Us: ...Well. Now that we've been medicated awhile I notice how much ADHD actually affects us because this is different. 😶

---

There's noticably different feelings, experiences, traits that we now notice. We've never medicated our ADHD before because didn't want pharmaceutical dr~gs, so we honestly couldn't tell what would be affected by meds or not (always dealing with ADHD on a daily basis). Being ✨medicated✨ showed us what was definitely ADHD & what probably wasn't, because we got used to not dealing as much with ADHD stuff & then today was all the ADHD things &....oh. ¿What we thought was Just/Still ADHD™ even though we were basically medicated was actually autism? 😶

Disclaimer that not every ADHDer will experience all of these & they may experience things we don't, & not every autistic person experiences all these things & they may experience things we don't. We aren't The Golden Standard™ for ADHD, autism, comorbid ADHD & autism, or neurodivergence. Also, some of these may be overlap as well, they’re not exclusive to ADHD or autism.

So....that's how our day went 😅. We weren't planning to be unmedicated with intent to see the difference, just didn't because too lazy to make coffee &...yea. apparently they //are// different, in ways we didn't predict/expect.

~Nico (he/they)

[likeavisionfromgod]

Writing characters without Empathy

Buckle your fucking seat belts cuz im about to learn you a thing.

Ok, disclaimer, I will be talking about lack of empathy ALONE. This post is not about psychopaths, autistics, or any other specific group of people that have difficulties with varying aspects of empathy. As you can see in the super super short list I've provided, people with empathy problems are very very varied and would require their own in depth posts.

First off, there are TWO types of empathy; affective and cognitive. People may struggle with one and not the other, or they might have neither. The presence or absence of one of type of empathy does not make someone a psychopath, so get that out of your head right now. I know you were thinking it as soon as you saw the title. It's not true.

Affective empathy is a neurological function wherein your brain will mirror the state of the people around you. For example, if you are next to someone who is pregnant, you might begin to feel nauseous. If you are next to someone who is ecstatic, you will feel joyful too. The amount you are able to do this can be affected by your mental state, so people who are average in empathy may find themselves unable to perform this function if they've fallen into a depression or are burnt out. For someone who is used to experiencing affective empathy, this would probably be really frightening, which probably wouldn't help the mental state of them along.

If someone has never been able to mirror, they will 100% have found a way to mimic the way most people respond to people if at all possible. For example, someone lacking in affective empathy may not feel any pain or grief when their friend tells them about a non-mutual friend's death, but they will likely know that they are expected to use a softer tone, lower their body posture from 'alert' to 'sad' position, maybe put a hand on their arm, and speak gentle words of support, and they will probably do all these things. If your character lacks only affective empathy it may be hard to tell from a third person view, given that they're old enough to have developed the skill to mask - and want to. If your character has temporarily lost their empathy due to burn out, they will not have these skills because the 'right' actions were instinctive.

These people can be very sociable and personable, but may struggle with intimate relationships because they have difficulty relating to the other person.

These people will likely be able to come up with ideas that may be shocking or horrifying to those with affective empathy, because when it comes down to it, they don't feel other people's pain. This doesn't automatically mean they devalue human life, or even others' pain, though it very well can lead to that, but be aware that the abstract idea of human pain/death isn't instinctively repellent. These people will be willing to sacrifice people for the greater good, and may even be right in some instances, depending on what they think the greater good is.

People that lack affective empathy but have cognitive empathy and have ramped it up to be able to understand others may be very good at manipulation and psychology, and, while unaffected by dramas in their friend groups that don't involve them, may actually be sought out for advice given their inherent 3rd party unbiased view.

This IS the category that includes psychopaths and narcissists, but it doesn't Exclusively contain psychopaths and narcissists.

So let's move on to cognitive empathy. Cognitive empathy is when you look at a person and their behavior and you use the information you've gathered to understand how they feel, and to understand from there what actions are required. This is a skill that may or may not be developed in a person, and may be easier or harder to develop. People that have worked on this as a skill will find themselves retreating to their baseline level whenever they under mental or emotional duress, such as burnout or depression, and the loss of it can also be very distressing.

People who lack cognitive empathy often have difficulty reading emotion in general, or may express their own emotions very differently. For example, an autistic person who rarely smiles or laughs when happy but will flap their hands is less likely to instinctively understand that someone who is smiling or laughing is happy. People without cognitive empathy may rely heavily on their affective empathy instead, which means they may know how the people around them are feeling, but because of the lack of cognitive empathy they will not react to that emotion in ways that neurotypical people will expect or want.

It's common to complain about people playing "pain olympics", but someone without cognitive empathy may think that they are simply relating to the person in pain by describing a similar experience. "I understand what you're going through" is what they're trying to say, but it may come across as "but I have it worse". These people will have difficulty establishing personal relationships, and may struggle in work environments that require teamwork. They may be avoided by others, if not picked on and bullied.

These people will often feel more comfortable around animals, who have much simpler rules of behavior and with whom affective empathy may be all that's required.

One important aspect of cognitive empathy is that it is GROUP DEPENDENT.

This is the group that includes autistic people, so I want to make a small small sideline here: autistic people have great cognitive empathy for OTHER AUTISTIC PEOPLE. If you understand that hand flapping is a stim, often of joy or distress, it is a lot easier to understand people who hand flap, and the way you react to them is likely to be the way they expect you to react. Neurotypical people have AWFUL cognitive empathy when it comes to autistic people; they don't understand them at all and they usually have never even tried. If you're writing a character that usually has high cognitive therapy that is now interacting with a different neurotype, they will now have low cognitive empathy.

Gods this post has gotten long.

But what if you lack both? Thats rough, buddy.

I'm joking. But essentially, the problems are compounded. This person will look and feel out of place even more than someone who just lacks cognitive empathy. They will not know how you feel nor how to respond to it. They will watch a friend grieve and feel nothing but curiosity, and be unable to offer anything more than the most shallow sounding words of comfort, however much they may mean them and truly wish their friend to feel better. Their tone may be flat and they may often look expressionless. They will be really bad at offering comfort, and will likely struggle in any kind of social environment.

[whereconfusionisarhyme]

Hello, and welcome to my AU! I'm gay, depressed, and autistic so here is something I thought up! I'm gonna give a quick little breakdown of the AU, and then go into characters.

