#aneurotypical

[friendsplushies]

How Stuffed Animal Companies are Hurting AuDHD People

Ok so aneurotypical people love stuffed animals right? I don't understand why so many companies that make stuffed animals insist on hurting us with cheap felt bits and scratchy bits of glitter??

And then on the other hand, there are a lot of stuffed animals that just sorta feel stiff and can't be hugged?? Like they look cute, but if you try to move them too much they break and... ugh.

So some online autism communities and I have been working on sorta improving stuffed animals with these little Borbs (my hyperfixation rn), that are super soft and squishy and don't literally hurt you when you sleep with one.

And even Kickstarter is supporting us by saying its a "project we love," which I think is pretty amazing! Please check it out if you want to help support us in making the stuffed animal world a little more accepting of AuDHD people!

[istherewifiinhell]

anyway more es. ARE U GETTING. THAT ALTMODE MIGHT BE.... allegoric. of things......

[ID: Transformers Earthspark clip of Jawbreaker interviewing Elita-one on a camcorder. There's scanline and recording ui affects. Jawbreaker is a young terran transformer with squat preportions in his protoform (white, grey, and blue, non discript body). Elita is a large cybertronian transformer with a pink SUV alt mode, clear car parts like wheels, headlights, and grill visible on her robot mode body.

full transcribe below

Camera over JB's shoulder, looking at a city skyline with the sun behind it.

JB: It's so... pretty.

Camera whips to Elita as she speaks: This whole planet is. I... like to end my work outs by reminding myself what I'm trying to protect.

JB graps the camera and turns it around, setting it up: I want to keep it safe too. [Sad, comtemplates the camera] But how can I do that without an alt mode.

He sets down the camera and we exit the camcorder view. The camera is very small in his hands

Elita sitting behind, twisting to look at him: Kid, you don't need an alt mode to do that.

JB: But, I'm a transformer. I'm suppose to transform!

Elita gives a breathed laugh/huff: Jawbreaker, lemme let you in on a little secret, hmm?

She tap the space next to where shes sitting on a shipping container. We see in camcorder mode the profile shot JB set up, he walks over and sits. We exit camcorder mode, and see JB and Elita from head on.

Elita: Scanning your alt mode isn't some kind of magic. There's a special compotent inside of you, [hand to her chest] Inside every bot, called the T-cog. It's what lets us change shape.

JB points to his chest with his one large finger. Speaking deliberately: The T-cog. Wow... [normal speech] Oh! But I'm not cybertronian. How do you know I... have one?

Elita, prompting: Some of your terran siblings have changed form, right?

JB: But what if I'm... [voice break] different?

Elita, looks toward the city: You know it took me forever to find an earth alt mode too? Nothing I saw ever felt right. So I waited. I waited, and waited, and waited.

JB: And then?!

Elita, turns to JB, points to her chest again: My spark, told me what was right.

JB: BUT- [somber] what if I'm broken or something? When I look at- cars. I feel nothing.

Elita puts a hand on JB's shoulder: Then maybe... you weren't meant to be a vehicle.

JB, suprised/awed: You can scan other things?

Elita: Almost anything you want. It's up to you.

JB: Thanks, Elita.

[horangi]

like why did my coworker just tag two specific people in our group chat and ask if it would be appropriation to name their new cat 'chimichanga' or 'enchilada'?????

[prettypinkpansy]

The official sequel to that one post. It got very popular and I thought I would share the "answer" I found to my original "question".

The original comic is about growing up aneurotypical (specifically I have autism and ADHD among other things, e.g. being LGBT) in a world not made for that, and my profound feelings of alienation as a result.

Whether you share those specific problems or not, I am sincerely happy if it resonated with you and humbled that it meant something to so many people.

A popular addition to the post was "you will find your people". I think it is absolutely true that you can and will find people willing to support you and love you for who you are - I have, and their support made much of my growth possible (as well as therapy). I am grateful to the artist that made that addition and think it is important.

But I wanted to make this because to me, it was important to learn the message that you are allowed to exist as yourself, even if you were to never find a single other person who accepts you. You do not need the validation of others. Even if you feel like you were somehow made wrong, or will never fit in with anyone else, you have the right to exist.

Live authentically for yourself, and not for others. Pursue your passions.

It is intentional that the person in the comic never fully regains their color. I will never be the untraumatized child I once was. But that doesn't mean life is not worth living.

I love you, and I hope you try to live as you are.

