#i have a community and an identity now that's not just 'weird kid who flapped their hands in sixth grade'

[gloriousmishaps]

figuring out you might have a diagnosable mental illness in your adult years and then looking back on everything you did as a kid and slowly connecting the dots is both a satisfying and terrifying experience

[ninzied]

i’ve been really feeling the energy surrounding the discourse on race re: the falcon and the winter soldier, and i think it is so crucial that the mcu has created space for this conversation. in that vein, and because i have genuinely enjoyed the show for many reasons that i wish not to detract from, i would like to expand on this space by discussing ways in which the show could have engaged more thoughtfully with its themes of racialized trauma.

for your consideration, a list of the show’s side characters who identity as bipoc, and how their arcs in fact work to reify certain stereotypic portrayals of race in tv/film/etc:

isaiah bradley: the military-sanctioned super soldier program that experimented on bradley for 30 years in jail is a clear allusion to the tuskegee study in the mid-1900s, which subjected black bodies with syphilis to decades of unethical experimentation, including the withholding of life-saving treatment, in order to study the natural progression of the disease. i actually think his conversations with sam were so important to have. it’s the first explicit mention of race that problematizes the shield as a symbol. sam comes to acknowledge that it also stands for a country that has built itself on the backs of black (and immigrant) bodies - and that is where they mean for these bodies to stay, through exploitation of labor, medicalized violence (tuskegee being only one example of many), police brutality, the segregation of schools, discriminatory housing and criminal justice systems, and so on. my issue is that these systems of oppression are so deeply rooted that to skim the bare surface - to present this one singular narrative - is reductive of a longstanding history that does not live externally to the mcu and is frankly not going to cut it. waiting until episode 5 to have this conversation was also a disservice to sam. maybe his own generational trauma was too internalized for him to have the language to express it. but if the show had addressed this better and sooner, it would come off less as sam trying to move through the world thinking he’s just like any other guy who also happens to be a superhero. when he goes to the bank with sarah, flaps his ‘wings’ and still doesn’t qualify for a loan; or when he chides a kid for referring to him as ‘black falcon’ rather than, simply ‘falcon’ - these moments reinforce the idea that the lived experience of his blackness is not fully realized until bradley forces this articulation upon him. it is as though sam could not already be aware of their collective racialized trauma without the ‘revelation’ of bradley’s personal trauma writ large that he endured as a super soldier. which is just weird and inconsistent given what sam has been through, including his own troubled relationship with the military. for sam to take up the shield is not a ‘solution’ to racism, any more than the shield is a symbol of heroism, when its legacy stems from a country of deeply imperialist and colonialist roots.

lemar hoskins: relegated to the black best friend stereotype aka sidekick to the main white character. his two most memorable scenes function mostly in service of john walker’s story - firstly in walker’s decision to take the serum, and secondly as the catalyst to walker’s grief, rage and vengeance that will utterly transform him. this development of walker’s character can only occur through the literal death of another black body.

literally every east asian character, but specifically leah, yori and yori’s son rj: these characters are the least fleshed out on their own, as they all exist solely to lend more depth to bucky’s trauma. i say this because though yori is grieving, his grief is all secondary to bucky’s guilt over being the cause of that grief. leah, who plays a love interest for her five seconds of screen time, becomes yet another of countless examples of the fetishization of asian female bodies. (all of this is particularly tone-deaf in the wake of rising anti-asian hate crimes, and the mass killing of asian female spa workers by a man who wished to eliminate ‘temptation’ for his sexual addiction.) also, it would be nice to see a show finally lean away from the asian food establishment setting for its asian characters. that is not the only place they eat and work and also go on dates after they work????

olivia walker: a great example of tokenism that checks multiple boxes (‘look how diverse our cast is - and we have an interracial couple!’) even though she speaks 0-2 lines throughout the whole show.

karli morgenthau and co: the actress who portrays karli is half-jamaican, and it is not hard to notice that the overwhelming majority of the radicalized flag-smashers group are bipoc as well. at surface level it might make sense for the show writers to choose this kind of representation - the ‘displaced’ are all members of marginalized communities, and racial diversity (i.e., diversity from the norm, i.e., not-white) is the easiest way to depict these communities. but for this reason, it also seems that the show could not be more careless with the parallels it has drawn to our current climate. during a global pandemic, which has disproportionately affected those already most disenfranchised; increased our obsession with border control; and galvanized movements against racialized violence, perhaps the last thing we need right now is a narrative that vilifies a marginalized group of people trying to combat structural oppression (operationalized in this case by the grc, which has a clear militaristic and political pedigree*). perhaps the last thing we need right now is a narrative in which marginalized people gain the power to enact change (i.e., serum), but only know how to use that power to cause more harm.

*please note: the senator who grants walker his other than honorable discharge is one and the same as the talking head of the grc. who gave this guy all the power, and what good is he using it for? this may be a hot take but the government + military washing their hands of walker and taking zero responsibility for their role in his making is not great for ‘optics’ either. but the show, for all its moralizing, doesn’t seem to be aware of the dissonance here?

[colehasapen]

(ONE SHOT) What is a legacy? DC

A03

When Wally had first met Earth's new Green Lantern, the  oh-so great Torchbearer, he'd wanted nothing to do with him. Wally - he'd grown up with Hal, then later John, and even Guy, and now all three were gone. He'd grown up with Hal dipping in and out of his Aunt and Uncles' house like he lived there. He'd grown up coming down to breakfast in the morning and seeing Uncle Hal there too, having just come back from space to crawl into bed next to Uncle Barry. When Aunt Iris had been killed, and Uncle Barry started spiraling out of control, it had been Uncle Hal who had kept everything together, who had promised Wally that he wouldn't let Barry out of his sight, that he'd watch his back. It had been Uncle Hal who Wally went to after Uncle Barry's death and the weight of being the Flash was too heavy.

Uncle Hal had been Wally's Green Lantern.

But Hal had broken too. He'd gone crazy and killed the Corps and then vanished. Hal had caved under the pressure no one had known he was under until it was too late, and when he'd come back he was mad.