~ This is a Modern AU cause I want them to have like personal smartphones (and set up for a concept I have)

~ Also there is more information about autism available in 2020 than in 200, sooo-

~ Nothing else of the setting changes other than the time period. (I headcanon them to be in Ohio)

~ This is an AU, not a multi-chapter fic

~ It's gonna have a pretty loose canon, with me just adding on headcanons and one-shots as I go

~ It's gonna be tagged on ao3 and Tumblr as "Autistic!Peter AU ~ Az"

~ Because Az is the name I use online lol

Characters

~ Peter is autistic! :)

~ I will be projecting a lot of myself onto Peter (but like, what's new lol), so this is in no way shape, or form everyone's experience with autism

~ Unlike me, he is professionally diagnosed (*cough* cause he's male *cough*)

~ Sorry for the salt there

~ ANYWAYS yeah he's professionally diagnosed with autism, although his parents aren't exactly happy about it :/

~ Other than that he's really not all that different from canon

~ Obviously, autism is different in everyone, so let me just real quick do a speed run of what it looks like in Peter:

~ Peter can mask, but since he got diagnosed before he had to do it for too long, it's not automatic for him. He can choose when to mask and when not to mask and tends not to because of how draining it is

~ During sensory overload he tends to gets super snappy and rude (although he's working on it)

~ Tends to have meltdowns over shutdowns

~ He's pretty outgoing and extroverted, but the autism can make it tiring

~ Only extroverted with friends

~ Strangers are a no-go (me too-)

~ His past special interests have included but are not limited to: tom cruise movies, methods of cooking, baking (different techniques and methods), A Midsummer Night's Dream (during their junior year), and Romeo and Juliet (during their senior year lol)

~ Jason is pretty much the same as in canon, except he gets panic attacks and is also autistic

~ Because, say it with me,

~ p r o j e c t i o n

~ I mean I headcanon that he has panic attacks in cannon anyway so it isn't exclusive to the AU, but

~ Y'know

~ He's pretty ableist in the beginning, but, c'mon say it with me,

~ While they do bad things, all of these characters are simply products of an environment that they had no control over. That being said, they still have the same responsibility as everyone else to be a good person and impact others in a positive way.

~ So he learns to not be a dick

~ Also it's low key internalized

~ He is also autistic, but only figures it out after rooming with Peter for a while since his parents refuse to take him in for any sort of testing or diagnosis

~ Cause there can't POSSIBLY be anything "wrong" with Jason

~ In case you couldn't tell yet, they're kinda ableist

~ Unlike Peter, he's more prone to shutdowns than meltdowns

~ Has spent so long masking by the time he figures it out, so he has to try and de-program himself from masking (me right now-)

~ Very introverted, doesn't really open up to anyone other than Nadia and Peter

~ Being around people exhausts him, but he does it anyway to keep up his image

~ Past special interests include but are not limited to: Fairy Tales, baseball (specifically, the mechanics of the game and different plays), and Romeo and Juliet (he picked it up from Peter, and one of the reasons he was so reluctant to audition was because he was scared people would think he was "a bit too into it")

~ Nadia is her good old cynical and slightly problematic canon self

~ Implied clinical depression, but the situation with diagnosis is the same as Jason's

~ They refuse to take her to a professional setting to have anything serious done

~ Those bitches :)

~ Is the first person (other than Peter) Jason "confesses" to about his suspicion about being autistic

~ Technically the first other than Peter was Father Flynn but Jason was so incredibly cryptic in fear that Father would figure it out that Father didn't actually know what he was trying to say

~ But anyway

~ Actually not anyways because I don't have anything else to type here :/

~ Ivy is the exact same as cannon

~ Nothing changes whatsoever for her or Matt

~ Lucas has adhd

~ His parent(s) (still not sure what I should make his parental situation be) doesn't get him meds for reasons I have not yet decided on

~ So he gets adderall through his own means

~ If you get what I mean ;))))

~ (Disclaimer: don't become a drug dealer just to get adderall for your adhd)

~ (that's a bad idea)

I'm really excited about this AU, and I'm really excited to share it!

@starkidstan @hvvrtfulloflove

[adamgeorgiou]

Arthur, My Cousin and Me

I don’t know how to detangle Arthur from myself enough to write dispassionately or accurately. Instead, what follows is something like half him, half me. It’s more journal entry than elegy. To a general audience, that might make this less interesting than it otherwise could be, but it’s what I’ve got. Remember this if and when you get to the end. 

Anyway…

I feel like I knew Arthur. Then I heard what others had to say and saw what others had to feel. Following his death, I still feel like I know him. In certain ways better than most or all. But there’s a part of me that’s often strained to believe that I was in more of his inner circle than I actually was, and his death exposed the truth of my position.

It’s a practical observation, not a dramatic one. I’m not saying he had a dominating and hidden alter ego or that he pitied me. It’s simpler: his death revealed my confidence in our bond as an illusion innocuously leftover from being kids together, from back when we actually spent serious time together. I want him back now like I’ve continuously wanted back what we lost long ago, but now it’s double-permanent and legible. Before it was remediable and blissfully hidden — embarrassing in hindsight, like most nostalgia. 

But he also had that same nostalgia and held onto it, too, which makes me feel better. That mutual thread to our shared past was strong for both of us. It gave us a lot to lean on, but we leaned on it a little too heavily. Without that crutch, our adult lives were mostly opaque to one another, but also we were getting close again, involving each other again. Building anew. The left hook following the right. It’s a shame we weren’t closer than we were, when he died. It’s a shame our getting closer was cut short. 

I guess it makes sense, generally: as adults, we’re all doing niche things, and niches are small and excluding, so everything else trends towards becomes small talk. (And that’s fine and right, because focus is necessary for growth. Just try and stay loyal, which Arthur did and my cousins do.)

Maybe it wasn’t so much that I was uniquely outside of Arthur’s confidence, but more that we had both (or all) grown a bit into our own isolation. In any case, I mourn the loss and its new finality.

So that’s him and I as adults, apart. Who was he, though? What can I tell you?

Well, I’ll briefly start with me, for context. Who I am is still him, the result of his influence, for sure. Of growing with, then adjacent to him, then apart, then converging again (more on the converging, later). If you distilled me down and got rid of all the litter and trivia, the rare and potent stuff remaining would be similar to what I knew of Arthur. We had the same essence, as I saw it. So I can show you that reflection, and you can tell me if it’s accurate (See: first paragraph’s disclaimer). (Also, note my calling out our similarity is carefully placed right before I go on to flatter him best I can — tactics, baby — but don’t read my ego into this. What follows is all my cousin.)

Arthur and confidence. Old saying: the pro fails more often than the amateur tries.