[neonswitchhouse]

Pop Culture Witchcraft and the Importance of Being Cringe

Cringe has become a bit a loaded word nowadays, being at first a word to describe feelings of second-hand embarrassment, arguably from failings to impress others or to raise one's social capital. Think for example failed motorsports stunts, falling into pools with a tray full of fruity drinks or even worse; someone trying to impress a crush by molding themselves into someone they only think the other party would like via baseless assumptions. Your body recoils, seeing a dirt biker tumble down the course. Your stomach sinks, watching someone plunge into the shallow end of the water. You squirm watching someone try to convince their crush to go out with the facade they made. That I would describe as "empathetic cringe"; a reaction based on witnessing something you do not wish upon yourself like physical harm or embarrassment.

The modern definition of cringe however, is a different beast entirely.

Using the Urban Dictionary meaning as defined by user Screech McGee, "Before the internet trolls changed the meaning of this word, "cringe" was a verb used to express embarrassment or disgust. Now, this word is mostly used to define something that you dislike or do not understand. Internet trolls use this word as an insult towards people in fandoms, with bad grammar, or both combined. Trolls also use this word to describe memes on some occasions."

Doing a quick search on YouTube or Tiktok for "cringe" gives you an array of oddities to the average eye; people dressed in rainbow-colored wolf fursuits, teens expressing their love and attachment for their favorite anime character, or perhaps someone outwardly displaying behaviors considered aneurotypical. They fall outside societal norms and standards of behavior. They aren't perceived as "normal or acceptable" to the standards set by white-cis-het-able bodied-neurotypical persons and communities.

But in it, the furries, the fandom-lovers, and even the "neurospicys" are harming none. They're doing what they want.

Sounds kinda familiar doesn't it?

Lets loop around to what you're probably reading this rant for; the witchy reasons.

Witchcraft as a practice, is already an outsider to most societies, especially to those predominated shaped by Protestant Christian beliefs. It's already something outside the norms. Even back during the hey-day of reality tv shows like Wife Swap, those who weren't considered Christian or followed more "earth-based" religions and lifestyles were presented as the butt of the joke. And while witchcraft and non-Christian beliefs as a whole have becoming more popular nowadays, it's still considered something outside the norm or in the minority of persons identifying themselves as witches and pagans voluntarily.

So we're already ticking one "cringe" box according to societal norms

Chaos Magic as a whole is based on using belief as a tool or as a fuel source to workings to enact change or bring it about to oneself or to the environment around them as a whole. Hence the whole "nothing is true, everything is permitted" thing in that there's no one strict set of rules to make something work.

Pop Culture Witchcraft and Pop Culture Paganism deriving from chaos magic, while with several theories as to how it works, the crux is in "belief", in energy fueled into something or even someone.

Going off the egregoric model, egregores are formed and fed by the energy (ie: belief) fueled into them. This is where fandom comes into play. Fandom is fueled by passion, by love, by admiration, by forming community around shared likes, interests, or even dislikes. Fandoms are funnels for that collective energy, passion, creativity, etc.

And to some, pouring in so much joy, passion, fervor, and creativity can be seen as something out of their grasp of understanding; something that they're the outsider to and not the main target audience of. It's "not made for them". Therefore it's deemed as "cringe" underneath that definition.

But why deprive oneself of joy just for the approval of others?

Why force oneself to conform to arbitrary rules and norms?

As long as your joys and passions affect only yourself and do not harm others directly, why shield it from view?

To get the most out of a pop culture practice, it's good to have it based on what you're passionate about; what you're well-versed in. What gives you that fuel or belief. What brings you joy and makes you want to pursue things even further.

So be cringe, be passionate, be able to go on a dang unprompted 20minute rant about the lore to your favorite failed RPG series. Be able to show a whole dang portfolio of your self-insert smooching your favorite character on the cheek. Be absolutely, unapologetically passionate about something and see what happens. See what happens when you drop the worries of how others perceive you.

So stay safe, have fun, be cringe, be free, stay spooky.

[heedra]

growing up i experienced almost zero pressure from my parents to confirm to feminine gender norms and between this and the fact that I think in hindsight I'm more aneurotypical than I even believed at the time, I grew up like almost oblivious to the societal pressure to wear makeup. I imagine this has perhaps maybe lost me some opportunities or caused ppl to form certain opinions of me? but I literally never learned to notice or care and it is so nice. and it makes it so surreal when ppl are fucking dying on the hill of makeup being necessary

[darkfrog24]

Sleep No More: a review a reaction

I had to fucking process this one.