Wally hadn't wanted a new Green Lantern, wouldn't give him the time of day, until he'd found himself outnumbered during a meeting discussing Hal - Lord Parallax - and had tried to argue that his Uncle needed compassion, understanding, and  help , not a fight. They'd called him too close to the situation, too young to know what needed to be done, like Wally hadn't been a hero since he was thirteen, like he was still the little kid in yellow who followed the Flash around and started at them all in childish awe. They could never separate him from the child he could be, but the new Lantern had never known him then, and had stood up and agreed with him.

It had worked too, because in the end, Hal had taken the hand being offered to him, and died to save the world.

After that, Wally had found himself seeking the Lantern out on his own. They still bickered, but Wally found that it reminded him more of the playful ribbing of Uncle Barry and Uncle Hal than any genuine bad blood. He got to know him, started genuinely thinking of him as a friend. He learned that his name is Kyle Rayner, that he’s two years younger than Wally and an independent artist that struggled to pay his bills now that he couldn’t spend all his time on commissions. He’s told that Kyle was well-liked growing up for being generally friendly and easy-going, but didn’t actually have friends until art college because he was just a little too weird for other kids to want to be around him long enough to actually hang out. He learns that Kyle’s mother is an Irish immigrant, that she was his biggest supporter growing up, and that he doesn’t know his father because the man walked out on them when Kyle was still very young, that the only memory of his father Kyle has is vaguely of him speaking Spanish. He learns that Kyle is multilingual, that he grew up speaking English and Gaelic, and learned Spanish in school. He learns the hard way that Kyle is lactose intolerant, and allergic to nuts. He learns funny little anecdotes about Kyle learning to draw before he learned how to walk, he learns that Kyle loves spicy food but doesn’t eat it often because the right spices don’t exist in space.

He learns a lot about Kyle, and it leads to Wally learning about himself as well.

He’d always known he wasn’t straight. He liked and dated girls, of course, he thought they were beautiful, but there was also a part of him that lingered a little too much during training. There was a part of him that looked at certain friends and said,  damn I’d like to kiss him. Dick had been the first, back when they’d still been young sidekicks just starting out, and it had continued on wards for a bit too. It had been reciprocated too; they’d messed around together a bit, but they’d ended it on good terms because Wally wasn’t ready to completely come out yet. He’d been happy for Dick, when he’d started dating Kori, then Babs, and then more and more people. After Dick had been Roy, for a little bit, because Roy was the cool, rebellious older boy, but it wasn’t long before that little crush faded away and Wally started looking at him like an older brother. He’d had that really embarrassing teenage crush on John Stewart for a while, the one that had made Hal burst a gut laughing at him for, before ruffling his hair and telling him under no uncertain terms that it wouldn’t be happening.

Well, Wally had known for a while that he liked men too, even if he hadn’t exactly come out to anyone but those he was closest too. His head was filled full of his dad’s hateful words, something he was working hard to shut out. Kyle though, he didn’t hide the fact that he was trans, or that he was pan - he’d grown up in California and now lived in New York, both of which had more of a thriving community than the likes of the small Midwestern Blue Valley Wally had lived in before moving to Central after getting his powers, and then Keystone after he became the Flash and living in Barry’s house was too much for him.

Kyle was - well, he was nice. A breath of fresh air, really. He was a fellow hero, a member of the main roster, so he knows Wally’s identity and understands the demands of being a superhero better than a civilian would. He’s his age, but didn’t grow up with him, and he  gets  what Wally is going through, standing in someone else’s shoes and being judged as less worthy compared to his predecessor. Before Wally knows it, he finds himself drifting closer and closer to Kyle, to the point where he’s heard older heroes whispering between them of another Flash-Green Lantern team up.

Apparently it brings back nostalgic emotions to see a Flash and Green Lantern dozing off in the rec room, lights dim and some silly movie or another playing in the background. Wally’s just glad he and Kyle have more control than Uncle Hal did, and haven’t been found in a cleaning closet somewhere.

Now, Wally is pretty sure he knows how Uncle Barry felt whenever Hal would stumble into the house at all hours of the night after a long mission in space to pass out in the bed next to him. He’s gotten used to the faint green glow that accompanies Kyle powering down, the faint hum of the Lantern uniform against his skin before it melts away to whatever civvies Kyle happened to be wearing before getting called out. There’s a soft warmth that comes with waking up in the morning to find Kyle sprawled out next to him, lit up by the soft golden light streaming in through the windows as he breathes, deep asleep. There’s a giddiness that comes with finding more and more of Kyle’s things slowly being added to his apartment; it starts with pajamas and extra clothes, but soon Wally is finding art supplies scattered around, or Kyle’s favourite butterscotch shampoo in the shower.

It’s how Wally realizes that he’s in love with his teammate.

He’s staring down at the innocently placed soap he remembers seeing before in Kyle’s shower when it hits him. Nowadays, Kyle spends more time at Wally’s apartment than anywhere else other than the Watchtower when he’s planet-side, and not out rebuilding the entire Green Lantern Corps on his own. Wally isn’t even sure when it started, that he started bringing more and more of his things to Wally’s small Keystone apartment. He thinks back to the sketchbooks and half-finished paintings scattered around the rooms, of the lactose free milk he didn’t think twice before buying when grocery shopping, of the space in his drawers made for Kyle’s clothes and the paint stained shirts in the laundry basket. He thinks about the lack of nut products in his apartment, of the boxes of tampons and pads he doesn't even blink over stocking up on anymore.

Wally moves so fast he’s dry instantly, bursting into his bedroom where Kyle lays among rumbled sheets. His white t-shirt had ridden up in his sleep, and the waistband of his track pants down, exposing a thin line of the packed core muscles that came with the training they all endured in the League. Somehow, his dark hair looks artfully tousled, inky against the sheets, and lashes just as dark are fanned across sun-browned skin and freckles.

He’s unfairly pretty.

“Kyle!”

Kyle jolts, ring flaring green as he stares around groggily, looking for a threat, “Wha-”

“Are we dating?” Wally blurts out, uncaring of his nakedness in the face of his realization.

Kyle blinks once, twice, looking fuzzy, before he groans, long and dramatic as his uniform dissolves into green sparkles and he drops back onto the bed, throwing an arm over his eyes. There’s a long moment of silence, before the Lantern snorts, and then bursts into breathless giggles.