The subtleties of his personality were sophisticated and complicated. He could spar at an exceptional level from an early age. But he started out lazy and overthrowing a lot of his punches, gassing out quickly. 

As a kid, he was autistically independent, preoccupied and hyper focused, but without any of the social hangups. He could talk to anyone and impressed everyone. He was adored, and rightfully so, but he also marched to the beat of his own nunchucks, exclusively. You couldn’t bullshit him, and you couldn’t placate him unless he was genuinely fascinated with what you offered. This is how kids should be, insatiably curious and wild. It was my favorite era of his, and where we spent the most time together. I was such an asshole to him, and he still always hung out with me. And we followed each other into a lot of similar interests.

Then he got his first hit of testosterone, and followed a phase where he literally held a fist up in every photo taken of him. Ha. Puberty’s a bitch. That didn’t last long. Reality checked and he stabilized. The important thing is that he knew he wasn’t going to watch, he was going to play. I loved him here, jealously and from a further distance. I couldn’t hang.

Then maturity: The firm handshake, the direct eye contact, the bright teeth, the smiling cheeks. Approachable, but not daffy. If anything his charisma was a prank and shrewd tactic; a car salesman during the first act, a playful subversion before the intellect and wit made their debut; or, worse for you, they didn’t. You’d start talking to Arthur and think you were walking in on a frat-boy breakfast table, then he’d go on to tell you why your problem was really because of what Robert Moses did back in ‘56, or he’d ask if you thought the The States were in a similar stage of decadence as Rome before its fall.

To him, your reason was more important than your choice, which is an axiom of all good conversation, one that most people are afraid to admit because doing so requires the ability to tread water. It’s easier to talk about the weather or watch sports. But Arthur wasn’t afraid of going deeper, and he had the tact to know when it was the right thing to do.

He was a man of appetite. A true traveling gourmand. He could scoff at you from within a seersucker, but he never compared oysters. If a menu offered Seattle’s or Rhode Island’s, he’d reply, “keep ‘em coming” and demand littlenecks or (and) crawfish to follow. He was less interested in varieties of wine, more in varieties of tomato and whether you had a good coarse salt.

He was spoiled rotten — as we all were, and mostly by the same sources — but he lacked pretension, except for that deliberately wielded for ironic effect. Underneath all his developed and developing taste was a lot of comical stoicism — laughing at gross injustice and absurdity, but also doing something about it, literally. His principles were conjured up from experience with the trappings of pleasure, with readings of history, with a variety of surprisingly worldly stories. I always wondered where and how he got it all. The guy had seen things, but not that many things. How was he always so versed? I don’t know, but if you’ve ever watched him eat a box of clementines straight up, wide-eyed in a wrinkled rugby shirt, then you would also know he was more pensive than pleasure seeking.

Entertainment was a defense, one he was growing out of as he realized it interfered with his goals and their requirements. A defense against what? I don’t know for sure, but I suspect the typical. On one hand, a lack of patience and a petulant refusal to be bored. On the other, the existential and solipsistic. A defense against the subconscious shame and pain of cynicism. Was love real? Was wealth worth anything? Was the world bogus? Was anyone authentic? Ethical? Himself? Others?

Look, I’m not saying he was overwhelmed with this gooey crap. He was a thinker, not a navel gazer. I don’t know if he even said any of this stuff out loud, but anyone with a brain is going to ask some questions about the life they’re living and the society they’re in, and most of us don’t like the first obvious answers we come up with. Then we do something about not liking those answers. We put fingers in our ears some of the time, we do what’s easy some of the time, and we do what’s difficult some of the time. And also, anyone with any talent is going to find themselves bored among the average, and falling short of their own standards. These were Arthur’s struggles, I think. At least, they’re kind of my struggles, and Arthur seemed to harmonize with me when we’d commiserate. Or maybe we were both pompous assholes, wannabe aristocrats from the suburbs. Or maybe that was just me. Ha.

To some, it might seem appropriate to haunt him here in this postscript, as if to justify his death as the terminal approach of a depression into cessation. Let me be clear: this was totally not the case, from my vantage. Instead, the above attitudes are more like the required cost-of-entry to a great show. If the unexamined life isn’t worth living, it does not mean the examined one is easy to live. The alternative is Judge Judy and a monogrammed armchair. Not for Arthur. Caulfield eventually quits his bitching, but he has to eat a lot of shit first. Siddhartha finally leaves the brothel, but he had to walk in that door in order to walk out of it later. Hard times are the prerequisite to epiphany. Painful and confusing; but hopeful, not despairing. 

And you could tell Arthur was among this company because the personas he employed became increasingly sophisticated, useful, attractive, and comfortable. From the brawling, pack-leading, indulgent, jokester/show-off into the relaxed, independent, luxurious, conversationalist who wasn’t as afraid to let his guard down, who was increasingly responsible. He was cultivated. He had a tamed self-consciousness (as we all aspire). It was impressive to watch him pull his own strings, to compare that with your own attempts and be humbled.

And thus, as I see it, the irony, hard to swallow, is that Arthur was finding answers to life’s hard questions in fistfuls. Love was possible. Work was worth it. Viktor Frankl was right. And he was learning patience and conviction, already better at their practice than most (e.g. me). As Dan put it, he was just taking off. He jumped and then a hand reached up from the almost escaped gravity and cut him by the heel.

A complete, but simple tragedy.

Complete, because the good guy lost. 

Simple, because Arthur’s life was not some melodramatic airport novel. His death was a lightning strike, a deus ex machina in reverse. A two sentence accident, not an assassination. Not much more to be read from it. Mortality is hard, right? (See: Genesis).

And for all my elaboration, I don’t even think Arthur was all that noxiously introspective or exceptionally self destructive either. The guy knew how to love and be loved. How to let his hair down, appropriately. How to shift gears and drive forward. How to resist temptation. How to find and be good company. How to stare at a fish tank. How to sit and read. How to eat fruit in the sun. He was typically bright, with a lot of flair and personality. I know he was grateful.

Or I’m wrong. Maybe I’m inventing a story to make sense of something more concealed or of pure chaos. I don’t know. I don’t think so.

In any case, it’s a tragedy. And regardless of what is true, I’m still glad I got to hear his story and be part of some of it. He was and remains a good influence to me, a fellow bright eyed boy attempting to sustain himself in the body of a straight-backed man. He’ll live on for a long, long time. And I keep talking to him.

That’s some of what I knew of him. And given this is my catharsis, forgive me further, but more about me:

Sadness, gratitude, and disappointment. 