When I started the October Daye series, I found them a little bland. The friend who'd given me the first three books assured me, however, that they got better later. Not only was this true, but they get better on reread, when the reader can project the characters' emotional motivations onto their early actions. (Tybalt's first scene in Rosemary and Rue made a lot less sense before I knew his secret identity as the Man with No Game.) But a lot of what seemed to be attempted social commentary fell flat. "Don't discriminate against this specific type of supernatural being" doesn't work so well unless we have a parallel for who these people are supposed to be in the real world

In Sleep No More, October finds herself in an alternate version of her society in which changelings—part-humans—have a rigidly proscribed social role as "servants." I will leave the comparison to serfdom and slavery to others. McGuire does not shy away from the psychological side of a two-tiered society. The changelings are also there specifically so the purebloods have someone to feel superior to.

The memory-altered October considers herself one of the lucky ones. She has a stepfather and sister who genuinely love her and protect her from some of the worst indignities. This does not include interceding for her when another member of the family flat-out calls her worthless or reminds her that she can be discarded at any time. They act like talking to her that way is normal. When the world tells October that she is naturally inferior, that her betters are right to verbally and physically push her around, that any rebellion on her part is proof that she's defective, her relatives act like nothing's wrong. They encourage her to be submissive, not as a mask to prevent her from being punished by an unfair system but because they truly believe that's how things should be.

On top of that, we've seen that October, like Luna, is supposed to be an adult with her own household, responsibilities, and identity, and suddenly we see her shoved into a child's role, a hanger-on in someone else's house, with the expectation that she will spend her whole life that way.

At one point, October thinks to herself that if she were ever to leave her family, she'd be dead within a year.

And holy fucking pikachu shit, there might be a better metaphor for what it was like to grow up aneurotypical in the twentieth century, it's been driven out of my brain right now.

[joshuaorrizonte]

Re: not talking about non-sexual reasons to take birth control because it’s sex negative

I take a beta blocker for palpitations. This is not anti high blood pressure control.

I’m taking metformin to control PCOS symptoms. This is not anti diabetes control.

I was prescribed Vyvanse to control my binge eating disorder. THIS IS NOT ANTI-ANEUROTYPICAL.

Do you see how ludicrous it sounds to claim that taking a medication for cause b somehow diminishes people who take it for cause a?

Stop. Doing. This. Shit. Especially if you’re a cisgender, able-bodied adult woman. People with disabling periods are not your enemy. ESPECIALLY not young girls who will get slut shamed for being on birth control.

Sincerely,

A person who’s had disabling periods since he was twelve and was ABSOLUTELY slut shamed for taking birth control to manage it.

(PS: Terfs who interact get blocked and called out)

[7abwis]

ok time for my book journaling, yes spoilers included. this time for the Long Way to a Small Angry Plxnet by Becky Chxmbers

i personally really enjoyed it - s/o to zoe for reccing it to me. it’s one of those that’s very introspective about the human condition even if done through alien means. one of the biggest themes of the book is being good and loving one another is a choice, and one that’s worth it, and y’know im a sucker for that. it gives you that perspective through the eyes of many and the different ways people stick to that. and it also offers you different perspectives on many other different things that we wouldn’t think twice about.