Wally flounders, “I’m serious!”

Kyle slants a look at him from under his arm, brown eyes warm and almost honey gold in the morning light, “I’d hope we’re dating.” Kyle tells him, voice thick with sleepy amusement, “Otherwise I’ve  really been overstepping.”

Wally blushes, feeling a little silly, now that he’s thinking about it. They - they really  have been dating, haven’t they? “Oh.” Flustered, Wally rubs a hand down his face, hoping to brush away the burning in his cheeks.

Kyle snickers again, expression warm. “You’re adorable.”

Wally groans, “I’m never going to live this down, am I?” He mutters, listening to Kyle dissolve into giggles again.

“Oh, definitely.” The Lantern teases, before sitting up and stretching with a yawn. “Well,” he drawls, amused, “now that I’m awake -” brown eyes rake across Wally’s body, and an eyebrow quirks, “- got a reason for this  visit ?” His voice takes on more of a purr, and Wally blinks in confusion.

Then he remembers.

“Oh.” Wally squeaks, red spreading rapidly across his  completely naked body. “I - shower -  soap - it’s just-” he cuts himself with an embarrassed groan. "I'm making this worse."

Kyle doubles over from the force of his laughter, holding his stomach as he wheezes, hand flapping. “Kidding -” he gasps, “- I’m just kidding.” The Lantern slides off the bed, still snickering, to press a lightning-quick kiss to his lips that, for Wally, lingers for so much longer. “Go have a shower, babe.” Kyle tells him warmly, “I’ll make some breakfast.”

[iwillsithereandtrytocontribute]

1- The Scientist

Masterlist Last Next Ao3

Pairings: Logince (not yet established at this point

Warnings: slight gore, let me know if I need to add anything

A Welcome to Nightvale and Sanders Sides crossover fic suggested by Local Carlos Stanon! 

Characters: Roman - Cecil Palmer 

Remus - Kevin 

Logan - Carlos the Scientist 

Janus - Steve Carlsburg 

Patton - Lauren Mallard 

Virgil - Intern Maureen 

Thomas - Dana Cardinal 

Remy - Tamika Flynn

Emile- There is no Emile because everyone in Nightvale and Desert Bluffs need therapy and there’s no one to give it to them.

A friendly desert community where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and mysterious lights pass overhead while we all pretend to sleep.

Welcome to Nightvale.

“Hello listeners,” Roman said smoothly. “I have a quick notice from the City Council before we get to the important news.” He leaned forward, closer to the mic that hung from the low ceiling in the radio station. “The City Council would like to announce that you should not know about the Dog Park. You should not think about the Dog Park. Again, dogs are not allowed in the Dog Park. People are not allowed in the Dog Park. There is a possibility of seeing Hooded Figures through the electrified fence that surrounds the Dog Park. Do not approach the Hooded Figures. Do not approach the Dog Park.” Roman’s voice doubled in volume as he spoke, filling the station and the homes and cars of his listeners. He sat back in his chair as he completed his report. “The Dog Park will not harm you.

Listeners, a new man has come into town. Who is he? What do he and his beautiful, perfect hair want? He says he is a scientist, gesturing to his coat. Well…” Roman smirked knowingly. “We have all been scientists at some point haven’t we? But why now and why here, in our little town?” Roman cocked his head to the side, placing his elbows on the desk in front of him. “Of course, we will soon discover what he plans to do with the lab he is renting near Big Rico’s Pizza.

And now, traffic. 

There is a cactus in the desert. There are many cacti in the desert, but only one that matters. You will wander the desert. Searching. Searching. Searching. The sun will beat down on you, slowly melting your skin, your organs, your bones. The freezing nights, solidifying your remains until you are a shambling mess of what you once were. And still you wander. Searching for something that isn’t there and perhaps never was. You don’t remember why you’re in this desert, what you’re searching for or how you got here. How did you get here? 

An update on the new visitor to our town. The...” Roman paused, savoring the word, “... scientist’s name has been revealed to us through the use of the Secret Police’s monitoring systems.” Roman shuffled some papers on his desk, looking through them until he found the right one. “A quick reminder to speak as loudly as possible when having private conversations. You don’t want the Secret Police to miss anything important after all. And do your best to have interesting conversations. Maybe discuss owning a writing utensil, or acknowledge the existence of angels. Brighten your agent’s day. 

Returning to the scientist. His name is Logan Sanders, and he is perfect in every way.” Roman sighed wistfully. “His lab coat is crisp and clean. His perfect hair is complemented by his blindingly perfect smile. Logan called a press conference today, which of course, I attended. He told us that our little town is the most scientifically interesting community in the U.S. by far. The perfect, beautiful Logan told us that he and his team of scientists were already busy studying a house in the Desert Creek housing development that doesn’t exist. It seems like it exists, like it's just right there when you look at it, and it's between two other identical houses, so it would make more sense for it to be there than not. But it does not exist, according to Logan and his team of scientists.” Roman shrugged. He was well aware that his audience couldn’t see him, but he shrugged anyway. There was something nice about the motion of shrugging, so he shrugged. “Existence is a tricky thing.

“He said more, but I was busy watching him. He smiled and grew animated talking about something scientific. Everything about him was perfect, and I fell in love instantly.

A quick reminder to parents out there; keep an eye on the color of the helicopters while your kids play in the Sand Wastes. Are they blue? That’s the Secret Police, your kids are safe to play. Are they black? Probably the world government. Return to your homes and cower in fear. Are they red with orange stripes? Return to your home and cower in fear.  Do they have images of hawks and falcons all over them? Well, no one knows what those helicopters mean best to-

just a moment listeners, I’m receiving a call from—” Roman gasped excitedly— “Logan!” He flapped his hands energetically. “While I take this, let us go now, to the weather.”

***

“Welcome back listeners. Now I don’t want to take up time from our final story or our sponsors, (we have to pay the bills somehow), but I just have to tell you about the call from Logan,” Roman gushed. “I gave him my number at the press conference and told him to ‘Call anytime. Like literally, anytime.’ He looked at me strangely, but he took the slip of paper and he called me! Just now!