I’m sad. Still? Yes. Always? Probably not. The inevitability of death hits a certain emotional bedrock after enough love is lost. I’m probably not there yet, still more distance to fall, but things are tapering off, in the aggregate. Maybe I’m just cold. 

Sadness is the least interesting. I am separated from someone I love, and that sucks. We all have people we’ve loved, and we are all damned to lose them. But yes, I get those black bile clutches to the chest as I’m reminded that Arthur (et al.) is gone. And I wanna hold your hand, if you’re feeling it too.

It’s a curse that requires gratitude. Time keeps on slipping, and the portion of time that one spends with good people is shorter still. I’m thankful for Arthur’s good company. From childhood to peerdom. This is what I’ll try and focus on. It’s the mantra I’ll repeat. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Then there’s the sulking disappointment. My head slowly shaking, my eyes unfocused contemplating the loss of the unpredictable conversations, the refreshingly interesting trivia, the uniqueness, the independence, the honed never impersonated taste, the great breadth of knowledge, the artful ball busting, the avoidance of cliches, the shared recommendations, the belly laughs. Obnoxious mutual indulgence — food and talk — during Thanksgiving at Stacy’s table, the shared past at Everit Ave, the just started planning. The feeling of a just missed answer to the question of how to get it back, continuously nagging.

More on that: I’m dealing with a huge mess of unanswerable questions and impotence. There’s so much broken by his leaving, least of all in me, and I can’t fix any of it. No way to organize it. I can’t even help others fix it. Acknowledging the impossibility of the situation seems better than ignoring it, so I will (…acknowledge that death breaks the world and makes inconsistent a lot taken as granted). Arthur’s death is an oily surreal void in the middle of the road. A portal to nowhere. And sure, life will go on. We will preserve. Time heals all wounds. That’s all true. But any schmuck can offer a platitude. I want to be responsible for what he’s left behind, in precise detail. I want to pick up the slack, fill in the blank. But what was his remains his, locked up behind whatever door his soul is now shut. It’s maddening.

I went so far as to tell Olivia that I was her brother, too, and that I would be there for her. Idiot. I love her, she knows I love her, I know she loves me. Yada, yada. I need no pity for my vomiting on the rug. My point is: I can’t be Arthur. I can’t even be close to Arthur. Adam — while still pretty good — isn’t a substitute for Arthur. I apologized for being so naive and sloppy, but the moment taught me what I was trying to say above: that I am ignorant of so much of Arthur’s life, and in ways that can’t be remedied by interviewing his friends or reading his book or wearing his shoes, sort of speak. A lot of it isn’t just unknown, it’s unknowable.

This requires more thought. Surely something can be done. Entropy can’t be rewound, but duct tape can keep a plane in the air. So here’s something I’m going to try: I’m going to be more vulnerable. I’m going to expose myself the way a brother or a son might, and see what happens. It won’t transform me into a replacement, and I’ll probably make a clown of myself. But it’s worth a shot. To build different connections, instead of replicas. I can already see that the cousins have been hammered stronger by this. Now it’s time to be deliberate, and keep that train going, if possible. And yea, I’ll do the practical stuff. You can’t call Barb, enough. And I’ll call Liv, too, but with finesse, without overdoing it. And the rest of our family, as well, because we all lost something. For some a spleen; for others, more vital organs.

Moving on.

It’s further maddening to have Arthur’s death aligned and intertwined with so much of my pleasure. I’m a week into marriage. I’m ecstatic and overwhelmed by the potential of my future. I’m also newly terrified of losing a child not yet even conceived. That’s a fun one. Probably a lot more neurosis to come. But, yea… it’s a violent set of waves to endure and ride. It’s exhilarating and crushing, and guiltily I’ll admit, more of the former. I’m pronoid.

The guilt compounds as I realize that I’m only comparing the conflict between my pleasure and pain, when the actual accounting includes my pleasure, my pain, and all the pain of all the others he left behind, those we both loved. What about Alexandra? Barb? Liv? Dan? A dominating, trailing factor; ego-hidden and selfishly deprioritized. What would Jesus do? Not have a wedding during shiva, although I appreciate all the encouragement and insistence from the also mourning invitees.

Back to Arthur and I having grown apart and then, more recently, back together:

There exists a line separating most relationships. On one side of the line you have people who have a reasonably complete model of you in their head. (See: Theory of Mind.) On the other side of the line are people who have a functional model; they know what they need to know to get the job done, but they don’t know, perhaps have never seen, the whole thing. For ex., a spouse vs a colleague (most of the time). 

The line is called intimacy, and relationships on both sides of the line can be valuable, but the intimate ones have more potential in both directions, fat tails; the intimate ones can yield fortunes and bankruptcies. Acquaintances are tepid.  

I described it above, how Arthur’s and my relationship moved from the intimate to the distant. I’ll skip further detailing that transition, and just get to the thing that hurts now: we were getting markedly closer, again. I could see the trajectory of our friendship and would bet on our returning to intimacy and confidence.

If the isolation of vocation and growth drives most bourgeois adults apart and into impersonal silos, then eventual mastery and plateau allows room for a focus on humanity, again. And humanity is universal and objective. People can stand on it, together, and get to know each other (again). That’s where I felt Arthur and I were.

I felt like Arthur and I had taken two separate tracks at a fork 15 years ago, and just recently those two roads started to merge back into the same path. We had stories to tell each other, of our time in the wild. It was the basis for a new bond, perhaps stronger than the old one.

Unsolicited phone calls. Talks of marriage, health, wealth. Suggestions of books and podcasts that were actually followed through with, instead of disappearing into the void like most cocktail party prescriptions. We’d follow back. Not rushing each other past awkward silence. Being patiently invested in one another. Showing up. Talking about vulnerable topics, like fears and aspirations for careers, and relationships, and family. And then, right during the peak of this rekindling, this jubilee, he died. And I doubt that I was the only one whose newfound growth and compatibility were cut short. You’re not alone.

So I hurt for the spent love, yes, like that of most grief. But I hurt more for the lost potential. I had so many fresh dreams that included him. It’s disappointing and sad.

To be clear, I’m disappointed in what’s lost, not disappointment in him. I blame him for nothing, even if maybe I should or others do. But any of his mistakes could have easily been mine, and so I sympathize. I’m not angry. Ambition implies risk. Vice is vice is inevitable. Growth means growth from something. Different contexts, need not apply.