like sissix and the whole aandrisks not getting attached at all to the babies bc so many of them die, and the babies and children not seen as people. and it’s interesting to see her perspective vs the perspective of the human crew who would obviously reflect our views, and how it’s even stated most of the GC doesn’t fall in line with that. and then sissix hits you with the well yeah why would i love something that barely has any thoughts when i could give all my love to someone with full fledged experiences with friends and family who love them and all. and in the context of a fictional reptilian alien species who, like many reptilian species, very few of them survive into adulthood, you get where she’s coming from - or you don’t - regardless it’s your choice, but obviously in an irl human context that's called You’re A Horrible Fucking Parent. but it’s interesting to rotate in a fictional space with her as an adaptation to how her species works, especially since once visiting her home planet you know the children are likely well taken care of and how aandrisks have a lot of care and love for each other (culturally speaking. barring things like what happened to the old lady at the market who was a metaphor for communities ostracizing aneurotypical people). and you know sissix herself throughout the book as a very loving person but that was just one example - and it was interesting to see other examples throughout the book of taking specific things that are just How We As People Work, turning it on it’s head and recontextualizing it within this scifi world with so many aliens with so many different ways of working. makes you think about how humans work and why we do as we do - both condemnation for our wars and violence and appreciation for all the good things we can do. and neutrality for some of the things we do too that just Are. though granted funny some things like the “humans are so modest with all their clothes!” taken as a universal human thing which is just a part of the author’s own biases (not a dig at them, biases will always exist and they stated their worldbuilding for humans as a hodgepodge of cultures stitched together after a mass loss of human culture and knowledge through a planet-extinction event caused by a more advanced stage of what’s happening today) just yknow as someone who some of my ancestors didn’t wear a lot of clothes, and because there’s so many people who don’t adhere to wxstern chrxstian standards of modesty, it’s funny to read as an absolute. found out a lot of people complained about the lack of buildup and payoff, and personally im not mad about that. felt very much like a you’re along for the ride and the journey’s what you’re here for more than the destination. i enjoyed every step of the worldbuilding and the interpersonal relationships of the characters, and that’s what made it worthwhile to me. feels like;;; i guess the closest thing i can attribute it to is how the studio ghibli movies like my neighbor totoro are. it’s not the typical plot of buildup climax, build down or whatever the actual words for it are, but the ride is wonderful nonetheless. rather than the Big Events happening in story and being given a lot of time, you’re more walked through in the aftermath about how the characters feel about it and how it’s affected them going forward, and i liked that. it’s fresh. also was in the library grinning like a madman that chapter when rosemary got that alien pussy bc it was _so_ funny going through sissix’s pov bc she had to actively think to try to parse out rosemary’s advances. like god that whole bit where sissix was like ?? ok something’s different??? she’s dressing in slightly different clothes and her neckline is a lot lower i guess??? and she’s looking at me in a way she doesn’t usually??? ohhHH!!!! OH!!!! let me make sure you’re into this and we’re on the same page actually bc i know how you guys work and i want to make sure you’re ok.... OK YEAH LETS GO. it was so fucking funny. one thing that i found interesting and would have liked a little more indepth for was corbin’s deal after basically violating ohan’s bodily autonomy and separating him from the whisperer. without the indepthness it’s fine bc it’s hinted that corbin dealt with a lot of ostracization afterwards and in the end it seemed like ohan and corbin were implied to have formed a friendship or at least continuously talked in a way that neither of them did before, but i would have liked to seen how the author went about a bit more of it - especially bc it’s such an interesting scenario of of course you should never violate someone’s bodily autonomy but this is in a completely fictional scifi setting where this species of super monkey people are infected with some virus that gives them super knowledge but also are maybe driven to think the virus is its own sentient species that is much akin to a holy being, and this virus drives them to an early death which corbin was trying to save ohan from. wild but at the very least i think fitting for the crewmembers with the least screentime and with the least social personalities. but at the same time i will admit, leaving it less detailed is fitting for it bc it’s such a gray situation to begin with, and leaving so many details unspoken lends to that scenario. also funny in the last bits when rosemary was saying all that shit in the meeting room with the temeri there i was like bitch!!! i thought you read those emails that were sent to you!!!! those bitches can hear you!!!!!! granted there might have been an ‘unread’ in the file somewhere there but idr. but interesting that rosemary’s introduction started with her begging not to fuck this up this time, the themes of her having been inexperienced but having growned and learned, and then at the end her carelessness (or just the timing that she didn’t get to read the email) did jumpstart something that killed one of their crew. but at the end of the day it wasn’t her fault and none of them will know, bc it was strictly that one temeri dude’s fault for being Like That and if it wasn’t then it would’ve been some other time. but all you can think in the book is it happened, and there’s no going back, and all they can do is move forward bc it just truly wasn’t her fault for someone else’s violence. but anyways, good book, once i get through my queue i’ll look into the second one.

[thebestpartofwakingup]

impossible and downright unethical dream study: the satisfaction, health, and executive function of neurotypical adults vs. properly medicated aneurotypical/mentally ill (of any one of several specific conditions that can be and are treated with medication) adults. Like not just "adult with ADHD on Adderall vs adult without ADHD on Adderall" because that's a different test --- and the whole thing adjusted for "i am so used to being depressed/unhappy that I appreciate feeling ok way more than someone who is used to it"

Again this is an IMPOSSIBLE study but i am fascinated by it in theoretic. Every psychiatric I've been on has been a direct QoL improvement, but a lot of these drugs only work because my base-line is already fucked/wonky. Anti-depressants don't make a non depressed person feel happier because they're a response to a chemical imbalance only a depressed person has --- but we typically judge the outcomes of those treatments both in comparison to the experiences of the patient, who has the bias of "I felt worse before the meds and now I feel better so that makes me feel like the meds do even more" and how close the now medicated person's behavior is in comparison to a "normal" person, that is we don't take into account/look for signs of a patient doing things better than a "normal" person now that they're medicated, and they're only going to be prescribed medication based on that goal, of getting them as close to that 'normal' as possible

But maybe this is the sort of thing that could be done with synthetic tissue and mice?