He said that I need to tell you that the sun didn’t set at the right time today.” Roman laughed. “I told him that the sun doesn’t have a schedule. But he persisted, telling me that it was important that I inform my listeners that the sun did not set at the correct time. So here I am. Informing you. I asked if he had anything else to say to me and he muttered something about needing to write some numbers on his new whiteboard and hung up.” Roman shrugged again. “You win some you lose some am I right?

And now a word from our sponsor. 

You are a human. Probably. This message is for humans. If you are human you are made of up to 65% water. Therefore, water is required to make you human. Without water, you are not human and should not be listening to this. Stop listening. Stop it. Now. Brought to you by Clorox. Humans are not the only sentient beings composed of water.

The NRA is selling bumper stickers as a part of their annual fundraiser. They sent one to the station for some publicity, and as we are a community radio I’m happy to read one for you now. The bumper stickers read, ‘Guns don’t kill people. People kill people. Guns have nothing to do with it. Stop blaming guns for your actions. They don’t like it. There, there guns, the mean people can’t hurt you anymore.’” Roman sat a little straighter, and leaned towards the microphone. 

“Someone took my advice to discuss the hierarchy of angels and they are now being taken to a reconditioning facility somewhere deep beneath the desert. Thank you for making your agent’s day,” Roman said smoothly with a smile. “As always, you are reminded that you should not know about the hierarchy of angels as they do not exist.” He nodded at the camera in the corner of the room and at the car that never moved from outside the station. 

“Stay tuned next for silence followed by wallowing in your own thoughts.” Now came his favorite part. 

Until next time. Goodnight, listeners. Goodnight.” 

*

Not far away, a scientist stared at the radio. He hadn’t turned it on when he arrived this morning. In fact, he hadn’t even known there was a radio in this lab. This morning someone introducing himself as Roman had suddenly blared out of the radio, scaring Logan half to death. Somehow, this stranger knew that he had come to town and… Logan felt his cheeks get hot as he remembered what Roman had said throughout the day. 

Logan had done some rudimentary tests around town to see if there was anything of interest. He found a surprising amount. The screams at the post office, the ghost cars, the house that doesn’t exist, and the pit behind the Ralph’s which wasn’t so much scientifically interesting as just weird. He also met a very kind Faceless Old Woman who was secretly living in his new apartment. He called a press conference (you could just do that here by thinking about having one) and explained what he found out about the house in the Desert Creek housing development. No one had seemed… concerned. Which was, in itself, concerning.

After the press conference, Roman had slipped him his number, explaining, (with a wink that made Logan glad his skin was too dark to show a blush), that it was his personal number, and that he was welcome to call whenever he wanted. Logan left the conference feeling dazed and wandered back to his lab.

He started unpacking. He needed something easy to do while his mind churned away at the strange town he had found himself in. And of course, there were chemicals to place in their exact spots, whiteboards to set up, computers to plug in... all the usual work that went into getting a lab ready for work. He hadn’t paid much attention to the radio, but he stopped his work when he heard his name. How did Roman know his name? He tried to remember everything Roman had said. Something about the Secret Police. Secret Police? Monitoring him? That’s how they learned his name?

He glanced down at his watch. He almost went back to work before he realized that it was nine o’clock. Logan glanced out the window to see that the sun wasn’t even close to setting. He pulled out his phone and looked up the time of today’s sun set. 8:33. 

Logan furrowed his brow. He pulled out the piece of paper he had carelessly shoved into his coat pocket. Beneath the hastily scratched numbers was a barely legible name "Roman Palmer." He punched the numbers into his phone and held it up to his ear.

"Hello?"

"Is this Roman?" Logan asked.

Hey all! This crossover is happening due to the amazing Local Carlos Stanon! They proposed the idea and I had to write it. This will consist of a series of oneshots, hopefully deviating from the original material a bit more than this one. Please. Please. Please listen to Welcome to Nightvale and talk about it with me! It’s an amazing podcast with very queer characters (in both senses of the word).

If you need a warning added, would like to be added to my tag list, or have any questions or requests shot me an ask or message!

Taglist: @katelynn-a-fan @dwbh888 @royal-stormcloud @thefivecalls @dragonleesupporter @emo--nightmaree @7-slights-at-virgil @lokiamorstuffs @underthesea73 @smileyzs @robinwritesshitposts @thatgaydemigodnerd @callboxkat @k1ngtok1 @somehow-i-got-an-account @silverobsidion-speaks  @a-fandom-trashdump  @averykedavra @k1ngtok1 @potatsanderssides @sign-from-god-complex

(Some of these are from @the-taglist-repository. Just ask if you’d like to be removed.)

[lungos-liwayway]

How To Be A Friend To An Autistic Person

(Or, how I never realized I didn’t belong until I was Quite Old)

The prospect of friendship is never easy. How does someone go about becoming a friend? I’ve lived for so long and yet I’m not quite sure as to how I ended up with all my friends, (who I love very much and who I hope care about me too). I’m convinced that all my friends picked the weirdest kid in the room and rolled with that. They’re nice that way. I love them. 

Sometimes I think I bring nothing to the table. Scratch that, I often believe I bring nothing to the table. Number one reason: I’m passionate about my studies to a fault- and that is understating it. I will shriek, scream, and stim quite intensely should I find a subject of interest. Of course, I never knew this was out of social bounds, never even realized I was stimming when I jumped around the school hallways, wringing and flapping my hands and arms (autistic nga si ate ih). If you’re from a sheltered school and community, you would think it was weird. I drive people crazy with antics like these. But somehow they’ve always just been a little bit amused and just a bit irritated rarely. My dear friend, J., who also has autism, has always been a conspirator with me. I owe some of my passion for physics and math to him. My neurotypical friends are pretty much the same in attitude, they listen to me ramble on and on, and like my tweets on Cauchy or Euler or Maxwell. That support means a lot.

Number two. As a student of science, hypotheses must have supporting data. Thus, to hypothesize the idea of me being autistic is well recorded and well supported by observations of my own behavior. I have this annoying habit of messaging close friends out of the blue with the question, “Is this socially acceptable?” This became quite evident in senior high school. My deepest regard and thanks to C. P., who always replied with a firm yes or no. Mind you that they would help me with situations such as these even without a formal diagnosis of autism. 