Anyway, what else? The thing I linger on now is a weird faith. I have little faith or rather I have difficulty finding faith. I scrutinize faith until it’s demoralized. And yet, the discontinuity introduced by Arthur’s absence gives me faith, illogically but compellingly. I don’t strive for it, it’s simply there, point blank. I can’t explain it, but I can describe it.

Arthur is gone forever, and Arthur is part of my future. Both irrevocably true, yet incompatible. What to do about it? Apparently, not much. My mind absolutely and happily refuses to budge. The feeling that Arthur is part of my future supersedes the knowledge that he’s not. Knowing he’s gone does nothing to my belief that my future includes him. So it continues to. Sue me, I can’t help it.

See you in the funnies, Arthur. (More trivia: I never called him Artie or Art or Archo. He was always Arthur to me.)

Lastly, some good, more recent memories (skipping some that have already been shared):

The last thing I spoke to Arthur about was extensive advice, over the phone, on how to structure a prenup. “Don’t put anything about kids in there, because the courts won’t accept that you understood what you were agreeing to, prior to actually having the kids.” Smart. “Everyone should get one! The courts encourage it! Helps ungunk the works.” Ha. Kelly and I never got a prenup, but the candid advice on such a touchy subject makes me laugh.

Eating a whole pig at a communal table, biergarten style, at Saxon and Parole, in New York. Arthur talking the whole table’s ear off about everything, and then after discussing eating brains, we asked the chef to bring the pig’s over, and he did. Afterwards, walking to our trains, jolly, drunk.

Visiting Arthur in Scotland. Going out to some Uni warehouse party, and me getting lost with some bird. I didn’t have a working European phone, and so when I got home at dawn, seeing him and his big bravado looking like a worried mother goose made me laugh and proud, like a big brother again. Him cooking the two of us mussels and linguine with three whole heads of garlic. Delicious. Steak in Edinburgh, and him showing me the castles like he was himself a duke, personal friends of Hume and Smith.

I wished we went on more walks together.

Us planning on going to Joe Beef, in Montreal, with Alexandra and Kelly.

Him calling me to tell me Anthony Bourdain had died, and subsequently talking about it. “If he can’t make it, who can?” There’s that cynicism again. But it was a candid moment. And we ended that talk, more or less, believing we could make it, even if Bourdain couldn’t.

Discussing whether we were fated to end up like our parents. 

Him shooting the .38 up in Gilboa.

Legos, spanky, ice box bedroom, V8-turbo toilet, the pool, the trampoline, the screen porch and its green furniture, endless chicken rolls followed by cold pizza, karate in the basement (no shoes on the mats), rolling on the carpet (i.e. roll mosh), forts, the Barbie game on the gateway computer in Izzy’s room, Snood, army men in the mud ripping up sod by the square foot unit, jealousy listening to Timberlake camp stories, the suburban with 100 blankets in the third row and Don McLean on the radio, toxic farts, the Pokemon store, the Pokemon cards I’d steal from him after going to the Pokemon store, a million cups of Lipton at Barb’s table, Rage Against the Machine in Dan’s car, lanyards, fishing in the Hewlett Bay, Harry Potter, him never sleeping over my house and getting rides home at 2am after attempting to (me pissed), hiding in that lone pine tree in the front yard, making window art out glitter glue, salamanders, watching him attempt to ride a bike in the driveway.

A menial history, but ours. Anyway…

Arthur, you were great. It’s not for me to say that you’re now resting in peace, because I think you were pretty zen while you were alive, in your own pastel-colored kimono kind of way. So instead, I hope you’re as satisfied there as you were interested here. I’ll see you soon, and until then, I’ll try and hold the line for you. Love ya’.

[pfs-peridot]

Acephobia, Allosexuality, and what it means to be Queer

I’ve been meaning to provide a comprehensive overview of the so-called “ace discourse” that seems to course through the internet every few years, like a UTI that’s survived 3 half-hearted trials of antibiotics, only ever fading- never dying. As an asexual individual that has been out in this world since the Year of our Lord 2010, there have been wild misconceptions surrounding this issue for as long as I can remember. Let’s start with some basics, just for fun.

Disclaimer: As an alloromantic person, I will not be speaking in regard to aromantics. Most of this stuff can be generalized, sure, but I don’t want to act like I know what it’s like to be aromantic when I truly don’t. Write your own analyses! Speak out! Smash the cishetallopatriarchy!

Asexual? Like a plant?

No, I do not experience a sexual attraction to myself. No, not all asexuals masturbate, nor do all asexuals not masturbate. I have never once woken up with a clone of myself nestled beside me, having reproduced as a microorganism would. These may seem silly things to think in this year, but this was the majority of conversation when I first began to come out. Figured I might as well get them out of the way early on.

Asexuality is defined as a non-normative lack of sexual attraction to anyone regardless of gender. “Normative” is a handy little word that means “outside of the spectrum which is considered “normal” by society”. For example, the construct of cisnormativity implies that being cisgender is the “normative” state for an individual to be. Thus, in the definition, you can hopefully begin to see what’s so queer about asexuality. Here are some more terms the community has!

Sex-positive Ace: An asexual individual who does not mind having sex

Sex-negative Ace: An asexual individual who would prefer to have no sex at all

Sex-repulsed Ace: An asexual individual who abhors all forms of sexual contact- for some, this includes activities like visiting a gynecologist.

Demi-asexual/Demisexual: An asexual that can experience sexual attraction once they have reached a level of closeness with an individual.

Grey-asexual: An asexual that experiences some level of sexual attraction, though not nearly enough to be considered within the “normative” range

Allosexual: A person that experiences a normative level of sexual attraction. Consider this term to be much like the terms “white”, “cisgender”, “abled”, “heterosexual”, and the like. It’s not that it’s necessarily bad to be this way, it’s just that being this way protects you from the discrimination that asexuals experience. Some dislike the term because “it groups me in with heterosexuals!”, but truly any adjective does that. I don’t see people saying “don’t call me white, it groups me in with heterosexuals!”.

It is truly not up to a bystander to determine whether or not someone is asexual. Personally, I knew that I was the moment I saw the term. Many said things along the lines of “Oh, you’re 15, you just haven’t bloomed yet”. However, I wouldn’t say that the analysis that you must be “of age” to identify as anything is necessarily true- Part of the reason I identified so heavily with the term was that I could feel how abnormal I was. 