I LIKE how I am on meds but I don't know that this is approximate to a neurotypical experience --- one time in a college class a professor asked us something about what makes us happy or what we do when we feel stressed and I remember most students giving pretty short and similar responses along the lines of "watch Netflix" or "i don't know" or "naps" or "listening to music" and I went off with like 20 things and specifically remember one of them being sunshine and the professor and everyone else was a little taken aback in this sort of "wow Folgers really gets the most out of everyday huh" way and it was very like. I don't know that everyone else in that room was neurotypical, they probably weren't.

But if at 21 and ADHD with ADHD meds meant I was having a happier day-to-day experience to my peers who weren't on meds because they don't need them --- IDK to me that's like worth something and indicative of a post-human neurodiversity model of psychology. Not in like a neuro chip way but like. If we can safely offload and manage and improve the human experience through medication why shouldn't we? If life with minor accommodations for a disability results in higher quality of life in those individuals than those who are "abled" I feel like that means something in the way that it meant something when the first humans to eat cooked meat lived longer and had healthier children than humans who only ate raw foods before them

[starlet]

Please for the love of god I am so tired of seeing posts about being neurodiverse that I get hooked into reading that end with talking about how the aneurotypical brain is really one of two things: autism or adhd. I am begging u all i keep on reading well made posts aimed at people like me that then exclude a vast number of neurodiverse folks bc they are “not a real aneurotypical person” just bc their diversity is less talked about. I have dyslexia and every time I see people talk about neurodiverse things that happen in my brain I go oh that’s cool to see that I’m not alone only to then read the end of the post where it ends with basically “btw this post is not about u”

[friendsplushies]

Hot Take on Kickstarter

They put WAYYY too much focus on having backers trust these projects…

I swear, Kickstarter used to be viewed as this awesome site for raising funds for your games or projects, right? But over time it’s been losing that reputation.

Why?

Too many people get scammed! And when someone backs a project that ends up in the toilet for one reason or another, why would they ever come back to the site?

So over time more and more people just leave, and the ones who don’t are told about how scary it is. This is what it looks like now;

So what do you do if you want to crowdfund??

It's a rigged system. Kickstarter was meant for small time artists, as a way to get the funding to make their dreams a reality. But if nobody trusts Kickstarter itself, and a lot of donors are leaving the site, who does that leave?

You guessed it.. big companies with BIG IPs that can afford to operate with the 10% tax Kickstarter takes, and has a loyal following that trusts them regardless of Kickstarter's reputation.

Want to be a part of something crazy?

My girlfriend and I are a bit aneurotypical. And we make little sensory-friendly stuffed animals. But we had some trouble getting people to use Kickstarter.

Which means we can’t compete with the trust of big brands as our lil unemployed audhd selves.

So take your Mango Borb FIRST! I trust you.

Instead of you risking your money on a project that might not deliver, we’re just GIVING you mango borbs as soon as you back us! I sincerely hope that this can be a way to make the playing field a little better. Sending parts of the project before it even finishes. Its a risk, but now that risk is on the creator.

[almeaculpa]

Every time I touch on maybe someday unpacking a little of the benign harm my mother did to me, she responds “you were a difficult child”. And what she means was that it was difficult to love me. How much forgiveness can you apply to that as an adult? I was aneurotypical when we didn’t have language for it? You didn’t want to be a mother and had no examples of love that you could demonstrate and pass on? Do I ever, as an adult child of abuse, point to it and demand acknowledgement? Or do I sit quietly and wait for there to be no more chances to speak?if she cares, or could abandon her ego enough to hear me, would it not have happened by now?

Or am I just genuinely undeserving of care because I am ‘hard to love’?

She asks why I don’t want children. Because what if my baby were also ‘hard to love’? Would some poor collection of biomass feel as shitty as I do all the time?

[bigotedsjw]

This is why I hate breadtube and all the leftist “influencers.” They use their platform and influence to make people complacent. … Breadtube is a COINTELPRO psy-op to defang potential revolutionary action.

So-called breadtube is the same theory you all consume from texts put in a digestible format that is especially valuable to those of us who have learning disabilities or are otherwise aneurotypical.

Your otherwise justified paranoia has mutated into gatekeeping. Stop it.

[tessetc]

Lmao remember that time I tried to start a Fallout fic rec week and those fucking dinguses decided I was ableist because I used the word "aneurotypical"

What a bunch of walnuts. I've got ADHD.

[darkfrog24]

The Alt-Right Playbook: Didoing

Observe the phrase “an inconvenience for ‘the normals.’”

Gen X and elder millennials were raised on the idea that inconviencing the normals was unthinkable: my aneurotypical buds who were in K-12 any time in the 1980s or 1990s.