Number three is that I am so emotionally and socially stunted that even I am ashamed of what I did in so and so situation. I recall correlating a teacher dressing up as a canonically gay character and asking him, in front of a stunned audience, if he was also gay. Wow Pieze, really awkward. My friends though, also express their thoughts with me clearly, telling me and calling me out if I did something wrong, and in the end just educating me. Because of this, before I began reading up on autism and neurodivergence, I just thought I had a lot of awkward moments. I learned to express myself faster, and to accept my emotions as a healthy and natural response (Spock, is that you?).

I think that it has been due to all the overwhelming support and quiet acts of making the world more accessible to me that I never suspected myself to be autistic. To my friends, I was merely me. I like that.

Fast forward to college, I’m having mental breakdowns every other week, and not because of academic reasons. For the first time I am being fed straight from the breast of knowledge. For the first time I understand and LOVE maths and develop a deeper understanding of physics. I’m at the top of the world and yet, not. 

For the first time I do not have friends, only awkward acquaintances. For the first time I felt creeped out by the way my hands flap in math class and I felt so, so many eyes on me. They are not nice and they are confusing and not gentle or understanding. My classmates mistake my passion for competitiveness (By the way, a word of advice? Don’t take a premed course if you’re a smug bastard. I pity my classmates’ future patients.). They leave snide remarks about a perfect score in Trigonometry (I failed Trigonometry in high school as I couldn’t understand a thing my teacher did or said...or maybe he just didn’t teach), asking where I got a cheat sheet. That actually hurt a bit, because I studied hard for that test and math class was something I looked forward to every week. They urged me to let go of studying in favor of carrying project loads since “kaya mo naman eh, matalino ka naman eh.” (Trans: You can do it anyway, You’re smart anyway). They snarked at my thought process and the way I avoided eye contact. I felt so dirty and wrong. I still do sometimes.

Surprise, surprise, this is when I started to suspect something was weird about me. 5 months of research later and I broach the subject with my dad who just nodded and referred me to a testing facility. 

I still don’t know why my classmates are like that, but I guess they did the opposite of everything my friends in high school and elementary did. It might not even be ableism, who knows. Our country has a deep culture of smart shaming, misogyny in academia, and all sorts of horrible stuff. 

TL;DR is this:  How to be a friend to an autistic person: 1. Love them, faults and all. (Yes, even when they stim) 2. Support them and educate instead if putting them down. Make your thoughts known. Read up on autism from reputable resources or ask your autistic friend. 3. Just be nice. Don’t make them feel excluded or weird or anomalous. Those words should only be used to describe discrepancies in data, not people.

You can be a friend to an autistic person in the same way you would be a friend to anyone. All friendships need equal footing, equal understanding, and slight compromise. Autistic people just show this need in a different way. It is not that good friends and environment remove autism or cure it but that these things support an autistic person in their identity.

That’s it for today. I missed my friends so horribly and I was saddened by a classmate, who I thought was a friend, imply I wanted to see their scores to feel superior. Fool, I only feel superior (and only to myself for that matter) if I get to solve 10 awesome integrals without WolframAlpha’s help (which, admittedly, is not often now. I’m not in a good place guys). 

[trendingnewsb]

MIA: This is a white country, you dont have to spell it out to me

Maya Arulpragasam is bringing dancehall, hip-hop and grime to this years Meltdown. Is the outspoken British Sri Lankan the best argument for positive cultural appropriation?

The Guardian said that you couldnt shag to my record. As conversational openers go, MIAs beats the banal niceties of, say, Hello, how are you doing?. Its no surprise that she charges straight into a chat about why her last album was considered too confrontational for the bedroom by this paper. Its an icebreaker moulded to MIAs very own design: abrasive, compelling, underpinned by sex. Yeah, she finally concedes with a grin when I suggest we move past it, you cant have it all, can you?

Its a theme she warms up to when we talk about her edition of Meltdown at the Southbank Centre, which were ostensibly here to discuss. Usually, I wouldnt do something like this, she says, slouched under an oversized khaki coat dress. [But the organisers] were like: Hey, you can do whatever you want. Still, putting on the South Banks annual festival, curated in previous years by the likes of David Bowie, David Byrne and Patti Smith, has turned out to be a fairly arduous affair for MIA who says she doesnt do computers at the moment.

They didnt tell me it was nine days long. I thought it was a weekend. And then all my lists were, like, Well, this person wont be in London and that person is doing Glastonbury. Organising festivals is actually really complicated, she stresses. It wasnt just about dreaming something and then it appeared. Programming literally means, like, programming.

For all that Maya Arulpragasam didnt quite know what she was letting herself in for, one suspects the Southbank Centre didnt either; logistics aside, the mornings photoshoot has already been met with some flapping from the press officer made nervous by MIA climbing on the roof without safety clearance. Still, her lineup dancehall, Brooklyn hip-hop, depressive Swedish rap and Nigerian grime is perhaps the most underground the festival has seen in its 24 years. How much is she expecting to shake up its comfortable concert halls, cafe bars and conference-room spaces?

Click here to watch the video for last years Go Off.

When I was a teenager in London, I would just get a Travelcard and go somewhere, explore the city and go to weird places, she says. I would never judge the place, like, This is middle class and white. This is a white country, you dont have to spell it out to me, but there wasnt ever a limit on where I could go or what I could do.

A long, elliptical digression on London then and now follows, which takes in the optimistic multiculturalism of the 90s, Tamil house parties, empire and British identity. Its the bento box of an MIA interview: individually contained ideas that dont obviously bleed into one another and yet, overall, make a collective sense if youre prepared to go with it. Thats the key thing about MIA: you have to be willing to go with her to properly get her. Given that she still looks and sounds like a beautiful, bratty, art-school upstart and is prone to labyrinthine tangents, its easy to portray her as inarticulate or unhinged. But MIAs intelligence is instinctive rather than intellectual, and fuelled by the political.

The Mehrabian maxim that reckons that only 7% of communication is verbal is one that might best be proven by the transcript of a chat with MIA removed of all tone, attitude, context and body language. Take, for instance, her explanation of why only the future remains relevant:

As humans, we dont use our past and our history to work out the importance of what our role is in the present, she says. And if you cant use the past to define your present, then it should not be an element that holds back the future. Greece is a perfect example. More than Britain, they were brought to their knees, and not a single white country thought about saving them. And it was part of their heritage. Its where their mythology comes from or their concept of capitalism and democracy comes from. Nobody cared, everybody cared about the modern. Right?