My friends would talk about topics around sex, and I felt incredibly unengaged. I felt like the only person within my age group that felt the way I did. The sense of being an outsider was what caused me to gravitate to understanding myself as an asexual individual. Regardless of the sex-positive education I sought, despite having a friend group that adamantly put down any slut shaming, I could never find it within me to be sexually attracted to anyone. Many told me I was broken. I certainly felt that way. Finding a proper way to define myself helped me to embrace my difference instead.

Queer Enough To Ride

I would first like to reach out to those of you that believe that asexuality is not “queer” enough to be part of the LGBTQIA+ community- I understand why you want to gatekeep, that is- to staff the entrance to the community, deciding who is and who is not allowed within. Many of you are bisexual, nonbinary, and other queer folks that were once the subject of the “are you queer enough to ride” argument. 

I myself gatekept like you did. I quantified how trans a person needed to be to be considered part of the umbrella. I attempted to divide the bisexual community between “fake” and “real” bisexuals. I did this largely for one reason- I felt like I didn’t belong. I felt that, by providing a baseline, I could place myself squarely into a place of validity. If I could say where “not queer” began, I could say that I was surely queer! In my desperation to prove myself, I denounced the experiences of others. What I’ve now realized is an amazing concept: if we were to define all folks that felt ostracized for their presentations of gender and orientation (and wish to identify with the word itself, which not everyone does) as queer, that automatically does include us! As for using the word “queer”? I’ll turn to a very good friend of mine for this one -  @neurostorm​

Oh goodie, another fight over the operational definition of the word ‘queer.’ If you are taking the reclaimed slur approach, then NBs (which were largely unknown when the slur was at its apex and was strategically reclaimed), transmasculine people (whom the oppressor barely knows exist), and arguably even cis lesbians (who often had different slurs hurled toward them exclusively) don’t have a right to use it either; because the slur was disproportionately applied to gay men and transfeminine people (since the oppressor believed they were one and the same). However, it was agreed that by extension of a general oppression that all gay people and all trans people could “have” it. It was this same idea of general oppression that started the LGBT+ coalition, since on a 10,000 foot level, the oppressor saw them all as just different manifestations of the same thing. The redefinition of the slur to become synonymous with the political coalition was part of its reclamation. The strategy was twofold. First- use its deliberate fuzziness to capture all the edge cases, as gender and sexuality are highly individualized. Second - use this re-branding to neutralize the slur’s power further by completely transforming it to mean something else entirely in the hearts and minds of the cis-hetero world. Regardless of how one defines that term, there is one very basic truth. It has ABSOLUTELY NO BEARING on who gets to be considered a part of the greater LGBT+ coalition, whether or not the term is used to define it! So with that said, how SHOULD we define those who are included? Opinions vary, but strictly for the “sexuality” part of the equation of things, my personal definition I tend to fall back to is that it meets 3 basic categories. 1. Its a significant departure from standard sexuality. 2. It’s a significant departure from expectations placed upon you by society’s sexual defaults. 3. It has a major impact on ones life in how they relate to society’s sexual expectations. This doesn’t imply oppression a priori, and this is deliberate. Oppression is a byproduct of greater society being shitty to certain groups based on their identity, not a part of their identity itself (if it was, then that identity ceases to exist if the oppression against it stops, and I don’t stop being autistic just because I wake up in a paradise where abelism doesn’t exist). Oppression would be that there is a systemic pattern of mistreatment and bias that conforms to and is promoted by the power structures that be, disempowering and marginalizing the other group for their deviance from the imagined normal. So then, about the aces. Where do they fall in in regards to this criteria. 1. Asexuality is a significant departure from standard sexuality, as standard sexuality assumes a moderate-to-high level of libido and desire by default (less so for female perceived people, but less is not none). 2. Asexuality is a significant departure from expectations placed upon one because they are expected to perform sexuality and have a certain level of desire in order to be seen as good partners (and in the case of male-identified people, have their gender validated). 3. This has a major impact on ones life because the expectation and desire of sexuality (or at least the performance thereof for the sake of another) is seen as a default part of romantic relationships to the point where it is implicitly believed by some that it is the sole reason they exist. It has a major impact in that it is always assumed to be childhood trauma, shyness, and “not meeting the right person” (and you know what, even when that is the case it doesn’t invalidate the asexuality they have).

I’ll return to their infodump in just a bit, as they did have more to say. No, they are neither cis nor het, if you’re intent in devaluing their opinion. In fact, they’re not ace! So I will add some of my experience to the meat of their argument. I currently identify as GenderVague (being on the autism spectrum, I don’t necessarily have the best grasp of structures like “gender”), bi/panromantic, and asexual. I did not come out as any form of nonbinary until 2014, as I didn’t have the terms to describe myself, and I did not come out as non-heteroromantic until I forced myself into a state of inebriation (read: became absolutely plastered) and, well, slept with a girl to prove myself. 

I knew that I liked girls, don’t get me wrong! It’s just incredibly hard to prove that, you see, when you’re asexual. I could say that I crushed on girls since the 3rd grade all I liked, but I was forever a “fake bisexual” until I could say that I had sex with a woman. That community mindset (and a desire to not disappoint my allosexual gf) led to me doing what I did, all in the effort to validate myself.

I guess I’m bringing all of this up to say this- whenever I hear people talking about those “cishet aces” always “trying to invade” yadda yadda, I see myself in 2012. To the majority of queer folks, I absolutely appeared straight, being closeted. I’m certain asexual aromantics also are devalued as “straight” for the same reasons. I don’t think any of us are any less queer, forcing ourselves to have sex or not. I also really don’t think anyone whose m.o. is not being interested in sex will get much of anything besides community from being recognized as queer. And for those that identify as heteroromantic in full spirit? I’m going to echo what asexual people of all orientations have been saying- if you say that they’re not welcome, but you say that I’m welcome, you’re specifically stating that my experiences as an asexual person are nothing. Since I personally received far more discrimination for being asexual than for being bi (I emphasize personally, as everyone has different experiences), I feel invalidated when people say I wouldn’t be queer without being bi. You can’t consider my asexuality queer while at the same time stating that asexuality as a whole is not queer.  Let’s go onto the second half of @neurostorm ‘s rant-