Kim Kardashian is actually more powerful than Greece. She has more money than the whole of Greece, she continues. Therefore, thats where the power lies. If you then define it that way, then you kind of just have to live with that. And maybe whats happening in modern society: that if youre going to judge it by that, then other countries are gonna come in and define the future.

In print, its a statement that seems lacking in logic and coherence. In the moment, Im fairly sure Im able to follow her and we go on to consider how and where this future is being defined (for the record: You cant ignore the fact that China is going to be doing their thing in the next 50 years) and how Arulpragasam believes the immigration issue has become a red herring covering up a truth that can explain the American and British swing to conservative populism.

With Brexit, the idea was to get away from Europe and reinvent our identity, she says. And really, that identity was going to be American, but then they gave us Trump! So, everyone now is like, Oh shit, what is Britain? Are we going to rewind back to the 1800s? We cant. Its too late for that. So, going forward, we need a charismatic leader who then va va vooms the British identity. And we dont have that either.

People thinking that Im a bitch is totally unwarranted … MIA. Photograph: Stephanie Sian Smith/The Guide

The prime minister has called a snap election on the day we meet. Does MIA have any faith in our political system? Or in the left?

Everyone keeps going, Corbyn cant do this, but its, like, well, who else is there? she says. If people just left him alone to actually do the job and actually gave him some support, maybe hed be different. Treating him with so much contempt fighting that takes all his energy. How the fuck do you expect him to do interesting things? In any case insists the estranged daughter of a Tamil revolutionary, politicians are people who couldnt get jobs somewhere else.

MIAs politics, unwieldy and unslick though they may be, have often made her an easy target for tedious sneering in the press; the most insistent narrative is that, like Banksy, shes big on arch, subversive statement but lacks substance. Or that she is a hypocrite for making herself the poster girl for the worlds most marginalised people. And yet, shes one of the best pop stars Britain has ever produced. For all the ear-clanging experimentation of her five albums, MIA has always kept a sleeve full of pop bangers Bucky Done Gun, Paper Planes, Bad Girls, Finally that have sounded like little that came before or since her. Even if she didnt have the tunes, here is an art-school refugee Sri Lankan single mother with a visual aesthetic co-opted by everyone from Vetements to Versace who was born into political rebellion and revels in controversy. Gleefully gauche and carefree, MIA is the best argument for when cultural appropriation works. Bland singer-songstress beloved of Radio 2 playlists she isnt. So how much has the criticism bothered her?

People thinking that Im a bitch is totally unwarranted because Im not, she ays. I just had to fight for shit, and I still do. I just dont care any more. I dont know. She stops and starts. What I deal with as an artist, the media, the public persona, its a walk in the fucking park, compared to how confusing the universe really fucking is. Theres so much beauty in it and theres so much mystery, theres so much confusing shit in it. That is way more interesting to think about than why, like, Patricia hates me. You know what I mean? I laugh. Its like, Who the fuck is Patricia? and How can Patricia say this shit about me?. It just does not matter to me at all.As it is, she says shes most preoccupied with how to be a functioning grown up, an adult and a mother to an eight-year-old son (whose father Benjamin Bronfman is son to the billionaire heir of the Seagram fortune) born into immense privilege.

When the war came to an end in Sri Lanka in 2009, it actually did affect me, she explains. Everyone was, like, What the fuck does she know? Shes, like, a pop star, but that was my life. It was 50% of who I was, it was my identity. I didnt know what to do with myself. So I had a kid. Its the year the cause died, but the year my personal cause my son was born. And then, OK, I have to figure out what to do in very small parameters: I have a son, how is he going to see his grandma, am I going to make it there on Saturday? Can I make sure that I dont mess up his head by being depressed about certain things?

She struggles to reconcile her upbringing poor and living in Sri Lanka for her childhood to poor and living on a council estate in Mitcham, south London, in her adolescence with her sons. Im not very straightforward as an immigrant. That whole My kids would never see the pain that I saw; Im not like that. Im totally up for reintroducing him to the pain. I dont have any qualms about that. Her problems havent changed, she says, because of money or better circumstances. Whether Im in a mansion or a council flat, I would feel the same anxiety waking up going: I need to write this thing in a scrapbook, wheres my notepad? I would still have all those problems. I might still overcook the fish fingers. Those things are not going to magically transform because your house has changed. At the beginning I thought that money couldve saved my family. Very quickly I realised that money is not the thing.

Her conflict in wanting to being huge and commercial versus credible and ahead of the curve has been a persistent tension threaded through MIAs career. When I got into the music game, it was never an option to shut up and make lots of money. she says. To be a huge pop star, I would have to be, like, Yes, I think bombing Afghanistan was a great idea, I love our democracy and what it has achieved. I love the American flag and Im going to make a jumpsuit out of it. I just think it was important to have all of those Arab Springs, and its great and lets drink Coca-Cola. I had to do that, and do it all in a thong. Could I have done that if it meant that my mum had the nicest house in Chiswick by the river?

Click here to se the video for MIAs Bad Girls.

Does she worry about money now? If youre preaching living within your means, you have to, to some extent. But I also know that if youre someone in society that speaks out about injustice or political issues, one of the things that happens is that you get economically punished, 100%. I take that hit all the time.

The most recent, obvious example was MIA being forced to quit her headline slot at Afropunk last year, following a contentious quote in which she asked in an interview why Beyonc and Kendrick Lamar might not discuss why Muslim lives matter or Syrian lives matter. I dont regret [raising the issue], she says, with triumphant chutzpah. You saw how bad it was. And the Muslim ban didnt happen just with Trump, it was already happening under Obama. But you couldnt say that about him, you couldnt say that he introduced the Muslim ban, or banned seven different countries, or was already monitoring people, or dropped more bombs than Trump has. In truth, Obamas administration did identify the seven countries on Trumps list for additional screening measures, but it didnt bar their nationals. Shes already skipped ahead. The quantity of damage cant be quantified right now, she insists. Well have to wait the four years. After eight years of Obama, we kind of knew [his failings], but we just werent allowed to say them because he was so great. He was better than any person in Hollywood that I wouldve watched. He was really likable and just had loads of swag. That doesnt mean that you have to deny the truth, though.

This (and much more) comes moments after she tells me she has no time for opinions these days. She claims she doesnt read the news any more and that her primary sources for information are customers at the local kebab shop, taxi drivers and then sort of figuring it out. What about the state of the world? MIAs moment as an agitprop pop activist has never seemed more potent. Politics? I have no time for these things because Im so stuck in the zone. Ive become a hermit. [Meltdown] is actually giving me the chance to actually go out and meet people again. Ive gone for weeks without talking to a person, I do that happily. I tell her I dont believe her, as I suspect it would be a recipe for her to go fully barmy.

Im actually quite an extreme person, so I dont see that as madness. I see that as, like, solitude, doing a phase of solitude is not that bad. After declaring her fifth album AIM to be her final one, shes also trying to find new ways to channel her creativity. Im trying to write a film. I havent stepped into it yet because I want it to be good. Once you hit the start button you cant really stop it. She has, she tells me, the added complication of ADD to contend with. When was that diagnosed? I just have it. Dont even need diagnosis, its a waste of time, its a waste of the NHS. In truly blithe MIA style, she adds: Its just when you have too many ideas and not enough ways to get them out.

MIAs Meltdown is at the Southbank Centre, SE1, 9-18 June

Read more: http://ift.tt/2rBtxTD

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MIA: This is a white country, you dont have to spell it out to me

Maya Arulpragasam is bringing dancehall, hip-hop and grime to this years Meltdown. Is the outspoken British Sri Lankan the best argument for positive cultural appropriation?

The Guardian said that you couldnt shag to my record. As conversational openers go, MIAs beats the banal niceties of, say, Hello, how are you doing?. Its no surprise that she charges straight into a chat about why her last album was considered too confrontational for the bedroom by this paper. Its an icebreaker moulded to MIAs very own design: abrasive, compelling, underpinned by sex. Yeah, she finally concedes with a grin when I suggest we move past it, you cant have it all, can you?

Its a theme she warms up to when we talk about her edition of Meltdown at the Southbank Centre, which were ostensibly here to discuss. Usually, I wouldnt do something like this, she says, slouched under an oversized khaki coat dress. [But the organisers] were like: Hey, you can do whatever you want. Still, putting on the South Banks annual festival, curated in previous years by the likes of David Bowie, David Byrne and Patti Smith, has turned out to be a fairly arduous affair for MIA who says she doesnt do computers at the moment.

They didnt tell me it was nine days long. I thought it was a weekend. And then all my lists were, like, Well, this person wont be in London and that person is doing Glastonbury. Organising festivals is actually really complicated, she stresses. It wasnt just about dreaming something and then it appeared. Programming literally means, like, programming.

For all that Maya Arulpragasam didnt quite know what she was letting herself in for, one suspects the Southbank Centre didnt either; logistics aside, the mornings photoshoot has already been met with some flapping from the press officer made nervous by MIA climbing on the roof without safety clearance. Still, her lineup dancehall, Brooklyn hip-hop, depressive Swedish rap and Nigerian grime is perhaps the most underground the festival has seen in its 24 years. How much is she expecting to shake up its comfortable concert halls, cafe bars and conference-room spaces?

Click here to watch the video for last years Go Off.

When I was a teenager in London, I would just get a Travelcard and go somewhere, explore the city and go to weird places, she says. I would never judge the place, like, This is middle class and white. This is a white country, you dont have to spell it out to me, but there wasnt ever a limit on where I could go or what I could do.

A long, elliptical digression on London then and now follows, which takes in the optimistic multiculturalism of the 90s, Tamil house parties, empire and British identity. Its the bento box of an MIA interview: individually contained ideas that dont obviously bleed into one another and yet, overall, make a collective sense if youre prepared to go with it. Thats the key thing about MIA: you have to be willing to go with her to properly get her. Given that she still looks and sounds like a beautiful, bratty, art-school upstart and is prone to labyrinthine tangents, its easy to portray her as inarticulate or unhinged. But MIAs intelligence is instinctive rather than intellectual, and fuelled by the political.

The Mehrabian maxim that reckons that only 7% of communication is verbal is one that might best be proven by the transcript of a chat with MIA removed of all tone, attitude, context and body language. Take, for instance, her explanation of why only the future remains relevant:

As humans, we dont use our past and our history to work out the importance of what our role is in the present, she says. And if you cant use the past to define your present, then it should not be an element that holds back the future. Greece is a perfect example. More than Britain, they were brought to their knees, and not a single white country thought about saving them. And it was part of their heritage. Its where their mythology comes from or their concept of capitalism and democracy comes from. Nobody cared, everybody cared about the modern. Right?

Kim Kardashian is actually more powerful than Greece. She has more money than the whole of Greece, she continues. Therefore, thats where the power lies. If you then define it that way, then you kind of just have to live with that. And maybe whats happening in modern society: that if youre going to judge it by that, then other countries are gonna come in and define the future.

In print, its a statement that seems lacking in logic and coherence. In the moment, Im fairly sure Im able to follow her and we go on to consider how and where this future is being defined (for the record: You cant ignore the fact that China is going to be doing their thing in the next 50 years) and how Arulpragasam believes the immigration issue has become a red herring covering up a truth that can explain the American and British swing to conservative populism.

With Brexit, the idea was to get away from Europe and reinvent our identity, she says. And really, that identity was going to be American, but then they gave us Trump! So, everyone now is like, Oh shit, what is Britain? Are we going to rewind back to the 1800s? We cant. Its too late for that. So, going forward, we need a charismatic leader who then va va vooms the British identity. And we dont have that either.

People thinking that Im a bitch is totally unwarranted … MIA. Photograph: Stephanie Sian Smith/The Guide

The prime minister has called a snap election on the day we meet. Does MIA have any faith in our political system? Or in the left?