As for oppression, there is a systemic pattern of mistreatment and marginalization against asexual people that favors the power structure. The Asexual community can probably answer this in more detail, but off the top of my head, one example of systemic oppression is that society sees a low-libido as a kind of arrested development of maturation (which plays in to abelism in some ways too). Society will pressure asexuals to perform sexuality and force-spark development through things such as corrective rape. Society will flat out erase the existence of asexual people (I know many an evangelical who believe that there is no such thing as an asexual person, and that anybody who says so is just trying to virtue signal and hasn’t admitted their “sins of the heart” to themselves). All of these examples and more are promoted, encouraged, and tacitly accepted by greater society at large. All of these examples are born from and promoted by minor and major biases saturated in the consciousness of the majority of the population, and favoring the power structure that currently exists. That effectively MAKES it oppression using the definition I provided earlier. It is a “…systemic pattern of mistreatment and bias that conforms to and is promoted by the power structures that be, disempowering and marginalizing the other group [in this case, asexuals] for their deviance from the imagined normal.” So to recap. My argument is as follows. 1. The strategy to re-brand “queer” as a coalition name is deliberate and decided upon by the greater LGBT+ community in roughly the 1990s-2000s. If someone personally doesn’t want to be referred to that way, that’s all well and good, but it’s not their place to tell another how they should refer to themselves. This applies to any reclaimed slur, term, or identity phrasing (i.e. the argument of identity-first language vs person-first language in the greater disabled community [other disabled folks can refer to themselves however they want, but they don’t get to tell me I HAVE to use person-first language when I greatly prefer identity-first language to describe myself]). 2. Regardless of how 'queer’ is operationally defined, that has no bearing on whether or not asexuals can be part of the greater political coalition. 3. Going by what I feel is a reasonable set of basic criteria, Asexuals ARE qualified to be a part of the greater political coalition. 4. It can be demonstrably proven that asexuals are systemically oppressed by virtue of their asexuality.

There’s certainly folks that are attempting at this very moment to argue that allowing asexuals into pride will mean that ace voices will take over “more important ones”. I would like to introduce you to a concept that every pride I’ve been involved in fails to implement- prioritizing intersectional voices. Giving the mic to trans lesbians of color instead of white cis gay men. For the love of Marsha P. 

Hell, as a disabled, trans, bi, asexual, autistic immigrant I’m 10 times as intersectional as Tyler Oakley, so can we stop making him our first choice for a speaker? I’ll get off this tangent, but my point is that I am actively dreaming of a world where people that are only one letter of the whole acronym don't speak over all the rest of us. I don’t think it’s fair to be fearful of asexual folks taking up space when our community is so blatantly whitewashed and ciswashed as it stands. Speak out in favor of intersectionality for everyone, stop giving white cis gay men a pass to speak over everyone.

Acephobia

Acephobia, Acemisia, Aceantagonism- There’s a multitude of names to describe the systematic oppression and violence that asexual folks experience. I personally prefer “Acemisia” because it takes up fewer Twitter characters and doesn’t associate itself with mental ailments like agoraphobia, but I’ll call it acephobia since that’s what the kids on here are saying. Acephobia, like other forms of discrimination, is too wide to be wholly understood in a simple lesson, so forgive me if I don’t touch on some issues. In general, oppression exists on multiple levels-

Institutional violence- discrimination written into schools, churches, public offices, and other power structures that make up The State.

Social violence- discrimination carried out as an unwritten social rule through everyday language and encounters

Physical/sexual violence- murder, rape, the fun stuff! /sarcasm

I’m going to try to address each level the best that I can, so bear with me.

Institutions & Asexuality

Many queer folks will use religious texts and fundamentalist Christian views to outline why their oppression in society is legitimate, and this is because The Church is an institution that entwines itself in a lot of issues of morality and law, especially in regards to marriage and love. A common argument that I hear is that asexual folks face no such oppression in that system. However, as an asexual who has discussed this issue for the better part of 7 years at this point, I have discovered this- fundamentalist Christian people do hate asexuality, specifically because it throws a wrench in the idea that one has to consummate a marriage. For those unfamiliar, consummation of a marriage is the act of having sex after a wedding in order to prove the marriage legitimate. 

“But isn’t asexuality the same thing as chastity??” you ask, clearly illustrating that you don’t get the point that we are not experiencing any sexual attraction at all, no matter how hard we try. The problem is that asexual folks don’t “get over” this “phase”. Many of us are unable to consummate marriages, and to not consummate a marriage deems the marriage, in the eyes of the church, illegitimate. This isn’t merely a thought experiment- I do know asexual folks that legitimately were run out of their home for disclosing that they would never marry “the way God intended”. That’s actually a reason for marriage cancellation- “annulment due to a failure to consummate the marriage”. Thus, you can see that the institution of the church, which affects the institution of marriage, which we all know impacts relationships very intimately, has a very marked issue with putting its head around the idea of a sexless marriage. When the same-sex-marriage debate was still young in the early 2000s, many opponents claimed that the reason same-sex marriage was sinful was because the process of consummation would require, in their gross words, “sodomy”. I brought up that many asexual homoromantic couples were likely seeking the ability to marry, and this idea jarred them further- they were outraged that anyone could refuse to consummate a marriage, and stated that a sexless marriage was effectively more of an insult to God than a marriage that brought forth “sodomy” [blech].

There are other institutions where asexuality is actively discriminated against within- I was actually given an intervention in a liberal middle school for writing in health class that I had no plans to have sex, and I quote, “never never ever EVERRR!!!”. I know, mildly excessive, but I was completely sex-repulsed at that age. Multiple teachers were brought in to try to convince me, stating that at my age, “you really need to be thinking about sex rather than trying to avoid it”. Even though this program focused on encouraging students to abstain from sex until they’re ready, they found it problematic that I had no interest in “EVERRR!!!” performing the act. It spoke heavily to the hypocrisy that even abstinence-encouraging programs have when faced with asexual students.

Asexuality in Society

There were countless YouTubers that popped up around the year 2010 that discussed in depth the social ramifications of coming out as an asexual individual. One in particular that I followed was swankivy, who was immersed in discourse in the immensely queerphobic 2009 youtube and OkCupid community. She heard everything from “you’re clearly a lesbian in denial, come out of the closet and join us” to “you’re straight because that’s the default”. In fact, she has almost a decade’s worth of videos titled “Letters to an Asexual” that highlight the sorts of comments we receive on a daily basis. If you couldn’t already guess, many of the comments indicated that she wouldn’t be so controversial if she could pick a “real” sexuality, and stick with it. People often told her things like “it’s ok to be a lesbian” after she had already argued extensively that her asexuality was how she was made and who she was. I know that 2009 youtube videos don’t age the best, so take all of those low-quality films with a grain of salt- a lot of homophobia got launched at her in the early days, and nobody in 2009 was entirely unproblematic.

As the asexual community began to receive recognition from both queer and cis/het communities, their placement was treated like a game of hot potato. We didn’t fit in with the cis/het community, as we still got accused of being broken for not experiencing sexual attraction. The queer community hasn’t wanted us either, for largely the same reasons. We were too deviant to fit in with the mythical norm, and simultaneously too deviant to fit in with the counter-norm. Both communities had very staunch views on sex that we couldn’t fit into. 

Eventually, the A in LGBTQIA+ made space for us. By the year of 2011, I began to see space made in the queer community as a whole for asexual folks. Many empathized with our struggle to find a place of belonging, especially bisexual and trans folks that had been overshadowed by the L and the G for decades. This was a magical moment for me. I didn’t get queer theory at this point. I didn’t totally understand gender & sexuality studies at 16. There was just a piece of me that finally felt welcome. I was allowed to be myself, and everyone was expected to educate themselves on my lived experience to make that possible. I stopped being bombarded with questions and started being able to talk to asexual lesbian and bi girls, asexual trans folks, and everyone else that showed me that it just might be ok for me to be more complicated than society would like me to be. … I’m typically a person that speaks uniquely in logical & academic terms, but looking back at that moment in time is difficult for me to succinctly verbalize. It is incredible to find a place of belonging… I don’t think I would have survived had I not had a community. Being an asexual teen was only bearable the moment people said “You know what? It sucks that people are shitty to you for not being into sex. You can hang out here, we think you’re pretty cool anyways. If you wanna talk about sex we’re down but we totally respect how you were made and know what it’s like to be forced into being someone you aren’t”. I can prove to you with study upon study that unconditional love and acceptance is absolutely integral to a developing teen, but I don’t think even that would attest enough to how blessed I was to find a community who was ok with the way I was.

Asexuality, Sex, and Rape

This section contains sensitive content that details largely my personal experiences with corrective rape and coercion. If you may have a difficult time reading, give yourself a moment to prepare. I feel that this discussion isn’t nearly whole without this piece.

Firstly, we must discuss the term “corrective rape”. I hear often that it is impossible for me to have experienced corrective rape, as I do not identify as a lesbian woman. Let’s break this down as gently as possible- Firstly, if you’re going to claim that asexual corrective rape is “appropriation” of a lesbian term, I hope you also exclude white lesbians from using that term, seeing as a doctor coined it in discussing the corrective rape of black lesbian women in South Africa. Alternatively, we can understand that it’s a term that very succinctly identifies an experience in which someone is targeted for sexual assault in the attempt to “cure” them of an undesirable sexuality. We really ought to give more credit to black innovations of language in general, but I think you see the point that it’s easier to say “I was correctively raped” than “I was targeted for rape by a bisexual guy that believed that asexuality specifically needed to be raped out of someone”. Hopefully, we’re clear on this now.

In 2012, I met Eric Epperson at an anime-con sort of event. He was a bi cisgender allosexual man. He knew I was asexual, and promised that we could “go slow” if I agreed to date him. Seeing as this was my first ever experience with a relationship (and being autistic and easily manipulated), I naively agreed to date him. He, predictably, did not hold true to his promise and forced me to become sexual with him early on in the relationship by saying “well how will I know you really love me if you’re not willing to make love to me?”. He was very effective at discreetly threatening me with abandonment and slander (and more, later) were I to ever say no to his advances. 

Some months into the abusive relationship, I finally persuaded him to watch a documentary on Asexuality in the hopes that he would learn how uncomfortable I was with sex. He made multiple comments on how effectively raping the male star would make him give up asexuality (He was a “feminist”, though, so he never called what he did rape). He referred to asexuals featured as “creepy freaks”. He boasted about how he had cured me and turned me into a “normal person” by threatening me and guilting me into allowing him to do what he wanted to me. He commented on what a sad, empty life the male star must have, not knowing the joy of having Eric’s dick inside of him. He and his mother, a cisgender bisexual woman, were laughing by the end of the documentary about the “freaks who need help”. Eric later admitted that he targeted me specifically because he was interested in “curing” a “weirdo” like me. He had a phrase for it too. “I’ll turn you Epper-sexual”. He intended, from the start, to “cure” me. 

I’m lucky to have been set free from the relationship, even though it was only because he found a 13-year-old lesbian to “turn eppersexual”.

A month after being let go, I met a stunningly beautiful girl. I’ll call her M. She was incredibly effeminate and reserved and had long, brown, curly hair and freckles. I was smitten. Only being a month away from the abuse, I was in a very vulnerable position and asked her to be my girlfriend. Initially, she was okay with “taking it slow”, but eventually she confessed that she really wanted to have sex with me. Afraid that I would be discounted as a “fake bisexual”, I got incredibly drunk (I became severely alcoholic, but that’s another article) and satisfied her as best I could. It was fine at the time, but the aftermath is why seeing her on campus to this day tears my heart.

We broke up because I was way too traumatized by my abuse to hold together a relationship, and drinking and using all day forced me to drop out of college. We initially had planned to stay friends, until a mutual friend of ours broke up with their girlfriend because she was pressuring them to have sex with her, and they were asexual. They felt it better to break it off than to leave them wanting.

“If you’re asexual, you really need to give that up if you really want to satisfy your partner!” she said. “I mean, Ren did it!”

I called her out for that comment, and we haven’t spoken since.

I’m just one asexual out of millions. The fact that countless others can attest to having dated Ms and Erics should speak volumes- after all, the personal is the political. That is to say, I’m not an isolated case. What happened to me was bred from a culture that, at its core, devalues asexuality. I can only hope that M’s learned better since, but I know for a fact that Eric continues to be on the hunt for kids like who I was.

A Positive Note

That last section was totally trauma central so I’m going to end on a positive note.

To keep what happened to me from happening to others, we need a cultural shift. Rather than attempting to quantify how bad acephobia is compared to transphobia and homophobia etc, we need to realize that every human has an intersectional experience. It’s not a matter that an asexual biromantic black woman is oppressed more than a disabled autistic gay trans man- people living in intersections experience overlaps and magnifications of oppression in such complexities that to state something as over-arching as “any black person is more oppressed than any trans person” is not only devaluing but too simplistic to account for personal experiences. Instead, it would be more accurate to say that the woman and man mentioned earlier experience different disadvantages in society, not more or less.

Not one asexual person is demanding that all allosexual folks stay quiet on their experiences being involved in other intersections of oppression. All we’re asking is a place at the table and a room to feel safe in.

I hope that this article was able to provide positive insight regarding the discourse. Let me know if you have any other questions! 

As always, remember- progress > perfection.