Everyone keeps going, Corbyn cant do this, but its, like, well, who else is there? she says. If people just left him alone to actually do the job and actually gave him some support, maybe hed be different. Treating him with so much contempt fighting that takes all his energy. How the fuck do you expect him to do interesting things? In any case insists the estranged daughter of a Tamil revolutionary, politicians are people who couldnt get jobs somewhere else.

MIAs politics, unwieldy and unslick though they may be, have often made her an easy target for tedious sneering in the press; the most insistent narrative is that, like Banksy, shes big on arch, subversive statement but lacks substance. Or that she is a hypocrite for making herself the poster girl for the worlds most marginalised people. And yet, shes one of the best pop stars Britain has ever produced. For all the ear-clanging experimentation of her five albums, MIA has always kept a sleeve full of pop bangers Bucky Done Gun, Paper Planes, Bad Girls, Finally that have sounded like little that came before or since her. Even if she didnt have the tunes, here is an art-school refugee Sri Lankan single mother with a visual aesthetic co-opted by everyone from Vetements to Versace who was born into political rebellion and revels in controversy. Gleefully gauche and carefree, MIA is the best argument for when cultural appropriation works. Bland singer-songstress beloved of Radio 2 playlists she isnt. So how much has the criticism bothered her?

People thinking that Im a bitch is totally unwarranted because Im not, she ays. I just had to fight for shit, and I still do. I just dont care any more. I dont know. She stops and starts. What I deal with as an artist, the media, the public persona, its a walk in the fucking park, compared to how confusing the universe really fucking is. Theres so much beauty in it and theres so much mystery, theres so much confusing shit in it. That is way more interesting to think about than why, like, Patricia hates me. You know what I mean? I laugh. Its like, Who the fuck is Patricia? and How can Patricia say this shit about me?. It just does not matter to me at all.As it is, she says shes most preoccupied with how to be a functioning grown up, an adult and a mother to an eight-year-old son (whose father Benjamin Bronfman is son to the billionaire heir of the Seagram fortune) born into immense privilege.

When the war came to an end in Sri Lanka in 2009, it actually did affect me, she explains. Everyone was, like, What the fuck does she know? Shes, like, a pop star, but that was my life. It was 50% of who I was, it was my identity. I didnt know what to do with myself. So I had a kid. Its the year the cause died, but the year my personal cause my son was born. And then, OK, I have to figure out what to do in very small parameters: I have a son, how is he going to see his grandma, am I going to make it there on Saturday? Can I make sure that I dont mess up his head by being depressed about certain things?

She struggles to reconcile her upbringing poor and living in Sri Lanka for her childhood to poor and living on a council estate in Mitcham, south London, in her adolescence with her sons. Im not very straightforward as an immigrant. That whole My kids would never see the pain that I saw; Im not like that. Im totally up for reintroducing him to the pain. I dont have any qualms about that. Her problems havent changed, she says, because of money or better circumstances. Whether Im in a mansion or a council flat, I would feel the same anxiety waking up going: I need to write this thing in a scrapbook, wheres my notepad? I would still have all those problems. I might still overcook the fish fingers. Those things are not going to magically transform because your house has changed. At the beginning I thought that money couldve saved my family. Very quickly I realised that money is not the thing.

Her conflict in wanting to being huge and commercial versus credible and ahead of the curve has been a persistent tension threaded through MIAs career. When I got into the music game, it was never an option to shut up and make lots of money. she says. To be a huge pop star, I would have to be, like, Yes, I think bombing Afghanistan was a great idea, I love our democracy and what it has achieved. I love the American flag and Im going to make a jumpsuit out of it. I just think it was important to have all of those Arab Springs, and its great and lets drink Coca-Cola. I had to do that, and do it all in a thong. Could I have done that if it meant that my mum had the nicest house in Chiswick by the river?

Click here to se the video for MIAs Bad Girls.

Does she worry about money now? If youre preaching living within your means, you have to, to some extent. But I also know that if youre someone in society that speaks out about injustice or political issues, one of the things that happens is that you get economically punished, 100%. I take that hit all the time.

The most recent, obvious example was MIA being forced to quit her headline slot at Afropunk last year, following a contentious quote in which she asked in an interview why Beyonc and Kendrick Lamar might not discuss why Muslim lives matter or Syrian lives matter. I dont regret [raising the issue], she says, with triumphant chutzpah. You saw how bad it was. And the Muslim ban didnt happen just with Trump, it was already happening under Obama. But you couldnt say that about him, you couldnt say that he introduced the Muslim ban, or banned seven different countries, or was already monitoring people, or dropped more bombs than Trump has. In truth, Obamas administration did identify the seven countries on Trumps list for additional screening measures, but it didnt bar their nationals. Shes already skipped ahead. The quantity of damage cant be quantified right now, she insists. Well have to wait the four years. After eight years of Obama, we kind of knew [his failings], but we just werent allowed to say them because he was so great. He was better than any person in Hollywood that I wouldve watched. He was really likable and just had loads of swag. That doesnt mean that you have to deny the truth, though.

This (and much more) comes moments after she tells me she has no time for opinions these days. She claims she doesnt read the news any more and that her primary sources for information are customers at the local kebab shop, taxi drivers and then sort of figuring it out. What about the state of the world? MIAs moment as an agitprop pop activist has never seemed more potent. Politics? I have no time for these things because Im so stuck in the zone. Ive become a hermit. [Meltdown] is actually giving me the chance to actually go out and meet people again. Ive gone for weeks without talking to a person, I do that happily. I tell her I dont believe her, as I suspect it would be a recipe for her to go fully barmy.

Im actually quite an extreme person, so I dont see that as madness. I see that as, like, solitude, doing a phase of solitude is not that bad. After declaring her fifth album AIM to be her final one, shes also trying to find new ways to channel her creativity. Im trying to write a film. I havent stepped into it yet because I want it to be good. Once you hit the start button you cant really stop it. She has, she tells me, the added complication of ADD to contend with. When was that diagnosed? I just have it. Dont even need diagnosis, its a waste of time, its a waste of the NHS. In truly blithe MIA style, she adds: Its just when you have too many ideas and not enough ways to get them out.

MIAs Meltdown is at the Southbank Centre, SE1, 9-18 June

Read more: http://ift.tt/2rBtxTD

from Viral News HQ http://ift.tt/2rbYbGf via Viral News HQ